What's Cooking
I happened to catch another Tagalized episode of Yakitate Ja-pan on local TV (apparently, I misplaced the title’s hyphen in a previous post), back when the students had a six-day weekend (well, five and a half, according to Thy Kingdom Camia’s Josh). Again, the episode didn’t fail to entertain. On a hotdog contest, a competitor tried to lure the judges by lavish proportions: scallop, crab, shrimp, and other seafood were cramped in the hotdog bun to make it more appetizing. Our hero’s friend, meanwhile, only had a plain-looking hotdog in a bun, but he eventually won, because of the concentrated flavor that his entry possessed. He said he had to do it in real life: since he hailed from a poor family, he had to improvise with vegetables and make them appear as cold cuts for his siblings. Tear. The episode was unsurprisingly wacky all throughout (food judging is always the fun part); even the American character pitted opposite our hero was voiced in typical Taglish with the exaggerated nuances.
Speaking of scallops, the seafood was featured in the only Iron Chef America episode I ever watched (in the same long weekend). The contest format is very exciting: two chefs (the iron chef and his challenger) are tasked to prepare five dishes in an hour, given the theme for the day. Wow, that’s roughly a dish every 12 minutes, and plating and presentation is also part of the criteria. Not only should they cook fast, but the food should appear as if prepared by a 5-star restaurant. Well, I suppose the contestants are professionals, or experienced in the culinary arts at the least. The challenger only came up with two dishes, whose intricate names indeed sound yummy (I believe food-naming is an art to attract potential eaters); the iron chef, with 5 savory dishes, ended up as a winner. I like to judge this show: eating yet-unknown food, and getting the chance to criticize. By the way, I was watching the show while eating breakfast; the usually tolerable hotdog and beef tapa seemed insufficient for about an hour.
It seems an uberlong weekend dedicated to food isn’t complete without a full-length feature. Hours after watching Iron Chef America, I went to Glorietta, hoping to catch Disney and Pixar’s Ratatouille, which is about to be pulled out already after weeks of release. I was about to settle for Surf’s Up already, but luckily, it is still showing in Greenbelt, so my college friend and I trooped the classier cinema.
Conjecture: the newer the animated film, the finer the graphics. Some scenes are too realistic: the Paris skyline, the buildings, and the rats, especially when the ceiling fell down and the irrational old maid aimed the shotgun at them. Given that I’m not too fond of pets, I am not too eager to taste any food prepared by any animal, let alone a rat. Near the end of the film, when the cooking crew turned their backs on Linguini and the rats formed an assembly line, I almost swore to prepare food by myself.
The film had its slow and uneventful parts, but the movie became more engaging when the two protagonists encountered each other. The feasibility of controlling motor skills by activating (or mutating?) follicle nerve endings might be an improbable Intel-worthy research venture, but, if any mad scientist will succeed, I hope the results will reach me. Wow, if a student falls asleep in class, I will just strategically pull his hair to make him do a dreaded seatwork. The possibilities are endless.
The film also featured a grim-looking food critique, whose approval is craved for by any restaurant. When he tasted the ratatouille (I never heard of this dish) that Little Chef prepared, he was transported back to his past, in a quaint home where he grew up, with his mother preparing food for him. This storytelling technique is often utilized in Yakitate Ja-pan, though implying that Pixar borrowed from the Japanese hit series (or any previous cartoon) is both baseless and unnecessary.
Still, Little Chef is amusing to watch when he is on a kitchen momentum. I wish we can be like him, in the sense that we find what we really want to do with our lives, and do whatever that is with passion and dedication.
Maybe anyone can cook, but a select few can cook well.
Speaking of scallops, the seafood was featured in the only Iron Chef America episode I ever watched (in the same long weekend). The contest format is very exciting: two chefs (the iron chef and his challenger) are tasked to prepare five dishes in an hour, given the theme for the day. Wow, that’s roughly a dish every 12 minutes, and plating and presentation is also part of the criteria. Not only should they cook fast, but the food should appear as if prepared by a 5-star restaurant. Well, I suppose the contestants are professionals, or experienced in the culinary arts at the least. The challenger only came up with two dishes, whose intricate names indeed sound yummy (I believe food-naming is an art to attract potential eaters); the iron chef, with 5 savory dishes, ended up as a winner. I like to judge this show: eating yet-unknown food, and getting the chance to criticize. By the way, I was watching the show while eating breakfast; the usually tolerable hotdog and beef tapa seemed insufficient for about an hour.
It seems an uberlong weekend dedicated to food isn’t complete without a full-length feature. Hours after watching Iron Chef America, I went to Glorietta, hoping to catch Disney and Pixar’s Ratatouille, which is about to be pulled out already after weeks of release. I was about to settle for Surf’s Up already, but luckily, it is still showing in Greenbelt, so my college friend and I trooped the classier cinema.
Conjecture: the newer the animated film, the finer the graphics. Some scenes are too realistic: the Paris skyline, the buildings, and the rats, especially when the ceiling fell down and the irrational old maid aimed the shotgun at them. Given that I’m not too fond of pets, I am not too eager to taste any food prepared by any animal, let alone a rat. Near the end of the film, when the cooking crew turned their backs on Linguini and the rats formed an assembly line, I almost swore to prepare food by myself.
The film had its slow and uneventful parts, but the movie became more engaging when the two protagonists encountered each other. The feasibility of controlling motor skills by activating (or mutating?) follicle nerve endings might be an improbable Intel-worthy research venture, but, if any mad scientist will succeed, I hope the results will reach me. Wow, if a student falls asleep in class, I will just strategically pull his hair to make him do a dreaded seatwork. The possibilities are endless.
The film also featured a grim-looking food critique, whose approval is craved for by any restaurant. When he tasted the ratatouille (I never heard of this dish) that Little Chef prepared, he was transported back to his past, in a quaint home where he grew up, with his mother preparing food for him. This storytelling technique is often utilized in Yakitate Ja-pan, though implying that Pixar borrowed from the Japanese hit series (or any previous cartoon) is both baseless and unnecessary.
Still, Little Chef is amusing to watch when he is on a kitchen momentum. I wish we can be like him, in the sense that we find what we really want to do with our lives, and do whatever that is with passion and dedication.
Maybe anyone can cook, but a select few can cook well.
Labels: cooking, food, iron chef, ratatouille, yakitate ja-pan
posted by mardan at 11:03 PM
1 Comments:
anong channel yung iron chef? O_____________O
-bitoy black meyj
AIRJrdan.Na.C!08.trainingT__T
p.s. hello nga pala sir.
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