While we were at my cousin's house for Thanksgiving, I discovered Cake Boss. I think I've found my guilty secret in the world of television.
CB is a reality program based on a high-end bakery in Hoboken, New Jersey. I watch it because baking interests me, and I like picking up concepts and phrases like 'dirty icing' or 'fondant'. I learn about things I never even knew existed, like 'modeling chocolate'. The people who run the place are classic dees, dem, dose folks, many of whom are family, cousins, nephews, but the ringleader -- the Cake Boss -- is Buddy Vallastro, a stocky, hustling baker who's never met an over the top cake he won't try. He says that the bakery pumps out hundreds of cakes a week, and from the looks of the show, at least four or five mega-cakes, too. You want a cake that looks like a three-dimensional Venus Flytrap? They'll make it. A sheet cake to feed 500 people, with a sculpted cartoon biplane atop? No problem. A cake for a bachelorette party that includes anatomically correct male strippers made of chocolate? Can do. It's pretty interesting, and frequently funny.
When the show gets detailed - how did they do that icing? - I'm grateful for the Tivo 'instant-replay' option. And when it gets stupid, I'm grateful for the fast-forward, too.
2 comments:
Oh yeah...buddy is my hero! Brenda told me never be THAT boss. I replied that I could never be THAT boss because I don't have writers who will set up "challenges". (So where's the ring guys? Dis ain't funny anymo." "Its right heya, I was cleanin' it!" "Tanks a lot!" as he looks over the wreckage of a hundred cupcakes crumbled in the search for the elusive client's engagement ring. All I could say is "Dude----the cameraman saw her take it! Either he kept quiet because he saw an opportunity to watch Buddy spin out of control, or he set it up himself. Because they got him a few minutes earlier promising the client to take good care of the ring, I lean towards the set up myself!
OTOH, the proposal in the store was kind of nice...so long as you detest any sort of privacy.
I think that guy is ADHD. He drives his staff hard, he drives his sisters bonkers, and he drives his delivery van as if he wanted the cakes in back to collapse into every pothole in Jersey City. Perfect fodder for "reality television".
I have been asked by Canadian producers if I would like to participate in some sort of "how its made" show. I rejected it, because there is none of the over the top human interest of OC Choppers, Cake Boss, or John and Kate plus Eight to keep the ratings up, and therefore such a show in MY shop would be doomed to failure. I would have to get some script writer to come up with "how can Mark pick a fight with Stag THIS week, and how can Stag blow his top in a new and clever way?
Who knows....I might go for it. Then you can say "I knew him before he was famous!".
....well....would the fight use period weaponry?
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