My Love Affair with Food Network

My husband has ESPN, and I have Food Network. We all need that channel we can turn to when we want to escape, and mine is filled with food. I'm enamored by it, and I wouldn't even call myself a foodie. This love affair started my freshman year of college when I started watching cooking shows and all of a sudden decided to try cooking, literally for the first time. Once I started, I realized that I not only like cooking, I LOVE watching people cook, talk about food, compete with food - you get the idea. So, thank God for the Food Network because it has made cooking become more accessible for someone like me, and it makes cooking, baking, and culinary careers seem exciting. Who needs sports when you have Bobby Flay's Throwdown or Iron Chef?!

You're probably wondering which shows/cooks/chefs are my favorite (you might not really care, but I'll tell you anyways). Barefoot Contessa, aka Ina Garten, is amazing. Not only does she have a beautiful life that anyone would covet, - she lives in the Hampton's for goodness sake - but she also has the absolute best recipes I have ever tried. Not once have I not liked one of her recipes...seriously, you should try them. And each time she inspires me to try something new, my husband (who is known for being a strickly cheesy-carbs guy) ventures out a bit and realizes that there are all kinds of wonderful flavors out there. He even eats asparagus now! I'm sure you would agree that Bobby Flay, Tyler Florence, and Giada de Laurentis are also fun to watch. Not so much because I love their recipes (I do like quite a few), but they're entertaining and are nice to look at - are chefs really that good looking? Really? One of the best shows on Food Network however, is "Ace of Cakes." I mean, who knew that filming a bunch of creative people decorating cakes all day would be entertaining to the masses?

Those who know me really well know that I could literally watch Food Network all day long every day if I had the opportunity - and if I didn't have a baby, husband, job, and obvious responsibilities to tend to, I would. Truly, what Food Network has done for me is peak my interest in the culinary world. I daydream about becoming a chef and owning a specialty food shop. There are probably thousands of people who have entered the culinary industry just because of the Food Network. But more importantly, watching hours and hours of food TV has shown me the value of enjoying food, which makes family meals, entertaining, and exploring new flavors so much fun. People all around the country are taking more of an interest in cooking, which I think translates to more time around the oven and table as a family. Essentially, food brings all the things we love in life together. Now that's something worth escaping for...don't you think?