5 Reasons I am Addicted to Chopped

I’ll be honest.  I am a Food Network junkie.  I don’t watch the actual cooking shows, I love, need, live for the competition shows.  Challenge, Cupcake Wars, Iron Chef, Next Food Network Star, ah, I love them all.  But nothing, nothing, compares to Chopped.

Set your DVR, mark your calendar, do whatever you must do, but DO NOT miss it!

If you’ve never seen Chopped, oh my goodness, shame on you!  Crawl out of your Food-Network-deprived bubble and tune in.  You get three chefs, a basket of ingredients and a panel of judges to make insightful and snarky comments.  Oh, and there’s a time limit, too.  It sounds just like any other cooking competition, but it’s not.  It’s special.  Why, you ask?  Why, my dears, it sounds like you want a list!

The Contestants

Which one's going down first? Here's hoping it's the arrogant butthead!

By and large, the contestants are normal, hardworking, talented chefs.  But there are two specific categories that most entertain me.  I love the humble chef who has fought his/her way to the top and simply wants a little recognition.  I root for these chefs and it makes me sad if they’re chopped.  I want these chefs to win as much as I want the other type to lose, quickly and with great humiliation.  The other chef is the arrogant, egotistical, a-hole who is perfectly comfortable telling his/her competitors how much better he/she is than they are.  I want to jump and cheer when these guys screw up and get chopped in the first round, and it’s just icing on the cake when they say in the exit interview that “the judges just don’t understand my food.”  Yeah, this is true, not many people understand undercooked chicken.  The exception that trumps my feelings toward these two types, or any contestant, for that matter is crying.  Just stop it.  There’s no crying in Chopped, unless you’re Alex Guarnaschelli.

The Judges

DO NOT interrupt Alex. She will snap your head off, then cry with you.

I love them all!  I love it when someone tries to interrupt Alex and she gets all bitchy and snaps on them.  I love when someone tries to argue cooking technique with Chris and he shuts them down.  I love how Aaron tries to put a positive spin on the most awful dishes, and then corrects the pronunciation of Latin words.    I love Amanda’s angry face.  Okay, let’s be honest here, it’s sounding like I enjoy seeing people get put in their places.  It’s true, I do.  And there’s no one on television who can do it better than the Chopped judges.  Hats off, ladies and gentlemen.  You tell those bitches how you’re really supposed to cook goat brains.

Ted Allen

Suave and accessible. And he sits on the counter, too!

If there is a more likable guy on earth, I’ve never seen him.  I just adore Ted.  He’s encouraging, friendly and he plays dumb about ingredients to make us ignorant viewers feel better.  Also, there aren’t many men who can so successfully pull off the jeans & Chucks with a jacket and tie with quite the finesse that Ted does.  I love him so much, I want to take him home and make him my new best friend.  Even as I’m cheering for the jackass that just got Chopped, he’s wearing his friendly sad face and being nice.  Ted is so much better than I.

The Ingredients

There's never any shortage of WTF moments.

Where else are you going to learn about ingredients such as black chicken, preserved eggs, tamarind or sea beans?  Chopped is the reason that when my kids ask, “What’s this?” in the produce department, I can confidently deliver a monologue on Asian pears or Jicama, thus reinforcing the idea that Mom does, in fact, know everything.  Chopped has also gone a very long way in convincing me of the importance of adding a little acidity to rich dishes.  Chopped is both making me a better cook and educating me on ingredients that I would never, ever dream of eating.  I still won’t eat them, but at least I know about them.

Scott Conant

Look at him! Just. Look. At him. (sigh)

You may believe that Scott belongs in the Judges section, and my friends, you could not be more wrong.  Scott Conant deserves his own section, because he’s my favorite.  There are many things I love about him, first and foremost, he is a beautiful man.  When he smiles, I swoon.  There are no words.  He is perfect.  Another thing I love is his absolutely unreasonable hatred of raw red onions.  Put red onions on his plate, do it!  Oh, he gets so mad and I love it!  You can just see the outrage all over his beautiful face.  My all time favorite Scott Conant quote regarding red onions?  “I have anger toward this.”  Ha!  Thank you Scott Conant, for proving that even the best of the best chefs still get pissed off when they’re served food that they don’t like and for making me feel better about my own dislike of raw onions.  Also, he’s quite cute when he’s in a red onion fit of rage.

Do I have an unhealthy attachment to this show?  Do I have a not-so-secret crush on Scott Conant?  Do I think it’s hysterical when a holier-than-thou chef serves bloody chicken?  Do I almost pee my pants when there are thirty seconds left and a chef hasn’t even gotten plates yet?  Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes!!

All images via Google images.  Scott Conant has a website, but there are more pics of food than of him.  Boo.