Scanxiety

Tomorrow I get the results of my PET scan. It'll probably be good news, but I suspect that cancer is going to leave as many scars on my mind as it did on my body. One of them is going to be a chronic nagging - not fear, really, more like irrational dread - that it's coming back, even when it isn't.

So.

I haven't watched the Food Network in a while, but I started to tune in again last week. I see that little has changed in my absence. There are a few new competition shows, but by and large, it's the same bunch of people. I'm a little surprised to see that Chopped is still on - I figured that culinary clinker was doomed to sink of its own unappetizing weight - and this new "Neurotic Chefs of Beverly Hills" appeals to me about as much as a good-sized slug of dacarbazine. But there's Ina Garten, and that's a relief. I'm also glad to see Bobby Flay is still gainfully employed. And Michael Symon grows on me; maybe he's growing into the job. And there's a new Iron Chef, I see. Pretty soon there'll be enough of them to play basketball, and won't that be fun, watching Masaharu Morimoto drive the baseline and dunk over Mario Batali. "In your FACE, Pasta-Man!"

Ace of Cakes is still on, and that's good. But it doesn't seem to have much to do with cakes any more; it's mostly the madcap antics of the quirky folk at the bakery. As long as you make that switch and don't expect anything technical, it's still fun. And Dinner: Impossible, starring Robert Irvine's Gigantic Arms. That seems only right and proper. And Paula Deen is still ya'lling and deep-frying butter, just as she should.

I watched the Cooking Channel the other day, but was rapidly driven away by the sheer smugness of it all. It doesn't seem to have much to do with cooking; it's mostly about status and style, and every time I switched to it, my Smug-O-Meter began to beep. The show where some numbskull insists that real hamburgers are fried on a slab of black iron was the coup de grace. I'll have my hamburgers done on a grill in the back yard, with lettuce and tomato and mustard, and if this stylish nabob doesn't like it, well, I'll fetch the stepladder... I live in Arizona. I was born in Arizona. And I don't necessarily accept the Received Wisdom that the New York City interpretation of a hamburger is the only valid one. (Michael J. Nelson once wrote that New York City is fine as long as you don't mind warm blasts of urine-scented air coming up out of gratings in the streets. And I find that I DO mind them.)

And the commercials! I like wine as much as the next person, but come on, at some point I have to throw a flag and call Excessive Smugness on the commercials (ten yards and loss of down). "This wine is fruity and round, but with hints of flint and tinder, and subtle tones of uranium hexaflouride that drape on the palate like the Golden Fleece." And what they really mean is "Won't your friends be shocked at your eliteness when they see you quaffing this shit!"

Of course, I'm drinking a glass of Spicy Hot V-8 juice, so I'm obviously a Philistine.

A possible exception is "Food(ography)", now with 100% more Mo Rocca than before. It has an Alton Brown-esque flavor, though without Alton's penchant for tedious amateur thespianism, and Mo himself doesn't bother me. So we'll see. The episode I watched was mostly about Julia Child, which seems like a good first step to me - if you're going to do a geek show about cooking, you'd best start by honoring the giants, in the same way that science shows on the Science Channel had best start out with a healthy amount of smooching on Albert Einstein's backside.