Guess What Mary Nolan: I Like Rules!

Watching a rerun of Mary Nolan's Chic & Easy (on Redlasso once again, as I've repeatedly let it slip my mind to record it. Symbolic? Probably.), I was struck by something:

I like rules!

And the apparent lack of any on Mary's show is driving me crazy.



In the ideal Food Network world—one in which everything is easy, accessible, and fast—I'm confused when it comes to rules, because Mary (and lots of other hosts do it too) keeps acting like there aren't any!

Examples:

On tomatoes: "San Marzano are fabulous. If you can't find those, anything will work!"

On kettle corn: "... for this you can use anything you have. You can buy it in the store, you can pop it in the microwave."

I know the point of all this is to put the viewer at ease and let them know the dish will still be okay with a substitution. But to me, ingredients lose all importance when a host repeatedly tells the viewer that they can be changed, altered, eliminated, or added... repeatedly!

Modification suggestions can be useful, though—when they're unexpected or actually helpful. For example, if Ina uses a certain type of blue cheese (probably Stilton) she might also recommend some other kinds of blue cheese you could use if Stilton wasn't available (maybe Roquefort), but she doesn't get all crazy and say that using cheddar or string cheese would okay, too.

But with Mary Nolan, I imagine her making a lasagna and saying something along the lines of,

"For this, I use lasagna noodles since it's a lasagna, but you can really use whatever kind of noodles you have on hand. Or just leave 'em out completely. Or maybe just use bread if you have a few slices around."

Ummm... that's not a lasagna!

Like I said, Mary Nolan is not the only one guilty of this. I'm sure that while preparing to do her six episodes, suggesting substitutions is right up there on the list of things to talk about while cooking, right below "Who doesn't like [fill in name of ingredient]?!" and "What goes better with [any pastime related or unrelated] than [thing your cooking]?!"

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P.S.- I love this post's title because it reminds me of the infamous "Guess what: I like facts!" fight between Rosie and Elisabeth on The View. [2:17-2:24]

Mary Nolan's Chic & Easy Neither Chic Nor Terribly Easy (To Stomach)

If I was Simon Cowell and sitting in front of Mary Nolan while she taped her first episode of her new Food Network show Chic & Easy, I would have had to say:

"Well, you didn't do yourself any favors there...sore-ey!"


(I guess the laptop in the corner there is the "chic" part?)

Either that, or, "Mary, that was a disaster."

I hate to shatter the hopes of a sweet Iowan (we Midwesterners gotta stick together!), but the first show was just bad.

She was nervous, couldn't stand still, spoke uncomfortably, dropped a spatula and didn't pick it up, and just seemed overly amateur. This shouldn't come as a surprise, though, since she's just that--an amateur! And that can work in certain situations, don't get me wrong.

I guess I was under the assumption that if the execs. somehow saw enough in Mary Nolan to have her bypass The Next Food Network Star and skip right to the cooking show part, then this first episode would totally blow me away. I was thinking she'd be like the Mozart of the Food Network. Instead, she was more like the Milli Vanilli.

And I'm not denying the fact that hosting a cooking show is hard--it is. But it's the job of the people in charge to find people who can do it well, make it look easy, and all that gooey stuff of wonderment and puppies that goes into finding a good host.

I won't even go into the food now. I know some people were turned off by her talking about meeting and feeding the chickens at a farm before she ate them, but if you've truly "got it," you can talk about anything while cooking an old shoe... and people will still watch. (I think Rachael Ray has actually done this before.)

So get it together, Mary! I like rooting for people. It helps me pretend that I'm a nice person. I'll give you one more week and if I see no improvement...


...I'd pack your suitcase.

Chic & Easy with Mary Nolan Coming this Sunday

A new show, Chic & Easy with Mary Nolan, is premiering this Sunday, May 18 at 9:30 a.m. e/p.

The FN Dish's Adam Roberts just posted this fun video of him meeting Mary and even getting a few softball lessons.



I gotta give Adam credit for his straightforwardness regarding his fear of sports. When I was in high school I'd purposely choose such (in)active sports as bowling or croquet to participate in, thus avoiding the possibility of "balls flying at my face," which I can only respond to with the classic Clueless comeback, "Well, there goes your social life" Adam! =)

And speaking of movies I love, I saw Carrie on tv again this weekend and every time I read the name Mary Nolan I think of the movie character Chris being asked by the gym teacher who she's taking to prom. ("Billy Nolan" "Who? Speak up!" "Billy Nolan!")

Mary Nolan handily bypassed The Next Food Network Star after her audition tape prompted meetings with FN peeps, which led to her own show. Score! With upcoming episodes titled: "Posh Picnic," "Think Globally, Eat Locally," and "It's Ladies Night, Oh What a Night" it appears we'll be getting some new ideas (and recipes) from Ms. Nolan.

Just don't do as Chris and Billy Nolan do in Carrie though, Mary.