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Nightmare on Reality Street

When Survivor first aired eight years ago, I would not have guessed that nearly every channel, even on satellite, would air some kind of reality show. I understand the fascination of watching “real people” in unusual situations. How will they handle themselves? Who has the drive and endurance to triumph in the face of overwhelming challenges?

But are we going too far? Are we developing a sick appetite for watching people suffer verbal and emotional abuse? And up close and personal too – in front of millions of people! Didn’t the Romans use the Coliseum for something like this? Dig out Stephen King’s “The Running Man” or “The Long Walk”, both written under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. Now turn on your TV and look for similarities. What if Dog really did just shoot instead of capture?

As a kid, I grew up watching the Galloping Gourmet and Julia Child. Not a lot of conflict. Then the Iron Chef made its debut in the early 90’s, offering a real time look at how cooking is done under pressure, but still involving professionals. But as “real” reality has caught on, a whole new set of reality cooking shows have appeared over the past three years. For example Top Chef, and Hell’s Kitchen, and new this season, The Next Food Network Star.

It’s all about the money. And that money is coming from people like you and me, who continue to tune in and watch shows that purportedly give one person the chance of a lifetime, while allowing us to witness the torture and humiliation of an entire lineup of contestants.

Take Gordon Ramsay, for example. He has an older series, filmed primarily in the UK by the BBC, called Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. In this series, Gordon travels to struggling restaurants and spends a week helping them get their acts together. Gordon is an in-your-face kind of guy, who uses lots of four letter words, but he is clearly empathetic and caring in these episodes as he gives tough feedback to lazy owners, egocentric chefs, and broken wait staffs.

Fast forward a few years to Gordon’s second series, called simply Kitchen Nightmares, filmed in the US. He’s not so nice anymore and seems to spend as much time calling people names as he spends giving them useful guidance.

Now, put on your seat belt, get out your sick sack and prepare for some really rotten behavior. Turn on Hell’s Kitchen! While this show has some really entertaining moments, just imagine treating your kids the way Gordon treats the contestants on this show. I guess Chef Ramsay figured out how to make a buck somewhere along the way, but I really miss the way he used to care

And maybe we shouldn’t tune in quite so often.

– Chris

Sweet Home, Alabama!

The denizens of the frozen north, some of whom are family, migrate south for the winter to avoid the ten-foot snowfalls and unreasonably cold weather.  During the deepest, darkest and coldest part of winter, a 30 mile strip of beach in Alabama adjacent to the Florida border, called Orange Beach, serves as home to our frozen friends and family.  For the last four years during January or February, we’ve trekked with the kids to visit our parents during their winter stay.  While it’s not exactly balmy and temperate this time of year, there certainly is no snow and the temperatures are well above freezing!  And best of all, it’s affordable to rent a place right on the beach and you’ll mostly have the beach to yourself.  If you’re a seashell collector, you can join in the competition for the near perfect specimens that wash up during the night and clamor for attention from those who hit the beaches first.

Frankly, in addition to visiting family, the great part of a visit to Orange Beach is to wake up in the morning, walk out into the living room and look out upon the expanses of white sand and rolling waves.  For military buffs like our number two son, the Pensacola air museum and the battleship USS Alabama are only a short drive from the beach.  As for food, while I’ve not tried to find any fine dining during our visits, we have visited a few places that are well worth a stop for the experiential value.

Billy’s Shrimp

Of course, the pole position goes to Billy’s Shrimp.  While not exactly an eating establishment unless you set up your Coleman stove in the parking lot, Billy’s sells shrimp and fish that are fresh caught by the throng of fishing boats clustered around the weathered and decaying dock.  During a visit to Billy’s, you can’t help but feel like an extra during filming of Forrest Gump, with a little sense of Deliverance thrown in for measure.  I’ve never seen anyone playing the banjo, so I keep going back, and they ship shrimp by mail so there is no excuse for not having a freezer full of the best gulf shrimp to be found anywhere.

Ahhhhh, my favorite food stop of all!  Billy’s Shrimp!

I love the shrimp AND the boat they came in on!

Island Time ….

For a sense of island time, LuLu’s is the place to go!  Lucille Buffet, aka Lucy, aka LuLu, aka Jimmy’s sister, owns this seafood café right on the marina.  With great local seafood, prepared Southern style, and live music in the evenings or Jimmy’s tunes from the juke during the day, you just know its gonna be a relaxing and tasty meal.  I highly recommend the gumbo.  Highly.  And the fried green tomatoes.  And if you like oysters, don’t let the chance to have Lulu’s oyster loaf sandwich get away from you.  While oyster loaf may sound pretty much terrible, this sandwich is basically a stack of a dozen or so fried oysters on a poor boy French roll.  So good, you’ll cry.

It’s almost Margaritaville …!

Throw them rolls …

And finally, for pure experience, it’s Home of the Throwed Rolls, aka Lambert’s Café.  Lambert’s is a family run business in its third or fourth generation of the family, and specializes in really gigantic servings of Southern comfort food.  While the food is just OK, the experience is terrific.  To start with, the rolls really are “throwed”!  A server comes from the kitchen wielding a big pan of rolls and starts heaving them towards the tables.  While it seems a bit like trying to catch a fly-ball at a little league baseball game, everyone eventually scores a roll.  The main dishes include a huge selection of sides like cucumber and onions, white beans and ham, cornbread, coleslaw, baked beans, etc.  But wait, there’s more!  Servers come around and offer up helpings of fried okra, sorghum molasses, apple butter, macaroni and tomatoes, potatoes and onions, black-eyed peas and more until eventually you’ve been offered the equivalent of a second meal.  You won’t soon forget your visit to the Home of the Throwed Rolls, and going away hungry does not happen at Lambert’s!  One tip – for main dishes, try the chicken fried steak or the chicken dumplings; those are my favorites.

The not so auspicious beginning of the Throwed Rolls experience …

He’s gonna throw them rolls!!!

Wrapping up …

A few other comments.  My brother in-law, as represented by his sister, says the Waffle House has rockin’ waffles.  Dad says Jessie’s has great whiskey steaks.  I know that Lillian’s has pretty good pizza and Hazel’s has a guy who can flip omelets with the best of them.  Rumor has it that the Floribama is a good bar … need to try that one firsthand next year!

– Chris

We’re Tasting in the Rain!

Laura and I are hanging in the California wine country this weekend, checking out some good restaurants and sipping some fine California wines.  We’re staying at a romantic cottage-style bed and breakfast called Bungalows 313 in Sonoma, which was discovered on our behalf by our good friends Mer & Dave.  Dave’s bachelor party, which included wives and soon-to-be-wives, involved racing high performance go carts at 120 mph around a track at Infineon raceway.  The night before the event we spent a short night at the Bungalows, since we arrived late and were out again early to “go racing!”  This was our weekend to rediscover the premises.   Our conclusion: we like it here as much as we thought we would!

It’s been raining 2-3” per day for most of the last week, so it’s pretty quiet here in wine country, making it easy to hit wineries on the Silverado Trail that are usually overrun with tourist tasters.  For today’s libation samples, we first went to Black Stallion, founded by the owners of a liquor store chain in Minnesota.  I rate it S’Ok for its $50+/bottle price point.  Then, it was on to Darioush which was founded by a Persian grocery store owner out of Los Angeles and is a clear Woo-Hoo!, albeit with $70+/bottle wines.  It’s worth stopping at Darioush just to walk inside the palatial winery and tasting room.  It appears that no expense was spared.  Amazing.  Crazy, but Amazing.  Next on the trail for us was Chimney Rock, also with Woo-Hoo! wines that are priced commensurately.  Here we met first time novelist David White and scored a signed copy of his new wine-country murder mystery, ‘The Good Life’.  I’ll let you know how it reads!  And finally, as we neared the maximum vino intake even for us, came ZD wines, which has some truly wonderful chardonnays and cabernets.

Of course, we had some great food while in the wine country, including a glorious dinner at Café La Haye in Sonoma, lunch at Meritage Martini and Oyster Bar in Sonoma, dinner at the Martini House in St. Helena and a truly remarkable Portuguese lunch at LaSalette in Sonoma.  Check out my restaurant reviews for all of the details!  Be sure to add Café La Haye and LaSalette to your list of places you must go.  Both serve truly fantastic food in a friendly, casual environment and have the Zagat ratings to match.

Our weekend finished up at the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Spa for a massage.  This, of course, is the site of the infamous theft of every electronic device in my car when we stayed here about a year ago.  I left my car with the valet and as we were pulling out the next morning, I noticed my GPS was missing.  Oh crap, my phone charger is gone too.  Heck, my phone is gone!!  My iPod is gone!!  Whew, at least my sunglasses are here.  Apparently, I have great taste in electronics but crappy taste in glasses.  In any case, management was ZERO help, so be forewarned.  Secure your belongings and don’t use the valet!

– Chris