The opening salvo of Film Critic Roger Ebert’s review of Michael Bay’s 2001 epic Pearl Harbor insisted that it was ‘a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours’ proving that once again Einstein was right in determining that time is relative. And to some extent, this echoes my exact feelings on having struggled through at least part of the second episode of Food Network’s woefully unwatchable Worst Celebrity Cooks in America Star, which felt strangely like a 30 minute programme pointlessly dragged out for an hour. One excruciating and unbelievably long hour. After last week, I did not actively seek out this monstrosity. Rather, the Food Network was merely the channel playing in the background as I went about other things waiting for the first of three special 20th anniversary episodes of Absolutely Fabulous.
As I occasionally strode past the television I would glance in on the stagnant action, mostly choosing to do so whenever Alyssa Campanella was featured, but soon found my attention wandering to thoughts of Michael Bay’s 2001 epic Pearl Harbor and big explodey things and wondering how this stink bomb could be improved by dramatic aerial battles or CGI dinosaurs or cats playing the keyboard or longer shots of Alyssa Campanella’s legs.
At one point, a group of recent graduates from various pastry schools were invited to taste and critique a series of desserts made by the celebrities. One of the students, in reference to Taylor Dayne’s strawberry shortcake said, ‘This cake feels like it grew out of soil, nice and fresh.’
‘Ooo, I love that description!’ exclaimed Rachael Ray, her cavernous mouth looking like an aircraft hangar on my 50-inch screen.
I walked out of the room.
Later, Alyssa Campanella and her legs were defeated in a gruelling ten minute salad cook-off against Summer Sanders who, despite having served nearly raw salmon in her dish (when a requirement of the challenge was to have one cooked element), had packed all sorts of other things into her salad and Guy Fieri thought that was ‘off the hook’ or some completely fucking stupid thing I couldn’t care less about since Alyssa Campanella got the shove.
In the meantime, here is a picture of Rachael Ray enjoying an ear of corn in rather an inappropriate and suggestive fashion…
