Food Fight

As usual, I'm not remotely in control

SOMETIMES I make the mistake of leaving the room while I'm watching a television show, and when I come back in just a few minutes, I discover that the Truly Unpleasant Mrs. Johnston has changed the channels. I may have been watching something educational like "All Star Wrestlin' Texas Style," where you can learn about different parts of this country and how they settle disputes.

However, instead of learning about a state where they apparently put each other in headlocks and bounce their heads off the ropes in a move called The Texas Tease, I find I am watching something called "the Food Network."

It takes a few seconds to realize that while I was making a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich, Mrs. Johnston had pulled a fast one on me. It takes that long because wrestling shows and cooking shows in some ways look alike.

In this particular cooking show there was a guy in a white suit smacking around a dead chicken, all the while yelling: "Bam!" On the wrestling show, there was a guy dressed in white (they were white tights, no top), and every time he smacked his opponent's head on the ring post, he would also yell "Bam!" The skin on both the chicken and the wrestler was pasty white.

This happens every time I leave Mrs. Johnston alone with the TV remote. Her fingers automatically switch to the Food Network. After watching it a few times, I have discovered a few unusual things about this network. The first thing is that it exists at all. As near as I can figure, this is a television channel devoted to making food that you would never eat unless you were having company. How often do you feel an urge to have duck wrapped with mint-flavored maple leaves, covered with stuff called cuss-cuss and then buried between hot bricks?

Even the gadgets they use don't exist in real kitchens. They have knives that slice French pears so the slices look like butterfly wings. These knives don't look like they are good for anything else. You wouldn't use one to cut up a pear because the knife would break.

Of course I am a poor judge of food. I think there are just three basic food groups: Meat, a starch item such as potato or macaroni, and an iceberg-lettuce salad with Thousand Island dressing. With those three basic items, your menu is unlimited. You can have steak and salad. How about hamburger mixed with macaroni and Thousand Island dressing for a dining experience? Or a nice meatloaf with a leftover baked potato sliced up and fried in butter?

What I have discovered about women after being married to one for several hundred years is that we speak the same language but we don't understand what each other means, especially when it comes to things around the home.

For example, Mrs. Johnston works for a company named Crate & Barrel. Now, when I tell my male friends that she works for Crate & Barrel, they picture her driving a forklift in a warehouse filled with well, crates and barrels. They may have a hard time picturing Mrs. Johnston on a forklift, but that's what you need to move crates and barrels.

The same two words to women bring a different reaction. They start to drool. Not because they are thinking about Mrs. Johnston driving a forklift but because they know Mrs. Johnston works for a company that sells all the stuff you see on the Food Network to make those meals that do not include any of my three food groups.

Want that knife to carve up a pear to look like a butterfly wing? They have that knife, plus things you never knew were invented, much less how to use them. When I go to Crate & Barrel I see other men, their mouths hanging open and eyes glazed. You can see them pick up an object and examine it until their wives make them put it down.

Back to the television and the Food Network. I find if I watch it for more than a few minutes, I start to stare off into space. Sort of like the guys at Crate & Barrel.

Steve Johnston is a retired Seattle Times reporter. His e-mail address is stevejonst@aol.com. Paul Schmid is a Seattle Times news artist.