Automne

As a 90s kid, Shawn Ashmore will always be relevant to me as Jake in Animorphs and Tyler in In A Heartbeat. He also was Iceman in the X-Men movies. More recently, he was in The Following. Don't mistake him for his identical twin, Aaron, who was in Warehouse 13 and is now on Killjoys.

I agree with so many here, especially with Joanna needing to use the homeowner's furniture. Unless the HO was in the market for new furniture anyway, use what they already have and fit it into the home's aesthetic. I mean, when you're willing to go the expense of moving in furniture for staging purposes, might as well help out the HO a bit and move in their stuff. Plus, Joanna can work around electronics, hiding all the wires and cords. And I do not like the open floor plan. Maybe it's because I'm not going to have children and thus no need for open concept, but even for entertaining purposes, there are other established rooms for that. I don't want people crowding me while I'm trying to cook anyway. Cooking is my zen and I don't want people in my way or chatting in my ear. Another issue I have with Fixer Upper is the same one I have with other HGTV renovation shows: there is never any attention paid to the yard. The "G" stands for "garden," so maybe return a little focus to that. There are homeowners whining about houses not having "character" on the exterior, but that can be remedied with some landscaping. Freshening up the grass (or going the astroturf route), plants and flowers, redoing the walkway leading to the front door, maybe a large focal point tree like a Japanese maple, etc. All that adds character. Same for the backyard. All these people apparently entertain and want space for their kids and dogs to run around, but the yard looks like crap and who knows what hazards are being overlooked.

I'm watching one of HGTV's weekly Fixer Upper marathons and Chip just fucking ate a live cockroach on what was obviously a joke dare by their client. I'd fire them on the spot because I would completely lose faith in their professionalism when it comes to something major and expensive like renovating my entire home. Nothing about Chip says "professional." He seems to want to spend his time reliving his high school jester and college fraternity days. I wonder how much he's actually involved in the renovation. Now I just think he shows up to do a little demo and install a window for the cameras, but is largely hands-off because he just seems too goofy and idiotic to actually be doing anything useful. HGTV, your viewers shouldn't be on the verge of puking when watching a show.

I'm amazed at her evolution in acting because she was honestly quite terrible in Intruders.

As per the discussion of Ree pretending she helps out with the physical labor of the ranch, I find it unnecessary for her to do so. If you're the one always cooking food for the brood and crew, no shame in not helping out, especially if you're just going to be a nuisance and in the way like Ree often is. But then again, when you are a ranch housewife and don't help out with the heavy labor, then there's no excuse for Ree's brand of half-assed cooking. Her youngest child is 11 and her oldest is in college. Her only job is cooking and taking over-processed photos. She should be channeling real pioneer women: cooking from scratch, utilizing a lush garden to its fullest, and practicing that Midwestern frugality by not destroying an expensive cut of meat by drowning it in marinade and using it in quesadillas. I mean, if it was leftover ribeye that was a couple of days old, then yeah, repurpose it. But quesadillas shouldn't be the purpose of buying ribeyes.

How many renditions of lemonade has this woman done on her show? An episode on now has raspberry lemonade and I know she has done blueberry and limeade at least once. That's something you show once and then explain how to translate that to other flavors and citrus. Also, her doughnuts are really flat, even after frying. There's no puffing up at all.

Ugh, this was awful. It's not even Vanessa dying that made it horrible, it's all the loose ends left dangling and to what exactly did the previous two seasons build. It just felt very unfinished, like they filmed the rough draft. If Vanessa was going to die, why couldn't it be after an epic takedown of Dracula and her realizing that her death frees herself and saves the world? I was expecting Vanessa to take Dracula down from the inside, so to speak, after she submitted herself to him. But instead, Vanessa gets an anticlimactic death in her only second appearance in two hours of television and everybody allows Dracula to just waltz out of there? I read the Variety article and it makes even less sense. If the show being three seasons was intentional from the outset, then why did they not properly plan it out that way? Give each season 13 episodes: first season is the setup of the characters (all the characters planned for the series), atmosphere, and the overall plotlines, season two starts climbing to the peak with the climax of Vanessa submitting to Dracula, and season three shows Vanessa as the Mother of All Evil and the other characters fighting for her redemption and to defeat Dracula and Lucifer. The Nightcomers could have been taken out of the series entirely; as much as Helen McCrory is a treat, the witches were total non-starters, especially since Hecate died without any sort of actual character development.

Rejoice! I saw today that Create is coming back to the DMV July 1st! It's taking the place of MPT2, so channel 480 on Verizon and 799 on Comcast.

Something I just noticed this morning: Brunch at Bobby's and Symon's Suppers are two alliterative shows that use the exact same kitchen set. I get that they can't build a new set for every single show they decide to produce, but at least make an effort to make them look different. Or build a generic kitchen set that can be decorated in a way to make it look different and to the personalities of Flay and Symon. Maybe not have such a distinctive backsplash and frosted glass refrigerator door.

Nope, didn't go to any of those. However they are featuring two well-known schools in my neck of the woods.

This new Murder U show has me wondering if my alma mater will be featured in two different episodes or combined into one (because the cases will be featured on there, no doubt). End of my freshman year, two girls were murdered. One was strangled in her dorm room by her stalker and another was shot by her ex-boyfriend in front of her apartment.

Exactly how many times is she going to do some variation of a burger on this show? Or sandwich? She is beyond repetitive. It's clear she has very little in her repertoire and just changes a previous dish slightly and pretends it's something completely new and different.

Chip's antics are too much. In one episode, Jo was sitting with a client and he comes up dressed as a swamp monster or something acting silly. The children were also hanging around. I find that to be pretty unprofessional. I also think them bringing the kids to a work site and eating hamburgers or pizza on the new furniture in the newly renovated houses before the homeowners have gotten a chance to even see their new home, let alone have a family dinner, is unprofessional.

Melting Pot! Symon and the other guy did the episodes dedicated to Poland and other Eastern European countries. The show had five sets of chefs and each chef duo specialized in a certain region of cooking. Aside from Eastern Europe, there was African/Caribbean/soul food, Latin America, the Mediterranean, and India. Here's the funny thing: I knew how to do that long before I went to culinary school because I benefitted from actual cooking shows that sought to educate first and entertain second. And I went to culinary school for pastry, so I wouldn't have learned that trick in school (the requisite savory cooking class didn't have us work on the grill).

Another salve to PW, Tiffani Thiessen, Valerie Bertandernie, and the nine million of food blogs that plagiarize from established food publications and each other: Panna. It's $20/year, but for it you get instructional videos that is like watching a cooking show, original recipes, chef Q&A, and actual chefs who have decades in the industry and aren't just trying to barge their way in without putting in the work while demanding the same level of respect.

I miss the FN back in my college days that had Food Finds with Sandra Pinckney, Cooking Live, Ready Set Cook!, East Meets West with Ming Tsai (and Ming's Quest), Food 911, Door Knock Dinners, Good Deal with Dave Lieberman, How To Boil Water, Melting Pot (the only time we got African and Caribbean cooking), Molto Mario, and that block of classic cooking shows like The Galloping Gourmet and Julia Child's original series. The channel had more heart back then and was actually about food and showing people how to cook, instead of just being mindless entertainment.

On a totally different subject, why has the "G" in "HGTV" virtually disappeared? We only see the renovation of house interiors, but no focus on the curb appeal or renovating the backyard for all these people that need space for entertaining. DIY channel has Yard Crashers, but that's about it. Property Brothers never focus on curb appeal. Chip and Joanna at least do some fixing up of the exterior to brighten it up. It's a little surprising that with home gardens becoming more popular since the recession, Scripps hasn't tried to monetize it by developing gardening shows (and having a proper "Pioneer Woman" on Food Network to show canning and preserving). I wish Martha Stewart would create her own channel, even if it was nothing but her programming over the past couple of decades. "In Martha's Kitchen" and "In Martha's Garden" were way more informative. None of these shows on HGTV or DIY even bother to show the audience HOW to do any of this (and you'd think a channel that calls itself "Do It Yourself" would have instructional shows; detailed shows on renovating a kitchen/bathroom/master "retreat"/whatever room and how to build furniture).

On the subject of Bobby Flay: I generally like Alex Guarnaschelli, but at some point last year, she posted a picture of him on her Facebook and got a legion of comments that were less than complimentary about Flay's character and she got upset about it, saying that he was her close friend and it's hurtful that people would post so many mean comments. This was when his highly publicized divorce from Stephanie March was happening and right after that airplane with the "CHEATER" sign flew over his Walk of Fame star ceremony. Like, you're going to be surprised people have some shit to say about Flay? You keep some questionable company, G.

I was 9-10 and in fifth grade when the murders and trial all went down. I remember a lot of us would bring our Walkmans to school to listen to the trial on the radio at every possible opportunity, especially when it got close to verdict time. I didn't know who OJ Simpson was or why he was famous. I'm sure I saw him in the Naked Gun movies, but I didn't know he was a football player. An interesting piece of trivia in regards to OJ being the quintessential good guy: when James Cameron was casting for the Terminator movie, OJ's name was bandied about to play the Terminator, but in the end, Cameron decided against it because he felt that nobody would take a nice guy like OJ seriously as a villain. As for Nicole, I never let mistresses off the hook. I have a very low threshold for infidelity and hold both members of the affair responsible. If you know the other person is married and that doesn't stop you, you're not a good person. It's hypocritical to have been OJ's mistress and then get upset when he started cheating on her. Why be surprised? If he'll cheat with you, he'll cheat on you. So his cheating was only okay when you were benefiting from it? She was 18, meaning she was an adult. Not a fully formed adult, but still an adult and old enough to know better. I wouldn't go as far to say she was a gold-digger. I don't fault any woman for being flattered about getting the attention of a handsome (so you all say, I don't see it, personally) and famous man, but I do expect some logical thought. Now, all that is completely separate from the domestic violence and her subsequent murder because who is going to think that their lover or whatever is capable of that before it happens? I mean, aside from the serial killer groupies out there.

She really goes OTT with gender role stereotypes. There's nothing about that meal that wouldn't appeal to males. Maybe Bryce and Todd would balk at the broccolini because they're kids and many kids tend to regard vegetables with suspicion if not covered in cheese sauce. But lobster mac and cheese? Pretty much anybody that wasn't a vegetarian, allergic to seafood and/or dairy, or disregarded bottom-dwellers would be all over that. Speaking of the lobster mac and cheese, she's letting her haute bourgeoise show again. I expect Giada or Ina to cook this dish on their respective shows (and they have), but they make no qualms about their upper-class lifestyles living on the beaches of LA and the Hamptons. But not somebody trying to desperately sell the aw-shucks-rural-country-bumpkin-Oklahoma lifestyle. The giant plot of land with two houses and cooking with Le Creuset is already pushing it, but that can be overlooked. But then making lobster for a random day with the daughters and not a special occasion takes it over the top. Especially for a person living in a land-locked Midwestern state where fresh seafood comes at a premium and would be out of the price range of most of the suburbanite housewives that make up PW's fandom. There's also how she and Ladd are so cavalier with expensive cuts of meat. I understand they can afford to be careless with how they cook meat when buying several whole tenderloins doesn't make a blip in the budget, but that's not something that should be shown when the whole schtick is the opposite. We all know Nancy Fuller of Farmhouse Rules is loaded, but she still convincingly sells the humble farmhouse home cooking grandma persona, probably because that is her heritage. I haven't seen her make any dish that wasn't easily accessible price-wise for her audience. And the back and forth between that and then making a cabbage casserole smothered in cheese and seasoning club crackers from a box on another episode just highlights what a farce PW is all-around.

God, that was disgusting. How anybody thought that was a good idea, I don't even know. I mean, it's not a terrible idea if it was just the siblings or a small group of friends, but a crowd of 30 people? UGH.

Check out What To Drink With What You Eat by the same authors as well. It goes into drink pairings (even soda!) and it's helpful if you like using alcohol in your cooking. A lot of food bloggers seems to have that issue, making things simultaneously simple and complicated. They can take a pizza, simple enough, and then complicate it with expensive and esoteric toppings like fennel pollen. Or they mash together five different things together into one dessert, like Nutella caramel popcorn pumpkin mascarpone brownie ice cream (God help me if that actually exists somewhere).

Not understanding flavor profiles and throwing way too much together is what bugged me about the former pastry chef I worked with. If it wasn't throwing orange zest into everything, it was ridiculous combinations like a chocolate peppermint cake with a citrus coconut sauce and lime chip. Chocolate + peppermint = delicious. Citrus + coconut = delicious. But chocolate + peppermint + citrus + coconut = nasty crap. The citrus and coconut will clash with the peppermint (remember how gross orange juice tastes after brushing your teeth) and those three flavors will completely overpower the chocolate. I always recommend the book The Flavor Bible because it helps to understand flavor profiles and is essentially a dictionary on what spices, herbs, liqueurs, and foods go with a particular ingredient, but she did not know how to use that book at all. She sees that citrus, coconut, and peppermint on their own go with chocolate, but doesn't get that you can't shove all four together into a cohesive dessert. I'm all about uncommon ingredient combinations, but it has to make sense. Like basil and tarragon in a peach cobbler. It adds floral/herbaceous undertones to the peach and highlights the citrus notes in the lemon juice I add for a little acidity to cut through the sweetness of the peaches and sugar. Be different, but don't be needlessly complicated. Keep it simple and stop looking at Pinterest.

I'm going to address a couple of different subjects in this comment, fair warning. I agree that it's suspect that Ree has a line of cookware and foodware, but only uses high-end Le Creuset and All-Clad on her show. Merely stamping your name on it should not be considered an endorsement of quality; you have to fully back your product by using it on a regular basis. It's downright dishonest to take advantage of people's trust in somebody with a cooking show by putting your name on shoddy equipment. I also agree that cooking is a lost art and is still on a steady decline. Turning food into competition and only giving any actual cooking shows to C-list celebrities who had their heyday 20+ years ago and not to accomplished chefs and cooks with years of experience in the industry does not inspire the average home cook. You watch Tiffani Thiessen, whichever Mowry twin, Valerie Bertandernie, and Rev. Run, and their food is stupid simplistic and they act like they've invented the wheel. There was an episode of Thiessen's show today where she made Juicy Lucy burgers and treated it like she hit on some rare secret, never mind that the existence of Juicy Lucy burgers predate her (of which I learned on the Cook's Country episode). The audience that has access to FN and the Cooking Channel are not the people who would be too busy to cook at home on the regular. At the very least, they have a day where they can do a week's worth of meal prep and can shop at a bulk wholesale warehouse (e.g., Costco, Sam's, BJ's). Non-PBS cooking shows don't show how to use time effectively because they don't have any host that has ever not lived in an upper-class bubble where there's plenty of time to leisurely cook and if there isn't, frequent eating out isn't going to ruin the budget. Pioneer Woman is really a lost opportunity because homesteading, gardening, canning, and preserving have become more prevalent (and not just from the upper class who want to slum it by doing things the poor and non-white have done for centuries out of necessity). The only thing she does somewhat right is showing make-ahead meals that can be frozen and pulled out to heat up in a pinch. I loathe how she's always sold herself as some down-home-does-it-all-on-her-own homesteader when she's nothing of the sort. Hell, she's got a flippin' garden and how much does she use from it other than herbs? If I had the acreage and free time she has, I would be growing as much produce as I possibly could.

Considering the character Liam's actor played in The Escape Artist, that's not a stretch. Speaking of that, with Jodie Whittaker as Fi, this episode was like 6 Degrees of David Tennant, except separated by only one degree. The scene where the two were having sex while replaying erotic memories was delightfully creepy with the glowing eyes effect.