Published: April 05, 2008 10:45 pm            

Jimmy Espy: Some tasty TV

I’m not gay. I swear. Not even metrosexual.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but take my word for it, the height of eroticism in my life remains Raquel Welch in a furry loincloth in “One Million Years B.C.”

I offer this declaration of sexual identity as a prelude to an admission that at one time in my life it would have brought a vociferous hoot of derision from my inner circle of good old boy pals.

I watch a cooking show.

OK, make your jokes. Call me names. Challenge my manhood.

Say whatever you like, but I will not deny my love for “Top Chef,” which airs pretty much continuously these days on the Bravo network. Bravo is an interesting cable network, interesting in that it broadcasts 24 hours a day and you couldn’t pay me to watch the other 23 hours of programming. But for one hour each week, I am the biggest Bravo fan in America.

“Top Chef” falls into the category of reality shows. Normally, “reality” television is about as alluring as being shot in the eye by a Red Ryder BB gun. But there’s something different about “Top Chef,” something I can’t quit put my finger on.

The show is designed on a simple format. Think of it as a kitchen-bound “Survivor.”

Each season 16 young chefs are brought together for a fierce competition. The show begins with a “quickfire challenge,” a simpler test of their culinary skills. The winners of the quickfire challenge receive immunity, protecting them from elimination later in the episode.

The less fortunate contestants move on to the night’s bigger challenge. Often the group is broken into sub-groups and tasked with creating a culinary masterpiece in very little time and on a limited budget. At the end of each episode, the chefs who performed best are praised lavishly and given prizes while the chefs who failed miserably are told to “pack their knives,” which is the show’s way of saying “Get lost, loser!”

Delivering the weekly “get lost” is the best-looking woman on television, Padma Lakshmi, who got very drunk once and married Salman Rushdie.

The real top chef on “Top Chef” is Tom Colicchio, who is apparently very well known in The Food World. Chef Tom is a man’s man. He reminds me of the sergeant played by Tom Sizemore in “Saving Private Ryan.” I have no doubt that “Chef Tom” could blow up a Tiger tank with a bottle of gasoline and a dirty rag, as well as make a mean quiche out of the same dirty rag.

Chef Tom and Padma — I feel we’re on a first name basis — appear every week and are joined by a rotating group of guest judges, including Ted Allen, who some of you may know from “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” ... a show I swear I have never watched. However, I have been a big fan of Mr. Allen’s since an episode last season when he said that “bacon makes everything better,” a belief that has long been at the core of my personal culinary philosophy.

In theory the contestants on the show should be the main point of interest, but as is almost always the case with “reality” TV shows it is amazing how uninteresting most of the players are.

The main attractions on Top Chef are the judges — in all their glorious snootery — and the food.

Just because I grew up on a diet of fried food smothered in salt doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate dishes consisting of a dozen or so ingredients of which I have never heard.

Just because I grew up on fried catfish dunked in ketchup doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate smoked salmon with faux caviar and white chocolate wasabi sauce (the dish that won on last week’s show.)

No, by golly, it doesn’t.

Make all your jokes you tough guys. Sticks and stones ...

But come Wednesday night at 10, I’ll be in front of my TV with my real pals, virile Chef Tom and beautiful Padma.

I wonder if they could get her to wear a furry loincloth?



Jimmy Espy is executive editor of the The Daily Citizen. He really is straight ... really.

        

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