The Binge: Cooking Shows

Three Cooking-Related Shows I've Binged on Recently

A year or two ago, I started watching The Great British Baking Show on Netflix. I may have started with the holiday edition and then found the series. I tend to only watch this show, even the non-Christmas ones, during the October-December holiday season because baking just seems to be something that is a Christmas thing. Any other time of the year, I can take doughnuts to work and be hissed at by coworkers.

I guess, because of the way Netflix is set up, I ended up watching the most recent season first, and only just finished the first season this week. Wow. If you haven't seen it, I was shocked. Having already watched several seasons that came later, I was so surprised that there was anything controversial in the first season. One baker removed another baker's ice cream from the freezer, and it had started to turn into soup when he got ready to put his dessert together. The victim baker was angry and threw his entire dessert in the bin and was subsequently told he lost because he had nothing to present to the judges, despite having a good day the previous day.*

*Edit Note 12/7/2019: Since I wrote this, I noticed that the series is showing in a completely different order on IMDB.com, so I'm not sure which season this is supposed to be. On Netflix.com, it's Season 1.

Something didn't seem right, so I was immediately Googling "Did Baker 1 sabotage Baker 2's ice cream?" Bang. There it was. Buzzfeed had a whole breakdown of what happened. ALLEGEDLY, *cough* 😼, according to the article, said ice cream had only been removed from the freezer for 50 seconds tops. However, I had questions: Why did Baker 1 suddenly "take ill" before the next weekend and unable to continue? How did Baker 1's ice cream totally freeze in just 50 seconds while Baker 2's ice cream appeared to have been the target of a direct energy weapon? That's the big question: if it only took 50 seconds to melt Baker 2's ice cream, how did Baker 1's freeze in 50 seconds?

The show blamed the snafu on editing. Now, I'm totally aware of the editing. They always overlap things so that it looks like a baker has to ice a million tiny cakes as the emcee calls out, "Thirty seconds!" You know that the baker did not ice a million tiny cakes in thirty seconds and get them on the pass that quickly, right? So, I'm aware that they move things around with regard to the editing to make it seem even more stressful and dramatic than it already is. Still, there's no way Baker 1's ice cream managed to freeze in 50 seconds. And for me, the fact that Baker 1 left the show seemed very telling. And maybe I'm being paranoid (wouldn't be the first time), but removing another baker's dessert from a freezer, knowing the consequences, seemed very sabotagical.

Yeah, I just made that word up, but I'm going to go with it. SAB-O-TAJ-ICKAL.

The fiasco made the number one spot in Watchmojo's Top 10 Unforgettable Great British Bake Off Moments (story begins at 9-minute mark). You can see the melted dessert on the 9:25-minute mark, and I stand my ground that there is no way that dish melted to that point in 50 seconds. While I wholeheartedly agree that this was the most memorable moment I've seen so far, the Watchmojo video does not address Diana's absence on Episode 5.

 

The controversy was also covered in this article by The Guardian.

Anyway, after finishing the highly intense Season 1, I wasn't sure if I was quite ready to leap back into the fray with another season. Therefore, I waited until the next day to start a new season. I've enjoyed watching all of the episodes of The Great British Baking Show (alternately called The Great British Bake Off), which is far better than the American version. Furthermore, if you enjoy classical music, it has a wonderful soundtrack, which, if I were to attempt to describe, is like Mozart meets composer Thomas Newman.

I also watched a Christmas movie called The Christmas Calendar (not to be confused with Netflix's The Holiday Calendar, which star's former Vampire Diaries actress Kat Graham), which is available to stream on several services. If you don't like Hallmark movies, you will probably not enjoy this one very much. The movie is basically a twist on the You've Got Mail plot, which is a twist on The Shop Around the Corner plot. So it's a twist on a twist. You have a huge grocery chain moving in across the street and trying to put a small business owner's bakery out of business. I liken the small town and cast of characters to something like Runaway Bride, but there's no wedding in this movie. While the show had its funny moments, it did seem a little odd that you never once saw this baker actually baking in her shop. Those double-baked macaroons just kept showing up on their own.

Another show that I just finished was a lot like The Great British Baking Show, except there's no competition, it's not British, and there's no baking. Okay, so it's nothing like The Great British Baking Show. The show is called Wu Assassins. Set in modern day Chinatown in San Francisco, a chef suddenly receives supernatural powers to defeat five magically enhanced individuals who have abused their power. It's fun to watch the main character in the role that he most enjoys, being that of a chef. The trailer for the show seemed somewhat cheesy, but it's more to tell you the concept of the show than to really give you a sense of what the show is like.

 The directing and editing of the actual show were great. The show is fast-paced, and I found it compelling. So, if you like martial arts movies, I think you'll probably enjoy this one.

TTFN