Skinny Chef: Oxymoron or Complete Impossibility?

Someone wise once said, "Butter vs. Margarine? I trust cows over scientists." They are right, by God. Butter is THE most amazing food ever created. Recently, I had butter on a medium rare steak and it made me want make sweet sweet, passionate love on the table right then and there...while eating the steak. It was a true "When Harry Met Sally" moment. Rewind the VHS 10 years, and butter would have NEVER crossed my palate. My entire childhood, we were a margarine family. Tubs and tubs of hydrogenated, yellow goo is probably slathered in my arteries right now. *Sigh* Why, you ask, did we never have butter in the house? Butter makes you fat. Rolly Poley, blubber-butt fat. I'm was (and still am) terrified of being fat.

Well guess what kids, margarine makes you fat, too. It was developed as a feed to fatten up turkeys for slaughter. When the turkeys wouldn't eat it, it was re-marketed as a butter-alternative for human consumption. Yum. They don't tell you these things in science class.

Between the wedding and New Zealand trip, I have managed to shed a mighty 20 lbs. This is an astronomical achievement for me, as I hate exercise and love, love, love eating. However, it seems that cooking truly awesome food, especially of old-world origin, requires copious amounts of butter, eggs, and the occasional injection of lard. It has been a month to the day that we have arrived home from New Zealand, and the pounds are already packing back on.



Skinny me, back in the day. Notice the clear separation of chin and neck.



I have been chewing on this conundrum all morning: Is it possible to be a truly awesome chef and be skinny at the same time? You know, without being anorexic or something. It almost seems fundamentally wrong. How can someone who is so in love with food that they spend the majority of their adult life learning how to execute fabulous culinary delights be skinny? Ergo, are my attempts at cooking going to ultimately undermine my efforts to not return to a state of lard-ass-dom? It's an interesting quandary.

We used to see a lot of fat chefs on TV, but now they seem to be on the way out. Perhaps they all had massive heart attacks. Maybe, just maybe, the media only wants to do shows that have skinny hosts? Was there a survey panel out there that sat around one Wednesday afternoon telling TV executives, "You know, we love cooking shows, but we only want to see skinny people hosting them. Skinny chefs like this gem here:"

Dear Giada De Laurentiis, I hate you. Not only are you breath-taking,
I can't pronounce you name for the life of me.

"or this skinny-ish one:"

Rachel, honey, please lay off the caffeine.



However, there seems to be a trade off. These two cooks despite being beautiful, are so blatantly annoying that I want to throw a skillet through the TV when their shows come on. I wonder who would win in a cage match between these two. It would be hard to know because the audiences' heads would probably implode from all the inane screeching before a winner could be declared.  

Ladies, please. You are WAAAAY to excited to be talking about radishes.

What are your thoughts on the skinny/ fat chef conundrum?

..............................

Oh hell why not...

 or who would be the winner of the Annoying Skinny-Chef cage match?