Dear Food Network,

I’ve been watching you. I’ve been keeping an eye on your every move for pretty much a year now and I’m not going to lie: I like a lot of what I’m seeing. Sure there’s better food programming out there, shows like Top Chef and No Reservations that I find more insightful and daring; but when it comes to innocuous, sustenance-driven programming to tick away the hours day after meaningless day, I find your delectable viewing menu can’t be beat.

It’s gotten so I’ve become addicted to you, Food Network. There’s just something so soothing about most of your shows that I find myself seeking them out like ether highs or hugs from strangers on the bus. If I go a few days without catching my man Bobby Flavor Flay throwing down with some yokels or grilling on his pimp patio, I positively start to itch. Watching the Neely’s grab-ass around the kitchen – the all-too real threat of bodacious negro sex just beyond every commercial bend – is like a whale song to me, something calming and true. The chatter of Giada de Laurentiis’ gargantuan head talking pomodoro might as well be the sounds of waves lapping across my television screen I find it so palliative.

There, there, little viewer, she seems to be assuring me. Shush now and let me get a peek at your Everyday Italian.

Of course there are exceptions to this sea of utter tranquility. I have a special pocket of hatred reserved in my heart for Barefoot Contessa. She reminds me of every fat, Jewish woman I ever encountered at a Passover as a kid: the type that left me panic-stricken, frantically searching for the afikoman, so we could get the hell out of dodge and she could get back to sucking the soul out of her husband – lest she finish and go after mine.

Why is this night different from all other nights?

It’s not. Contessa’s still got Jeffrey’s balls in a vice somewhere outside of Sag Harbor, and camera two needs a wider lens.

Rachael Ray continues to horrify as well. The botox swallowing her lips and forehead seems to know no boundaries, as it now appears to be pulling her pudgy limbs further into her body with each episode. Eventually, one imagines, there’ll be nothing but hands. And on that fateful day Rachael Ray, perhaps while emitting an ear splitting, banshee shriek, will have finally shrunk to resemble the Velociraptors from which she descended.

My god man, one of your producers will realize with a start. We’ve been broadcasting a dinosaur this entire time!

But by then it will be too late. Two of Ray’s cohorts will already have attacked the producer from the side.

Still, as insufferable as these programs may be, they are tolerable because the host either usually knows what they are doing, or on some level, they’re interesting to watch. Contessa has impeccable game and viewed through a properly hateful-enough prism, watching Ray unravel can be fascinating. But there are no such saving graces for your latest dose of upchuck, Food Network. It seems now even such bottom-feeding prerequisites have been tossed out the window like so many Tyler Florence groupies. And like each one of those groupies exploding on the concrete far below, Food Network, you too have hit a new low.

I suppose I should have seen this coming when you announced Aaron McCargo Jr., a.k.a. Big Daddy, as the winner of the Next Food Network Star back in 2008, then essentially neglected to use him. Sure, you’ll occasionally throw together a hasty production of Big Daddy’s House or place him in-between the Neely’s to keep them from fucking, but the truth is, you guys know exactly what you got in non-star Big Daddy so you buried him. All good. Mistakes happen. Yet you still try to fool us into thinking he’s someone we should be watching. Just ditch his ass. Ditto the blond ferret that won last season of Next Food Network Star – though winner is a negligible term when considering the bumbling crop of half-bulbs she had to compete with. (Seriously, watching Food Network senior vice-president Bob Tuschman struggle to mask his contempt as he listened to contestants monotonize on their culinary-points-of-view was far more entertaining than anything that gaggle of food special Olympians ever came up with. Had Flavor Flay a cyanide tablet I’m confident he would have dosed on air).

This year’s “winner” Melissa D’ Arabian now hosts Ten Dollar Dinners but you’ve wisely buried that show too. And you know why you did it, Food Network? Because she doesn’t have enough talent to be on television. And you goddamn know it. I’d rather watch an unscripted half-hour with any number of Top Chef rejects, than your most carefully crafted D’Arabian experience.

Unless it involved water boarding.

But even the Failed-Next Food Network Star detritus seem like less of an insult then your latest culinary Frankenstein: Alex Guarnaschelli (pronounced: too ugly for television).

“I saw something in Alex that I wanted to put on-screen,” executive producer Flavor Flay boasts in a promotional video on the Food Network website hyping her new show, “Alex’s Day Off.” Unless it’s the “Muppets Take Over the Food Network,” Bobby, I’m not seeing it. Besides, we’ve already seen Guarnaschelli (pronounced: smells like wet sweaters) on screen plenty, as a judge on Iron Chef and Chopped. You remember her right, Food Network? The frumpy one who reminds you of the girl you went to liberal arts school with, the one that spelled woman with a “y?” You know, the one who hated men until she realized she actually just hated everyone, so instead of growing people skills she just morphed into a human mushroom the color of sleet? Of course you remember her, Food Network; you made her. And now, after several years of occasionally exposing us to this miserable hobgoblin, you’ve finally decided she’s ready for her own show?

You know that “star quality” you always bring up in one of your masturbatory star searches? She ain’t got it. Guy Fieri’s got more star quality in his wallet-chain and that guy makes me want to curb-stomp a rockabilly. And as you’ve reminded us time and time again on the Next Food Network Star, star quality is something “intangible” – as in, something that can’t be taught.

Yet Guarnaschelli (pronounced: bare-fist boxes with hobos) has supposedly learned it? Quit kidding yourself. If she’s such a hot commodity why have you buried her in the 9:30 a.m. slot? On Sundays?

Don’t think I haven’t noticed, Food Network. Don’t think I haven’t noticed this dressing up of non-stars in stars clothing. Or do I have to get all Aaron Sanchez on that ass? Aaron Sanchez who first appeared on Boy Meets Grill years ago; the same Aaron Sanchez who later appeared on Next Iron Chef; the very same Aaron Sanchez who then became a frequent judge on Chopped; the same Aaron Sanchez who now co-hosts the ill-conceived new show Chefs vs. City.

Aaron Sanchez the half-star.

Pray tell, why have I had to watch this supposed “star’s” cultivation, Food Network? No fan of Major League Baseball is forced to endure the ascension of a shitty minor leaguer. That’s what coaches and scouts are for. By the time they make the team, they’re either ready for the majors, or they go back down to the minors for further grooming. But you’re making us watch the grooming, Food Network. And when the minor leaguers are as ugly as Alex Guarnaschelli (pronounced: has an Adam’s apple), it’s that much harder to watch.

Or maybe it’s your scouts who are the problem. Or maybe you don’t consider yourself Major League material anymore.

But I still consider you Major League material, Food Network. I really do. You’re just forgetting what made you so great in the first place: good-looking people making good-looking food in situations and locations I could never afford. Stop giving me people that you think I can relate to. Stop waxing reality. Other programs do verite d’cusine far better than you, and with far more entertaining personalities, personalities that we bond with. We don’t want to bond with you, Food Network; we want to covet you. No one who watches your network can relate to anything that’s going on in the lives of your personalities and that’s the whole appeal. So please get back to parading their beautiful little existences on screen so we can get back to basking in the fantasy.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I do believe I hear Sandra Lee calling me from the kitchen. You see she’s prepared this delicious Lemon-Herb Butter-Basted Chicken. And she’s sent the kids over to play at the neighbors. Her face is especially resplendent with makeup today – that sort-of weeping, whore-clown look – and she’s wearing that frilly apron I bought her, the one that really shows off those long Wisconsin legs. And she’s leaning over the counter. And she’s got her high heels on. And nothing else.

You see how easy that was, Food Network? Don’t sell us the steak. Get back to selling us the goddamn sizzle.

Sincerely,

Adam Cayton-Holland