My cable television company provides a wide assortment of specialty channels. There are channels for auto racing, tennis, golf, animals, and home and garden, just to scratch the surface. There are also some channels that USED TO be specialty channels (MTV, History, The Learning Channel) but now just program useless garbage. Usually I avoid specialty channels regardless of the garbage level. And this usually also applies to another one, the Food Channel, because I generally detest shows on cooking. You can have your Rachael Ray and Paula Deen...just keep 'em off my TV when I am in front of it, thank you. And I really, deeply, detest those shows that pit cooks against each other in competitions or involve "experts" insulting the dishes of contestants. But out of all the uselessness, there still stands one show on this channel that is so, so much fun to watch that it has become my current number one favorite show in all of television: Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.
In Diners, Drive-In, and Dives, chef-in-his-own-right Guy Fieri (or just "Guy", that'll do fine) travels the USA searching for local eateries that produce excellent food for its customers. The show is set up to filter out the "losers" in advance: all we end up seeing are just the successes, with Guy amiably chumming up with different restaurant owner/cooks as they demonstrate how they prepare their more popular dishes. Guy has an infectious personality, with an uncanny ability to hit it off well with just about every sort of character (some pretty offbeat) that one might encounter whipping up a delicious meal somewhere. Part of each visit (usually to three different establishments per half-hour episode) involves filming how the food is prepared, usually from scratch, back in the kitchen. The other part involves going to the dining area and showing how the food is presented to the tables, with Guy eliciting the "customary" fawning approval of customers. I love the positive vibes of this show, something you sometimes want when flicking on the boob tube after a hard, grueling day at the office. ...And also, I used to be one of those cooks back in a restaurant kitchen (for eight years, actually), prepping ingredients, mixing them, cooking them up, and setting them out for the server to present in the dining area.
If you want a respite from a lot of the negative crap polluting our television programming, then take a break and watch Guy do his magic. I dare you to watch Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives and not smile!
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