What would Brian Boitano do? What would Brian Boitano make?
In another triumph for food porn, uniting the world of figure skating with home cooking, 1998 Olympic gold medalist and South Park enthusiast, Brian Boitano has his own cooking show.
Boitano, now 45, has turned into a hard-core foodie. … You'd certainly be hard-pressed to find another TV chef with his own "South Park" song. "What Would Brian Boitano Do?," a highlight of the 1999 animated movie, not only serves as the opening theme for Boitano's new show but provided the obvious inspiration for its title. In each episode, Boitano hosts a get-together at his home, creating a custom menu for his guests, who range from his single-and-ready-to-mingle friend and 20 bachelorettes to a bacon-loving all-girl roller derby. His take on mostly rustic home cooking is inventive, yet straightforward enough not to intimidate the casual cook. But the show's biggest revelation is Boitano himself. Known for his laser-like focus on the ice, he reveals an irreverent side in "What Would Brian Boitano Make?"
Terence and Philip are Canadian, eh.
Publishing papers by press release is a bad idea
Last week, researchers at Texas Tech gushed in a press release about the food safety errors on cooking shows broadcast by the Food Network.
“Researchers analyzed 49 shows airing over a two-week period and used 17 different coded categories: six positive and 11 negative. Positive categories included hand washing, cleaning equipment, washing fruits and vegetables, adequate refrigeration, and use of a thermometer. …
“The results weren’t exactly savory with 118 positive food safety measures and 460 poor food handling incidents. Among the most noticeable culprits were not washing fruits, vegetables and herbs properly and a lack of hand washing in general.”
I have an interest in such work. In 2004, my laboratory reported that, based on 60 hours of detailed viewing of television cooking shows, an unsafe food handling practice occurred about every four minutes, and that for every safe food handling practice observed, we observed 13 unsafe practices. The most common errors were inadequate hand washing and cross-contamination between raw and ready-to-eat foods. The abstract is available at http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/en/article-details.php?a=3&c=14&sc=102&id=842.
(Mathiasen, L.A., Chapman, B.J., Lacroix, B.J. and Powell, D.A. 2004. Spot the mistake: Television cooking shows as a source of food safety information, Food Protection Trends 24(5): 328-334.)
So I e-mailed one of the researchers and asked, hey, has this been published in a journal anywhere?
She didn’t answer my e-mail.
But Lubbock Online did, in a story today, which concluded the Tech study has yet to be published but is under review for publication in the academic food safety journal "Food Protection Trends."
That’s great. The more research on these areas the better. Sometimes there is a need to issue a press release about research as it is on-going, but in this case, why not wait until the journal article is published. Then us mere mortals can actually get the paper and review it for ourselves.
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Food Network food safety sucks
"the food network has a responsibility to it's (sic) viewers to present cooking that will not predispose them to 3 days of violent vomiting, fever, and possible neurological damage.
"I'm speaking, of course, about Ms. (Rachel) Ray's complete refusal to adhere to national guidelines regarding the consumption of raw eggs and seafood. To be fair, Emeril "Beer Belly" Lagasse, as well as Mario "Anyeurism" Batali also ignore these warnings, and regularly use raw eggs in many of their concoctions. But these two individuals, obese and stinky as they may be, can actually cook, whereas Rachael Ray cannot."The post goes on in a similar vein. I agree. Food safety (of the microbiological kind) usually loses to food porn on the Food Network.
