Burning question of the week: why the heck is Aaron still on Hell's Kitchen, and why is GR being so nice to him???

I've become completely obsessed with cooking reality shows, which anyone who knows me will realize is utterly bizarre. I can't cook very well and have very little interest in learning to cook well. Foodie shows usually bore me stiff, but for some reason I'm riveted by the reality shows Hell's Kitchen, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, The Next Food Network Star, and Top Chef. The first two are mostly entertaining because Gordon Ramsay is such a tremendous talent and has earned the right to scream at people. (Plus, it's the third season, for crying out loud! These people should not be surprised when he calls them f------ donkeys.) Nightmares is a fascinating look at the whole business of running a restaurant, not just what happens in the kitchen. TNFNS is fun because they're looking for entirely different criteria than the other shows and it's great to see the shiny FN stars be mean to contestants.

Top Chef is just some kind of strange psychological experiment. Compared to the other two contest shows where winners get pretty damn important prizes--their own restaurant and a shot at a tv show--Top Chef winners get some cash, a feature in Food & Wine mag (category leader only in subscription price, not readership), and a vacation. Um, why again are you putting yourself through this torture? At least this season they're not forcing crappy Sears appliances on them. The product placement on TC is really over the top, too. It's just a weird, weird show.

Mom's left behind books box count as of this morning: 8 boxes of cookbooks + 9 boxes of fiction.