Skawt

I wouldn't be too concerned about your age. I'm 37, and will be 38 when I graduate from CCA. There are a handful of folks in school that are even older than me. The median age at CCA seems to float somewhere around 21.

I'm still waiting for her new series, "Martha Stewart Dying (preferably in tremendous agony)".

Gordon used to be on the local Fox affiliate morning news show in NYC. He's only mildly annoying. I reserve giving the finger to the TV for Martha Stewart, Bobby Flake and Dubya. The best Door Knock Dinner had to be when Iron Chef was in NYC (against le Flake, no less), and Morimoto and Michiba went and made dinner out of ingredients in the kitchen. It was rather interesting, but I wouldn't want them to come into my house and have them find only frozen fish sticks, individually wrapped processed cheese slices and hot dogs.

At the California Culinary Academy, the tuition pays for a fairly extensive kit, the focus of which is a good range of Wusthof Classic knives. There are some folks in my class that have replaced some knives in their rolls with other knives they prefer - Global, Henckels, and others. Frankly, I really like the heft and feel of the Wusthof Classic line. The handles are nice and narrow, which lets me get a better grip on the blade (proper chef's grip, as they've taught us). I prefer a heavier knife, only because it reminds me that I am wielding a very sharp instrument and it demands my attention. And that 12" slicer went through that Thanksgiving turkey like it was butter. LIKE BUTTAH. Ahem. Basically the consensus is buy what feels right to you. The one suggestion I can make is that high-carbon stainless steel is probably the best choice for folks that are afraid of having difficulty sharpening something like the Global knives. HC stainless is easy to sharpen, and keeps an edge quite a while if you care for your tools properly.

I saw that one and started thinking how fun it would be if Food Network paired up a bunch of chefs and put them in the kitchen together. Here are my unlikely pairings. I've refrained from putting my own comments in parenthesis... Rachel Ray and Anthony Bourdain doing 30 minute meals in Rachel's Kitchen. Martha Stewart and Bobby Flay in Martha's kitchen Alton Brown and Mario Battali in Mario's kitchen Nigella Lawson and Tyler Florence in the Iron Chef stadium Oh, I think that would be a terribly bad idea. I think the only one that would work would be Alton and Mario, since they're both generally affable guys. I think Tony would have beaten Rachel Ray's head in with a meat tenderizer before the first commercial. I know *I* would. Her entire personality seems to be made up of a series of smarmy affectations that annoy the hell out of me. Probably because her personality reminds me so much of my father's third wife - who is, to be as nice as possible, a f***ing moron. I might like to see a Bobby Flay/Martha Stewart pairing, if only to see mayhem and bloodshed. I'll be cheering for whoever dies first, and then hope the other succumbs to internal bleeding and head trauma. At least Jamie Oliver is only a fat-toungued wanker. You can pair him up with anyone that doesn't mind getting spit on.

Rooney is a tool. Rachel and I can't stand him either. Still, I find the show entertaining, since it gives me an opportunity to see all sorts of different regional cusines of Italy. Did you catch the episode of Molto Mario where Tony was one of the three folks at the counter? (The man from scene 24 as your avatar?)