Not that it was cool at the time, but I was a huge fan of the cooking channel, as it was called then, when I was a kid, but for years and years and years I completely lost interest, but have noticed recently that the Food Network is literally overflowing with surprisingly fascinating shows, one of my favorite of which is my recently discovered Food Network Challenge, which combines one of my childhood favorites, the cooking channel, with one of my other childhood favorites, the Guinness Book of World Records. Granted, not every episode is centered around an attempt, or multiple attempts, to set a new world record, but the challenges that make up the premise of each episode are almost always fascinating ideas to test the current limits of culinary capabilities by some of the best chefs around the world. Certainly, the show is not for everyone, but anyone not interested in seeing an attempt to make the tallest structure entirely out of sugar (and, incidentally, modeled after some famous American skyscraper) or the highest pizza toss is someone I would wonder about. I can't really think of a practical use of being able to cook 555 pancakes in an hour or scoop 20 ice cream cones in a minute, or even to make a massive, intricate, and extremely delicate sculpture out of various types of melted sugar (even if it was made to be eaten, which almost nothing on the Food Network Challenge is), even if they are made to look like Elvis or Gene Simmons, but it sure is fun to watch.
