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Every time I tune into the Food Network, I wage an internal war with myself: do I find the ubiquitous Rachael Ray obnoxiously perky or charmingly adorable? You may think I'm exaggerating about the extent of this debate. After all, Rachael isn't really always on the Food Network, is she? My three favorite FN programs have nothing to do with Ms. Ray: Iron Chef America, Ace of Cakes, and Good Eats, Alton Brown's foodie tribute to that geek-childhood favorite Bill Nye the Science Guy. Regardless, Rachael Ray is still all over the Food Network whether you're watching one of her myriad shows or not (and even amongst her shows, you can take your pick: her talk show, her travel show, her travel-on-the-cheap show, or the show that started it all, her cooking show 30 Minute Meals. I'd wager that you can't make it through an hour of Food Network programming (maybe even a half-hour) without seeing Rachael Ray at least once (in an ad for Dunkin' Donuts or Triscuits, at the very least). Plus, I'm a wee bit embarrassed to admit that I also have a subscription to her magazine, so I truly do live Everyday with Rachael Ray. But why is this of any interest to anyone but me? Because as with Rachael Ray's meteoric rise to fame over the past five years--certainly fueled in large part by the ineffable powerhouse of promotion that is Oprah--so has the Food Network, and food TV in general, grown to baffling proportions, leading me to wonder, what's the appeal? And, is it possible that Food TV (and Rachael Ray) might one day grow too big for its ramekin, hit the top of the oven and implode like a soufflé?

First of all, as much as I myself love it, I'm a little flummoxed by the appeal of the Food Network--even, indeed, my own interest in it. What's so exciting about watching other people cook? It makes you hungry for things that none but the most gifted of us could possibly prepare for ourselves, especially not on the fly at the very moment when the program we're watching makes us most desire the presented food object. Cooking shows highlight the average viewer's own failures in the kitchen, an "I'll never be able to do that" jealously that's somehow simultaneously frustrating and seductive. This is the case for most Food Network cooking shows, even those that sport titles implying that the recipes are appropriate for the home cook--not only 30 Minute Meals, but also Sunny Anderson's Cooking for Real, Giada De Laurentiis' Everyday Italian, and Paula Deen's Paula's Home Cooking. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that a lot of people do cook the meals made on these shows, but chances are they have to go the "traditional" route first by looking up and printing out the recipes. But I'm certain there's an equally-substantial number of viewers (like me) who watch these or other cooking shows without actually cooking anything they see (except perhaps very occasionally).

Now, a show like Ace of Cakes makes sense to me because it highlights the extreme expertise of a radical baker and his funny hipster team of fellow artists. It's a show about people as much as it's a show about fabulous cakes. Most people probably have no desire to bake like Duff, but it's fun to watch Duff and company create and goof off and then marvel at how they pull together ever-astounding, playful designs. And his staff seem like real people, the kind of people you'd like in your circle of friends, which is always an added bonus for any of the gentler reality shows, including makeover shows and the like.

If you're into the cutthroat, nasty competition of shows like Survivor, you're probably not watching the Food Network--let's just face it, the demographics probably don't overlap much--but you may be watching something like Fox's popular show Hell's Kitchen, which impressively juxtaposes the competitive asshole mentality of Survivor and The Apprentice with food preparation and culinary prowess. Despite similarities in composition and genre, Food Network competition shows like Iron Chef America or Food Network Challenge--with their respective emphases on a Samurai-like code of honor, precision and respectful superiority and a competitive spirit shaded with amiable virtuosity--can't hold a candle to the hardcore, sado-masochistic challenges and failures that Hell's Kitchen's promises and delivers week after week.

Speaking of sado-masochism (speaking of clumsy segues), despite the push-pull of frustration/pleasure at watching the preparation and consumption of amazing culinary treats we may never get to taste ourselves, watching people cook is immensely sexy, although not necessarily in the way that, I don't know, Sex and the City or The Tudors can be sexy. Food TV is sexy in part because it has nothing to do with interpersonal relationships and everything to do with individual responses to singular, personal relationships with sensory pleasure. Eating has often been equated with sexuality, so that's nothing new, but almost every moment on the Food Network could easily stand-in as a metaphor for desire and satisfaction: Rachael Ray's passionate chorus of "yums" and "oh wows" and "mmmmmms" on her two food/travel shows ($40 a Day and Tasty Travels); Emeril Lagasse's signature, eruptive "Bam!"; the intense, vigorous fervor in Kitchen Stadium on Iron Chef America and the judges obvious delight in getting to sample dish after dish of savory and sweet and everything in between; Alton Brown's nerdy-cute, Harley-riding, boyish-but-strangely-adult enthusiasm for the open road and diner culture in Feasting on Asphalt (although this last one may be just me--a consequence of my inexplicable Alton Brown fetish).

Suffice it to say, I think I may have answered my own question. Rachael Ray's enthusiasm, her pleasure in, of and for food, is both what I love and don't love about her; I can overcome the slight discomfort of her sometimes seemingly false vivacity because that same vivacity is so charming. And exactly what's appealing about the Food Network is how it frustrates and what it lacks. Food TV offers us the desire with little of the satisfaction (except whatever satisfaction we glean from the faces of others, who are also unreachable fantasy "characters"), which is both a little bit pleasurable and a larger bit maddening. Kind of like Andy Warhol writing that "sex is nostalgia for sex," and being annoyingly right. Food TV is always already about being hungry for more hunger (the desire to desire). Not unlike a lot of television, Food TV asks us to want what we can't have and then enjoy that concomitant sensation of our stomach's growling in empty protest. Talk about sado-masochism.

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(IN TWO WEEKS: “Animaniacs.” In which I again use a title to describe a post that will not actually discuss the show it references. Instead: Family Guy...The Simpsons...Cartoons for adults? Why? Why not? Why do we love them so?