Salvage Heart

Do you take the Times?

Ah, such pomposity. Such worldliness. Such implications of leisure time devoted to reading about crop rotation debates in Uganda and hot tub culture in Krakatoa. And then the inevitable, "Did you see the piece? It was in today's Times."

This far west, Times may need the preface "New York," as it could be that rubes such as we might confuse the reference with the Tigard Times, perhaps. Perhaps not.

The point is, look for Salvage Heart to throw in with that lot of ink-smudged superiority, as the daily home delivery has begun. So, not only will we have the holier-than-thou Sunday newsprint edifice adorning our porch...our porch...on the GODDAMNED PORCH please! Not on the sidewalk, because then it gets stolen by dog walkers. But, anyway, home delivery every day. And every other day.

Which brings us to a programming note: tomorrow Discovery Channel launches a 15-hour "Dirty Jobs" marathon, featuring Mike Rowe (host, above). All day Monday (Labor Day, which is better than marathon episodes of childbirth) and we're closing in on episode 150. I know this because, well....

Did you see the piece in Friday's Times?
"Gross -Out Fanfares for the Common Man"

(The Oregonian pulled a Zap2It wire story for its TV guide today.)

Fifteen hours seems like a lot. On the other hand, I can watch this all day long.

Labels: Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe, New York Times, newspapers, television

"Hell's Kitchen" continues to be a welcome beacon on the lonely seas of Monday night, basic cable. But following last night's episode (#305), a few things became evident:

1. Julia (far left) is the class act on the "Red Team." Waffle House jokes aside, she's the steady hand in the kitchen. In episode #304's taste challenge, she dodged the bullet, having to identify boiled potato, fried chicken, and something else (carrot?) while blindfolded. The teaser for next week's episode suggests that the hayseed flies when she has to work with lobster, but for now, she looks fine.
2. Melissa was a nasty double-cross since episode one. Last night the girls turned on her...sort of. Bonnie talked tough...until Melissa came onto the patio (at which point she cried, I think). Dumping her on the men's team was genius on the part of the producers.
3. The men's team is fine. Nothing urgent there. They might even take Melissa under their wing, at least for a week, and only if Rock doesn't drown her in the stock pot.
4. The casting for this season was a disaster. Who are these people? The cast, by in large, lacks personality, flair, cooking ability, good looks, and any other defining characteristic. The token oddballs weren't endearing, just...weird. (Aaron? He mostly sweated, and blacked out. If I cared, I search online for rumors of his demise, but I don't.) The men's team is barely discernible from one another. The women are a faint wisp of last year's crew. Seriously: was this a completely random selection? Granted, Chef Ramsay doesn't leave much room for others in his kitchen, but can you really imagine anyone actually running a restaurant? Teriyaki cart, maybe.
5. If I have to eat one more bite of pea risotto, I'm going to. But I won't like it.
6. Some of the show's most special moments: when strangers wander up to the window during dinner service. Ramsay screaming "giraffe" at one tall woman, very nice.

More at http://www.fox.com/hellskitchen/index.htm. Don't forget: Monday's at 9/8 Central. On FOX.

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

Rags to Riches, a three-year-old filly, won yesterday's Belmont Stakes to become the first female to win the race since 1905, and the first to win any leg of the Triple Crown since Winning Colors captured the 1988 Kentucky Derby.

The Belmont, run in New York, the last jewel in that crown, tends to lose some luster in these non-Triple Crown contender years. With the Derby winner Street Sense beaten two weeks later in the Preakness and a no-show in the Belmont, the storyline reads a little warmed over: Can Curlin come back from a Preakness victory to win the Belmont? Do we care? Will we even hear from him again after this year?

With Rags to Riches win, Todd Pletcher broke his string of 28 Triple Crown losses (although second pays pretty well), and the jockey John Velazquez snapped his own 0-20 in the series. (Video here.)

But what was truly noteworthy about yesterday's race was the broadcast of it on ABC/ESPN. In the half-hour I watched leading up to posttime, and then the seemingly interminable post-race coverage, I saw an abysmal effort. Of note:
Sound? The host team cut away to an interviewer down in the paddock (I think) before the race, and then watched with millions of others as, what? Who knows. There was no sound for, I don't know, maybe an entire minute? CUT AWAY.
After the race, they compensated by broadcasting TWO SIMULTANEOUS interviews (but only showing one). Again, they did this through the entire piece.
This was not the NBC team, and it showed. No outrider interviews leading up to post. The camera work was terrible (can we get a shot in the backstretch mid race that doesn't include the ambulance in the frame? No? Really?) and the commentary worse.
Also, are those really the words to "New York, New York"? Sounded like the singer flubbed. For the Derby, roses. The Belmont, carnations.

Of course, the usual contractual obligations: presentation of the trophy with WAY too many people on stage (and camera...who are all those women in hats?), the New York racing commissioner, and so forth were boredom as usual. The race to capture as many female-oriented slogans to drive home the fact that a filly one was annoying. And the post-race analysis, terrible.

I don't love Tom Hammond, and I don't need to see Bob Costas to be convinced that an event is classy. But the difference between this race and the Kentucky Derby (or the Preakness or the Breeders Cup this fall) was significant. The ratings will be terrible, but the network is competing with golf and infomercials during that dead Saturday p.m. slot anyway. Evidently the New York Racing Association broke up the three-race deal that previously aired on NBC; when Visa pulled out as a major sponsor, it left the series television coverage in flux.

Still, we saw a great race. Slow, but big finish, with five of the seven horses still legitimate contenders coming into the far turn. It's a pity that the broadcast itself was such a nag.

Will we ever again see something like this?

Lots of coverage, including a nice (albeit familiar) piece in Newsday: "For one day, Belmont has 'the feel'"

Labels: Belmont, horse racing, sports, television, Triple Crown

For those of us fortunate enough to around a television set at 4 in the afternoon, Tuesday was that rare moment: an interview with Cormac McCarthy as tie-in to Oprah's surprising pick of The Road as her last book club pick.

The famously reticent writer has, if rumor and hearsay can be trusted, given only two interviews since anyone cared enough to request one. spoke with Oprah from this weird New Mexico think-tank that he hangs out at.

It was curious to see someone so completely out of step with the publicity machine go on to Oprah and swat at her softball questions. McCarthy, hand stuck to his face, delivered brief, halting, reluctant responses, displaying a disregard for audience (thousands? millions? so what?). She lead him with "remember whens" like "remember when you lived in a shack with no electricity, and had no toothpaste?"

Oh, Cormac replied, that's right, but then a free sample showed up in the mailbox, and, well, his whole career has been like that. He got evicted from a $40/month flop in New Orleans because he was too broke, but I don't recall a satisfying conclusion to that story.

Viewers also learned from Oprah that she had interviewed a LOT of authors. She made that point twice. She also struggled to comprehend his lack of interest in sales, and she tiptoed around his personal life, though mentioned his three wives.

Oprah's site has some interesting material on it, but requires registration, which I have been too lazy to do. However, if you are considering her next pick, Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex (announced that same show), might be worth registering. You can join the 14 of us who have yet to read this. Great beach read, she insisted. Nothing like taking a well-read book to the beach. Personally, I like to take an entire year's worth of Atlantic Monthly back-issues.

Also on that day's Oprah: Michael Moore, and her faux-embarrassment at being on two of the 20 Vanity Fair covers for their forthcoming issue on Africa.

Labels: authors, Cormac McCarthy, fiction, magazines, Oprah, television

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.

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

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