Not the targeted demographic

I've been trying to watch more Food TV lately, including some shows that I normally avoid like avian flu (do we really "avoid the plague" anymore?) and I have some thoughts. One advantage to having a blog is that I can come here and rant instead of just snarking at the television. Add that to my recent dearth of posts and this is what happens.

First, I am clearly not the targeted demographic for the network. I find this really odd because I am a serious cook who works at home and has time to do all sorts of cooking. I don't live near a grocery store where I can buy individually wrapped vegetables, nor would I buy them if I did. I care more about the taste of my food than the 'scape of my table. I think that good food is worth taking a little time to create and never buy something I could make in less time than it takes to drive to the store. (45 min). I have a freezer and am not afraid to use it...for homemade food and bulk purchases, not commercially prepared things.

I have to wonder about editorial staff. Have they nobody to explain to their on-air folk that if you say an acronym followed by the meaning every time you can just skip the acronym. (meaning it's silly to say "EVOO (extra-virgin olive oil)" instead of one or the other). Better yet, how about just "olive oil" and let people get their single bottle of olive oil off the shelf without inquiring as to its virginity, because, really, how many of the people watching that show — you know which one I mean — have more than one kind of olive oil on the shelf? Heck, how many of you have more than one kind of OO (say it with me, "oooooo!") on your shelf? I am a food-nut and I have only two...and both of them are extra-virgin. (I want a bottle of "bit of a hussy olive oil," which doesn't exist but should.)

Can we call off the stereotypes? Alton says grills are about Y chromosomes**, RR giggles and says something about her inner girliness as she talks about tea sandwiches, and there are a few on-air folks that every online discussion about them devolves to "I'd do her" and an accompanying accusation that people (read women) who don't like ____'s show are jealous of her looks. Uh huh. Either that or we don't consider mixing a can of frosting with sugar and rolling it into balls to be candy-making, let alone "sensuous."

Oh my. Ms. Ray just put saffron in something instead of annatto seeds and then called it inexpensive. Uh huh. This from the woman who buys individually shrink-wrapped vegetables.

I think they should change the network name to "I like to watch other people putter in the kitchen making things I'd never actually eat TV" — at least it'd be truth in advertising. (Having written this, I am guaranteeing that my chance at Food TV stardom is ruined, but I just don't think it was happening anyway, what with me being over 30 in both age and weight in kilograms.)

**those being the ones that make people look at things attributed to it and say, "why?"