Pollan: We Love Cooking Shows, But Not Cooking

Male food snobs are elbowing women out at the stove

(NEWSER) - Over the past 40 years, the amount of time men spend in the kitchen has tripled—and they have turned the once-womanly art of home cooking into a competitive playing field. On TV, “it’s hard to keep up with the itinerant rage-aholics cycling through the Food Network,” writes Hanna Rosin for DoubleX , “as the celebrity chef becomes synonymous with testosterone-fueled asshole.” And at home, there's the rise of the kitchen bitch—and let's just say they're not women. More»

Vegetarian occupants hope chef 'is not rolling over in her grave'

(NEWSER) - The sacrilege! Not only has the kitchen in Julia Child’s former Cambridge home—familiar to millions of devotees of her show—been renovated to within an inch of its life, the Boston Globe reports, its new owners have hung a picture of a cow with the caption: “Nobody says when I grow up I want to be a hamburger.” That’s right: Lisa Landsverk and her family are vegetarians. More»

(NEWSER) - Nearly half a century after it was published, Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking is entering the New York Times bestseller list—at No. 1. The film Julie & Julia, starring Meryl Streep as the famous chef, has electrified sales of the cookbook despite its antiquated recipes calling for artery-clogging amounts of butter. The book sold 22,000 copies last week, more than any full year since its publication. More»

Falling ratings, expensive chefs add to business crunch

(NEWSER) - The recent cancellation of Emeril Live is just one sign that the Food Network is in the throes of a transformation, reports the New York Times. Having made chefs into stars, it is now trying to keep the money rolling in while facing increased competition—including instructional cooking on the Web. The network's ratings have dipped, especially on the weekend, forcing refunds to advertisers and perhaps a shift in philosophy. More»

Or at least, that's where GOP ad dollars are going

(NEWSER) - Apparently, Republicans love watching the weather. Campaigns are becoming much more sophisticated about where they spend their ad dollars, the New York Times reports, leading to buys in such unlikely places as the Food Network, Weather Channel, HGTV, and the History Channel. Studies suggest all of those networks have pretty good reach among Republicans in Florida; 36% of GOP voters there, for example, watched the Weather Channel last week. More»