Food Network, Star Cafe, and how to know when you can leave a book behind

One way I got through all our snow and ice days--five in the last two weeks--was to watch the Food Network channel. When I was doing idiot work at my desk, I kept the volume on; when I needed to concentrate I muted it but kept the picture so I could check every once in a while. Some of those chefs have become friends of mine, though they don't know it. Ina Garten is cheerful, soft spoken, and the kind of person you'd like to eat lunch with (if she catered it of course). For any who've read the Diane Mott Davidson catering mysteries, I've decided Davidson had Garten in mind when she created Goldie the caterer. In my mind's eye, Goldie is Ina. Then there's Guy Fieri with the spiky hair and all those weird concoctions he eats at Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dumps. It makes the mind boggle that any one man could eat so many high fat, high calories, high everything concoctions, but I've heard that he says the bite you see him take on TV is the only bite he takes. Still, the old-time, down-home, far-out cooking he discovers is mouth watering.
Lately I've been fascinated by two Robert Irvine programs: one is America's Worst Cooks, in which people who claim they can't cook apply for the class. Irvine and his fellow chef, a woman whose name escapes me, are merciless on these people, but those who aren't dropped out of the program end up  pretty good cooks. I think I'm a good cook--and most people who eat at my table agree--but I don't think I could live up to that program. Irvine also does a program where he has 48 hours to rescue a failing restaurant. He redecorates, re-invents the menu, trains the staff, and generally turns a failing restaurant into a new one. Last night, he demoted the head chef, derided the prepared foods they were using (the canned corn beef hash tasted like dog food [I love it with ketchup] and another prepared item was costing them ten times what it would if made from scratch in the kitchen). And, of course Bobby Flay is everyone's hero these days. I wish the recipes they cook were more accessible. I'm often too pressed for time to check them on the  web.
And who can talk about Food Network without mentioning Paula Deen --I have never seen one woman, even with that outrageous southern drawl, use so much butter, sour cream, heavy cream, you name it and it's fattening. I would never dare cook--er, okay, eat--half the things she cooks, but they do look delicious.
I admit a few cooks irritate me, like the lady who prides herself on the inexpensive menus she cooks--too cute. But then Giada and her Italian food--yum!
While I'm on the subject of food, Betty and I wanted comfort food tonight, so we went to the Star, the restaurant she and her husband own and where I used to work once a week for several years. We both had our mouths set for a bacon cheeseburger, which we split, and a salad. Wonderful! Bino cooked it just right, so it was pink in the middle and juicy. I have sent an email to Guy Fieri saying he needs to check out this restaurant--I may send another describing the Star Burger, which tops a burger with cheese, chili, onion,  pickles, jalopeno, and bacon. Now who could eat that?
I read today about a longtime boookseller who invented the rule of 50. Read 50 pages of a book, and if you decide it's not for you, you can set it aside without guilt. But as the woman aged, she realized her time to read was limited and there were still so many books, so she changed the rules. After you reach 51, subtract your age from 100 and that's the number of pages to read before you decide a book is not for you. I so rarely abandon a book--it has to be really bad--but I have been known to do it.

Remembering Elmer Kelton--once again

I didn't post a blog last night because I was consumed with reading a pdf proof of Elmer Kelton: Essays and Memories. It's not a festschrift in the proper sense of that term, because it includes several personal memories, but it is a book in tribute to the late, beloved author. I read it once in Austin, surrounded by all the hubbub of family. When I came home and read in peace and quiet I was amazed at how much more I caught--little things like misplaced commas and quotes mostly, but a few misused words. And, horrors, a dangling modifier--a grammatical error that can send me screaming into the night.
The book is due from TCU Press in the spring. Jim Lee and I co-edited--we've teamed up on some good projects. The essays and memories in this one are by people who knew Elmer well--all friends because everyone he met became his friend, but some of these folks have taught his work in the classroom. And probably my favorite essay is the one by his son, Steve, who succeeded his dad as editor of Livestock Weekly. Steve subtly blends in a son's memories with a more business-like assessment of way Elmer's work as an agricultural journalist contributed to the realism of his fiction. A truly great essay from a guy whose arm I had to twist to get him to write it.
Now I've sent the corrections off and am feeling--well, lazy, idle, whatever. Yesterday I bustled around and got lots done, like pulling up dead plants from the porch and a wash, but today I've been sort of lackadaisical and had such a sound nap that I woke up totally disoriented. Ate too big a dinner of leftover potato salad and egg salad and feel full and sleepy. But my Thanksgiving accomplishment is that with all that rich food, I lost a pound. Feeling super about that. Anyway, I guess I'll stumble my way through the rest of the evening, maybe reading a book. Tomorrow I must start reading the version of Mattie I plan to put on Kindle. And then I have to review and do a bit of rewriting on Skeleton in a Dead Space to put it on KIndle.
Meantime I'm reading Double Shot, a foodie cozy mystery by Diane Mott Davidson who is the star of that genre, in spite of all the other contestants. If anybody has read any of her novels about Goldy, the Colorado caterer, and also watched the Barefoot Contessa on TV, tell me if you don't think they're a perfect match! Ina Garten should play Goldy in a movie. Oh, bother, the fact that Garten is a chef and not an actress is a trivial thing!
Enough. I may eat chocolate.