Butter Late Than Never

I realise I'm very late on the Paula Deen bashwagon but when I saw this I just couldn't hold back from saying something. I always hated Paula Deen; she has a smarmy, creepily fake "Everyone's favorite mom"-type act and of course, the food she cooked was, to my eyes, the grossest, grease-smeared grunge that you'd be digging from your drainpipes for years after the meals and would coat the inside of your mouth like chopper-grade motor oil.

Her voice grated like bauxite against coarse granite and her face looked like a Salvador Dali version of a Kewpie doll, a melting visage inside a twisted nightmare from which you would likely never awaken.

At first I didn't know who this frightening hag was -- I'd simply immediately change the channel. Then, like watching a spider creep its way across my ceiling, I'd occasionally watch snippets of her show when there was absolutely nothing else on and I was flipping channels.

Needless to say, I thought no more about it until this brouhaha hit the 500 channels of the Multiverse.

Now that I have watched this sordid episode play out, it has brought to mind why it is that I no longer watch the Food Network at all. How, when it debuted, I was as excited as a kid in a toy store. I had it tuned practically 24 hours a day. I watched the first Top Chef religiously. I watched all the recipe shows -- back in the days when they had Mario Batali and Jamie Oliver actually cooking things.

And then, the suits got a hold of the numbers. Just like A&E became the Dog the Bounty Hunter channel, then jettisoned that for the Intervention channel, and National Geographic became the Dog Whisperer channel and Discovery became the Mythbusters channel, the Food channel became the food competition channel. I almost expected a Big Brother-type program, where ten aspiring chefs are locked in a house blanketed by cameras 24/7. Or has that already been done?

Instead, the only "Cooking" shows descended, by way of Rachel Ray, to Paula Deen. No more Julia Child or Martin Yan, no Carlo Cooks Italian or Bibi's Kitchen.

Just Extreme Eating shows like that Zimmern guy chowing down on disgusting crap. No, I've long since cancelled the Food Network, because of flatulent freaks like Paula Deen. Watch now, people, as this hideous, blubber-filled sac of an old bat blatantly lies, evades and squirms out of the truth while simultaneously trying to promote her latest integrity-free venture.

Pathetic.