Kitchen Nightmares

The writer's strike has reduced my television viewing to almost zero in the last month, which is fine by me, really. One show I've continued to watch, though, is my guilty pleasure of this season. It's not quite as guilty as Wife Swap, but it's still a show that contributes nothing positive to my life experience. That show is, as you probably gathered from this Ping's title, Gordon Ramsey's US-ified Kitchen Nightmares. Master Chef and Master Prick Ramsey pays a week-long visit to failing restaurants, deals with their cocky owners, lazy staff, and filthy line cooks and magically turns them around. Often, these nearly-dead restaurants come back to life and do well, but a few times they've failed and gone out of business before the show has aired.

I have a mixed opinion of Gordon Ramsey. I think he's a complete jerk with many of his views on food and would never think of setting foot in one of his restaurants, but yet I somehow enjoy when he takes his mildly insane demeanor into a restaurant run by an equally insane asshat. The head-butting is always a pleasure to watch.

Hey, c'mon. It's all I've got until The Office returns.