Actual tweet from Charles Murray:
IMDb’s description of the documentary:
The collar awarded to the winners of the Meilleur Ouvrier de France (Best Craftsman in France) is more than the ultimate recognition for every pastry chef — it is a dream and an obsession. The 3-day competition includes everything from delicate chocolates to precarious six foot sugar sculptures and requires that the chefs have extraordinary skill, nerves of steel and luck. The film follows Jacquy Pfeiffer, founder of The French Pastry School in Chicago, as he returns to France to compete against 15 of France’s leading pastry chefs. The filmmakers were given first time/exclusive access to this high-stakes drama of passion, sacrifice, disappointment and joy in the quest to have President Sarkozy declare them one of the best in France.
Really? Now that his new book about reminding the proles of the moral benefits of manual labor is slipping off the bestseller list, the heroes of Murray’s moral universe are guys who make chocolate swans (or whatever the hell this is)?
I confess I actually like this kind of thing — I’m a regular Chopped and Top Chef viewer, and foodie food is an occasional splurge. But I thought that made me evil in Murray’s eyes. I thought he’d regard the very existence of foodie culture as an abomination. Guess not.
(X-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog.)
schrodinger's cat
I am sure Bobo with a PhD loves Top Chef, after all it is another bastion of male supremacy, just like God intended.
wvng
Off topic, but … OMG! Ann Coulter: ““And just a more corporate problem is I think our party and particularly our movement, the conservative movement, does have more of a problem with con men and charlatans than the Democratic Party,” she said. “I mean, the incentives seem to be set up to allow people — as long as you have a band of a few million fanatical followers, you can make money. The Democrats have managed to figure out how not to do that.”
http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/14/coulter-on-palin-brokered-convention-gop-has-a-problem-with-con-men-and-charlatans/#ixzz1p7IZHRUR
patrick
guess I’m a Neanderthal because my guilty pleasure when it comes to watching competitions is the Met/RX World’s Strongest Man competition….
I mainly watch food network/cooking channel because I’m a science geek and I dig Alton Brown’s “Good Eats” and I like watching Giada DeLarentis on Everyday Italian because, well….
patrick
@wvng: ain’t that the pot calling the kettle black….
meander
I watched Kings of Pastry a few months ago and found it to be surprisingly suspenseful and emotionally engaging. The competitors are intensely dedicated to their craft and you are on pins and needles as they move their delicate creations from the kitchen to the judging area.
That dedication to craft is also found in bakers and cooks all over the world, usually for low pay and limited benefits. Not many people are making films about the guy that starts work at 2 AM to bake that day’s bread and pastries for $10/hr.
schrodinger's cat
@patrick:
She has a big head?
Roger Moore
@wvng:
Look in the mirror, much, Ms. Coulter?
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
IMO, “Chopped” is often even worse. I saw one episode where the winning chef had accidentally used salt instead of sugar in his dessert and he still won, because the alternative was having a woman chef win. But I haven’t watched it in a while, because the glass ceiling on it pissed me off too much.
Chris
@wvng:
What does her opinion have to do with anything? According to her own statements, she shouldn’t even be allowed to vote.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: The man has to win, it is the rule, otherwise those damn bitches will get too uppity. After the first season of Top Chef All Stars, when Antonia was robbed, I stopped watching it. I have never seen Chopped and now in the boonies where I live, we have no cable, so no more Bravo or Food Network.
dmsilev
@Mnemosyne: Seriously? How the hell can anyone justify voting for a dessert which accidentally has half a cup of salt added to it?
That’s about as reasonable as the judging on the original Japanese version of Iron Chef (“This tastes like a combination of motor oil and cat urine. Well done, Iron Chef, full points for you and nothing for the challenger”).
SteveM
@patrick: I like the competitive chainsaw guys.
And billiards, too. But really? We’re still calling an Asian-American female billiards player “the Black Widow”? In 2012?
Mnemosyne
@meander:
I used to watch Anthony Bourdain’s show, “No Reservations,” and at a pastry shop in Paris, he dispensed the very good advice that you should never get into a fistfight with a baker, because they’ve all developed huge arms from kneading bread dough.
@dmsilev:
They decided that the rest of his food had been better than the woman’s, so therefore his mistake should be overlooked and he should be awarded the prize.
As you can imagine, that was the last episode I saw.
PIGL
@wvng: I would not have thought her capable of such a frank admission. Are we certain her brain has not been infected by a behvioural parasite?
pseudonymous in nc
“Elitism for me, but not for thee.”
Barry
Remember, Charles ‘Bell Curve’ Murray is one of the cognitive elites, so can watch whatever he wants.
Linda Featheringill
@dmsilev:
[chuckle]
Yeah, the original was pretty funny. Perhaps it lost some of its intended dignity and gravitas when it crossed cultures. But I enjoyed it.
uptown
I saw Kings of Pastry on TV and it is worth watching. The level of skill that is required just to be invited to compete is amazing. The hours that they have to put into planning/practicing for the competition would be considered a full time job by many.
In other news, Charles Murray is still just a hack.
JGabriel
PPP via GOS:
Tyrone and John Rogers: Still goddamn geniuses.
.
Amir Khalid
@SteveM:
Why not? In this context, it’s not a racial reference at all. It’s no more objectionable than the New Zealand rugby team being called the All Blacks because the team uniform is all black.
schrodinger's cat
@Barry: May be, but not an elite where it comes to physical attractiveness. In fact he seems like he belongs in the left tail of the Bell Curve.
Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity
Poverty for thee and not for me.
Funny how those who preach the virtues of hard work and poverty are never to be found behind the counter of a 7-11 or Starbucks.
BigHank53
Charles Murray is mercifully free of self-awareness. Otherwise he’d hang himself.
rlrr
@patrick:
for the same reasons I watch French Food at Home with Laura Calder…
Butch
Recently in a situation where I had no control over the teevee I had to sit through an episode of Paula Dean. Enough said.
scav
Don’t hold one C. Murray against Kings of Pastry. Some of the sugar stuff is indeed 100% insane looking but technically and geekishly jaw-dropping to watch during construction and then there’s all the other food and the passionate devotion to getting things right. The attention to detail is insane. (had to suffer through Sarko at the end, more’s the pity.)
Nutella
@Barry:
A Real White American watching a show about a Real Midwestern White American going to France? Shouldn’t the chef be home making freedom fries for godfearing Americans?
OT, but here’s a comic on why it’s a good thing the real world is not like the internet.
rlrr
@Butch:
That’s Paul Deen.
schrodinger's cat
@Butch: I think she has gotten considerably worse as the years have gone by. Her Southern schtick was not as pronounced in the earlier years. Right now, it feels like she is playing a character rather than being a real person. Come to think of it, this characterization fits quite a few chefs on FN.
fasteddie9318
@wvng: What am I to make of the fact that Ann Coulter is quoted saying that at The Daily Caller, yet the universe has not been sucked into that quantum irony singularity?
asiangrrlMN
@SteveM: She’s really good. I like her nickname because it’s based on her ability to kill off her opponents and because she always wears black.
schrodinger's cat
@asiangrrlMN: How have you been? I have not seen you around in a long time. How are the kittehs?
JGabriel
Ann Coulter via wvng:
Because our party doesn’t venerate evil, Ann.
And that’s ignoring the mind-blowing cognitive dissonance of the messenger here.
.
Roger Moore
@fasteddie9318:
TANJ.
muddy
@wvng: Coulter is confessing to be a con and a charlatan, sweet!
wvng
@fasteddie9318: That the mathematics underlying the “quantum irony singularity” have not been worked out fully? I personally think it is a sign of the end times as foretold by the Mayans. It is 2012, after all.
muddy
@schrodinger’s cat:
It’s called being a lollipop person.
schrodinger's cat
@Roger Moore: Yet another meaning
tan J = (sin J)/(cos J)
schrodinger's cat
@muddy: I didn’t know that, this blog is very edumakashnul.
muddy
My son used to be a baker, it really sucked going to work in the winter because the snowplows didn’t come out until 3 a.m.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: Minority female chef forgot her garnish? CHOPPED! White dude blew all the flavours? Well, he was far more risk-taking.
I hate chopped with a passion I reserve for sweet genius.
muddy
@schrodinger’s cat: See also, Nancy Reagan and Al Sharpton. Also many in Hollywood I guess.
Joel
Top chef is sexist? Didn’t Stephanie Izard defeat all-star megachef Richard Blaise in season 4?
Juju
@Mnemosyne
In the “Chopped” episode where the male chef used salt instead of sugar the male chef lost the challenge. The episode took place in season one, episode four,
schrodinger's cat
@Joel: That’s the only time a woman has won Top Chef, as far as I know. Richard Blaise’s win in the All Stars version was engineered and Antonia was robbed in the semifinals. Everyone seemed to like her food the best till sexist-in-chief Colicchio (sp?)weighed in and then others took the cue and started bad mouthing her food. That is just my opinion, YMMV.
ETA: That is but one and very egregious example, Top Chef (all varieties) is littered with such examples.
Butch
@rlrr: Ooops. Especially ooops because I’m an editor and I should know to check things like that.
Paul in KY
I think the photo is either a choclate chtullu or some kind of parasite that lives in our colons.
Can’t be sure until I taste it.
Juju
I tried to leave a link to the episode, but I’m using my iPhone and it didn’t work.
I thought Sarah was robbed on “Top Chef” and I was very disappointed with the finale on “The Next Iron Chef”. That spiky haired blond woman from S.F. was fantastic.
Basilisc
So Sully’s top post at the moment starts like this:
Can anyone come up with more fail in a single sentence? I stopped reading at that point, just to contemplate the masterpiece of fail-osity.
Capri
@JGabriel:
It’s nice that the Dem.s are credited for the wisdom to keep their ex-politicians out of the national conversation, but if there was a large left wing media welfare state in this country, they be just like the GOP.
Conservatives like Coulter still appear to believe that FOX and conservative media is serving a larger purpose than filling their own coffers. Only Frum seems to grasp the fact that FOX news, Rush, etc. is hurting the GOP. And he got exiled for his troubles.
If MSNBC were like FOX, Dennis K. would have a show. He’s use the celebrity from the show to go on more shows and remain a celebrity……and 10 years from now he’d jump back on the scene and mess stuff up for the Dems, just like Newt is doing now.
asiangrrlMN
@schrodinger’s cat: I’m OK. The kittehs are fantastic. How you be?
kerFuFFler
Oh bother…..moderated comment. What could possibly have tripped the censor mechanism? Feh!
kerFuFFler
@wvng: Thanks for the OT link about Coulter. I scrolled through the comments and had to laugh about the mindset. Since Coulter said something mildly critical about a dynamic within the conservative movement she is being accused of not even being a conservative——-now the rabid right is even making fun of her adam’s apple! I thought that was a source of fun for atheist, socialist, communist fascists only!
Woodrowfan
any bets on Charles Murray having a secret taste for brown sugar and dark chocolate??
jl
I watched some reality show baking contest a few weeks ago while waiting in line at the bank.
One of the cakes fell over!
That was interesting. I got to the teller window just as the fifteen thousand reaction shots of contestant and slow mo replay of cake fall got tiring.
I think we should encourage Murray to concentrate on this kind of stuff, where real competition breeds excellence and weeds out the losers, American style.
Edit: the cake was like four feet tall, with all sorts of frosting gargoyles on it, with multiple layers propped up on stilts. TV at is finest.
Edit edit: so peoples with your tweeter machines, send nice tweets to Murray, ask for more of this. It will keep him out of trouble. Idle hands and all that, a problem for Murray.
schrodinger's cat
@jl: We could have a Balloon Juice baking contest, where in we make a cake shaped like Tunch.
ETA: A life size replica, no less.
Suffern ACE
@Capri: Well, there is Spitzer. But Spitzer as far as I can tell doesn’t go around to liberal speaking events attempting to sell stuff to be a part of the movement. Netroots Nation doesn’t work like CPAC.
kerFuFFler
Not too long ago you were asking for input about improving the site. How about posting tips about what will and will not put a comment in “moderation”. It has not happened to me in a while, but it seems like my most innocuous comments get flagged for “moderation”. My most recent one contained no swear words or streams of culturally insensitive invective.
The only “bad” thing I did that I can think of is that I referred to Ann Coulter. Was that too foul-mouthed?
zach
Good movie; horrible example for Murray’s purposes. You can read between the lines while watching and find that chefs are routinely awarded for being persistent rather than good (they’re all quite good, mind you). Furthermore, the apprenticeship nature of the French pastry industry seems to be quite un-Bell-Curve to me. It’s essentially the same labor structure as a Union. The award that chef’s compete for artificially limits the supply of approved pastry chefs despite a high and increasing global demand for pastry chefs.
jl
@schrodinger’s cat:
A life size cake replica of Tunch? After the election. We don’t want skyrocketing wheat sugar and food oils prices causing another election issue.
It should be done, however. A replica cake of Tunch, that was edible, would consume itself immediately upon creation. And what would happen to it then? So would be a valuable physics experiment.
jl
Siren alert, Serious response to Murray: he needs to include Finland’s education reform in his research on competition, discipline and punish of the lesser people, and success.
Why Are Finland’s Schools Successful?
The country’s achievements in education have other nations doing their homework
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html
arguingwithsignposts
I liked Kings of Pastry. It was directed by D.A. Pennebaker, no slouch in the documentary filmmaking category.
Also, not all “reality chef” shows are sexist. There have been several female winners of Hell’s Kitchen, and Masterchef.
schrodinger's cat
@asiangrrlMN: I iz good, busy but good.
Joel
@Juju: I thought Sarah should have won, too. But the shows are edited in a certain fashion, and it’s hard to read much into it. Paul Qui was dominating the entire season and held his own in the final. Plus, he was nice to people. That stuff matters. Sarah was a big part of the “queen bee” brigade that relentlessly bullied Beverley throughout the competition. Did not make it easy to root for her.
SteveM
@jl: Regarding Finland’s education system, and why it puts ours to shame, there’s also this.
nellcote
What are the measurements for the Tunch Cake?
Juju
@Joel:
That’s true, Sarah was a royal beach. It did make it difficult to root for Sarah, but she did seem to move beyond the animosity she had for Beverly, and was almost likable by the finale. My problem with Paul is that it seemed that his field was very narrow. I love Asian cooking, but there is more to life than a fine broth with fish. Sarah seemed to be a more of a well rounded chef, in that she could cook more than one region. Sarah’s final meal was the one I would have paid for, Paul’s I would let some one buy for me.
Joel
@Juju: I think the real disaster this season were the endless team competitions. I thought Nyeasha was one of the strongest competitors in the field and she basically got wiped out by a weak teammate.
handsmile
Arriving only in time for the cheese course of this particular thread, but I’ll add my recommendation for the delights of Kings of Pastry. Meander (#5 above) well described it as “surprisingly suspenseful and emotionally engaging.” In terms of craftsmanship both culinary and cinematic, this documentary has as much relation to TV programs like “Chopped” or “Top Chef” as fine dining does to Olive Garden or Red Lobster.
The object in the photograph above is a spun-sugar sculpture, one of the required categories that each competing pastry chef must create, and the one that fills them all with the most dread.
Also, too, Laura Calder is a goddess.
DonkeyKong
YCBFOSIYAR- You can be full of shit if you’re a republican.