So my favorite station, WLIW Create, has been airing a new cooking show called Coastal Cooking with John Shields. The show is all about recipes from various coastal cities and areas. Not a particularly fascinating subject in my opinion, but not really a turn-off either. The host on the other hand is this bizarro red haired shoulderless nerdy guy whose short sleeved button down shirts remind me of Martin Short’s Ed Grimley character. This is one strange dude, smiling awkwardly at his guest chefs, over-nodding in agreement with every uttered word, and making excessively exhuberant facial expressions at everything happening around him. Yet somehow this guy is an award winning cookbook author and has run successful restaurant kitchens for decades. Having read Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, it seems unfathomable that a guy like this could have ever survived the rigors and pace of a professional kitchen. I just don’t get it.

I’ve also seen a few episodes of Chef at Home on the Discovery Home Channel which also was a turn-off because of its host. In this case, the chef Michael Smith is a tall, greasy, bug-eyed dude who incessantly talks like he’s teaching kindergarten. Every episode he pretends he’s whipping up something on the fly from his incredibly well stocked pantry and refrigerator filled with all kinds of super fresh produce which he pretends he has on hand all the time. Super contrived, and the cooking always seemed kind of dumbed down, but maybe that’s just because he talks to us like we’re pre-schoolers. But I admit I was wrong about this guy. I downloaded an episode of his other series Chef at Large which I think they only show in Canada. I wanted to see this because it was about the first ever James Beard dinner held outside the U.S. The celebrity chef Susur Lee was one of the seven chefs selected to cook at this dinner, and of course Michael Smith was another. In this show, Smith was dealing with other professional chefs and cooking stuff worthy of a James Beard dinner. Good show, and now I can see this guy is not the lame-o he appears to be on Chef at Home. More importantly, he really knows how to cook. What I don’t understand is why Discovery Home chose to buy the rights to air Chef at Home instead of Chef at Large. Again, I just don’t get it.

Last year at our annual Carroll Valley golf trip, we held our first ever Ugly Shirt contest. We picked one day during the weekend where we would all play golf in the ugliest shirts we could find, and then we’d all vote on the ugliest during the dinner ceremonies. I bought a terrific monstrosity for $12 from the discount rack at Filene’s Basement and was pretty sure I had the contest locked up. Unfortunately, I had underestimated Pjura’s wardrobe as he found a hideous purple amoeba-paisley thing in his closet and ran away with the contest. When I got back from the trip, I balled the shirt up and threw it into my bottom drawer with my socks. I figured I could only ever wear that shirt again if there was another ugly shirt contest somewhere, or perhaps my next trip to Vegas. I hadn’t thought about it for the last nine months or so until tonight, when I was watching Mexico One Plate at a Time with Rick Bayless. Chef Bayless is one of the most respected chefs of Mexican cuisine in the country for his Chicago restaurants Topolobampo and Frontera Grill. Well ladies and gentlemen, may I present my Ugly Shirt in picture #1, and in the other, Rick Bayless from Mexico One Plate at a Time:

Is that awesome or what? Speaking of awesome, Kat treated for soft tofu and kalbi at Seoul Garden tonight for no particular reason other than she was craving it. Thanks Kat, you’re the best!