Yes chef

I haven’t jumped on The Bear bandwagon. Truth is I’m driving it. And the reason is simple: this isn’t bragging, but merely a statement of fact: I saw it first.

I’d read about it in one of my many showbiz magazines (yes I still get magazines-they make excellent reading in the “library”), and thought it looked interesting. Another plus was it also looked like a fine opportunity to bank some marriage points what with it being a show about a restaurant and cooking. I figured the wife would enjoy it, since she's a trained chef herself and has had the rare honor of cooking at the James Beard House.

Yeah, we eat well around here. Have you seen my 32-inch waist? It was here just a minute ago.

Anyway, The Bear - streaming on Hulu - is the story of a world-class chef, Carmen, Carmy for short, played by Jeremy Allen White. He inherits a Chicago sandwich shop after his brother Michael commits suicide, and comes back to run it, eventually turning it into a fine dining restaurant.

The place is filled with brilliant actors each playing a character that is compelling, flawed, funny, heartbreaking, joyous and relatable as it gets.

His “cousin” Ritchie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). His partner Sydney (Ayo Edebiri). Pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce). Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas), who’s been working there forever. Fak (Matty Matheson, actually a chef in real life), who plays the handyman/fixit guy. Gary (Corey Hendrix) and Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson). There’s also Carmy’s sister Natalie (nicknamed Sugar) played by Abby Elliott, Chris Elliott’s daughter and Bob Elliott’s granddaughter. Comedy pedigree much?

And last but most definitely not least, Uncle Jimmy, played by one of my all time favorites Oliver Platt, who as I’m certain you recall, I wrote about here eight years ago.

From the first frame of the first episode of the first season, The Bear was magnificent. It immediately catapults you right into the insanity of a restaurant kitchen. But for as great as the first season was, the current second season is even better. In it we get the backstories to all the characters, taking them out of the kitchen and bringing us into their real lives. The more we learn, the more we come to love them.

Not going to give anything away, but I challenge you to find better written, acted, directed and moving television anywhere than guest star-packed episodes six (as intense as it gets) and seven (absolutely heartbreaking, ultimately joyous) of season two.

The show and cast are deservedly nominated for a slew of Emmy’s. I hope they take them all.

Enjoy it over and over-surprise!- like I do.

And make sure you’re not interrupted when you’re watching. After all, every second counts.

Limited menu

I'm married to an insanely great chef. She has a degree in Culinary Arts, she's cooked at the James Beard Foundation in New York and she was a pastry chef at an upscale, white tablecloth restaurant called Amis. She's one of those frustratingly creative chefs who can open a cabinet, see a box of rice, a bottle of syrup and some week-old crackers and whip up a spectacular meal from it. Including dessert.

Needless to say we eat pretty well around here.

You'd think with all the meals she's made for the family, and all the years we've been married, some of that culinary know-how would've rubbed off on me. You'd think that. But you'd be wrong. Cooking wise, I'm still pretty much at the same skill level as when I came into the marriage. One thing I know how to make, and make pretty damn well, is meat squares.

Hang on, I'll tell you.

First you go to the market and get some ground beef. A pound, two pounds, three pounds depending on how many people you're feeding. Then you mix it up with ketchup, onions and some salt and pepper. Mix it up good, and flatten it into a square Pyrex dish. Place in oven at 350 degrees for twenty minutes, then serve to a grateful, hungry public.

I know meat squares isn't the most appetizing name. It even sounds like a euphemism for something far less savory. But when you bring that hot meat square out of the oven—I prefer using the Hello Kitty oven mits—I guarantee mouths will be watering. They may be watering for something else, but still.

The other dish in my pre-marriage repertoire is a little item I like to call the open-face, reverse turkey melt. Here's how it goes.

Take two pieces of bread, I prefer sourdough. Then squirt the ketchup of your choice into a design of your choice on each of the slices. Sometimes I'll make a happy face, other times it'll be the sun with ketchup rays emanating from the sides. One time I tried to do the comedy and tragedy masks, one on each slice. Let's just say tragedy won out.

Next, put a couple slices of turkey on each slice of bread, and sprinkle some shredded pepperjack cheese over each slice. Then put them your toaster oven for four and half minutes at 275 degrees.

When the little bell dings, out comes a hot, cheesy, delicious, almost real tasting meal.

Of course, the good news is I don't have to make a meal for myself very often. It's intimidating being married to someone who can cook anything when I'm only limited to a couple dishes of my own. Don't get me wrong, I can do a few other things. Eggs scrambled or over easy. Put pasta in boiling water. If I'm feeling particularly healthy, even steam some broccoli. But those things aren't my creations. I just know how to do them.

As a gift the wife gave me two cooking classes at Sur La Table not too long ago. I took the first one, which was called The Ten Things Every Chef Should Know.

In my cookbook, number eleven is meat squares.

Everyone has one

I was watching, well, not so much watching as listening, well, not so much listening as tolerating the Today Show which was on while I was getting ready for work this morning.

By the way, getting ready for work consists of repeating, “I’ve got another 15 minutes before I have to get out of bed.” about four or five times after the alarm has gone off. And by alarm, I mean my German Shepherd or whatever the hell Lucy is barking at sunrise.

Anyway, apparently there’s a controversy I was totally unaware of, that was “shaking up the internet” and was important enough to merit time on a national television broadcast.

Today show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie was rattling on about a picture of Victoria Beckham kissing her young daughter on the lips, and the subsequent firestorm of controversy and discussion it started. I imagine the people discussing it are the same brain trust that leaves comments below every article about anything online.

Frankly I’d be more concerned if she was kissing someone else’s kid on the lips. Ah, who’re we kidding here. Actually, I wouldn’t. I have no opinion on the matter. I don’t care.

In the age of photos going viral, and people with too little brains and too much time on their hands having access to technology that transmits their stupidity around the world in a nanosecond, people feel they have to have an opinion about everything, merited or not.

Is Jennifer Aniston pregnant. Madonna’s road rage. Dolly Parton’s secrets. Honey Boo Boo growing up. Jaden Smith. Anything about a Kardashian. I was going to call this post Who Gives A Shit, but after all it is a family blog.

There are too many real issues in the world, especially this year, that people need to reflect on, apply some critical thinking against, get the facts and actually form a well-conisdered opinion about. None of them include watching alleged "journalists" embarrass themselves discussing the way Victoria Beckham innocently, like parents all over the world, like we have, kisses her kid on her birthday.

The worst part is producers of morning shows like Today want it both ways. In one breath, Savannah Guthrie shares our frustration about the insignificance of this story by telling us it's a topic we shouldn’t even be discussing. In the next breath, she's inviting the audience to go online to the Today website and give their opinion in a poll about parents kissing kids on the lips.

I never thought I'd be longing for the days of the Martha Stewart cooking segments, but after all, these are desperate times.

Of course that's just my opinion.