My daughters have the Food Network on as TV wallpaper. In candor, it pains me to admit this. I’ve got a really bad attitude about the Food Network; I mean, what do these people have against alcohol beverage??? Sure they mention wine and cocktails, but the info about alcohol is misguided or plain wrong. Case in point: one not-to-be-named TV host is making “cocktails” on her show. The quotations are no accident, cause those aren’t cocktails she’s making. Oh, goody, cocktails! But it’s the Food Network. It giveth and it taketh away. They get your hopes up and then crush them like the insignificant little bug that you represent. She makes a “martini”; again, the quotations are purposeful. This one is half gin and half vermouth. Hmm. Okay, I know some people like that but not very many. And she doesn’t measure; she just pours it into a pitcher. Why? Because she’s a mad skilled bartender who never needs to measure! Only thing is: the world’s greatest bartenders (Dale DeGroff, anyone?) measure, but I guess she’s a lot better than they are.

Then she pours in juice out of a Kalamata olive jar. Oils and all. Cloudy drink and all. She stirs (not showing any of the stirring skills of a real bartender, but I niggle on this) for maybe two seconds and dumps it in a cocktail glass with three warm olives. Bad bartending. The other complaint I have? She isn’t forced to drink this lukewarm, bitter concoction on air, live and trying not to gag.

Then here’s what made me start clicking the keyboard on my computer. She makes another cocktail, same setup, quick stir, no skills and then pours it into a cocktail glass, STRAINING WITH HER FINGERS!! That’s disgusting. Somebody get this woman a bartending consultant.

A few minutes later another host makes a big show of washing her hands after kneading raw lamb, but not until after she’s touched the serving dish she’s going to use for the finished dish and a few spare utensils. Aargh.