Iron Chef Recap

Much to my dismay, that fuckhead Bobby Flay beat Rick Bayless last night on Iron Chef. But overall, I thought the show was an improvement to the specials that ran last year. Most importantly was that the tasters knew what they were talking about. 2 professional foodies and Julie Chen was at least as good as the Japanese actresses on the original.

Overall the show is still not as good as the original. Part of the charm was the hype before the cooking. But still it's more fun than a lot of shows on TV.

One more thing, other than just not liking Flay, it's hard for me to root for him because he cooks "contemporary Southwestern cuisine." What the hell is that? Maybe it's because I live in New Mexico but I just don't have any interest. While I have no doubt that the food he makes is really good, it just seems to me that it would be better if he used the kind of traditional regional cuisines that say Bayless does, or for that matter New Mexican cooking. I wish he'd stopping playing around with his sauces and just cover everything in green or red chile.

Whether it's Southwestern or Asian fusion cuisine, I don't think I've ever had a "contemporary" or "fusion" meal that is as good as it would be if it stuck to traditional ingredients and traditional methods of making the food. I don't like to think I'm some kind of fundamentalist or purist on this--it's just that these funky modern dishes just aren't as good to me.