©2008 Harry Kenney

I only discovered this “show in a show” at the very end (thankfully). Apparently for the past bunch of Mondays, The Rachael Ray Show has been having a cooking competition called “Hey, Can You Cook?“. This morning was week four of four and the day they crown the winner. Apparently it began with five contestants and we lost one each week. If you’re that interested in a chronology of events, visit the link above. Otherwise, for me, I’m just talking about the last show … because if I had to actually look at any of the others I’d no doubt hurl.

Yes yesterday the cooking died on television when (and it’s scary when you really can’t blame the contestant) some guy won a challenge by making hot dogs and scallops as his (to quote Rachael) fine dining upscale challenge. The contestant he beat out made hot dogs and spaghetti in case you were curious.

Oh and Gordon Ramsay was there as judge. Yes, Gordon next to Rachael. And there he was judging a (cough, choke, spew) “haute cuisine” challenge. Wow payback really is a b***h. (Go check out the video here where he talks about Rachael as the woman who abbreviates things and puts food in her breasts — referring to the way she gets the food out to prepare on her cooking show.)

Even so, I still felt sorry for him, I mean: dogs with pasta, scallops and weiners. I think I’m going to lose it.When he saw what they were going to cook and what he was going to eat he said “Oh, my”. I know how much he wanted to say something more appropriately Ramsayian like “**** me!” — because he was, basically.

The guy who won gets a trip to Paris and four days at a French cooking school. I can’t wait for them to ask him “and what meal did you make that got you here?” Hopefully when he replies the culinary instructors don’t all die from strokes and embolisms.

(Apologies to Don McLean!)

How the contestants really tried
with their hotdogs cooked and fried
Rachael this I can’t abide
The day the cooking died

Oh bye bye my homemade baked pie
scallops and weiners just made me cry
need a stomach pump and an ambulance ride
Screaming “this’ll be the day that I die;
Oh, this’ll be the day that I die.”

{19 May 2008}