Delicious TV: The host, Toni Fiore, is good on camera. Unfortunately, it’s shot on janky camcorder. I got distracted because her nails were all done up and it seems like she’s scared to get them ruined. She doesn’t have proper knife skills, so it’s a little aggravating for food dorks like me. Delicious TV can be found on NYCTV 25.
ChewFood rating: C+

Jacques Pepin: Fast Food My Way: Oooh, boy. How can you not love Jacques Pépin? He’s an adorable old Frenchman who you can tell just absolutely loves what he does. He’s a very rare television personality: He’s comfortable in front of the camera without trying. He doesn’t need to stand around and tell you how great his recipes are and how delicious his food is, he just gets into the cooking. Plus he has an Ugly Doll in his kitchen! (I mean, I have an aversion to cyclopses, but he still gets points for that.) I am gonna try to get Chef Pépin to adopt me. In the mornings, I’d come down to the kitchen all bleary eyed and he’d have coffee all ready and say, “Shooey, what would you like for zee breakfast? Baked eggs weez herbs et pork belly? Euh, Belgian waffles weez macerated seasonal fruit? Breakfast crepes?” And I’d reply, “Why don’t we cook them all, Papa Jacques? Why don’t we cook them all?” And he’d go, “Ah, but of course!” On WLIW 21 in New York (PBS).
ChewFood rating: A+

Daisy Cooks! With Daisy Marinez: I’m usually a fan of programs with any punctuation in the title, especially exclamation points, but this disappoints. Daisy, who does Spanish food, is boring as hell - which is shame because it’s obvious she really loves cooking for people and knows what she is talking about. She just sucks on camera. I couldn’t even finish a whole episode.
ChewFood rating: D+ (The plus is for her moxie.)

Master Class at Johnson & Wales: This show is low budget and it’s supposed to be like you are just observing a class at the prestigious Johnson & Wales (alumni include Tyler Florence and Emeril). Not bad. It’s informative without any pretense of a host or narrator. It’s not food porn and doesn’t give me a food boner or anything, but I’ll continue to watch it. On WLIW 21 in New York (PBS).
ChewFood rating: B

Living Fresh: Sarah Snow thinks she cuter than she is. Sandra Lee’s zealousness and vanity + Martha Stewart’s arrogance - sticks in their asses - 20 years in age = Sarah. I watched an episode about organic vegetables and one about natural honey. It was pretty informative. Like did you know organic vegetables contain 10-50% more antioxidants than conventional vegetables? Or that one egg yolk from an organic egg contains more omega-3 than eight conventional egg yolks? About the cooking: There’s actually very little cooking. She does most of her prep work off camera and so she gets right into the cooking - which is fast, healthy, easy and big on organical things. The cooking part of the show is only about eight minutes and includes only one dish. Then for most of the show she travels to a farm and learns about crap - these segments are really long and boring. Then she sits down with a guest and does some artsy-craftsy thing like make bird feeders or arrange flowers. So this show was one part cooking, two parts boring educational / propaganda / commercial segment and one part crap. I think they try to cram too much into her show. On the Discovery Home channel.
ChewFood rating: C+/B-

Dinner: Impossible: I really like this show - it’s just plain fun, like Iron Chef. Chef Robert Irvine is British and jacked. I keep waiting for him to roundhouse kick culinary students like he’s “The Transporter”. Basically they take this Robert and throw him into a new challenge in different locations every episode. One time he had recreate an authentic 18th century meal using 18th century equipment. The last episode I caught he had to make dinner for the crew building an ice hotel in Quebec inside the actual ice hotel without melting the place. On the Food Network.
ChewFood rating: A-

Tomorrow night at 10pm EST, Discovery Health is showing Nathan Lyon in Lyon in the Kitchen (did you get the joke there?!). You may remember Nathan in The Next Food Network Star 2: He was the bald trained chef that was really good on camera but for some reason didn’t win. Instead they gave it to some fat dude with gaudy jewelery, embarrassing hair and hackneyed quips. I was rooting for the morbidly obese gay black guy.