Thursday, November 25, is, of course, Thanksgiving Day.
It's a day for Americans from coast to coast to gather family and friends and, in the spirit of the holiday, watch interminable football games between two pathetic teams of losers who couldn't beat their own grandmother with a tire iron.
That, plus suck down turkey and gravy and stuffing and mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie until you want to puke, get loosey goosey on cocktails and cheap wine, and dis everyone who's not there to defend himself, then pass out on the couch like a crackhead in full cardiac arrest... until you wake up hungry for more turkey around 2 a.m.
Oh, and there's some stuff about giving thanks too.
Whether they know it or not, many of our favorite (and least favorite)
luminaries in the Foodie Universe have very much to be thankful for. But
since they're too busy putting on TV makeup or making personal
appearances or counting the money in their new contracts, Charlie has
decided to be thankful for them. He'll accept his thanks, preferably in
unmarked bills of $100 and higher, just as soon as he wakes up from his
own turkey coma.
New York Times critic Mark Bittman should be thankful he never has to dine at Allen Susser's Taste Gastropub again.
Taste's owner/chef Allen Susser should be thankful Mark Bittman never has to dine at Taste Gastropub again.
All of South Florida
should be thankful Mark Bittman thinks we're a bunch of aging cretins
and will never again block our sunlight or clog the fast lane of I-95.
(And really, Mark, if you're all that smart, how come you're still
living in New York?)
Anthony Bourdain, host of No Reservations, should be thankful
for the existence of the Travel Channel, so he doesn't have to bland
down his deliciously snarky personality into the usual tasteless
cream-of-network-television mush.
Rachael Ray should be
thankful there's not a collective national gag reflex so she's spared
the indignity of 220 million people hurling the next time she giggles
her way through a "cooking" segment.
Gail Simmons, Top Chef judge, should
be thankful the producers at Bravo for some reason find her appealing,
even though on-air she's as wooden as a pastry chef's rolling pin.
Aarti Sequeira should be thankful she won The Next Food Network Star. If past winners are the rule (excepting Guy Fieri, of course), it will be the high point of her career. Um, here's to Aarti Party...
Tom Pizzica should be thankful he didn't win The Next Food Network Star, which
spared his square peg from being pounded into the round hole of another
excruciatingly dull studio cooking show and allowed him to host Outrageous Food,
a show much more suited to his talents (though he does need to be hosed
down every five minutes to keep from exploding onscreen).
Guy Fieri, host of the Food Network's Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, should
be thankful that being interested in food and cooking has become a
manly pastime; otherwise, he'd just be the owner of a pair of mediocre
Sonoma County restaurants.
Man vs. Food host Adam Richman should be thankful that gluttony has become a spectator sport.
The Food Network should be thankful to the Travel Channel and Bravo, since it keeps stealing all their show ideas.
Bravo
should be thankful for the thick skins of its viewers, who put up with
the longest and most annoying commercial breaks on the planet in order
to watch their favorite shows.
All viewers of food TV should be thankful for the clicker. Sometimes you've got to stop watching cooking shows and actually... you know, cook.
