50 Kitchen Ideas from the Barefoot Contessa
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Right On Moose86
That is good insightful and useful information!
Thank you-
The third major obsession in our culture [behind sex (1) and celebrity (2)] is entertainment. These types of "informative" pieces are quite empty (i.e., anybody with any common sense and any practical experience regarding the subject can figure out easily on their own such ideas, even better ones) and boil down to a form of entertainment. And anybody could accomplish in her/his home an environment like the one being displayed, with crews of professional workers and funding from a major media company!
The reason entertainment/advertisement pieces like this one are so popular today is because they appeal to the desire in us to escape reality and to fantasize. Just like watching cleaning appliances do their magic in tv ads and automatically fantasizing about your home suddenly becoming pristine with very little effort, so you can't resist ordering that appliance right away; just like watching weight-loss ads with giddy, newly-thin individuals claiming that their weight loss was painless and automatically fantasizing about your perfect body returning to you with little effort and no discomfort or pain (and becoming Hef's newest "Girl Next Door"?), so you can't resist ordering that (dangerous?) diet pill or ridiculous exercise machine right away; just like watching acne treatment or make-up ads and automatically fantasizing about your perfect complexion suddenly appearing with no change in diet or lifestyle, so you can't resist ordering that product right away (by the way, the celebrities doing those acne treatment ads easily spend tens of thousands of dollars per month for professional dermatologists' treatments and frequent facials); will you consume this fancy ad portraying the work of teams of professionals and being presented by Ms. Garten and automatically begin fantasizing about having the perfectly organized kitchen with the latest and fanciest decor, materials and appliances and coveting this unrealistic/unattainable home environment, rendering you unable to make the best and most out of the kitchen and home with which you have already been blessed and unable to continue developing and enjoying your own version of productivity and creativity?
Our entire culture is in dire need of an intensive remedial course in independent and objective thinking and creative living, especially in order to counteract the constant barrage of mindless, purely materialistic, opportunistic and more often than not phony entertainment posing as valuable information and sensibility. Effective broadscale education and improvement of this sort would deflate the entertainment industry practically overnight.
Anybody who happened to begin developing a public persona in the food and home decorating industry within the last fifteen years has hit the jackpot today. They don't need exceptional talent or accomplishment, they just need an attractive physical appearance (as with any form of celebrity -- even with her obesity problem, Ms. Garten is an attractive lady, which is a rare combination), good stage presence, a certain measure of charisma, the cunning ability to be attractively disingenuous under pressure, expensive financial backing, gimmick(s) and hooks . . . and they have it made! What can I say? I guess some people are just meant to live charmed lives. Meanwhile, I will be about seeing that my life and lifestye will do just fine, and that will require not becoming obsessed with fantasizing about what I wish I could have but instead responsibly and happily improvising and doing.
I just love Ina in her kitchen! I enjoy that she can be kind of a messy cook and not so prissy. I enjoy that she adds all those high caloric ingredients in her recipes and imagining how the aroma smells depending on the items she has combined as they are cooking. Then, I love to see the end result of the dish and how beautiful it looks. I savor the flavors as she and Jeffrey sit down to enjoy it!!
-Then, I turn off the t.v. and my kitchen is spotless, I haven't added the gazillion calories am no worse for the wear and I have enjoyed it just as much as they have! Then I get on with my day!
-When I feel the need to shop for the expensive items that these cooks use, here's what I do... On occasion, I'll pay a visit to a specialty store. As I stroll around these expensive specialty stores, when I come across an item that "I think" I just have to have, I'll load the item/s in my cart or two. As I stroll and enjoy just looking, reading and learning about the new and different products on the market I'll periodically look down and admire the items in my cart (because during this time, they are "mine" while they are in "my" cart). Then, before I'm ready to leave, this little stroll has given me time to realize and think about how much I would actually use these marvelous and expensive items. The truth is they would probably sit in my kitchen storage areas just like they are now sitting in my cart; plus the items are now a couple of hours old and are now has beens, because now, I have already "had" them- time to move on! Then, just leave the cart somewhere inconspicuously in the store. It will keep someone busy especially in this economy and out I go! Again, I've had an enjoyable shopping experience and have saved thousands of dollars over the years by utilizing this little shopping tip. Only if I've thought about one of the items for a month or more after my shopping trip, then I "might" entertain the thought of purchasing it.
So bring it on, I want to see and enjoy everything!
I agree that the majority of these ideas are way to expensive and out of reach for the everyday American, especially in today's ecomony. It is sad to see how far off into another world those with money really are. Ina has a great show, but I'd bet anything that her sponsors are paying for any and everything she wants in her office/kitchen.
After viewing all of her ideas, I found exactly 9 out of 50 that I may be able to incorporate on my budget without breaking the bank.
Ina's husband is maybe 125 pounds. I think she is trying to plump him up 
.
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