I like to cook (and eat) and enjoy watching food-related shows on TV including, in its early days, The Chew. More recently, however, I've lost interest in it, as its emphasis has gradually shifted away from cooking and food and more toward idle chit-chat among the hosts and various second-rate guest celebrities, most of whom seem as if they've never set foot in a kitchen before. In fact, when you subtract time spent on silly games, craft demonstrations, dubious fashion tips, the aforementioned gossiping, and frequent, interminable commercials, there's probably less than ten minutes out of the hour-long show that concern anything edible. And when someone does get behind the stove on the set, all we usually get to see are billowing clouds of greasy smoke from burning fat and shots of food scorching in a blackened pot -- not very appetizing.
