Paula Deen

Maria Bamford: Comedy's Wild Orchid Works From Home

Stock Up on Kitchen Supplies on the Cheap at the Meyer Factory Outlet Sale

Headed to wine country or Tahoe? Plan to stop and shop at the Meyer factory outlet in Vallejo or Fairfield for a once-a-year deep discount on pots, pans and nifty cooking gear from the likes of Rachael Ray and Paula Deen through December 10. The annual Friends of Meyer sale also runs online through ... More >>

Baron Ambrosia Is So Full of Awesome WTF That We'll Even Watch The Cooking Channel

Each week, we take a quick, cautious look at what's going on with food TV. This week, The Culinary Adventures of Baron Ambrosia, a half-hour show about Aladdin Sane, Fridays at 7 p.m. on the Cooking Channel. In this space, usually I end up steering you away from cooking shows, not because I want to ... More >>

You Can Watch the Food Network a Full Day and Only See Five Shows

Each week, we take a quick, cautious look at what's on going with food TV. This week we review Monday, airing Monday on the Food Network. Most cable channels can't withstand scrutiny. They're good to catch a quick show like Tommy Lee Goes to College but stay too long and the bottom drops out and yo ... More >>

Edibles: Burned Out on Sweets? Cheesy Popcorn is a Savory Solution

I'll admit, the whole drama that erupted between Anthony Bourdain and Paula Deen this year fascinated me. If you're not as gossip-driven as I am, here's a summary: Bourdain called out his fellow Food Network star Deen when she came out as a diabetic, despite pitching recipes like the one where she ... More >>

The Food Network's Invention Hunters Is Predicated on a Bigger Lie Than Most Food Shows

Each week, we take a quick, cautious look at food TV. This week, Invention Hunters, a half-hour show about hunger in America, Mondays at 9 p.m. With Invention Hunters, the Food Network returns to a genre it's had much success with in the past, the Tumbledown Effort Outside Our Core Competency That ... More >>

Cupcake Wars: The Problem With a Cupcake Show Is That It's a Cupcake Show

Each week, we take a quick, cautious look at what's going on with food TV. This week, Cupcake Wars, an hour-long show about one thing, over and over, until death comes, Sundays at 8 p.m. on the Food Network. Cupcake Wars has been on the air just two years, but they're already finishing up their fif ... More >>

On Trisha's Country Kitchen, Trisha Yearwood Can't Stop Proving How Damn Country She Is

Each week, we take a quick, cautious look at what's going on with food TV. This week, Trisha's Country Kitchen, a half-hour show of executives laughing at us, Saturdays at 10:30 a.m. on the Food Network. Trisha Yearwood is a two-time cookbook author with a new show on the Food Network about souther ... More >>

Meat Men Offers TV's Best Meat Porn

Each week we take a quick, cautious look at what's going with food TV. This week, Meat Men , a half-hour show about three male strippers in a Taco Bell, Mondays at 11 p.m. on the Food Network Meat is all-encompassing, all-embracing. Panoptic. When marbled cuts enter the picture all talk of ramps, o ... More >>

Dumb Food Show Easter Unwrapped Is as Adorable as a Baby with a Peep Stuck to Her Head

Each week we take a quick, cautious look at what's going with food TV. This week, Easter Unwrapped, an hour show that never hurt anybody, April 7 on the Cooking Channel It would be a crime to critically review Unwrapped, to lay any sort of smothering blanket upon this innocent show, which films fac ... More >>

Restaurant Critic Gets Gout

​Seems about as obvious a chain of events as Paula Deen getting type 2 diabetes, doesn't it? Wait, didn't gout disappear in 1782? (The restaurant critic writing this post grows a little sweaty, flexes toes to make sure they're not producing burning, stinging pain.) Unfortunately not. Yesterday, f ... More >>

Rachael's Vacation: When Rachael Ray Pretended to Visit San Francisco's Restaurants

​Each week we take a quick, cautious look at what's going on with televised cooking. This week: Rachael's Vacation, a half-hour show you didn't hear about from me, Fridays at 4:30 a.m. on the Food Network. Rachael Ray has 31 television shows and a line of car wax. I try to know as little as p ... More >>

The Donatella Project: All We Can Say for Sure after Watching Is That This Awful Show Exists

​Each week we take a quick, cautious look at what's going on with televised cooking. This week: The Donatella Project, a new Dirk Balthazar novel by the Hugo-award winning author of the Sigma Protocol and the Prometheus Deception, on March 10 and 11 on the Cooking Channel. What's the Donatella Pr ... More >>

The Sandwich King Is Not Especially Informative about Sandwiches or Royalty

Each week we take a quick, cautious look at what's going on with televised cooking. This week: Sandwich King, a half-hour show about the Black Plague, Sundays at 11 a.m. on the Food Network. Jeff Mauro, former stand-up comic, is the Sandwich King, but how he ascended to nobility I know not. I fear ... More >>

Worst Cooks in America: A Hater's Guide

​Each week (except last week) we take a quick, cautious look at what's going on with televised cooking. This week: Worst Cooks in America, a one-hour documentary about Arizona, Sundays at 9 p.m. on the Food Network. The premise Imagine a competition in which the worst cooks in America -- let' ... More >>

Rose Pak's Vulgar Display of Power

The video of power broker Rose Pak's triumphalist tongue-lashings of the city's elected officials as they rolled beneath her feet at the Chinese New Year's parade is enjoying its 15 minutes of Internet fame.Online commentators relish heaping scorn upon San Francisco when our attempts at progressive ... More >>

Food Hoarders Is Pretty Much Regular Hoarders, Just with Food

Each week we take a quick, cautious look at what's going on with televised cooking. This week: Stuffed: Food Hoarders, a one-hour special that sours as you watch it, Feb. 11 and 12 on the Cooking Channel. Kudos to the Cooking Channel for showing food in as disgusting a light as possible, and for pr ... More >>

Fat Chef Is 400 Pounds of Bad Food TV

Each week we take a quick, cautious look at what's going on with televised cooking. This week: Fat Chef, a one-hour show about steamed vegetables, Thursdays at 10 p.m. on the Food Network. In another effort to put even more distance between itself and food preparation so skilled it demands to be pu ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

Rachael vs. Guy Celebrity Cook-Off: The Food Network Craps Out

Each week we take a quick, cautious look at what's going on with televised cooking. This week: Rachael vs. Guy Celebrity Cook-Off, a one-hour show about the debt ceiling, Sundays at 9 p.m. on the Food Network. There used to be only A and B-list celebrities, divided by movies and television. Then te ... More >>

New Obesity Prevention Tactic: Take Two Chard Leaves and Call Me in the Morning

​According to an article this morning in the Bay Citizen, a group of pediatricians at Oakland's Highland Hospital have begun testing out a new tactic for reducing the risk of obesity and diabetes in children: writing prescriptions for fruits and vegetables. It's just one of a number of pilot progr ... More >>

Hating on Diabetic Paula Deen Is Fun But Premature

​Yesterday, after Paula Deen finally sat down with Al Roker on the Today Show and admitted that she'd been diagnosed with diabetes type three years ago, the food world has been engaged in the loudest round of "I told you so" SFoodie has ever heard. Yes, the Enquirer sniffed this out last year ... More >>

The Food Network Somehow Even Ruins Its Ice-Carving Show

​ Each week we take a quick, cautious look at what's going on with televised cooking. This week: Ice Brigade, Fridays at 4 a.m. (fuck!) on the Food Network. Ice Brigade is a show about ice carving, and if I didn't like ice carving so much all of a sudden I might have some pretty terrible things t ... More >>

Jeff Mangum is Vegan, Milk Ads are Hilarious(ly Bad), & 20 Best Vegan Dishes in the Mission!?

​• The awesome Compassion Over Killing launched ads on Hulu this week and they're being very well received! I love the idea of people sitting down to watch Paula Deen tap dance on a dead pig or whatever she does and then BAM! Here's the real deal! Love it -- give COK all your money so they can k ... More >>

Paula Deen's Death Food, Beet Sweets, and Sandos: This Week in Food Bloggery

CT Young/SF Weekly Flickr PoolThe Saloon on Grant.​Highlights from the blog this week: 1. In his review of Bobby Deen's new television show, Not My Momma's Cooking, food TV reviewer Michael Leaverton keeps calling Paula Deen's cooking death-food. Not three days later, Paula Deen is finally going ... More >>

Food TV: Bobby Deen Has a Show Because His Mom's Food Is Unhealthy and Terrible

Each week we take a quick, cautious look at what's going on with televised cooking. This week: Not My Mama's Meals, a half-hour psych pop quiz, Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on the Cooking Channel. In Not My Mama's Meals, the Cooking Channel convinces Paula Deen's son Bobby to remake her death-food in a ma ... More >>

Park Tavern: Casual Dining for the Wealthy

Shark's Fin Ban Makes It Through Assembly, Women Who Changed The Way We Cook

​Today's notes on national stories, local trends, random tastes, and other bycatch dredged up from the food media.1. Another Victory from the Shark's Fin Ban. SF Gate reported yesterday that the State Assembly just passed AB-376, which bans the sale and import of shark's fin across the state. The ... More >>

Obama Writes a Book, Macarons Are Trending (Again), Paula Deen Explains All

​​Today's notes on national stories, local trends, random tastes, and other bycatch dredged up from the food media. 1. The First Lady gets a book deal. According to the Washington Post, Michelle Obama just signed a contract to write a book about the White House garden and healthy eating ― an ... More >>

Top Chef: All-Stars, Week 10: Ironing Chef

Delfi Jingles/FlickrCookie Monster: "C" is for "kooky."​Last night's Top Chef: All-Stars began with Dale mouthing off. "I'm not like these new-school parents who are like 'we're all winners' ― f@ck that. That's bullshit, man! Who ever said losing is okay? In what country is that cool?" In ... More >>

Best Practices for Shopping High at Costco

​clarksworth/FlickrSmoke up in the car first, and this can feel like a fucking blast.​Like complaining about people on welfare while collecting unemployment yourself, eating 99-cent double-bacon cheeseburgers while voting down health care, shopping at Costco is one of our God-Given Right ... More >>

Standing Up for Bullies, Taking the Rest of the Beef Out of 'Taco Meat'

​SFoodie's roundup of tips, news, and rants from the week in animal-free eats. • Uh, did you know that if you live in S.F., you can get a free spay or neuter at the SFSPCA for your dog or cat during the month of February? TRUE FACT. So if any of you are running around with companion animals ... More >>

Nog-ocado, Natalie's Footwear, and Piling onto Noah's Ark

​SFoodie's roundup of tips, news, and rants from the week in animal-free eats. Over on the PPK, vegan goddess Isa Chandra Moskowitz posted a recipe for a vegan nog that includes avocado. I don't know 'bout all that but the lady is super talented so it's probably the tastiest. Try it and repo ... More >>

Lil Wayne, Paula Deen, and Iced Coffee: This Week in Food Bloggery

John BirdsallBecause we just like looking at photos of ramen (this bowl's from Hapa Ramen).​This week's highlights from the blogs:1. Have you read the essay SFoodie editor John Birdsall wrote this week about how street food has exploded in San Francisco, and why? Because you should. 2. The biggest ... More >>

The Doughnut Sandwich Comes to San Francisco, via Pal's/Dynamo Mashup

Like absolutely anything used as a base for bacon, the doughnut burger ― two Krispy Kremes bracketing a greasy meat puck ― is a potent American meme. Mistress of the meme: Paula Deen, who in 2008 managed to combine bacon and the doughnut burger in an immortal moment of television excess. Tomor ... More >>

Swap Meat

Doggy Bag: 2009, the Year Meat Went Bad

sean dreilinger/FlickrIt was kind of like that.​Our favorite morsel from the blogs. Craven carnivores: Civil Eats posts Erik Marcus's look back at the year in meat, excerpted from Vegan.com. Markus's look back is generously marbled with snark, and it's not exactly a surprise that the meat ind ... More >>

The Crazy Eight: 2009's Most Scandalous Moments in Celebrity Food Gossip

Andrew CrowleyBrit celeb chef Heston Blumenthal's restaurant allegedly poisoned 500 people in 2009.​Murders! Poisonings! Runaway grooms! The year in celebrity food gossip reads like a script for The Young and the Restless. Behold these crazy eight moments: 8. A household name in his native UK, che ... More >>

Thin Slices of Fuyu Persimmon Help Make a Killer Amuse-Bouche

cbcastro/FlickrA Fuyu, photographed at Ferry Plaza.​Persimmons are springing off their trees right about now. In yesterday's Chronicle, Janny Hu suggested uses for each of the commonly available commercial varieties currently in season -- that is, both the firm Fuyu and squishier Hachiyas: [W] ... More >>

Eight Creative Additions to Your Thanksgiving Feast

Thanksgiving is upon us, but instead of sticking with traditional turkey and stuffing, why not spice things up with some more creative fare? Some of these dishes might freak out your grandparents (or you, for that matter), but they're guaranteed to spark a conversation.​ 8. Guac-a-BirdJello is usu ... More >>

Paula Deen Smacked in the Face with a Ham

Poor Paula! Celeb chef and honey-voiced Southern cooking doyenne Paula Deen was hit in the face by a ham earlier today. "Ran head on to a hog," said Deen after getting walloped by a Smithfield Foods ham that was accidentally lobbed at her during a Hosea Feed the Hungry benefit event. Pretty sure Smi ... More >>

Season Six of 'Next Food Network Star' to Hold Open-Call Auditions Here

Kim in Cajun Country/FlickrNo, this isn't the real Guy Fieri, just a wannabe like you.Admit it: You bust out your Guy Fieri moves in front of the full-length when nobody's home. In July, you'll have a chance to do it where it counts -- in front of a Food Network casting agent. On July 26 at the W ... More >>

Comfort drinking at Buca di Beppo

Food Network All-Stars to Film in SF, Call For Audience Members

(Guy Fieri image via Motor Trend) Amidst potential jobs for Obama impersonators and radio station account execs, a Craig's List post to its television/film/radio section announces a call for locals to submit videos that ask questions of Food Network celebs Aida Mollenkamp, Guy Fieri and Giada DiL ... More >>

I'd Like to Thank the Ground Beef

Television awards make us hungry for an S.F. burger and Maine lobster

Crowe Flies Home

Elizabethtown is a mess, not that its director should care