Food Network Star or Has Been that Never Was?

Congrats to my fellow Jersey culinarian Aaron McCargo Jr, winner of this season of Next Food Network Star!
After a tough few weeks of culinary competitions, Aaron is ready to start work on his new show "Big Daddy's Kitchen" premiering this weekend at 1:30 Saturday afternoon.

NFNS started this season off with a lackluster bang. Even after the first few episodes aired, none of the contestants emerged as a front runner. I could say with complete honesty that none of them had the charisma needed and the food knowledge needed to pull a decent viewership.
After some tough love training, Aaron became a more polished presenter with the food chops to match. Once he gained some camera confidience, it was easy to cheer him on. As a raw food talent coming from the poorest area in the nation, Aaron's win was certainly a deserved one.

Looking back on the first few seasons of NFNS, the odds are stacked against him, though. Regardless of his win, Aaron still stands a 2 in 3 shot of seeing "Big Daddy's Kitchen" get the big axe from the network. Consider the following: I can't even remember the names of the couple who won the first season. Amy Finley is MIA less than 1 year later. Guy Frieri is the only one out of all the winners to still have a presence on Food Network. "Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives" is going strong after a few seasons. Guy is also the new spokesperson for TGI Friday's, an assuredly lucrative position.

The only question at this point is,"why?" Why have a majority of these "new stars" failed so quickly? After all, they were handpicked by the top executives of the network and given the chance to learn from some already established food personalities. They even get voted on by Food Network viewers! You picked this person, audience, why aren't you watching? What went wrong?

It comes down to a matter of timing, prime timing that is! NFNS is shown on Sunday nights, not exactly the strongest time slot for family television, but certainly better than weekday early afternoons in terms of viewership potential. But instead of giving the winner of NFNS the chance to wow a prime time audience, their new show is put into a weekend afternoon slot. The potential viewers the new star had built up over the course of the competition now need to associate a new time with a familiar personality. Can you teach an old viewer new tricks?

I am starting to think that the only fair way to work with a winner is to give him or her a solid month of prime time show exposure, 8PM one night a week. Check the numbers. If people are actually tuning in for the new show, consider keeping the show in that slot. If not, consider a move to make room for a more popular program and take it from there. You need to give your new stars a fighting chance, Food Network!

Could the new star be fighting a losing battle even before the show begins? As people watch NFNS, they develop a liking or an aversion for certain contestants. When their favorite gets the grand prize, they might tune in to the new show. If their least favorite wins, the likelihood of them watching the new star's show is minimal at best. Considering that the show starts with 10 contestants, there is a 9 in 10 chance (on a strict statistics basis!) that the passionate NFNS viewer will not tune in for the resulting program. I can assure you that from episode 1, if Lisa or Kelsey had won, I knew I would not watch the new show.

Aaron's show is another story. "Big Daddy's Kitchen" seems to embody the energy and fun that Aaron brought to NFNS. Tune in and hopefully save this new star from a premature burn-out!

Leaner, Greener, Cheaper

I'm the coupon clipper in my house, the one who gets up on Sunday mornings and gleefully pours over the newspaper inserts, scissors in one hand, coffee in the other. Some weeks are luckier than others, but the thrill of saving at least 5% off of the grocery bill was a great game.
As our economic conditions worsen, fuel and food prices rise, coupon clipping for many of us is no longer a game, but a necessary means of saving. Browsing through many homepages like MSN, Yahoo!, and AOL also yields a list of articles on getting the most out of the ever shrinking dollar. It becomes apparent that our social mindset is quickly changing from "Too much is never enough" to "Scraping by is the new norm". Yes, the times are a'changing, but some of these changes can actually be good for both your wallet and the environment. Here's my 2 cents, or approximately $1.34 at the current inflation on things you can do right now to make your situation better:

1. Get by with less. Eat less food, drive fewer miles, buy less "stuff" that you probably don't need. By decreasing your general consumption of all resources in general, you'll quickly become a healthier individual. This also has a side benefit: fewer doctor visits, less illness, and a smaller, leaner you. 1 cup of coffee instead of 2. Smaller portions of heavy foods.

2. Try to cut back on your driving and trade in that disgusting (yes, I said it) SUV. I don't care if you bought it when gas was $1.47 a gallon; back then, you were consuming more than your fair share of natural resources, and the same holds true today. 75% of folks who drive those mammoth must-be-compensating-for-something vehicles do not need this type of transportation on a daily basis. Stop pretending to conquer the jungles of suburbia and learn to live within current gas prices.

3. Minimize meat consumption. Look at your current grocery spending. How much is going towards these expensive proteins? Try going vegetarian one night a week. Eggplant parm instead of veal. Tofu in that stirfry instead of beef. Peanut butter instead of deli turkey for sandwiches. Meat production is one of the most environmentally harmful processes used for getting food from farm to plate. Consider this: every hamburger stops a beating heart. Take responsibility for what you eat and what, and whom, was sacrificed in the process.

4. Use your local library for entertainment before you go to a bookstore, a music shop, or a movie rental company. That expensive bestseller that you're only going to read once is a hefty investment. Also, consider the amount of paper wasted if everyone else also bought the same book and only read it once, too. The exception to this rule is, of course, books you plan on using for references for many years to come and favorite movies you will watch over and over again. Donate books, DVDs, etc that you no longer enjoy to a favorite charity and get a record of your donation for tax deduction purposes.

5. Clip coupons, but only for products you already use. I try to avoid processed food, so redeeming a coupon for a product like Lunchables is still a waste of my money. Also, by not clipping every coupon, more paper gets reused when I recycle the Sunday paper. Think of sharing the rest of the paper with a neighbor or friend who is also interested in saving.

6. Recycle. Save trees by using both sides of paper. Use canvas totes for grocery shopping. Many stores will give a discount for bringing your own bag. Get a travel coffee mug and fill it with your own hot beverage instead of buying that $3.50 latte. Please stop buying plastic one use spring water bottles and get your own reuseable bottle. FYI: Municiple water is constantly tested for cleanliness. Bottled spring water is not a regulated product. Think about it. Why should water have to travel thousands of miles over water just so you can drink a product you could have gotten almost free from a local source?

7. Minimize make-up. Ladies, here's the honest truth: you're even more beautiful than you can imagine and even more stunning when your natural beauty shines through. Besides, all of the make-up that gets used to clog your pores every year generates millions of non-recycleable plastic containers. Producing those colored chemicals also generates thousands of pounds of waste. Yes, I know, I too love glamming it up for an evening out. However, investing in some environmentally sound skin care products is an even better use of your cosmetics cash. You'll need less make-up to feel done up, your skin won't be abused as much, and Mother Nature will also look prettier.

8.Use your bank's online bill pay option. You'll save time, paper, and not using stamps will certainly add up to about a $25 savings per year. Invest that in a travel water bottle and you'll save even more.

9. Invest in a clothesline. Dry clothes, sheets, etc for free. Not only will you save on electricity, but also extend the life of your dryer and get rewarded with fresher fabrics. Hang used bath towels to dry and use them again. Think about it: you just used that towel to dry your clean self. It's minimally dirty. By using a towel twice, you'll reduce your laundry loads, thus saving on water, electricity, soap, and time.

10. Relax. Turn off the tv, the radio, the computer, the cell phone, all media stimuli. Take a nap, take a walk, stretch, just breathe.