jasonRmoore

For a very amateur but curious home cook, the Cooking Channel could not come at a better time.  The Food Network has always been one of the few stations that gets heavy rotation in our home, but in recent years it has slipped into a MTV-esque shell of itself.  Cooking shows that challenged its audience fell to the wayside in similar fashion as music videos.

Enter The Food Network 2, officially named Cooking Channel.

Cooking Channel has launched with a promising lineup for home cooks who want to learn how to be better.  Back-stories and history laced with both local and international cooking fills the current lineup sheet.

Everyday Exotic features Chef/musician Roger Mooking out of Toronto.  Mooking is a prime example of what Cooking Channel appears to be pushing: young, edgy, and very knowledgeable.

Drink Up?  If you say so!  Very excited to see how Darryl Robinson pushes his art of hand-crafted cocktails.  The one negative hint that I see in the show description is the nickname referenced for the host as Dr. Mixology.  Ugh!

The two international entries in the initial lineup are Indian Food Made Easy and Chinese Food Made Easy.  Both of these have a ton of promise, but these types of shows have a tendency to fizzle due to the niche of their menu.  One of the issues with expanding on either Indian or Chinese food for many home cooks is the access to a large set of ingredients.  What most have access to will limit how far they can push either of these cuisines.

There is one show that seems to be better suited for the style of MTV, err The Food Network.  This is Unique Eats.  I’ll let their website describe what I see as a scary sign.

“(Unique Eats is) the first look and the last word in everything extreme in food today.”

Overall, Cooking Channel appears to be a welcome shift in instructional cooking for television.  Let’s hope they continue down the proper path and there is no need for TFN3.