TV-Fall 07-"Kitchen Nightmares", "Dancing With the Stars"; Kaitlyn Visits 9/2007

Some Kaitlyn and some TV.

Kaitlyn pays grandmother a visit and I watch closely for signs of special talent.

"Pepperoni and peanut butter", Kaitlyn shouts joyfully at her food "invention".

Might she be the next great chef?

We're following "Dancing With the Stars" for Fall 07 and I know only women watch this show.

Still I love it and we'll be watching it closely on the Blog.

Plus a review of Gordon Ramsey's "Kitchen Nightmares". Folks this show has got to be extensively staged.

Pic of the Day

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Pepperoni and Peanut Butter Anyone?

It was the beautiful September month here in the swamps of Delaware. The tourists were mostly gone, the Nascar race was done, the motorcyclists came and went. Time for the locals to enjoy the beauty of the resort.

I'd perused the local happenings in the area and discovered a YMCA fundraiser in nearby Rehoboth beach in which an entire avenue would be blocked off for the festivities. Curious, I continued reading the hype and I considered it a good deal.

The cost for me to enter would be $30.00. The cost for Kaitlyn would be nothing. For my thirty bucks Kaitlyn and I would have, completely void of additional payment, access to all sorts of food as provided by the many restaurant vendors in the area looking to help with the fundraiser while promoting their eateries. Kaitlyn would have access to several fun type of kiddie rides that would have her riding makeshift "trains" and jumping up and down happily in some sort of giant balloon trampoline thing. Both of us could peruse the many displays of other vendors on the avenue, many offering chances to win a prize or an opportunity to participate in their service or with their product.

Thus Kaitlyn had a purple butterfly painted on her face and spent a half an hour painting a tile, all offered by vendors in the area.

Below is a short video compilation featuring the highlights of the entire afternoon with some pics below.







So as Kaitlyn's fourth birthday looms this coming Christmas season I will now make an analysis of Kaitlyn's talents, all watched carefully by me with hopes that the child will not make the same mistake as her grandmother. Which would be me.

I am what is tongue-in-cheeky known as a Jack of all Trades but a Master of None.

Indeed. I can do accounting, I like to sing, I can paint a bit, I'm a bit of a cook, the gardens intrigue me, watching the bird fellows is my passion, I've a passing interest in photography and I am impassioned by current events, both of the pop and political type. Mostly I like to write and that is probably my best talent. Not that I'm proud of this.

For truly successful people, those folks who are born with a passion and a love for some activity, are often born with the job they were born to do already written in their genes.

Indeed.

Well sure the socialist libs don't like this concept because a nation full of happy individuals all pursuing their happiness the best way they see fit isn't part of the liberal repertoire.

Rush Limbaugh was born to be a radio talk show host no matter what you think of his politics. Merle Streep, while a bit of a Moonbat liberal, is an actress and one can see it in her genes. Pavrotti, yea he had the voice and that's a sign, but this was a man born to be a tenor.

I believe that mine own fine self was born to be a writer but I was ever too practical and never encouraged. So at too late in life I finally write and boo-hoo. The only writers who succeed in today's market are books by folks who are already famous. Most times these types can't even write but hey, they hire a ghost writer.

I believe that if I had been encouraged as a young woman to pursue my writing talent that I would be a success today. Which is not to say I'm not already a success in a manner of speaking because I can write any time I so want. I just don't make any money at it.

But anyway enough about Kaitlyn's ole grandmother. With an eye toward encouraging sweet granddaughter to pursue any talent she might show signs of, I watch the child engage in various activities and I ponder what's hidden in her genes that will make her wildly successful. So successful that she will be able to take her ageing grandmother on trips and such, heh.

At this recent Rehoboth street bash I noted that the three-year-old sat patiently and painted ceramic tiles offered for just such child entertainment by a local vendor. Three-year-olds are notoriously squirmy and don't forget that the child was sitting in a carnival type of atmosphere with loud music all around. Still she concentrated and painted her tile, her paintbrush actions studied by the young child, her eyebrows furrowed in her concentration.

Could she be the next great painter of our era I wonder?

Then again Kaitlyn has joined Mom-Mom at Sunday choir and the child loves to sing. I listen carefully and wonder if she might be a singer, perhaps the next American Idol.

One evening I got out the little compact computer I'd kept just for Kaitlyn visits. The child was wildly enthusiastic and, indeed, at her tender three years of age she was soon swirling her index finger around the mouse window in the portable computer, right-clicking and left-clicking and going to web sites that I'd saved in "favorites" just for Kaitlyn. She built ice-cream sundaes at the Ben and Jerry's site, dressed snow men at another site, put jigsaw puzzles together at yet another site. The child was dutiful and quite good with that computer machine. Ah well...Kaitlyn is the generation of children who will live their entire adult lives with the Internet and they will need to know how to use a mouse handily.

One night Kaitlyn and I sat in Mom-Mom's bedroom watching TV and enjoying a "Sprout TV" night show. This particular show featured a young man of maybe seven or so. This youngster was quite the chef and Kaitlyn was intrigued by the concept of a child cooking.

Soon Kaitlyn holds up a small piece of pepperoni that was part of our evening snack offering. Also part of the food action was a small plate of peanut butter put out for dipping the apple slices in. Inspired no doubt by the "sprout" chef, Kaitlyn held up a piece of pepperoni topped by a gob of peanut butter.

"How about," Kaitlyn said with a mischievous smile, "pepperoni and peanut butter?" She then burst into laughter at her newest recipe invention.

Snort.

Hey...I dunno...maybe Kaitlyn will be the next Food Network TV star.

For this is how genius comes to be, is it not?

KAITLYN
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Kaitlyn Mae is what it's all about. No, not MY Kaitlyn Mae but her generation. For they are the children who we are charged with leaving a society and environment at least as moral and pristine as we inherited; ideally even better than we inherited.

So I document her life as one little American baby is born, grows and learns about life and the world around here.

Some examples below:
Kaitlyn's birth. Her mother amazed the medicos but unborn Kaitlyn's two grandmothers were not fooled.
Kaitlyn's first birthday party was a huge success. Although there was the mystery of Kaitlyn's rather unusual way of expressing her joy.
It was Kaitlyn's second Easter. She was but a little over a year old and such as giant rabbits did tend to scare the child.
More Kaitlyn posts HERE
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"Kitchen Nightmares" Featuring Gordon Ramsey

Gordon Ramsey's claim to fame is as the foul mouthed chef of Fox's reality series "Hell's Kitchen". Links to this Blog's posts on Hell's Kitchen 07 HERE.

Now he's back with a series that will have him taking restaurants with serious problems to new levels of food offerings, customer ambience and increased revenue because Ramsey's changes.

"Kitchen Nightmares" is the title of this new Ramsey series and the name is a play off of his "Hell's Kitchen" series. The logic is that if Ramsey can take a bevy of inexperienced chefs and transform them into smooth and fluid cooks than he's the best leader to transform entire restaurants floundering due to all sorts of problems including bad management, poorly chosen names and lack of focus on the food.

All of which was part of the problem with Dillon's restaurant, the eatery featured on this show the evening of Wednesday 9/26/07.

This show is in the order of some of those home decorating shows that have experts come in to re-design an ugly room. The viewer follows the progress of the makeover until finally, TADA…the big REVEAL.

In “Kitchen Nightmares” we begin with Chef Ramsey taking a tour of the restaurant featured, sampling some of the menu and talking with some of the help.

Let me state right now that I don’t believe for one minute that this restaurant, known as “Dillon’s” exists and operates in the state in which it was featured on the night of 9/26/07.

First, there were NO customers in the restaurant and any point in the show. Come on. Why would a restaurant have TWO waitresses if there are no customers?

Second, there were three managers employed by Dillon’s. I cannot imagine three managers and two waitresses for a restaurant with no customers.

Third, that place was absolutely filthy and here’s a warning…do not watch this show while eating any kind of food. Indeed this Dillon’s place, alleged to be within a few blocks of Ramsey’s own restaurant, was filled with flies, roaches, rat droppings, and other disgusting stuff.

The food was rotten in some cases and completely wrong in others. Ramsey sampled a vegetarian platter in which he found meat and a dish of something called “Beef Bhuta” which featured not beef but lamb.

Then there was the General Manager known as Martin. This guy had to be the anti-christ if one were to listen to Ramsey. Martin was responsible for running the place one would assume per his job title. But this guy was always on the cell phone and Ramsey found him canoodling with a waitress but my goodness it’s not the waitresses have customers to wait on or anything.

Below a short video of Ramsey in action. Below that some revealing pics.









After all the drams of the bugs, the bad food, the lack of ambience and inappropriate name, the show ends with the big REVEAL.

The dining room is now painted a pleasant pastel, the menu is consistent with decently prepared food. Ramsey brought in a consulting chef to help the hapless Dillon’s chefs learn how to cook. The entire restaurant was steam-cleaned and de-bugged. The restaurant even got a new name in keeping with its Indian food. Finally Martin was terminated on the advice of Chef Ramsey.

I won’t commit to watching this show again. Ramsey does continue on with his famous cursing introduced on his “Hell’s Kitchen” series. The concept is not new at all and beyond his cursing, Ramsey doesn’t bring much to the show.

Restaurant owners might enjoy this show but I’m thinking the average viewer will watch it once and move on.
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”Dancing With the Stars” Fall 2007

List of Blog posts for last series of “Dancing With the Stars”.

I’m quite sure that this show is only watched by females of the heterosexual sort and males of the homosexual sort. There might be an oddball hetero male out there watching this ABC dancing show but there likely aren’t many.

I do quite enjoy the show. The pretty costumes and beautiful dancing entrances me and obviously I am not alone. This series has been ongoing for at least a few years. Somebody’s watching it. Thus I’m sure that only females will bother with my ongoing posts on the series but hey, that’s fine.

The series begins this autumn of 2007 with twelve contenders, six female and six male. The six female contenders are:

Jennie Garth-90210
Josie Maran-sports illustrated model
Sabrina Bryan-Cheetah girls
Marie Osmond-sing of the Osmond family
Mel B-spice girl
Jane Seymour=famous actress “Dr. Quinn” series



Jennie Garth began the dancing to the tune of “Uptown Girl”. Jennie is known for her appearance in the “90210” series and if I understood correctly, her brother had been a dancer in an earlier “Dancing With the Stars” series. I though Garth did okay but her partner, Derek, was positively terrific. Jennie got a total of 21 points out of 30.

Josie Maran’s claim to fame is how she looks in a swimsuit. She’ll not be widely known for her dancing skills as Josie was the first to be booted off in the elimination show.

Sabrina Bryan is a member of something called the “Cheetah” girls. She’s a cute thing, a little on the chubby side but in a good way. Her footwork in the cha cha was good, her outfit sexy and, in fact, Sabrina got the highest combined score from the judges receiving 26 points out of a possible 30.

Marie Osmond is a fairly well known celebrity, famed for being part of the toothy singing Osmond family and beloved by Oprah types for her confessions of postpartum depression. Osmond said that she knew she was older than many of the contenders but she looked forward to the competition.

Her routine was not complicated and she and her partner did some kind of sitting routine in the middle of the dance to kind of kill time. Marie does lend a kind of “girl next door” niceness to the competition. She’ll likely not win this thing but she’ll be liked by the viewing audience, kind of the Miss Personality of the contenders.

Mel B is a Spice Girl and by me she gave the best dance performance of the evening. She was sexy, fun and demonstrated a natural talent for the art of the dance. She received 24 points out of 30 and is featured in a 30 second video clip below.



Finally we have Jane Seymour, star of “Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman”. My experience with this series is that the producers often bring in someone more famous than the rest of the dancing “stars” even though that celebrity cannot dance very well. It seems to be done mostly to attract viewers to get them interested in the contest so they’ll stay on once their fave celebrity is sent packing. To my surprise, Seymour danced beautifully with an added elegance none of the other female dancers displayed. The judges too liked Semour’s performance and awarded her 24 points out of a possible 20.
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On to the male contenders for this year’s “Dancing With the Stars” Fall 2007. The list includes:

Cameron Mathison-soap star-ALL MY CHILDREN
Floyd Mayweather-world's number one boxer
Helio Castroneves-Indy 500 champion
ALBERT REED-model
MARK CUBAN-billionaire entrepreneur
WAYNE NEWTON-Las Vegas performer



Yes indeed folks, we have Wayne Newton dancing this year and A)I wondered how he got time off from his ongoing Las Vegas show to participate and B)How many plastic surgeries has this fellow had?

The male dancing began with Cameron Mathison, a soap opera star, who danced a Fox trot. Sadly, but humorously, his partner danced almost the entire song with half of her thong underwear showing. Heh.

His moves seemed hesitant but his dancing was entertaining. Cameron got 21 points out of a possible 30 points.

Next up we had Floyd Mayweather, billed as the number one boxer in the world. Hey, I thought his dancing showed a style, verve and enthusiasm that was impressive. Below a short video of Mayweather’s dance performance.



The judges, it would seem, were not at all impressed with Mayweather’s cha-cha and awarded him only 16 points out of a possible 30. Well sure his cha-cha was a little unorthodox but hey, the fellow could dance!

Helio Castroneves drives cars and I must ask why. First he has a dreamy name and two, he’s very handsome. Dancing to the tune of “Bewitched”, Helio performed a Fox trot and he was elegant and personable. Goodness who would think such a good dancer would drive a car? The boxer angle I can understand but a race car driver?

Helio’s partner wiggled her nose at the end of the song in honor of Samantha the witch. The judges were impressed enough with Helio’s dancing to give him an impressive 25 points out of 30.

Albert Reed says he is a model and he is very good looking. I watched this fellow dance and lord did he ever thrust his hips in such a sexy manner that I almost swooned. So okay, NOT.

Reed gave a fine dance performance but even the judges remarked it was like watching a strip tease…ie…the hell with what he’s dancing, just watch the action. Will his sexiness pull him through to winning status? I doubt it but he did get 21 points out of 30, not shabby for a stripper.

Mark Cuban is going to be the big galoot dancer the viewers will keep around for a while just because he’s so personable and self-deprecating. This fellow really can’t dance all that well and his claim to fame is questionable. Cuban is billed as an “entrepreneur” who made a fortune selling his Internet company for many millions.

Cuban danced in a suit covered with hobo patches to Roger Miller’s “King of the Road”. It was a cute performance but cute will only carry him for so long. In fact Cuban, along with Josie Maran the swimsuit model, was one of the two lowest scoring dancers in this, the first week of Fall 2007’s “Dancing with the Stars”.

Finally Wayne Newton and go with me folks, Newton is NOT a great dancer. Newton seemed to do some kind of stomping thing during his cha-cha, not really pretty to watch. Newton did unabashedly admit he knew his talents were limited then he launched into some sad story about a missed senior prom. Heh.

The judges gave Newton 19 points out of 30 possible.
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The following Wednesday the elimination show was aired. Dolly Parton was the guest on this show and something happened to that woman’s mouth that’s positively scary. Still she provided good entertainment and in keeping with the series’ theme, professional dancers gave us a lesson in how it ought to be.

Mark Cuban and Josie Maran were the lowest scoring couple based on some complicated scoring technique that combines both the judges and the audience votes. In keeping with last season’s series, the pretty women seem to get the axe first. By my theory it’s because early on in the show the homo crowd is doing most of the voting.

But I could be wrong.


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Focus on TV Posts of Fame
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Those Wacky TV Chefs. Includes Rachel Ray and the sexiest chef of them all.

TV News Pundits including Russert, spitting Matthews and the one I adore.

"Dancing with the Stars" of 2007, reviews, pics and videos.

American Idol 2007 and The Bachelor. One night's review with links to all the others.
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