Posted by ButtonKnows
I am wed to a former waiter-then-chef-then-bar-manager-then-restaurant GM. This equates with several things in my world. 1) I never have to cook. Ever. 2) I never have to grocery shop. Ever. 2.5) I never clean up either, so, ladies, if you didn’t want to slug me by the end of points 1 and 2, I bet I got you there.
Anyhoo…
3) My house is filled with magazines with names like BeverageWorld, Bartender, and Restaurant Business. And 4) TV food dudes like Anthony Bourdain, Alton Brown, Andrew Zimmern and Gordon Ramsay are the kings of our entertainment universe.
First two guys? Love ’em. Loooooove ’em. Bourdain is single-handedly bringing back (or simply hogging all to himself … I can’t decide which) the kind of knee-weakening, “smells like smoke and leather” cool that I thought had been buried with Steve McQueen. And Alton’s my favorite celebrity interview, bar none. He could read the phone book on TV and I’d watch. For a couple episodes anyway.
But the other two … ecccchh. OK, to be fair, In Zimmern’s case, it isn’t the man to which I object, but the show. I don’t get it. I do not get Bizarre Foods at all. Watching someone eat a still-beating reptile heart makes me want to throw up, not tune in next week to see if he’ll eat an eyeball next. (He will.)
And Ramsay? Man, I have worked for enough people like that guy to ruin any idea of willingly tuning in to Hell’s Kitchen to watch him hand over the need for lifelong therapy to a bunch of people who thought making a few appies on TV might be fun. You’d kill the guy if he did that crap to you … so why contribute to his TV career?
Last night, I got my answer: So he’d evolve into a show that serves him a never-ending tasting menu of his own bitter medicine. I say three cheers … and four stars … for Kitchen Nightmares!!! Four! Four cheers! And five stars!
Oh you bet your brains, and your foie gras too, I wailed loudly when first we tuned in. But after mere moments of being subjected to restaurant manager Peter Pellegrino, a walking caricature of every Italian Stallion stereotype out there, those craggy little Ramsay features that once stood symbol for a thousand kinds of rage softened into an endearing Sharpei-puppy-esque puzzlement that actually made him a little bit cute. Like when the Grinch’s heart grows three sizes that day.
Just like that, I felt bad for him. I wanted him to win. If only to save the Italian food lovers of Babylon, New York, from certain, ravioli-induced death.
As sparring partners go, the producers hit the gold-chained beefaroni jackpot in Pellegrino, who waxed rhapsodically about the many ways he maintains his appearance, so as to look good each night when he roams the dining room encouraging people to comment on his many-way-maintained appearance.
Never mind that he gives away more food and drink than he sells. Never mind that the food, paid for or not, is always late to the table. Never mind that it’s always late to the table because the chef has a single, barely functioning stove on which to prepare it, and a walk-in freezer leaking brown stuff from the ceiling and filled with containers of what — thanks to Gordon’s instruction — the hubby and I shall forever refer to as “Smellthat.”
Amazingly enough, aside from a few cuss words tossed out here and there — and despite the fact that my husband’s face is now an interesting shade of crimson — Gordon is still managing to keep his cool. He quizzes Peter about his preternaturally white teeth and is proudly told that they are bleachy keen, to the tune of about a thousand bucks a visit. Gordon suggests that the cash might be better spent on a stove.
For a few delicious moments, we watch Peteroni try to make this information compute. And then — in one of my top ten favorite moments of television ever — offer a puzzled, hopeful encore flash of the chompers in the direction of Gordon’s back as he disappears into the kitchen.
The next day, Peter learns that the restaurant will be helmed by a new pair of chefs — himself and his dear, old, hapless dad. Peter hollers for some onions. Peter hollers for some fish. Peter hollers for some chicken. Peter’s staff looks on in uncooperative glee. Peter hollers for some booze.
At this point a piercing ray of Gordon the Former comes shining through — relieving my husband’s face of roughly 99% of the blood in his body and making me damn near stand up and cheer.
Peter is expunged from the premises, setting up his Grinch on the Mountaintop moment and allowing Gordon to reward the rest of the Pellegrino family with all new kitchen equipment and a new menu to boot.
Refreshed and filled with good will, they let their shlubbable bully-mascot back into the building, where he hugs Gordon, freaks out on the staff and uses a bill collector to demonstrate that another one of the ways he maintains his appearance is boxing.
And Peter is expelled from Peter’s once more.
This time, his punishment takes. The testosterone recedes. The refrigerator gets fixed. The till fills with money. And the ‘roni does not blow it on a manly mani-pedi. Seems like as good a time as any to have the place blessed by a priest. So they do.
Flash forward to a few weeks later — where, sure enough, the days are still halcyon in Babylon. The eatery has recaptured the love of the community. The family is one big happy. And Peter?
Peter plans to name his firstborn “Gordon Ramsay Pellegrino.”
Dessert doesn’t get any better than that.