The Frugal Gourmet marathon weekend!
Wouldn't it be great if The FoodNetwork or even PBS ran a weekend of The Frugal Gourmet shows?
Let's bring back Chef Smith one more time!
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
Start Talking!
Need a question answered? Have advice to share? Start a Talk topic now!
Sign up to get your questions answered and share advice.
29 Comments:
Too controversial - will never happen.
How about The Galloping Gourmet before he became so health conscious (didn't he have a heart attack?) and boring. He lost his funny personality, but also lost a lot of weight. Remember the black board with all the calories, etc.? It became too distracting.
I'd vote for a Julia and Julia with the great chefs, especially Jacques Pepin marathon.
PerkyMac at 4:16PM on 04/08/08
Correct PerkyMac! Wasn't Jeff Smith slapped with a sexual harassment suit from his young male assistant?
Anyway, I miss the Two Fat Ladies!!! They were a trip and if you ask me they prepared dishes that out-fat Paula Deen!
RichardCrystal at 4:25PM on 04/08/08
@RichardCrystal...........I didn't have cable (or time to watch TV) when the Two Fat Ladies were on. I've read about them and wish PBS or FN would air the entire series.
I looked up Graham Kerr (The Galloping Gourmet) after I posted. He was in a terrible car accident - that's what ended his first show. Years later, his wife had a heart attack and he had a "healthy" cooking show. I had the gist anyway.
PerkyMac at 4:30PM on 04/08/08
@RichardCrystal - I watched every episode of the Two Fat Ladies! They were a scream. Yes, Jeff Smith was hit with a couple of suits and he settled them out of court.
In good conscious I could not watch him again. He was a pedophile. Do whatever as consenting adults. Leave our children alone!!
crazyspice at 4:36PM on 04/08/08
Oh I use to watch his cooking show it would be interesting to see those shows again.I do remember he was hit with those law suits Shame on him!!!!
rabbitriddle at 4:49PM on 04/08/08
I grew up in Tacoma, Washington where Jeff Smith is from. He had a restaurant/deli/kitchen store across from our high school. Many of the kids at school (this is the late 70s) had jobs there and many of quit because of his abusive (to the girls) and predatory (to the boys) practices. Tacoma's dirty little secret became national news in 1997 and now there's no putting the genie back in the bottle.
His cookbooks have some great stuff in them, so read them - even buy them. At least his children and wife will benefit after having pit up with his bad - and often public - behavior for years. But let's not put him on a pedestal and let's not have to watch the creep on TV.
GregWA at 5:28PM on 04/08/08
I agree - I couldn't watch him again.
I second a Two Fat Ladies marathon.
bravian at 5:37PM on 04/08/08
Biker Billy cooks with Fire. Aw come on you know you want to watch it
JerzeeTomato at 6:17PM on 04/08/08
I would totally watch a Frug Marathon but it'll never happen.
chiff0nade at 6:18PM on 04/08/08
@Jerzee - Yes, but only because his bike is a Harley!!
crazyspice at 6:19PM on 04/08/08
Bummer....BUT I FORGOT ABOUT THE TWO FAT LADIES!!!
Wonder if they are still alive?
Hunnyoil at 6:41PM on 04/08/08
The showed was cancelled after Jennifer passed away from lung cancer.
crazyspice at 6:44PM on 04/08/08
No, it wouldn't be great. No matter how you slice it, people in the media have a greater responsibility to us and unfortunately, no matter how much the man may know about food, his lack of ethics (and morals, too) leaves me nauseous.
If folks want his food knowledge they can buy one of his cookbooks.
moibec at 7:50PM on 04/08/08
@Jerzee!!! Biker Billy! Oh my gosh, what ever happened to him? I always thought it was the most bizarre thing that Biker Billy was a vegetarian. He just looked and seemed like such a double cheeseburger kinda guy.
chisai at 7:53PM on 04/08/08
I wish they'd rerun all the old shows. Some of Julia's shows are airing on PBS, but I'd love to see the French Chef again. But even some of the old FN shows would be great to see. I didn't have cable for many years, so I never saw many of the earlier shows.
I'm hoping that the Julia Child profile on FN means that they might be getting some of her shows. Everyone else covered has been a FN personality, right?
dbcurrie at 1:22AM on 04/09/08
Everyone else is still alive...............
Hunnyoil at 2:40AM on 04/09/08
How about the Black hat chef.
Boy was he awful but it was like watching a train wreck I couldn't turn away.
Stiv61 at 6:26AM on 04/09/08
Jennifer died in 1999, Hunnyroll, but Clarrisa is alive and kicking (and, according to Wiki was busted for hunting hares in North Yorkshire with dogs.
I don't know. I just couldn't watch a hare hunter. Do whatever with your dogs, but leave those hares alone!
DaveFaris at 10:19AM on 04/09/08
Yeah but I think that is a "British" thang.....
Hunnyoil at 2:43PM on 04/09/08
LOVED 2 fat ladies! does anyone have a clip when one of them was on the Tonight Show? It was awesome. And I loved FG, too - his Spanish Rice recipe is still one of my family's favorites, and I recall the story he told about how his mother would make it for dinner to stretch a pound of ground beef. It was touching. Then - pow! We discover he's a pedophile. Is he even still alive?
cookielu at 2:58PM on 04/09/08
@cookielu.....I don't know if he's still alive, but the only thing below a pedophile in my book is a pedophile who masquerades as a minister. Abhorent. Like everyone, I was stunned and hoped they were false accusations. It appears he was a true evil charlatan.
PerkyMac at 3:07PM on 04/09/08
Well, to be perfectly fair, four kids accused him, and for whatever reasons, he settled. It doesn't mean the accusations were necessarily true. It's clear that when someone accuses you of sleeping with 15 year old boys, you have no defense. Keeping it out of the court only fuels people's accusations.
DaveFaris at 4:56PM on 04/09/08
Jeff Smith aka Frug died three or four years ago. They'll never run his shows again because of all the controversy. Even if somebody found some kind of irrefutable proof that he was 100% innocent of all the charges, the silver is tarnished, cow's out of the barn, milk is spilt, etc...
Regarding Julia, however, you can buy two sets of The French Chef on DVD, each with 18 episodes from the original series. It's on my Amazon wish list if anybody cares to indulge me... ;-)
LoCo at 5:08PM on 04/09/08
@DaveFaris - Where there is smoke, there is fire.
crazyspice at 8:11PM on 04/09/08
guilty until proven innocent, you mean.
DaveFaris at 8:25PM on 04/09/08
No, I do not. No 15 year old male child, let alone multiple 15 year old male children would relish the idea of making that accusation! Imagine their personal trauma, if you can.
crazyspice at 8:58PM on 04/09/08
So I guess Jeff Smith is what, cooking for Satan??
RichardCrystal at 11:21AM on 04/10/08
The accusations were not made by children. They were made by men some 20 years after the purported incident, which is one of the reasons the case has always been surrounded by so much doubt and controversy.
LoCo at 11:37AM on 04/10/08
Never will happen-and if it did I would not watch them. He died in 2004 at the age of 65 in his sleep of natual causes.
LOVED 2 Fat Ladies! They were a trip. Let's bring them back. Or Julia Child. Or Martin Yan from Yan Can Cook. That guy had some serious knife skills. I was enthralled with him every weekend. Or Mary Ann Esposito. I always thought she was so friendly...:)
Butrflygirly at 11:41AM on 04/10/08