UNITED STATES—I was stunned, that is the best way to explain my reaction to discovering the Food Network series “The Kitchen” was being cancelled after 10 years on the network. The news was dropped on Monday, October 20 and it was a gut punch. I had been watching the series since its inception, and it was one of the very rare series that gave ACTUAL cooking instruction.
You had chefs on the series who knew what they were talking about in Iron Chefs Geoffrey Zakarian and Alex Gurnaschelli. Then you had entertaining personalities with Sunny Anderson, Jeff Mauro and Katie Lee Biegel. I immediately went to Reddit because I wanted to see what fans of the channel were thinking. The top response: “awe” and “shock.” However, what was worse was this feeling that this could be the end of the network.
I have been watching the network for the past 25 years. I give credit to the Food Network for teaching me a lot of the skills I have in the kitchen and to not be afraid to take risks and be creative when you get into the kitchen. This was a network that had an array of programming. Lots of instructional food shows, some competition shows and a bevy of unique personalities with charisma and their own take on technique when it came to the kitchen.
That has all but virtually vanished from the network. Look, I love Guy Fieri, but I truly only watch him on “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.” That is a staple show that is beyond entertaining after nearly 20 years later. Not the biggest fan of “Guys Grocery Games” because its a competition series and you’re not really learning too much technique or instruction.
I was always a fan of Bobby Flay, but everything he does is a competition now, and I’m sorry, but competition shows when it comes to food is NOT as entertaining as the Food Network would like to think. Also how is it not a conflict of interest with Flay who is dating Brooke Williamson. I mean she’s on “Bobby’s Triple Threat” and she was recently a judge on “BBQ Brawl” where Bobby was one of the team captains.
I’m sorry I miss the golden age of series like “Everyday Italian,” “Secrets of a Restaurant Chef,” “Iron Chef America,” “Barefoot Contessa,” “30 Minute Meals,” “Good Eats,” “Semi-Homemade Cooking,” and “Trisha’s Southern Cooking” to name a few. You might get a repeat of some of the shows, but about 75 percent of them are long gone and that is the crazy element.
I think there might be like 5 series tops that I can think of that are on the network, and I’m not loving some of the stuff I see from “The Pioneer Woman” or “Girl Meets Farm.” The food just doesn’t appear as appetizing as the cooks themselves think they do. The Food Network absolutely needs a revamp because if they think they’ll last the next 5 years, let alone 10 years with just the same competition shows with different people, it will not happen.
I loved “Tournament of Champions” when it first premiered because it was something different, but after the last season, it drove me nuts. It was so obvious who was going to win based on the editing, it took the fun out of watching. In addition, after someone wins a competition series there is NO NEED to have them on every single series on the network. It was like Antonio Lofaso and Maneet Chauhan overlord after they had a few competition wins. When they appeared on “BBQ Brawl” I was scratching my head; never seen them do anything BBQ related so if I’m supposed to take them seriously as BBQ experts the network is going in the wrong direction.
The Food Network could be on its last leg and a great way to revitalize the channel, might to bring back some old faces ones that made the network the iconic channel that it once was. It feels like that is likely not going to happen and with less and less cooking instruction, what are we actually doing here Food Network? Just a question to consider.
