The Chew - General Discussion

[elzin]

I love Clinton, but he is very snippy. He is borderline nasty to Carla at times and tries to pass it off as joking, but his eyes aren't smiling.  Sometimes when I watch him (and I generally adore him), all I see his a very angry person trying his hardest to be nice and light. 

 

I'm not liking the viewer segments this season. Since I'm not in the audience, I don't care about audience stuff. I do like the "share your deepest secrets" stuff as they're usually funny, but why do I care about who sits at the tasting table if I'm not going to be sitting there myself?  Like too much of the show is set up for the studio audience and not the tv audience.  The segments are fairly decent this season so far, but I feel like we're supposed to be super excited about regular people cooking or getting advice and baskets, but as an at home viewer, I don't give a fuck.

[Iboatedhere]

I think the shows have gotten better since the season premier. There hasn't been too much audience interaction.

 

Daphne's baby shower was cute and those pregnant women in the audience made out very well, gift-wise.

 

I don't know how I feel about Mother Oz. Definitely better than Dr. Oz but I'm suspicious of anyone that aligns themselves that closely with him, Daphne excluded.

[elzin]

Watching Mom Oz, I felt almost claustrophobic. I can't imagine growing up where food was so restricted and healthful and someone shoving weird shakes down my throat. Granted, we ate like gross stuff and that's not good either, but it's very clear to me that Daphne has some food issues, so being healthful might have been good physically, but not mentally/emotionally.  And maybe I'm wrong and their house was more relaxed, but it sounds like they were ridiculously strict about food and really uncomfortable about it. 

[jcbrown]

I'm glad to see the Halloween-focused episodes and look forward to the Thanksgiving and Christmas ones. I always enjoy The Chew more during the holidays. I think having themes to focus on makes the episodes stronger. The exception was the week at Disney. That was a bit of a waste, IMHO.

[Qoass]

I don't know what it says about me but I'm excited to see their Halloween costumes on Friday.  Clinton apparently hates his which means it should be epic.

[chessiegal]

Who is Michael supposed to be? I missed the intro.

[FormerMod-a1]

Miley Cyrus.  I feel bad for Michael - he seems to end up in some really ridiculous costumes.  He deals with it well, and just laughs it off.  Granted, Clinton's costume this time is pretty ridiculous on him too. 

[jcbrown]

I thought Mario and Carla looked pretty good and carried off their costumes. Too bad they insist on making Clinton and Michael look silly. I liked Clinton better last year as Bad Sandy, since at least he had a connection to that role due to his love for Olivia Newton John. Michael does seem like he is game for anything but his costume and Clinton's feel pretty random this year.

[Iboatedhere]

I thought Mario looked and sounded great.

I saw someone suggest last year that Michael should be dressed as a dog dressed as something else and I cannot stop thinking about it. I wish someone at the show would go with that.

[Qoass]

What the heck is going on with Clinton's hair?.  Has he finally gone for a rug or is he just combing every strand he has forward?

[Qoass]

The Thanksgiving Time Machine segment was cute but as a former English major I was irritated by their insistence on apostrophes:  "40's, 50's, 60's", etc.  Apostrophes are used to show possession or contraction, not because you think a number next to a letter looks funny.

 

I am not a crackpot.

[Actionmage]

What the heck is going on with Clinton's hair?.  Has he finally gone for a rug or is he just combing every strand he has forward?

 

The husband, who barely pays attention to anything in the morning, saw Clinton today and was "Does he know his hair looks like that?"

[Qoass]

Aw, poor Clinton... he said on today's shows that there have been a ton of tweets and FB posts asking whether he's wearing a rug.  He confirmed that he's combing everything forward.  I don't think it works but whatcha gonna do?

[elzin]

I'm super annoyed. ABC really likes to do breaking news every day around 1. (Not sure if that's when it airs everywhere, but that's what it is here.) And generally speaking, it's RARELY anything that couldn't have waited until the 6 o'clock news. I mean, things were different even 10 years ago, but it's 2015. People can get info from other sources. Bumping your regularly scheduled programming at least once a week is a bad business plan.  Plus my local affiliate does it too for stupid reasons.

 

And normally it  just annoys me and I watch something else while I work, but for the last month or so the comcast app doesn't update. There's one episode instead of a couple dozen and that was literally the only update in weeks.  They're on hulu a week later, but hulu is awful on my computer and I'd rather watch it on my tablet.  It's like comcast and abc don't want me to watch!

 

Also, the comcast app insists the show stars Katie Couric and it confuses me every time, thinking she's a guest star and getting confused when someone else is on... or I shoudl say it used to confuse me back when new episodes showed up the day after they aired.

[jcbrown]

I was able to watch the Ugly Sweater one via the show's website. Maybe that helps?

[elzin]

I was able to watch the Ugly Sweater one via the show's website. Maybe that helps?

That would probably work. Or abc's site. And they do show up on Hulu, but I just prefer using my window fairly big on my computer when working, and watching it on the computer I have to make the player/window/tab really tiny. When it's on the app, I can use my tablet and have my computer free to work and not squint. :)

 

I saw today's "live" and I never noticed how tiny Ina is. I guess when I watch her show she's always by herself and I never really saw her standing near anyone not Jeffrey.

[jcbrown]

 

I'm super annoyed. ABC really likes to do breaking news every day around 1. (Not sure if that's when it airs everywhere, but that's what it is here.) And generally speaking, it's RARELY anything that couldn't have waited until the 6 o'clock news.

I thought of this post when I started to watch Thursday's episode and the news preempted the first few minutes of the show so the meteorologist could tell us it was raining. I have windows; I know it's raining. Breaking news like the San Bernadino situation that preempted Wednesday's show is one thing. Updates from the weather guy to tell us it's raining are entirely something else.

 

I was sad to see Thursday's episode did not include Michael. I missed him.

[Marathonrunner]

Certainly agree with the poster above - I had no idea Ina was so tiny

 

Anyone watch the other day when Kristen Chenowith was the guest? I don't understand grown women acting so cutesy/dumb - I sure hope it was an act - she didn't know what a sweet potato was & thought it was a carrot - seriously??

[elzin]

I thought of this post when I started to watch Thursday's episode and the news preempted the first few minutes of the show so the meteorologist could tell us it was raining. I have windows; I know it's raining. Breaking news like the San Bernadino situation that preempted Wednesday's show is one thing. Updates from the weather guy to tell us it's raining are entirely something else.

 

I was watching something else and they cut in because Hillary was giving a response to one of the shootings. That was a little bizarre. I mean, just one of the 10000 candidates giving a statement 11 months before the election is breaking news? Ugh.

 

 

Anyone watch the other day when Kristen Chenowith was the guest? I don't understand grown women acting so cutesy/dumb - I sure hope it was an act - she didn't know what a sweet potato was & thought it was a carrot - seriously??

 

I used to love Chenowith on Pushing Daisies so much but she's been really annoying the crap out of me the last few years. She was not adorable. She was really sad.

 

I would also like to complain some more about viewing this gd show. I am trying to watch right now on hulu and it took clicking on it several times for it to load. Then the video froze while the audio played. Now it's playing for 10 seconds, buffering, play for five, buffer, play for 20.  I tried to watch the couple I missed on my traditional comcast cable box and they only show one week's worth of episodes. WHY IS ABC MAKING IT SO HARD TO WATCH? ARGH.

[jcbrown]

Okay, we saw the show live today and I have some thoughts.

 

The warm-up guy is seriously good. I wanted to pay more attention to the set changes and adjustments between segments and he was so good at keeping the audience engaged that it was a bit hard to track both things.

 

Clinton is really that good looking in real life.

Mario is pretty freaking funny.

Carla is really engaged with the audience, just as she seems to be. At one transition back from commercial, they had to call her back several times because she was dancing with the audience. And she told me she liked my glasses!

Michael is pretty funny and also a consummate professional, the latter of which I am not sure shows in the show. We had to stay a few minutes beyond the end of the show so he could record promos. Guy is good at this.

All the hosts came across really approachable, even though the structure of the filming does not really give you a chance to approach most of them. Still, all of them made efforts to connect with us, even if it was as a whole audience and not as individuals. Totally enjoyable.

 

We ended up going to the show that aired today, where they gave away all the stuff. Holy crap!

[chessiegal]

I've been thinking of you and was hoping you were on this show with all the great gifts - yeah for you! So how do you get the stuff? Do they send it to you? I'm so happy for you. :)

[Qoass]

Ooh, I'm so jealous!  If you don't want that griddle/panini press, send it to me!

[elzin]

I'll be very excited to watch whenever I can find the episode!  (I never get to watch "live" on Wednesdays. I wrote to comcast and they said it's ABC's fault, so I'm sure when I write to them they'll say it's comcast's fault)

[jcbrown]

We could have gotten all the stuff times two because both my husband and I went. Sheesh! He declined everything because we did not need doubles of anything (and you have to fill out a W-9 because of the tax value of the stuff and we did need not to be taxed twice). I got everything except the Keurig (I think they are environmental disasters) and the countertop wine fridge (no available countertops and we already have one in the garage). They gave us certificates for the KitchenAid cookware (have to mail it in) and the ice cream maker thingy (order it online like a civilized company), plus they would have provided a certificate for the Keurig. The Philips pasta maker and the wine fridge should be/would have been mailed to us without further action. And the smoke gun, they gave us in a little shopping bag as we left. It was really pretty fun. I had zero expectations of getting anything--I just wanted to see how the show is made--so to be gifted with all this is pretty freaking amazing! I felt bad for the people in line for the taping after ours because people from our taping were telling them how much stuff we got as they were leaving and I don't know that the next show audience was getting anything (have to watch today's show to find out, I guess). I actually think the show would have been more interesting to watch without all the giveaways--not that I'm complaining!

Edited December 11, 2015 by jcbrown

[zenme]

Oh, for goodness sake, Michael, love ya, but get over it already with the ambrosia. I say this as a lover of my grandmother's ambrosia, although, I realize everyone has their own recipe. I have had some really awful versions of it, but it can be yummy. I can't have a holiday without it. I'd like to challenge him to make a version he likes.

[jcbrown]

Another thing I noticed at the show this week--both Michael and Clinton kept eating during the commercial breaks if they had been eating something they said they liked. Carla always went into the audience to dance. Members of the crew often got bites during the breaks, as well.

[merriebreeze]

Love Carla but that thing (Buffalo Chicken Casserole) she made today did not look the least bit appetizing to me.  Has anybody made it? Maybe it's one of those dishes that tastes better than it looks or sounds. 

Edited December 15, 2015 by merriebreeze

[Adan Canto]

It made me so happy to see Daphne return for yesterday's show. Her absence has felt very long, especially since the hosts have (surprisingly) made little mention of her.

[biakbiak]

I was shocked that Clinton had never heard Pappy Van Winkler bourbon.

[LemonSoda]

Love Carla but that thing (Buffalo Chicken Casserole) she made today did not look the least bit appetizing to me. Has anybody made it? Maybe it's one of those dishes that tastes better than it looks or sounds.

I've had variations of it. As a lover of all things buffalo chicken, most buffalo chicken concoctions taste better than they look. I've made the Frank's buffalo chicken dip several times and while the look turns people off once they taste it, it doesn't last five minutes.

I'm hoping to try Carla's recipe after the holidays.

Edited December 23, 2015 by LemonSoda

[Qoass]

I don't know if the producers read here but I just wanted to give a thumbs up to the Chew of Christmases Past episodes.  I didn't watch all of the first couple of seasons so it was nice for me to see some older shows.

[jcbrown]

Agreed. I enjoyed seeing some old ones, even though I have been a viewer from the very first episode. I was disappointed to see this week reverting to showing us episodes we saw a few months ago.

[elzin]

I was so happy to be home and able to watch a new episode "live" today with no pre-emptions. It's been AGES. I'm not sure if ABC and Comcast are done playing hot potato with my On Demand issue, but some are showing up in my queue.

 

Anyway, I felt so bad for Michael talking about quitting smoking. It's so hard. Well, quitting's easy. I quit a million times. Starting back up, however, is even easier. 

 

It really threw me for a minute because no one smokes publicly anymore. Like it's everyone's dirty little secret. It's not shocking that he smokes given the stories he's told and the high amount of smokers in the cooking profession (like everyone on Top Chef seems to smoke by the pool), but it's so shameful and private now it surprised me that he admitted it.

[designing1]

I'm always surprised when high-end (or high-end wanna-be) chefs smoke. I've never smoked, but I can't imagine smoking doesn't affect the taste buds, or the directly-related sense of smell. My senses as a non-smoker are definitely compromised when I'm near a smoker, even if they're not actively smoking; how do chefs manage?

 

On another note: Daphne. She's coming back. While I don't dislike her, I can't say I've missed her. I really don't know what she brings to the show outside of the nice rapport the five of them have when they're just shooting the breeze. From both instructional and entertainment standpoints, she lifts right out. I'd miss Mario and Michael's incredible expertise, Clinton's top-notch hosting, and even Carla's goofy "I can't talk and cook simultaneously" baking and home-style cooking skills. Daphne? It's just not clear to me what she brings to the mix.

[jcbrown]

I am sad that Clinton is taking January off. Happy for him that he can get the time to write but sad for the show because I think he is the heart of it. Hope this is not his way of starting to ease out. His current TLC show kind of sucks so I hope he is not planning on falling back on that.

 

https://www.facebook.com/thechewonabc/posts/1031304713595841?notif_t=notify_me_page

[Qoass]

While I hate that Barbara Walters started this why have a host when you can have five of 'em business, I will confess that it's kind of nice that Clinton or Daphne or Mario can disappear for awhile and I still have Carla and Michael to enjoy.

[imjagain]

I am sad that Clinton is taking January off. Happy for him that he can get the time to write but sad for the show because I think he is the heart of it. Hope this is not his way of starting to ease out. His current TLC show kind of sucks so I hope he is not planning on falling back on that.

https://www.facebook.com/thechewonabc/posts/1031304713595841?notif_t=notify_me_page

That makes me sad too! Clinton is my favorite host.

I wonder what he is writing? To take off the whole month of January and social media seems a little bit extreme. I Wish him luck, but I hate that he'll be gone so long.

[Irlandesa]

That makes me sad too! Clinton is my favorite host.

I wonder what he is writing? To take off the whole month of January and social media seems a little bit extreme. I Wish him luck, but I hate that he'll be gone so long.

I was afraid it was a health issue so I'm relieved it's only to finish a project.  (Or at least I hope that's what it is and not a cover.)

 

But I don't begrudge him a break and it's really not that unlike Mario & Michael's breaks.  They seem to take weeks off here and there when Clinton never does.  Clinton's just consolidating them into one month.

[Qoass]

Aarrrggghh!  It's ten ingredients or FEWER not ten ingredients or less!!

 

Yesterday's show must have been written by the same person who keeps putting the apostrophes after the numbers in 80s, 90s, etc.

 

I am not a crackpot.

[Qoass]

Clinton's back!  Nice to see all five together again-- first time since last October.

 

I had assumed CK was writing a food or lifestyle book but it's apparently short stories from his life.  I'll have to check that out.

[ari333]

never mind

Edited February 3, 2016 by ari333

[Iboatedhere]

I wish Michael would chill. He gets so worked up about what is considered a pizza and what's not and unusual flavor combinations and faux meat products. Like, chill out. I get that he's a chef but honestly it's just food. It is not that serious. It makes me want to eat a whole package of Morningstar Farms chicken nuggets in front of him (because they are tasty).

[chessiegal]

 

It makes me want to eat a whole package of Morningstar Farms chicken nuggets in front of him (because they are tasty).

 

 

His wife probably does. ;-)

[Ms Lark]

I had assumed CK was writing a food or lifestyle book but it's apparently short stories from his life.  I'll have to check that out.

I had hoped he was in rehab for his obvious drinking problem! Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive.

[ari333]

I enjoy this show as background noise while I do other things. And sometimes I see a great recipe. ;-)

I like the personalities on this show. (as opposed to others. *cough cough*)

[ari333]

I am worried about Mario's health. HIs breathing sounds labored.

[ari333]

Carla was crushing hard on Derrick Hough. Cant say that I blame her.

[biakbiak]

I wonder if no one gave them a clue that Craig is a recovering alcoholic. He looked surprised when the beer was pulled out, yes the alcohol cooks out but a lot of people don't like to eat it anyway because of the taste.

[ari333]

I wonder if no one gave them a clue that Craig is a recovering alcoholic. He looked surprised when the beer was pulled out, yes the alcohol cooks out but a lot of people don't like to eat it anyway because of the taste.

 

THIS! ^^^

[chessiegal]

What's up with Carla doing the voice intros that producer Gordon Elliot used to do? Not complaining, just wondering if he's not exec producer any more. I haven't paid attention to the credits.