Food.

Okay, time to be shallow as I possibly can, but I ADORE THE IRON CHEF!!!! I have never seen this before, because I seem to have a mandatory pop-culture waiting period before I can notice anything. This mandatory waiting period ensures that everyone else in the universe is over the particular item in question, just at the very moment I decide that I must hold forth on the subject immediately and lengthily.

But the voiceovers are so bad! So wonderfully bad! The soap-opera camera angles! The pot-bellied Jackie Chan impersonator! The bathrobes! The Japanese "Italian chef" dressed in an Italian flag! This is part olympic sporting event, part kung-fu movie, part talk show, part anime, part Westminster dog show.

Here is some actual transcription...

Announcer, introducing a judge: "Here is a man who also is loading up on chocolate and bananas!"
Judge, in hurt tone: "Why are you being faecitious about that!?"

Weird Random Announcer commentary on the subject of Valentine's day food....


"This jagged chocolate, it's not prickly in my mouth at all, or sharp, it only melts around."

"I was in Thailand the other day and I saw them doing this, and it looked so fun I just wanted to have an excuse to try it myself"

"Bananas it does not belong with alongside garlic!"

"Hey, I didn't really know that, bananas not eaten in Italy, I guess he's really going to have a big job up against him here..

"If you get it from a person you love, taste doesn't really matter, I guess..."

"He's not called the prince of pasta for nothing!!"


Ooooooh, the iron cheff is going to be completely smoked. That's okay, I was cheering for the challenger.


Yes, this posting has been 100% Quaker-free. I am catsitting, and have access to cable. All I do is sit and stare. And it may be a testament to the overall lameness of my social life, or some fundamental personality flaw, but I am sitting and staring at THE FOOD NETWORK and snickering at how innocently the most inane and awkward translations from Japanese grow exponentially to be unbearably suggestive.

Oh, thank God I don't have a TV.

PS. Also, I had his pots but I'd never seen the man...how the hell is Emeril famous? The man cannot talk and stir a batter at the same time. Yet...I guess if pushed I can begin to understand, on an intellectual level, his Robert DeNiro weds Martha Stewart in the back room of a filthy Coney Island video arcade charm. But still.