Cork on the Fork

I’ve been fascinated with the bizarre premises some public television programs actually make it on the air with, including their affinity to choose hosts with mystifying twists on real-world accents. Where is Jacques Pepin from that he utilizes his own drool the way most of use our teeth and tongues to end and begin whatever speech is emanating from our jaws? Anyway, my absolute favorite is the Swedish Cooking program that, in each episode, forces the chef to setup their cooktop in an ever more bizarre location OUTDOORS to keep things fresh and new while still trying to make a standard 1-2-3 production walking viewers through a scandinavian recipe of the day.

Notable locations of late have included:

– A busy street in downtown Trondheim (Andre dodges bicyclists and trams!)
– A sheep pen in the norwegian highlands (Andre is engulfed by thousands of farm animals panicking due to dog attacks!),
– A spinning rooftop restaurant (Tina tries to keep viewers from blowing chunder because although she remains stationary midscreen, the background keeps spinning for the entirety of the program)
– A haunted swedish pirate ship (Did Pirates add dashes of freshly-picked mint to their bowls of decaying rat meat soup?)

Anyway, I like it.

Although the show started with one host (Andre Viestad), Tina picked it up in Season 3 and got me hooked. Tina Nordstrom is pretty much my dream lady friend because no matter what she wanted to talk to me about I could just sit there and politely nod while that gorgeous scanian (look it up) accent lowered my blood pressure to dangerous levels of relaxation. It also helps that she is textbook beautiful in most other ways, and even shares my hatred of gourds – but that accent just gets me every time.

I also want this shirt….