My love for cooking began as a result of my close relationship with my Mother, who, without a doubt, was the best chef I've ever known. I remember reading the Quaker Oatmeal box and making oatmeal cookies from the printed recipes. While my mom was a stickler for keeping her kitchen spotless, she would give a wink and a nod of appreciation and recognition when I brought her some fresh baked cookies, as well as for my 4 brothers, knowing full well that I left a mess in the kitchen. Anyway, I learned early on that cooking was not so much following a recipe, but simply improvising and experimenting with well known dishes, as well as using common ingredients found in one dish, and preparing another entirely different meal. So it began, when I was 10, and then when I was a young 19 year old WO-1, that I began to experiment with those dreaded C-rats and making what what started out as canned swill, and converting what by definition, I would never call food, into palatable and tasty dishes. As the saying goes, the rest became my history.

Soooo, by way of China, I've listed what I think are ten interesting cooking shows. Choose your favorite, and if it's not listed, post yours.

BTW, recipes are welcome. Bon apetit.

America's Test Kitchen is one of my favorites, but Julia Child gets my vote. She was awesome!

__________________
"I also cook."

Justin Wilson

I often enjoy Alton Brown. He throws some food science in with his shows which makes it more interesting.

__________________
- The Federalist #46 -

Another vote for Good Eats here, plus his Feasting on Asphalt series.

__________________
Wayne
Torn & Frayed

No doubt about it! He was the best ever.

I watch many cooking shows but Jacques is a favorite of mine - I probably have all of his series (Fast Food My Way, Jacques and Julia, Essential Pepin etc) permanently recorded on our DVR and re-watch them periodically.

__________________
Lou

There are no good ones anymore except maybe Alton. The older shows were on PBS and not like a stupid game show. Just a bunch of "big names" out to make more money.

Graham Kerr was good before and after is transformation.

The G Gourmet had history behind his cooking (no he wasn't a pervert)

Julia started it all.

Dan Aykroyd was the best Save the liver!

The French Chef - Video Dailymotion

__________________
Still Running Against the Wind

Mexico' .. One plate at a time* (Rick Bayless)

~ Joe

I also have to vote for 2 not on the list:

Justin Wilson - home cooking for me
Alton Brown - love the science behind the recipes.

DUH! How about Giada de Laurentis??

She can cook popcorn I don't care

There are better videos


http://www.foodnetwork.com/giada-de-...iis/index.html

__________________
Still Running Against the Wind

Andrew Zimmern's show is not so much a cooking show as a chronicle of his adventures in eating around the world. He'll try anything that other people are eating, and looks like he has a lot of fun doing it.

Yet I know he has good taste. I used to eat at a place in Minneapolis where he was a chef, and I know the Twin Cities restaurants he likes to prowl when he is home.

My attention span for most cooking shows is not too long, maybe a little bit longer than it is for Oprah, so I haven't got too much to say about the others.

Extra Virgin. This guy makes very light Tuscan food. It's also a reality show but i still like it anyway, and one time he took his wife to the range to go shooting. This show actually got me to eat more vegetables and pig out less on massive overflowing platters of mexican food, for example.

Diners Drive-ins and Dives.. Real food done by real people.. May not like it but always interesting..

__________________
SWCA #2306
DAV in honor of POP

This is a very inspiring show. He goes around hanging out with very innovative people in an extremely tough business to succeed in, and they work so hard every day and really enjoy it. Almost as much as their customers. and these eatery owners just keep coming up with the most inventive stuff.

Diners, Drive-ins and Dives

My favorite, Guy is a great host, funny and gives us an idea what the average person is enjoying through out the US.

No chef in the world could make it like good old Mom.

Gourmet and Chandeliers, just not my style, great food in dives, and small family restaurants. If you walk by and look in, you will see my chowing down with a big smile on my face.

And boy do we have plenty up here in Boston.

__________________
Doesn't hasta call me Johnson

There is a big difference between cooking show (how to) and restaurant or places to eat and challenges.

Many years there was a great Italian show, Cooking With Carlos on PBS. I would watch it when I came home for lunch. I scribbled down recipes. Still have them. Wish I had found and bought his book.

I use some of Alton Browns recipes also, We have all the Frugs Books (ya ya, I don't want to here it he was a great chef before his life was ruined it was never proven) He incorporated the history and origin of food in cultures.

__________________
Still Running Against the Wind

I like the Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond.

You beat me to it. That's the only one I watch every week.

__________________
Rick, W0FG
CTR2 68-72

Alton Brown's "Good Eats".

i'd let giada teach me a thing or two...

i actually hate cooking, luckily my wife loves it...when i say i hate cooking...that includes reheating leftovers in the microwave. if i can stomach it cold...i'll eat it that way...

my wife makes some yummy meals and her baking has me gaining weight by the second...

I made no selection in this poll. I never knew how to cook and never wanted to. Then, after 6 years of marriage I had to put my bride on the street. (long sad and often funny story...for another time and place)

I kept custody of our 5 year old daughter. We got into the routine of me picking her up at the day care after work and go home and eat dinner in front of the tv watching Star Treck. One such evening she was pushing her food around on the plate looking totally bored and I asked her if she was not hungry or what. She sighed heavily and asked me "Dad, are go gonna have tv dinners EVERY night?"

I saw that as a wake up call. I called my mom and told her I was startin' to get complaints and could she show me a few moves in the kitchen. She did and it turns out that I had a knack for it which blossomed into a passion.

But my mom was not a chef. She was a cook. I'll just assume here for brevity sake that you know the difference. Cooking shows that I have seen and I admit here that there are precious few, MEASURE everything. Cup of this. tablespoon of that. Baloney. A real cook knows and has a feel for and a sense of what amounts of which ingredients will be needed in any dish. Sometimes we must experiment but tastes vary so widely that trying to stick to precise measurements seems to me like and exercise in futility.

Cook = Art
Chef = Paint by the numbers

Been married to wife #2 for over 40 years and, by mutual consent, I do the cooking 99% of the time. I'm not shy and I not overly humble when I announce that I am a good cook. I can get creative and a lot of my experiments actually turn out good.

I'm not saying that CHEFs aren't good cooks but they all seem like a bunch of snobs and stuffed shirts to me. I do like Paula Dean though and I'd jump at the chance to sit at her table.

Yeah, totally agree...

I must be the only Paula Dean fan.

No, I like her as well, even more so after that disrespectfull jerk Bourdain called her, as well as Rachel Ray and Guy Fiere ****** cooks and dangerous Americans.

One I should have remembered is the most gentle and saint-like Ina Garten in her "Barefoot Contessa".

P.S. I only have 10 choices to make on the poll.

I liked watching Emeril Lagasse.
.
.you know why theres noMexican cooking shows...cause it's all the same stuff just arranged differently.

__________________
Halfway and one more step

Nigella Lawson. I'd watch her make ice cubes!

If Yan can cook, so can you!

I watched his show all the time when I was younger. He is the first person to inspire me to want to cook.

Anything with Nigella Lawson!

Russ Nixon

I second that on America's Test Kitchen (and Cook's Country). Love watching them.