What's Cooking?

I watch cooking shows purely to admire the food and salivate like a dog in the presence of a juicy bone. I will never actually make anything on the shows, since I can't cook to save my life, but it's fun to look. The lighting on those shows is magical. It makes the food look so unbelievably delicious that I could just lean forward and bang my head on the television screen trying to get a taste.

I especially like Ina Garten, who hosts The Barefoot Contessa. First of all, you have to love the show's name, and second of all, Ina is so likeable! She has that kind of low blood pressure Martha Stewart kind of quality that just mesmerizes you and makes you want to grow flowers and sew a quilt with your friends. I really doubt any of my friends would sew a quilt, and I would forget I was growing the flowers after five minutes, but it's nice to imagine it. I always think at the beginning of the show when it displays her name that it says "In a garten," and each time for a split second I scold the show's makers for misspelling "garden." Then I realize that it's only Ina's name, and I forgive them and watch the show. She should teach little kids cooking, and instead of it being called kindergarten, it would be called inagarten.

I loved the episode where she had one of her friends over and she set up the guest room with all this crazy stuff like fresh tulips, an array of fragrances, and extra toothpaste and a toothbrush. All I was thinking was how much I wanted to stay at her house. Then she and her friend kept missing each other in the house. Ina got up when her friend was asleep and left her breakfast, then went out to the market. When she was out, her friend got up and started cooking in her kitchen! Then the friend left a note saying she was going out to the market, and when Ina got back she was gone, and Ina snuck a taste of the food. Then finally they were together. And the cutest part was when they met each other in the kitchen for a midnight snack!

So the point of this whole story is that even if the only time you pretend to have your own cooking show is when you're heating up leftover Chinese in the microwave, you can dream of your own delicacies while watching the Food Network. And then you can go to Olive Garden.