Opinion vs. appreciation.

I've learned many things from my wife over the years. Things like how to attend Mass, how to make a meatloaf (and not refer to it to friends as "baked meat"), how to write a thank-you card, and how to make a bed so it doesn't look like I'm actually still sleeping in it. Among these things is something she learned from a college professor, namely the difference between opinion and appreciation in criticism.

Opinion is a personal preference of a work, but appreciation is an assessment of the level of art or craftsmanship in a work. Examples abound, because in reality we use and often confuse these when we make a judgment. I can appreciate the immense thought and labor and knowledge Tolstoy used in War and Peace and still in my opinion regard it as so boring as to account as a WMD. (In fairness to Tolstoy, I have never read the novel, but this is what I hear.) I can admire the work that created a Persian rug, and still think it's so ugly that I'd rather have food poisoning than hang it on my wall. I can say Gone with the Wind is breathtaking as a film (appreciation) but still find it soggy and dreary (opinion). One judge on Chopped dislikes raw onion, and will criticize a chef for using it, even though it can be used artfully and is enjoyed by many. 

My wife uses the example of Ralphie in the bunny suit in A Christmas Story. Appreciation: Aunt Clara puts a lot of effort into these things. Opinion: He looks like a deranged Easter Bunny.

It may seem that appreciation is a more technical assessment, and it is -- one must use one's faculties to review something not only in light of effort and art, but also how someone who is more of a fan of the type would consider it. It's not fair to throw Hammett's The Glass Key or Chandler's The Little Sister or Carr's The Hollow Man into the trash heap because one doesn't like mysteries. If one is to review such a thing fairly, one must approach it with the eyes of someone who likes the genre and judge it on those merits. 

Bearing that in mind, I could not be a proper critic of soccer, or hip-hop, or goat cheese, because I can't stand any of them. I am willing to consider they have merits to their fans, but I'm blind to them.

I have other such blind spots.

And yet, we know that never stops our friendly Internet reviewers, who often conflate opinion and appreciation. Calling Gone with the Wind "racist sh**" doesn't say anything about the craft behind the film. Personally, I thought the movie M*A*S*H was dull and not very funny, but I thought it was well made. I thought the film They Might Be Giants looked cheap and clumsy, but I loved it. I always try to consider both opinion and appreciation, although if you've read my reviews on this blog you can surely point to entries where I hop on the opinion train and ride it full-throttle to the end of the line.

Not that opinions have no place in reviews. They're actually quite useful. If I know you and I like the same kind of books, I'll give your opinion a lot of weight in deciding if I will read one that you recommend. If I know a reviewer hates science fiction, I have to assume that affects his thoughts on a Greg Bear novel.

I told my wife that there was one other factor in looking at artistic endeavors. There's opinion, there's appreciation, and there's dough. Meaning, if I'm a publisher and I know a writer is awful and his book is not worth the toilet paper it could have been used to make, but he is popular and will sell a lot of hardcovers, my opinion and appreciation go out the window. Print the bastard! If I know an actor is an idiot who hasn't got the talent to convince a child that ice cream is good, but he opens movies because the ladies love him, sign him to a multi-picture deal! Dough is always the ace in the hole. Dough overcomes opinion and appreciation. 

Six recipes, fast as you can.

Weird dream last night -- but they aren't they all? But this was a sign that I watch too many Food Network shows where chefs compete against other chefs. You may think that that would mean I was lolling in the sheets murmuring, "I didn't come here to lose" or "I'm here to prove that I've arrived," but no. I actually dreamed of complete rules for a cooking competition that made sense. It was a little like Chopped or Guy's Grocery Games, but probably too simple for TV. Here's the drill.

Six young contestants (self included) (I was a kid in the dream) in a supermarket were handed a sheaf of papers. They contained six serious chef recipes, including the lists of ingredients, each written out separately with all instructions. Each kid had the same recipes. But no one could look at them in advance. When the judge said "Go!" everyone jumped on a bicycle (because, dream) and we had to peddle off to get what was on the lists and make all the recipes. Whoever finished fastest got the most points, but other points were awarded based entirely on the proper following of directions. There was very little by way of subjective judgment in this contest.

I've had a lot going on this week, which is probably where the idea came from. The junior amateur chefs would have to coordinate six lists of ingredients and time everything they had to do in the most efficient manner possible, on the fly. Which is rather how my week has gone. Anyone who ever made a full Thanksgiving dinner for guests for the first time knows how this felt. "I gotta get the turkey in first, and then get the baking potatoes in, which can cook at the same temperature, but the green bean casserole cooks lower, and there's cranberry casserole, and I should have done the pie last night, and AAAAAUUUGGHHH!"

Feel the burn

What amazes me about the dream was that it presented me with a fully formed idea that was not that bad and made perfect sense. A contestant in such a match could strategize how to handle the situation, but ultimately you have to cook well and you really, really want to finish first.

Some elements of this idea, as I note, are not great television, but are in keeping with real chef competitions by brilliant chefs who never go on TV. I read a new book about Chef Roland Henin, the greatest American chef you never heard of; he made the Culinary Institute of America into a world-class school, he trained some of the most prominent chefs cooking today, and he coached teams of American chefs to excellence in competitions like Bocuse d’Or (which America won this year!). A lot of the Food Network competitions evolved from extant cooking events -- years before Chopped used mystery baskets of unknown ingredients, the American Culinary Federation was forcing chefs to cook with whatever came out of a basket. In fact, I think Food Network realized that viewers like this kind of thing when they used to show coverage of Bocuse d'Or and other international contests. 

I think my dream contest would be fun in real life. Like Bocuse d'Or it would take some time, and you'd have to restrict it to amateurs since professional chefs have a lot of experience in prioritizing in a snap in the kitchen.  

My dream skidded to a halt when I looked at the sheaf of papers and couldn't read anything. As we've discussed here before, you can't read in dreams, and I was only able to make out a word or two. Knowing I was sunk, I just woke up instead. Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey. Or coffee and cold cereal, which is all I can cook in the morning.

Chopped: Slow cooker.

Host Ted Allen: Welcome to a special edition of Chopped. In this slow cooker challenge, four chefs will vie for $10,000 by making the best appetizer, entree, and dessert in slow cookers. In each round the contestants will have to use mandatory mystery ingredients from the baskets at their stations. The chef in each round who pleases our judges least with their crock comestibles will be chopped. 

Chef Tats McEargauge: I didn't come here to lose. So I guess I came here to win.

Chef Egon Greez: I've used slow cookers in all my restaurants. Every one. Every single failed bankrupt rotten lousy one. I'm gonna take home that prize. I want my daughters and their mothers to be proud of me.

Ted: And in the first round your dishes will have to use... lamb shanks... fiddlehead ferns... ramen noodles... and chocolate syrup. You have eight hours to prepare your dishes. Time starts now.

[Chefs seen starting to examine products, moseying over to pantry to find other things]

Chef Belle Buster: These guys try to intimidate women in the kitchen, well, nuts to that. I'm here to show that a woman can cook as well or better than the big boys, just like the five thousand or so women who have been on this show before me.

Chef Gerard Ling Rajagukguk du Wangenstein: [very thick accent; subtitled] I am happy to be here and I hope to won. The pen of my aunt is on the bureau.

Ted: [to judges] This is our first slow cooker challenge on Chopped. A little different!

Aaron Sanchez: Foods cooked in slow cookers can get dried out if you don't time it right.

Scott Conant: Yeah, sometimes you need split-hour timing.

Alex Guarnaschelli: Usually chefs get 20 minutes for the appetizer round. How long do they have?

Ted: Eight hours.

Alex: Well, damn it, I'd have had lunch if I'd known that.

Fred vs. reality.

Reality TV took a blow this week with news that American Idol is on its way out.

Because I never got into that show or Survivor, I could say I never was into reality TV, but that's a lie. If you are watching a pack of tattooed idiots with a lot of compensation issues cooking competitively on television, rest assured that Fred is watching it too. 

But personally, I'm not reality show material, as we've examined before. I have enough trouble dealing with reality.

However, what I've learned watching reality TV competitions is the self-puffery that helps contestants get through the various rounds. So I'm going to start talking that way to anyone who will listen. I may have some compensation issues myself.

"I'm here to win. I'm going to win it all. I'm bringing my A game. I didn't come here to lose. One person can win---and that's me. I'm going all the way. Only one thing can stop me from winning, and that's losing.

"They won't even see me coming. I'm taking them down. No one can stop me. I'm a force to be reckoned with.

"No one gave me anything. I had to earn everything. No one believed in me. My mother didn't believe in me. My father called me names, like burua ergelak. I don't even know what that is.

"It was tough, growing up Basque in my neighborhood. The other kids always picked on me. As if I was ass-Basquewards. But I showed them. I'm here in reality. And where are they? Somewhere else in reality. That's right.

"I'm unstoppable. I'm coming at ya. I won't be eliminated. I won't be voted off the island. I won't be sent home. Unless it's bedtime. Then I'm going home. Because I want to go to bed. At bedtime.

"The others will be busy with their own problems, then look up and see me winning. While they're losing. That's right. I'm a winner. They're the losers. They'll be chopped. I'll be the last man standing. They won't be the last man standing. Because some of them are women. Maybe there'll be a last woman standing, but I'll still be standing. And then I'll take her down. And be the last person standing."

It suddenly occurs to me that talking like a reality show contestant could get you arrested. Maybe I ought to stick to skulking, pouting, and blogging.

Chef Fred.

You all know Fred loves to cook. I can microwave a burrito like nobody's business, pilgrim.

So it's no surprise that I enjoy watching Food Network's show Chopped, the show in which chefs have to cook their way through three elimination rounds, using hamper baskets full of horrible mismatched ingredients. Host Ted Allen will introduce each round like:

Ted: This is the appetizer round, chefs, and you will have to combine the following ingredients in your baskets: Calf's liver... Hostess Fruit Pies... fiddleheads... and absinthe. You have twenty minutes... time starts now!

Like everyone who's watched the show, I have idly wondered how I would do as one of the chefs. I love to cook; I have moments of intense creativity in combining weird ingredients (frozen burrito and Sriracha!), and like all writers, I secretly want to crush my competitors.

Have at thee!

One problem: I suck under pressure.

No, really. My interviews are a mess. When I've done public speaking, my 30-minute talks would be 10 minutes long if you excised the uhhhs, y'knows, and ummmms. And the times I chuckle at my own jokes that no one else laughs at. So I expect I would have some problems.

Here's me in front of the judges, Alex Guarnaschelli, Marcus Samuelsson, and Aarón Sánchez (minus my uuhs and umms):

Ted: Chef Fred! What have you prepared for us?

Me: I have... a meatloaf-marmalade ice cream with a flaming pickled mangosteen sauce and a shredded swizzle stick garnish.

Alex: I like how you've repurposed the swizzle stick.

Me: Thanks.

Alex: But it wasn't a basket ingredient.

Me: No.

Alex: It isn't even food.

Me: No.

Marcus: I'm curious as to your decision to use the ice cream machine.

Me: I thought meatloaf ice cream would make a memorable and unique dessert.

Marcus: You can say that again.

Me: Thanks.

Marcus: But this is the appetizer round.

Me: I panicked.

Ted: And you broke the ice cream maker.

Me: Sorry.

Marcus: It's about the least edible thing I have ever seen in my life.

Me: It was a tough basket.

Ted: The basket contained lobster, spanakopita, Macoun apples, and lime gelatin.

Me: Oopsie.

Aarón: Chef Fred, didn't you pick on one of my products on your blog?

Me: No, I didn't.

Aarón: Yes you did!

Me: Hey. don't link on my blog.

Aarón: You break machines, use terrible ingredients that weren't even in the basket, you don't use a single ingredient that was in the basket, you serve us something that looks and smells like elephant vomit, and you picked on my pork! This is the worst thing I've ever seen on this show!

Me: Uh... I cut myself and bled into the ice cream, too.

Marcus: WHAT?

Me: I'll try to do better in the next round.

Ted: ...Thank you, Chef Fred.

Chopped pork.

Chef Aarón Sanchez is primarily known, at least in this house, as one of the regular guest judges on Food Network's show Chopped. Now he's coming to your refrigerator. 

Found this in the store and had to give it a try. "Authentic Mexican dishes my from kitchen to yours," he writes in his own handwriting on the package. He probably runs through a dozen Sharpies a day.

Would it be too fiery hot for us, though? We're kind of wimpy at the Key ranchito, and we were a little scared. Sanchez co-hosts another TV program called Heat Seekers with Roger Mooking, essentially a show about two jamokes who run around to spicy-food restaurants and torture themselves with horrifically hot foods. Mooking generally can take the pain a lot better than Sanchez, as I recall, but still. Carnitas from A.S. himself are going to be butt-whupping hot, right? The kind of thing you barely get down, then you blast fire into the toilet twelve hours later.

Nothing to do but get a load of cheese and sour cream in, and devil take the hindmost!

So I nuked it up, brought out the tortillas, and served it wearing safety goggles and Ove Gloves. And it was...

Bland as a lump of dirt. Dull as a Nerf home run derby. Fatty as the first guy on line for the cruise ship chocolate buffet.

Maybe that's authentic Carnitas for you. I hear there is some variation in the seasonings used for the dish, but I expected this to have more than salt.

Chef Sanchez, the entree you served is exceptionally fatty and disappointingly flavorless. We were expecting Lupe Vélez; we got Lawrence Welk.

I'm sorry, Chef Sanchez: You have been chopped.