It’s time to travel on your stomach with Food Network and Cooking Channel
Welcome to the middle of January, a time of year when the Christmas bills are coming due and cabin fever is beginning to set in.
The instinct is to go far, far away – preferably to somewhere warm – but in the age of the pandemic that may prove difficult, if not unhealthy. So it might be safer to live vicariously through the foodies on Cooking Channel and Food Network, who will not only show you cool places but where you can get a great meal.
Andrew Zimmern certainly has the right idea in the Monday, Jan. 17, episode of Cooking’s “The Zimmern List,” in which he stops in San Diego, an often-overlooked culinary destination, to grab a bite of seafood in Little Italy, sample some authentic Mexican in Barrio Logan and feast on everybody’s newest favorite fast food, fried chicken.
A quick hop halfway across the Pacific is Guy Fieri, who in the Friday, Jan. 21, episode of “Guy! Hawaiian Style” on Food Network has a busy agenda on tap for his family that includes spearfishing, catching prawns and a visit to Pearl Harbor to prepare a Mexican lunch for troops as a “mahalo” for their service.
If sheer volume is your thing, Casey Webb might have what you seek on Cooking’s “Man v. Food” on Tuesday, Jan. 18, which finds him in Virginia Beach chowing down on a street corn snack-turned-burger, a decadent croissant-muffin hybrid and the vaunted corned beef omelet challenge involving a dozen eggs. Calorie counters, you have been forewarned.
Up the East Coast in Philadelphia, Robert Irvine is checking out some of the comfort foods the City of Brotherly Love has to offer in the Sunday, Jan. 16, edition of Cooking’s “Cheat Day.” The day starts with a stop at the city’s oldest Irish pub for meatloaf and mashed potatoes stacked high with fish and chips. Then it’s off to Stamford, Conn., for chocolate-hazelnut peanut butter cup French toast and San Antonio for crispy pata and sisig made from pork and spices.
And if you’re looking for more exotic fare, turn it to Cooking on Monday for “Bizarre Foods: Delicious Destinations,” which brings host Zimmern to Stockholm to sample herring and traditional Swedish fare such as pea soup and pancakes and cinnamon rolls topped with crunchy pearl sugar. There is also a dish known as “Jansson’s temptation,” a creamy potato and anchovy casserole that is said to be named for early-1900s Swedish opera singer Pelle Janzon, a renowned gourmet.