It’s Tuesday which means Great Chefs of the World is on the discovery home channel tonight. I’m pretty sure I’ve already seen all of the episodes but, I always watch anyway because I find the show to be very relaxing. I’m not sure if it’s all the gentle whisking, the oh-so careful placement of extravagent garnishes, the soft accents of the, usually French, chefs or the acoustic guitar music in the background but watching this show really calms me down. I also love that they make these crazy dishes that I will probably never in my life even attempt to make. I mean, sometimes, they are really far out there…like chicken cooked in pig’s bladder. No thanks! I think I’ll leave one that to the Tony Bourdains of the world. Great Chefs also has this cool retro aspect to it. Sometimes they’ll show a really old episode (like from the 80’s) and it’s interesting to see how much cooking has changed since then. Back then, there weren’t too many cooking shows on television. Now, I think there are too many. I rarely tune in to the Food Network anymore. The cooking shows on that channel focus too much on the basics, most of which I already know or could easily figure out on my own. Watching somebody on TV cook something that I could easily make myself isn’t interesting to me. But watching somebody tediously cut baby potatoes into the shape of mushrooms and then pan-fry, braise and broil them only to completely cover them with paper then slices of rare meat and $30 worth of garnish, now that’s fun!