Thursday, February 21, 2013

Food, Not Fashion

"Just because food isn't fashionable anymore, doesn't mean we don't want to eat it!" 
Copyright by someone or other on the internet, not my picture
Thank you Nigella Lawson, for that quote from your show 'Nigella Bites', because while I adore cooking programs like 'Top Chef', I get really irritated when judges criticize contestants for making a dish or combining ingredients in a way that they think is cliche. I was especially irritated when a contestant (Stefan if you follow the show) was criticized for making chicken cordon bleu. They didn't say it tasted bad, they didn't say it was cooked improperly. They sneered that it was somehow corny or dorky to make that dish. What? It was a fried chicken challenge for chrissake, that's not exactly high-brow cooking.

If it tastes good, it's legit. And breaded chicken stuffed with ham and cheese sounds good to me.

So here's a link to a recipe from Food Network's Tyler Florence for Chicken Cordon Bleu. Let's all make it for dinner and mentally poo-poo the Top Chef judges for their insufferable simpering snobbery.