Author: John Schultz

A long-time Lutheran joined the Church at my parish on Sunday. His wife was Catholic and after 50+ years of marriage he finally decided to become Catholic. I almost had the choir sing “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” just for the sake of irony.

I just put down the latest printed copy of National Review which contains a piece by William F. Buckey that skewers the “Reflections” document issued by one of the committees of the US Bishops Conference. And it dawned in me, in my current cranky state, that there’s been at least one other document that escaped review by the entire Bishop’s conference but still made it to prime time: Environment and Art in Catholic Worship. Luckily that’s been replaced with Built on Living Stones. By “Prime Time” I mean out there for all to see and misunderstand as something authoritative.

Fr. Jim’s perspective on the kneeling/genuflecting controversy.

So I just remembered something I’ve been meaning to blog about. My wife and I don’t watch much TV. It’s news in the morning and whatever happens to be on around bed time on a handful of channels: Food Network, History Channel, Home & Garden Channel, etc. I find myself going back to the Food network alot because there’s never been a show about Hitler on the Food Network and normally someone isn’t building their very own paper mill on the Food Network. That said, there’s a few things I love and a few things I can’t stand
I love Alton Brown and Good Eats. It’s a smart show that’s well done and entertaining. Even if I won’t ever smoke my own bacon, he still manages to both educate and entertain me.
I like Mario Batali because he’s real. He’s the big jolly guy who lives down the street that you wouldn’t mind having a beer with. So what if I’ll never cook Risotto turned black with some ink from an octopus? There’s a lot of stuff he cooks that I will try and he doesn’t have any of the super-chef annoying qualities that I find in…
…Emeril Legasse. Holy crap I’m beginning to hate his show. We all love garlic, but do you have to cheer wildly when 4 times the normal amount is thrown in to the sautee pan? Does everything need Emeril’s essence? He was making Wiener Schnitzel one night and I thought “Cool – some authentic German food.” He pounded it, put salt and pepper on it and covered it with his “essence.” So much for authentic German food. I was also amazed one night that the audience cheered as Emeril chopped up some parsley. It’s chopping, folks. The man is chopping. It’s not even as impressive as the Ginsu Knife commercials of the 1980s but people were wild with glee.
Sarah Pinkney of Food Finds drives me nuts. I call it Fake Finds since she acts like everything she pops into her mouth is just the most amazing thing she’s ever had. And she has the kindergarten teacher tone going on that drives me nuts.
Jaime Oliver, the Naked Chef, makes me want to shoot the TV out with a sawed-off shotgun. I can’t understand a single word of his, and his show is full of stupid British TV Tricks: odd angles, zooms, fast forwarding while Jaime drives his stupid scooter to the bakery. If I wanted some British TV I’d be watching Dr. Who. Just cook some food in a way I can understand and stop talking about your mates.
$40 A Day is another show I’m not crazy about. I don’t remember the name of the hostess but she’s supposed to travel around the US with only $40 a day to spend on food. Make it $400 a day and it would be much more interesting.
Iron Chef is mildly entertaining for the first 5 minutes (when you find out what the theme ingredient is) and the last 5 minutes when you find out who won. There is one judge on there that sort of funny be virtue of her work: she’s a fortune teller. I’m waiting for her to taste something and say “You will not win this time, my friend.”
Why did I think of this? I just went to weather.com and Emeril was featured in a pop-up ad for some new series he’s doing. And it wasn’t just a pop-up ad – it had sound. He was saying “We’re going to kick-it-up notches unknown on blah blah blah” I closed the window pretty fast and started typing this post.

Reading about the communion mayhem below, I can’t help but thinking that people on both sides of the divisive issues of the day have lost their focus on Jesus and on living a life of charity.
I’m preaching to myself with this statement, of course. So many times I fail to live out charity in favor of selfishness and pride. I think the lack of focus on charity lets angst around these issues build into inappropriate expressions of indignation and a real lack of perspective on what’s important. Comments?