AllAboutMBTV

chessiegal: I have a friend who works on ATK, and said friend told me that two of the presenters did not use their own kitchens. (One used a studio kitchen, the other rented one). It's pretty easy to tell on air as their kitchens are about as personal as a hotel room. My friend did not say why they didn't use their own kitchens, but were I one of them I, too, would have to rent a kitchen as mine is too small and not designed for filming (anything I'd do at the stove would be with my back to the camera as there's no room to film from the side of the stove). Logistics!

I know someone who works at ATK, and I've begged him to ask the producers to give precise measurements for things like onions and carrots (spices they measure precisely). Instead of saying "add one chopped medium onion" say "add one cup of chopped onion." I live in California, and nearly all the onions I see at Safeway or independently owned markets are nearly the size of my two fists and can in no way be what they mean by "medium." (Russet potatoes are even bigger; I can occasionally find small shallots). I only see what I would call medium-size vegetables at farmers markets anymore. I often have the same complaint with recipes in the NYTimes and other publications, both print and online. Give the actual amount needed, not some vague non-measurement that varies from person to person! Also: Nice home kitchen, Adam!

I, too, enjoyed the look into the presenters' kitchens in the first episode of ATK At Home. I had to laugh at Julia's standing paper towel dispenser, which I'm pretty sure Adam pooh-poohed in a previous season. Also, her hair looked so much better, much less shellacked. (She also had a bandaid on her middle finger that came and went.) And agreed with the above poster in that the banter was not missed.

I started steaming eggs after reading Kenji Lopez-Alt's article on it in the NYTimes (last year?). After years of picking little mosaics of egg shells off the eggs, I can now get the shells off in three pieces. You can use fresh or old eggs right out of the refrigerator, no ice bath afterward is needed and no green rings around the yolks. Also unneeded: the old wives' tales of adding a bit of vinegar to the water or (my favorite, which I actually did for years) adding a wooden matchstick to the pot, the sulfur from which kept the eggs from cracking while boiling. It did work, I guess, so, thanks, Nigella Lawson!

Late to the wedding reception, but, fuck-a-doodle-doo, I love this show! Sr Michael for the win! (I did a literal spit take at her description of an egg and onion sandwich being "able to turn an Orange march." Had to pause the episode to clean up the mess.) Speaking of my favorite episode, I have never in my life seen a line dance you do sitting on the floor. Don't your clothes get filthy? Have you seen what people track in on their shoes? Delighted there'll be another season. In the meantime, I'll be rewatching and feckin' pissin' meself.

Did we know The Guy's first name was Rufus or had I merely forgotten?

I watch it because Rita Moreno and Justina Machado are hilarious, and the show is so Old School it's like a warm bath (or a hot shower, one of other things that makes me feel good these days).

Put. The. Whole. Theme. Song. Back!

Well, Martha Stewart is apparently besties with Snoop-Dogg, so who knows. Also: Girl, do NOT touch Martha! I am cringing for you! Also also: Other Girl, do NOT steal other people's packages -- you are not hurting Amazon with that! (Props to the show: It never goes where I think it's going to.)

I've been watching one episode a day of S3 and finished it yesterday. While I think this season teetered on Flying Off the Rails (the whole film studio/Phantom plot, while fantastic to look at, belonged in a different show, I think, but the identity of the Phantom was a totally unexpected surprise of a callback), I still looked forward to my daily episode, just for the production design alone. (I did miss Moka Efti, though.) And Graf singing to his lover at his birthday party while his boss accompanied him on the accordion and Charlotte and Gereon necked in the hall dinged my hard little heart (see also: Greta). I kinda wish the season hadn't been a flashback from the market crash as it took away some of the power of the last scenes (which from our history books we knew was going to happen anyway). At least evil Wendt got screwed a bit. I still don't know what Helga sees in Nyssen (or why the Coincidence Fairy kept having Charlotte see Helga around Berlin, he said vaguely so as not to spoil much). Toni! What is *wrong* with you? I assume/hope/pray there's going to be a fourth season, otherwise they wouldn't have (sorta) introduced Charlotte's unknown brother, a handsome athlete. Also, where is that traaaaaaaaiin!?!? More, bitte!

I may have clapped like a little boy when the singing telegram guy got the TAL interview. I did not see that coming, so well done, show! The escort segment of Trick was kinda squirmy. I hope that nice guy gives online meetups a rest and tries the face-to-face route. At least you see what you're getting from the start. (No shoe-wearing in my apartment either!)

And next week: Jake returns! (No spoiler, it was in the preview at the end.) Noah Reid is never funnier than when gobsmacked by Steve Lund.

My Milk Street Drinking Game (of ANNOYANCE) is counting how many times Josh M says "...go ahead and add" (or stir or pour or grind). In the recent Moroccan lamb, er, chicken recipe he said it THIRTEEN times. Just say "add" or "pour" or whatever!! Gah...

When my sainted grandmother would bake an angel food cake, she'd turn the pan upside down on a glass Coke bottle to let the cake cool. Lord knows how long she'd had that one Coke bottle, but that was its only purpose, other than collecting dust in her pantry. (She made a damn fine angel food cake, perfect served with slightly macerated berries.)

However the Top 20 Recipes were selected, I think I'm right in noticing that NONE of them involved an outdoor grill. I have a friend who works on the show and have pleaded for fewer grilling segments as I live in an apartment and grills are a no-go. While I'm not uninterested in grilling techniques as such, they're not anything I'm going to practice any time soon. If ATK wants to occasionally have a couple of Very Special Episodes on Grilling (or Cooking With Kids, which I'm surprised they haven't done), great! I just won't watch those. (Also, I have to laugh at the repeatedly repeated steps of wire-brushing the grill and then greasing the racks with oiled paper towels.) Nice to see Adam and Jack get a chance to cook for once. They should do that semi-regularly; it would be an easy enough segue from whatever they're testing/tasting to a recipe.

For anyone looking to make Cook's Country's Drop Meatballs, I'd use 92% lean beef not the 85% they recommend. Because the meatballs cook in the sauce instead of being browned first in a pan, all the beef fat stays in the sauce. I skimmed most of it off but would definitely use leaner beef next time -- and there will be a next time as the meatballs and sauce were very good and very easy (with a shocking minimum of bowls and pots used).

Final-season premiere announcement!

While I thought this season was largely kind of a mess -- which was epitomized by the last episode in which they put on a play the day before they have to evacuate because: Germany; who does that? Pack! Say your goodbyes! -- I'm sorry the series is over, because I liked hanging out with these nuts (and also trying to figure out which scenes were filmed in England and where the green screening stopped and started). Still, I think the show had run its course (and certainly gotten miles off the source material). I wish they'd focused a bit more on the tertiary characters -- the doctor and his wife, Sven (oh, that was just mean to bring him back only to hide him in a satyr costume), Lugoretzia, the monks and whatever happened to Leslie Caron's countess? Anyway, the final dinner in the Mediterranean made me feel all warm, so well done, show. My PBS station in San Francisco has the Durrells special on from 7:30 to 9:00p on Nov. 10.

By way of a thank-you, I threw some money to PBS and bought the Country Music 2-CD set (the 5-CD set seemed a bit too much of a muchness). My Emmylou go-to's are Evangeline and Ashes By Now, oh and Mr. Sandman and To Know Him is To Love Him off the Trio CD she did with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt (worth it for the cover alone!). Please, Mr. Burns, a documentary on The American Musical before you shuffle off.

If we can't have Larry can we at least have Sven?

Can someone please give Bianca Borges her own show? I find her both soothing and authoritative (and Chris even dials down his shtick when he's on camera with her).

Back to peanut butter briefly: I buy Skippy Natural Super Chunk "peanut butter spread." It does have sugar and palm oil but no high-fructose corn syrup. And it's very crunchy. I need to try Cook's Country's drop meatballs.

I can take or leave a lot of Cash's output, but I didn't mind all of the Cash coverage (although I did have to laugh/cringe at the clip of him smoking on AP Carter's grave) as I do think he's a through line for the entire documentary. What Burns and team could have done is trim the Kathy Mattea section (and I like her) in order to show more than just brief photos and clips of alt-country artists like Lyle Lovett and kd lang. (Even just brief segments on lang's retro Shadowland CD and Lovett's racially diverse Large Band -- which could play anything from swing to western swing to blues to honky-tonk to heartbreakers -- would have been nice. Again, too many artists to cover, I get it.) Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams and Patsy Cline must have looked down from Country Heaven at Garth Brooks flying and laughed. Nice that Mother Maybelle got the final photograph of the series. It's odd that while I'm sorry the series is over I was also ready for it to be over. I blame myself for watching it nightly instead of banking all the episodes on my DVR and then watching one a week, almost as a treat. I wish I knew why PBS airs Burns' documentaries nightly with a break for the weekend instead of once a week. I do love his work, but next time I'm going to dole them out to myself. (Or so I say now...)

I don't mind the emphasis on Johnny Cash as he is a throughline in Country Music, but I could have done with a shade less Dylan (amazing songwriter, but his voice hits my ear like dying coyotes yowling; YMMV, of course). Two things made me laugh out loud -- Rhiannon Giddens talking about her grandmother and Hee Haw, and that Gratuitous Shirtless Photo of Kris Kristofferson. Whose idea was that? I knew very little about his fascinating backstory -- Rhodes Scholar and West Point instructor (nearly...) to janitor -- so thanks for both, show! (Does anyone know if his mother ever came around?) When I was a college freshman all the seniors I knew had The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" triple album. (When I was a senior, we all had Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours," and some of us had learned from our elders and had WtCBU as well.)

I've heard Patsy's "Sweet Dreams" more times than I can count, but I don't think it ever seemed as moving as it did played over the final credits of last night's episode. (Add me to the list of people who didn't know Roger Miller found the plane. Yeesh...) My one complaint about the episode was the Louvin Brothers got about a minute of time (I certainly understand the series producers have thousands of acts to possibly cover). I didn't discover them until about 15 years ago when the (highly recommended, at least by me) tribute album Livin Lovin' Losin' came out. Their harmonies are so gorgeous and so, well, mysterious; I can rarely tell which is singing the melody and which the harmony (maybe they alternated while singing).