Salvage Heart

The biggest disappointment of last night's season debut for the FOX network's "Hell's Kitchen" was the discovery that this was Season 3. It stands to follow, then, that last season was...Season 2?

So I missed an entire run?

"Hell's Kitchen," the reality show in which a dozen would-be chef's compete for the adoration (and restaurant) of Chef Gordon Ramsay, was hands-down the best reason to watch television last summer. And that includes Basic Cable (take THAT! WGN! Hallmark Channel! E!!).

The format: twelve goofs caught in a cross between "The Apprentice" and "America's Next Top Model," with men and women divided into the Blue (bleu?) and Red teams. They compete to prepare and deliver dinner service to cheeseballs in LA that get to ham it up for the camera. "We ordered over an hour ago and don't want any more bread!" one table complained.

Not sure what the oddsmakers make of this season's crew, but few appear to have any real cooking chops. Early sentimental favorite for me: Julia, 28, Short-Order Cook, roundly dismissed by the others with, "She cooks at the Waffle House."

You ever eat at the Waffle House? If you had, you wouldn't say something stupid like that. Instead, you'd say, "God DAMN, get Tiffany, 27, Kitchen Manager, off that station and let this girl fry them quail eggs!"

And then the producers would cut that part out to make it look like Julia STILL didn't have a friend in the world. Hey, that's life in the real (TV) world.

What's the appeal of the show, anyway? Well, swearing, for one (it works for HBO). Lots of bleeping, blurring, and things that are "ucking" this and "ucking" that (nice glottal stop at work there). But also, it's action packed, and the tasks seem more gerund than the jackassery that Trump puts his apprenticii through (though by the end of the season we know who could best organize a car wash...it's always the cheerleaders, isn't it?). And I think it's safe to say that this batch has been selected for something besides looks...or talent...geographic distribution maybe?

The real question: how long before Ramsay calls some befuddled greaseburner "Donkey!"? Not long.

Two literary-related notes:
Bill Buford's excellent April 2, 2007, New Yorker article ("The Taming of the Chef") on Ramsay shows that the act is either real or at least consistent. (Worth reading online here...although most Salvage Heart readers probably still have the April 2 New Yorker piled at the foot of the bed as they doggedly make their way through back issues...is it March yet?)

Ramsay's goal was to land three stars in the Guide Michelin for his new New York restaurant, Gordon Ramsay at The London. A native of Glasgow, his own cooking (rarely reflected in "Hell's Kitchen") celebrates English cuisine, "for two centuries the most mocked cuisine in the world," writes Buford.

Ramsay came to cooking after discovering Marco Pierre White (or a photo of him). And it just so happens that White has a new book out this May, The Devil in the Kitchen: Sex, Pain, Madness and the Making of a Great Chef. The relevance of White, according to Buford, is that it gave Ramsay something no other top British chefs had had: a Brit as a mentor rather than a Frenchman.

But back to the business at hand. Melissa, 28, Line Cook? Wow, if she was a skillet she could fry both sides of the egg at the same time...told Tiffany to her face that she wouldn't get kicked out, then put her up as a weak link. Tiffany, I think you're alone now...there' doesn't seem to be anyone around.

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Hell's Kitchen, FOX, Mondays at 9pm (check local listings)

Labels: authors, food, Gordon Ramsay, Hell's Kitchen, journalism, television