I have a confession to make

Hi. My name is Pat.

I am an addict.

A Food Network addict, that is.

I L-O-V-E watching the Food Network channel. No matter what time of day or night it is, I can tune it in and get my fix. It's always available.

You can't always find that with other additions. Also it is pretty cheap seeing how the channel comes with basic cable or satellite dish.

I feel I am like this (crossing my two fingers together) with Paula (Dean), Giada (De Laurentiis), Rachel (Ray), Ina (Garten), and I'm working on my friendship with new chefs.

You gotta love Paula.



She opens her show with a big, "Hey, y'all!" and cooks in this huge, beautiful southern home. It has a built in deep fryer right in the counter. Now that's someone who LOVES deep fried foods!

Yesterday she actually deep fried a cheesecake!

Yes, ma'am she did!

Paula cut a piece of cheesecake and placed it on an egg roll wrapper. Then she rolled it up and deep fried it.

One would think that would be enough.

Oh no. Then she sprinkled powered sugar over it.

Done?

Uh no. THEN she put some whipped cream on top.

Done?

NO! Then she drizzled some caramel sauce on top of that. NOW it was complete!

And what I really love about Paula? She takes a big ole bite of whatever she makes! She doesn't care if it gets all over her face! She just laughs it off.

Paula doesn't have a really heavy southern accent but she says things like, "I'm fixing to make". It took me a while to understand that when she said, "all" she meant "oil"; the same went for "ball" as "boil".

Giada De Laurentiis makes me glad that I'm half Italian.



Although she can be too "cutesy" for me at times, her recipes are good and I love watching her cook them. You can tell that she loves to cook and be around food. Why she can eat that much pasta and still stay skinny is way beyond my comprehension. I love the way she pronounces the Italian dishes perfectly, since she was born in Rome. She grew up in a large Italian family. She is grand daughter to Dino De Laurentiis.

Now Ina Garten? I would LOVE her life.



She has this gorgeous house in the Hamptons. Her husband teaches at Yale and only comes home on weekends. (No wonder they act so lovey-dovey on the show!) Ina actually started out working in the White House on nuclear energy policy and switched to cooking.

Although she is WAY out of my league, her recipes are all very good. I just have to chuckle when she says things like, "use GOOD vanilla", as opposed to what, the crappy 2-for-1 blue light special kind at K-Mart?

Ina's garden is the size of a small house. She MUST have a gardener to keep the weeds at bay. Just imagine to walk out your double doors that are thrown open to let in the fresh sea salt air, and go to your garden to cut fresh herbs for your dinner and fresh flowers for your table. Aahhh, now THAT's the life, for sure!

Rachel Ray was really the first love of my life. Well, as far as chef's go.



She's famous for her "30 Minute Meals", and now she has a talk show on CBS. I watched her religiously - she was on twice a day! Then she started doing a traveling show, too, and I got "Rachel-Rayed" out! Rachel has the gift of gab and talks through the whole show, and REALLY cooks the meal in 30 minutes. Some of her trademark sayings are, "E-V-O-O" meaning "Extra Virgin Olive Oil" and "GB" for garbage bowl, which she recommends putting on the counter for easy clean up. Her recipes are usually good. Now she's hawking all kinds of cookware, pots/pans, knives, you name it.

The one chef I just couldn't tolerate was Sandra Lee.



Don't get me wrong. I mean she seems nice enough. Her show was called, "Semi-home made with Sandra Lee". The thing that would set me off is that she'd have a color theme going for that day. Let's say it was PINK.

EVERYTHING would be pink.

The curtains above the sink. Some platters on the shelf. The MIXMASTER. The toaster. Her BLOUSE. The canisters.

It was enough to make me puke.

And she would do this with EVERY show. In a different color, of course. Like as if THIS portrays real life.

Yes, I match my curtains to my blouse, DAILY. Oh, and my small appliances. Right.

So I was able to flip the channel when she was on.

I am starting to open up my addiction to newer shows like Cooking for Real, and Five Ingredient Fix, and the list goes on and on. Plus, they've just added ANOTHER cooking channel to the mix.

It's called The Cooking Channel. Original. I know.

You may notice that I didn't mention any male chefs. Well, after I found out that "The Naked Chef" wasn't REALLY naked, I wasn't really interested in watching men cook.

note: all photos courtesy of www.foodnetwork.com. That's a great website for recipes, too!