Tyler Florence Pitching for Applebee's

[Antonio Burrell]

I don't know if you guys have seen this, but tonight I saw Tyler Florences' ad for Applebee's. "Bringing big flavor to the neighborhood"...... Which immediately brought to mind the following question: Can you get "big flavor" from a microwave? Having once disgraced myself by working in an Applebees in high school, I KNOW that they do very little real cooking when you order. Open a portion bag, pop it in the Box and let Chef Mike do all the work. THe thing is, Tyler Florence is a Chef, a real chef, not Rachel Ray bullshit....I guess it just reinforces the fact that he's a tool, a huge tool.....There I feel better

[ScotteeM]

When I saw the commercial the other night, I felt faint and had to lie down.

I loved him. How could he?

[Mark Slater]

Sorry, I had to Google Tyler. Never heard of him. Tony, what's the big deal. If someone waved mega-bucks in your face, would you say no? Cheeses, Andrea Immer was the corporate sommelier for TARGET! She actually recommended Orville Riedenbacker Butter Flavored Microwave Popcorn (from our friends at Conagra- Google that!) with Kendall-Jackson Vintners Reserve Chardonnay! Selling out is the norm, not the exception.

[Antonio Burrell]

Sorry, I had to Google Tyler. Never heard of him. Tony, what's the big deal. If someone waved mega-bucks in your face, would you say no? Cheeses, Andrea Immer was the corporate sommelier for TARGET! She actually recommended Orville Riedenbacker Butter Flavored Microwave Popcorn (from our friends at Conagra- Google that!) with Kendall-Jackson Vintners Reserve Chardonnay! Selling out is the norm, not the exception.

I can honestly say that no, I wouldn't. Fortunately I don't have that perdicament to deal with. Would you feel as proud to work for Micheal if they were selling "Foiereos by Micheal Richard" at 7 eleven? I just think that integrity and not debasing the value of what you do is worth more than dollars. Now, maybe he's got a reason for doing the selling out, maybe he's bringing gourmet food to the masses but somehow I think it's something closer to wanting a bigger house or something.....I do agree that selling out is more the norm than the exception and Tyler Florence is not someone I particularly hold in high esteem, but the general trend just leaves a bad taste in my mouth....that said, I sure would like a Foiereo.....

[DonRocks]

I can honestly say that no, I wouldn't. Fortunately I don't have that perdicament to deal with. Would you feel as proud to work for Micheal if they were selling "Foiereos by Micheal Richard" at 7 eleven? I just think that integrity and not debasing the value of what you do is worth more than dollars. Now, maybe he's got a reason for doing the selling out, maybe he's bringing gourmet food to the masses but somehow I think it's something closer to wanting a bigger house or something.....I do agree that selling out is more the norm than the exception and Tyler Florence is not someone I particularly hold in high esteem, but the general trend just leaves a bad taste in my mouth....that said, I sure would like a Foiereo.....

The selling-out occurs when they go to the Food Network. I'm not saying it's wrong, but let's at least identify the singularity at the point of origin; the commercial stuff is just a logical extension.

[Waitman]

I had much stronger views on selling out before I turned 40, got a mortgage, started paying tuition. I worried that Nirvana sold out when they left Sub-pop. I worried that Coppola had sold out when he made "Peggy Sue Got Married." I worried that Krusty sold out when he lent his name to Kamp Krusty ("what could I do? They drove a dump truck full of money onto my lawn.") . And let's not even think about Jacques Pepin and the Howard Johnsons thing.

Now? I don't worry so much. Chefs aren't priests -- especially not TV chefs -- and they're not breaking a vow when they pick up a little beer money on the side, whether it's by posing naked with a blender or pitching a hideous chain on TV. There are other things to worry about.

Now, if he was pitching Potbelly....

[CrescentFresh]

Fabio Trabocchi/Maestro has started hawking Barilla frozen dinners in print ads. I was pretty shocked when I saw it. I agree with Antonio that it's pretty strange seeing such chefs pitching ready-to-eat and prepared foods. I'm all about them selling knives/pots/pans/ovens/ice cube trays as the logical extension that Don points out....cooking tools... but I, too, think there'd be something fishy if I suddenly saw Mr. Kinkead's Fish Stix next to the box of Mrs. Paul's.

[Waitman]

Fabio Trabocchi/Maestro has started hawking Barilla frozen dinners in print ads. I was pretty shocked when I saw it. I agree with Antonio that it's pretty strange seeing such chefs pitching ready-to-eat and prepared foods. I'm all about them selling knives/pots/pans/ovens/ice cube trays as the logical extension that Don points out....cooking tools... but I, too, think there'd be something fishy if I suddenly saw Mr. Kinkead's Fish Stix next to the box of Mrs. Paul's.

What do you think when you see Wolfgang Puck frozen pizza next to Chef-boy-ar-dee?

Puck -- and for that matter, Bernard Loiseau -- lent their name to a whole raft of mediocre foodstuffs (in Puck's case, also not one but two chains of mediocre-at-best restaurant chains) wihtout acquiring hack status. I'd suggest that the distance between frozen pizzas and Applebees is a very short one.

[JPW]

THe thing is, Tyler Florence is a Chef, a real chef, not Rachel Ray bullshit....

He is? Could have fooled me.

[RaisaB]

I had much stronger views on selling out before I turned 40, got a mortgage, started paying tuition. I worried that Nirvana sold out when they left Sub-pop. I worried that Coppola had sold out when he made "Peggy Sue Got Married." I worried that Krusty sold out when he lent his name to Kamp Krusty ("what could I do? They drove a dump truck full of money onto my lawn.") . And let's not even think about Jacques Pepin and the Howard Johnsons thing.

Now? I don't worry so much. Chefs aren't priests -- especially not TV chefs -- and they're not breaking a vow when they pick up a little beer money on the side, whether it's by posing naked with a blender or pitching a hideous chain on TV. There are other things to worry about.

Now, if he was pitching Potbelly....

True that! We all (or nearly all) have lofty ideals when we are younger. But wave hundreds of thousands in someone's face for working a few hours? Life gets in the way. In France I think Joel Robuchon (I think) has sold his name and face to some frozen foods, bean soup etc... Does that make him less of a chef?

[blakegwinn]

True that! We all (or nearly all) have lofty ideals when we are younger. But wave hundreds of thousands in someone's face for working a few hours? Life gets in the way. In France I think Joel Robuchon (I think) has sold his name and face to some frozen foods, bean soup etc... Does that make him less of a chef?

This "selling out" crap is ridiculous. Evvvvveryone has their price. And it might not even be about shoving money in someone's throat. I honestly think some people might just get bored. Short attention spans are the norm now days. Its like Warren Brown's energy bar venture. You just get bored with cakes and say, you know what I'll bet I could make a better energy bar than that guy. Puck probably one day just said screw it, this tombstone pizza stuff is embarassing. I am sure I could do better than that.

I think a lot of the hate of "selling out" comes from food snobbery. There are still a LOOOTTT of people who aren't going to be able to afford or have the time to cook gourmet groundbreaking food or go out to a fancy restaurant. A lot of people who's lives don't revolve around cuisine and restaurant life like ours. They need the applebees and the frozen pizzas because they are quick and cheap. When I was a little kid like once a year on a special occassion we would get dressed up and go out to Applebees. It was all we could afford. But man that was the best meal of the year and I always looked forward to it. So rip on TGIF's and the Ruby Tues. all you want but I think they serve just as important a calling as the mandate from god some of you seem to think chefs have.

In all honesty Tyler Florance's life probably hasn't changed a single iota. He probably hits a few film shoots a month and then just goes about the exact same things he was doing before he "sold out". Except now he has a shit load more money. It doesn't affect me or my view of his cooking skills one way or the other. Sorry to interrupt, judge away...

[mdt]

This "selling out" crap is ridiculous. Evvvvveryone has their price. And it might not even be about shoving money in someone's throat. I honestly think some people might just get bored. Short attention spans are the norm now days. Its like Warren Brown's energy bar venture. You just get bored with cakes and say, you know what I'll bet I could make a better energy bar than that guy. Puck probably one day just said screw it, this tombstone pizza stuff is embarassing. I am sure I could do better than that.

I think a lot of the hate of "selling out" comes from food snobbery. There are still a LOOOTTT of people who aren't going to be able to afford or have the time to cook gourmet groundbreaking food or go out to a fancy restaurant. A lot of people who's lives don't revolve around cuisine and restaurant life like ours. They need the applebees and the frozen pizzas because they are quick and cheap. When I was a little kid like once a year on a special occassion we would get dressed up and go out to Applebees. It was all we could afford. But man that was the best meal of the year and I always looked forward to it. So rip on TGIF's and the Ruby Tues. all you want but I think they serve just as important a calling as the mandate from god some of you seem to think chefs have.

In all honesty Tyler Florance's life probably hasn't changed a single iota. He probably hits a few film shoots a month and then just goes about the exact same things he was doing before he "sold out". Except now he has a shit load more money. It doesn't affect me or my view of his cooking skills one way or the other. Sorry to interrupt, judge away...

I agree. I also find it funny that folks rip Rachel Ray because she it not a 'real' chef. Why would this community, where several threads exist about eating better, get upset about someone that is showing folks how to make decent meals easily. Once more people find out that they can make decent meals without having to spend hours in the kitchen, the more they will shop and inquire about better foods and (hopefully) better products will be available. Granted her personality can make it a little difficult to watch for some, but overall the message is something that we should be happy about.

[RaisaB]

I think anyone who claims they would turn down the money is fibbing just a little. Or is the PC word misleading?

It is funny that food snobbery was mentioned, I was having that same conversation with a member of this board yesterday. Even though alot of us have come to appreciate good food and have the means to afford it, we have to remember our roots and that we are in the minority. Most people would laugh at us and call us idiots for the food we eat and the money we spend on it. I remember when going to Burger KIng was a huge deal as a kid!

[blakegwinn]

I agree. I also find it funny that folks rip Rachel Ray because she it not a 'real' chef. Why would this community, where several threads exist about eating better, get upset about someone that is showing folks how to make decent meals easily. Once more people find out that they can make decent meals without having to spend hours in the kitchen, the more they will shop and inquire about better foods and (hopefully) better products will be available. Granted her personality can make it a little difficult to watch for some, but overall the message is something that we should be happy about.

You hit the nail right on the head here. You know what I always tell my friend who HATES Rachel Ray for a list of reasons. (elementary cooking, bubbly fake personality yada yada)? Would you rip on a Kindergarten teacher for not teaching John Updike and Russian history or for being too cheery? And even more important is it really important for a kindergarten teacher to know about advanced physics? Not really. They just need to teach the kids the basics alphabet, numbers, following directions etc. Then with that foundation they can go on to 1st grade, high school etc. Most of us on this board are at a HS level of food knowledge or a college level for all you trained chefs and I suppose PHd for Slater. and here we are sitting around tearing apart kindergarten students and teachers for not knowing as much as we do.

I don't really care for her show but I will say this I have found myself with somewhere to be and not wanting to eat out, staring into my fridge and thinking about what to make and some pieces of rachel ray that I picked up through osmosis after falling asleep in front of the TV have crept into my mind. She is accessible. The problem I have always had with some of the "real" chef's shows is that it is like "Ok shave some truffle onto the pork belly and place it on top of this vegetable that only grows on the peaks of this one mountain in the Himalayans." Everything Rachel ray does I can pretty much do with stuff that is already sitting in my fridge and can do with almost NO effort or focus.

[monavano]

This doesn't totally lack class you know. You CAN slap some lipstick on this pig. Just pick up your AppleBee's to Go and serve it at home on your Tyler Florence for Mikasa Chef's White Collection Dinnerware at Macy's.

[DanCole42]

You hit the nail right on the head here. You know what I always tell my friend who HATES Rachel Ray for a list of reasons. (elementary cooking, bubbly fake personality yada yada)? Would you rip on a Kindergarten teacher for not teaching John Updike and Russian history or for being too cheery? And even more important is it really important for a kindergarten teacher to know about advanced physics? Not really. They just need to teach the kids the basics alphabet, numbers, following directions etc. Then with that foundation they can go on to 1st grade, high school etc. Most of us on this board are at a HS level of food knowledge or a college level for all you trained chefs and I suppose PHd for Slater. and here we are sitting around tearing apart kindergarten students and teachers for not knowing as much as we do.

And let's not forget that Rachael's the bigger person in this whole thing. I don't think I've EVER heard her disparage a "real" chef, or dole out anything but respect for them. Could you imagine if she started talking about Bourdain the way he talks about HER?

[qwertyy]

Bill Buford contributed an article to this week's New Yorker summing up his impressions of the Food Network after forcing himself to watch 72 hours of it straight. (Actually, he gets pretty deep into the corporate history of the channel; I'd have liked to read more of how he managed to get through four Rachael Ray shows a day.) Some excerpts:

Chefs tend to do one kind of show—the scorned how-to, or “dump-and-stir,” as the network executives call it. “You need television talents. You can’t run a network with chefs,” Girard said, so authoritatively and matter-of-factly that I found myself agreeing with her. (Of course not! Who wants to watch a wizened old chef!)

...

Judy Girard left the Food Network in 2003. Her work was done (the channel—worth billions, according to Lowe—was in eighty million households, although their average income had fallen a bit, to a still fairly affluent seventy-five thousand dollars), and she moved to Nashville: Scripps had bought a shopping cable network, and Girard was going to develop it into a Shop at Home venture featuring celebrities from the Food Network and other Scripps stations. Her legacy, she explained when I spoke with her, included Rachael Ray, Giada, Alton Brown, and Sandra Lee, “brands,” whom viewers would now go out of their way to watch and follow—in effect, do anything to be closer to. Now Girard would put them on her new network, selling.

...

For all their swagger and expertise, Girard and her successors may not be that different from anyone else who has tried to run the Food Network, basically a good-hearted organization still fundamentally clueless about itself (TV or non-TV?) and its audience (cooks or kitchen idiots?), more professionally run than ever before, but still throwing a lot of product out there, a motley up-and-down mess, filling up the hours, hoping something is going to work, loyal, above all else, to its community, the shareholders.

[Antonio Burrell]

For me I guess the bigger picture thing is that as a chef that attended a culinary school, I didn't expect Tyler Florence to be pitching for Applebee's. Rachel Ray I could see . When I worked in France for George Blanc in Lyon, I gained a tremendous amount of respect for food and its orgins. When I came back to the states I found out that he had started a line of gourmet products ie: foie terrines, pates things of that nature but, and here's the key, they were all based on recipes that he made in his own restaurants, his charcuterie was phenomenal and people began to ask for it so he sold it through retail outlets. When I worked at Aquavit, Marcus began to develop a line of our Swedish inspired mustards, herrings and smoked salmons. All things that we made everyday in the kitchen. The point is that if the market is there for things that you are doing and doing well, then I consider that less of a "sin" than if you are blatently pawning your image off for some loot. I mean, really, this is such a departure from what he did before that it shocks me.

About Rachel Ray, I guess if someone becomes attracted to cooking through her, great. The message, however of how to properly do things is better spread through Alton Brown, who I might add is also a trained chef.

[The Hersch]

I agree. I also find it funny that folks rip Rachel Ray because she it not a 'real' chef.

The problem with Rachel Ray isn't that she's not a real chef, it's that she's an annoying twit. St. Julia was not a 'real' chef. But then, she didn't do promos for Denny's, either.

[DonRocks]

The problem with Rachel Ray isn't that she's not a real chef, it's that she's an annoying twit.

The bigger problem is that you guys watch TV. If it wasn't for this website, I'm not sure I'd even know who Rachel Ray is.

Going to read Milton by candlelight in my dark, cold basement now,

Rocks.

[Nadya]

Well, the only reason I know who is Rachel Ray is the fact that Food Network channel, #56, is next to HGTV, #55, and sometimes one's fingers wander.

And to contribute to the actual substance to the discussion:

Pimpin' ain't easy,

But it sure is fun.

Why does it still surprise y'all that people want money? And will do things for it? And things they won't do for money they will do for a lot more money? Honestly. I thought this was a free market society and all that good stuff.

[JPW]

This whole thing reminds me of how American movie/TV stars were historically loathe to do commercial endorsements in the States because of their "image", but thought nothing of raking in the bucks abroad endorsing any number of things where they thought that the US audience wouldn't see it.

Going to read Milton by candlelight in my dark, cold basement now,

Rocks.

Wouldn't Dante be more appropriate?

[RaisaB]

The problem with Rachel Ray isn't that she's not a real chef, it's that she's an annoying twit.

No, the problem is she is annoyingly cute. She appeals to men and to women, albeit maybe for different reasons, maybe not .

[Al Dente]

I don't really care for her show but I will say this I have found myself with somewhere to be and not wanting to eat out, staring into my fridge and thinking about what to make and some pieces of rachel ray...

I find myself doing the same thing. A slow braise works best.

[dmwine]

This doesn't totally lack class you know. You CAN slap some lipstick on this pig. Just pick up your AppleBee's to Go and serve it at home on your Tyler Florence for Mikasa Chef's White Collection Dinnerware at Macy's.

I'll be overnighting in Chillicothe, Ohio, this week, where the Applebee's once kindly stayed open late to accommodate my group that came in just before closing. The apps we ordered were actually not at all bad. Tyler's food is sounding pretty good, too, unless someone has some other suggestions???