The Feed Me Show: Portland

On our first date, my wife Kitty seduced me with an omelet. It was a light and lovely thing: flavorful and perfectly done. But it took years before we could share the kitchen. Preparing meals together would sometimes lead to hurt feelings, or the overwhelming urge to commit violent acts because someone was using the wrong pan. Now, though, our best times are spent cooking together. There is much chaos. There is recipe anarchy. There is much drinking. It’s always hilarious.

If I think back to that first date, I can only imagine the fate that would have befallen us if I’d bullied my way into Kitty’s kitchen. Cooking together is not really a first date kind of activity. People who know how to cook are generally very particular about how things should be done. I’ve seen practically baroque systems of home kitchen techniques. Learning those techniques, however, can lead to a better understanding of who a person is. For foodies, this is of particular concern. Entering a prospective mate’s kitchen should be done with care. It should be approached the way a homicide detective approaches a crime scene: alert for clues, wary of lurking danger, mindful of the evidence.

From this perspective, cooking on a blind date might be ill-advised. On the other hand it might be the best thing in the world. It certainly wouldn’t take long to find out where you stand. You could have a brilliant conversation through a shared culinary language, or you could just as easily make terrible work of the julienne and ruin the burre blanc with bitter tears of humiliation.

It wouldn’t make anything better if someone were filming it. Worse, your main ingredient could be road kill.

“Sounds interesting,” you say? Meh… It’s alright, if you’re into cooking shows and humiliation. Evidently, Adam Pollack is. The Brooklynite, recently transplanted to Portland, has brought his on-line cooking/dating show, The Feed Me Show, to town. The premise is both simple and evil (simply evil?): blind dates, awkward as they are, are made more awkward by placing the two lovelorn strangers in a kitchen to cook a meal. The premier Portland episode revolves around daters Clair and Al, and the preparation of a pheasant named Hank, who was found dead on the side of the road in Eastern Oregon… And it wasn’t Adam’s idea, it was Claire’s.

I’m a little luke-warm on the episode (maybe if it had snarky animated pop-up comments); however, there is definite potential, if only as a warning to foodie singles not to attempt this at home.

The dates are broken up into small segments that can be viewed at feedmeshow.com. You can also subscribe to the show on iTunes. Archives of the Brooklyn dates are also available.