"Elias Nebula is practicing Japanese but no one knows."

Sunday, July 17, 2011

"O Tempura!" Or, "Hell Hath No Fury."

Gordon Ramsay was on Kitchen Nightmares, this week set at a Japanese restaurant in Southern California. The show seems to be more concerned with family counselling than cooking at this point. Gordon did his usual scathing critique of the kitchen fridges and then moved on - to matters of the boudoir.

This was a family business. Akira, the Japanese father of the family, was now a joyless, remote loner hounded and humiliated by his cold, shrewish wife-and-business-partner. There was no longer any "chemistry" betwixt the twain. This conjugal coupling was a terrible admixture of Eastern reserve and Western audacity. Still, they had a pair of great kids, who were suffering. Akira was accustomed to skulking out into the night to (he said) "do Tai Chi down by the lake".

The wife and mother was severe and doomed with long grey hair and she whispered to Gordon, "You wouldn't take Akira's side if you knew how he was when he goes out after these young painted hussies."
She was plainly quite sick of this modest, reserved man and his shy philandering among the whores of downtown LA.
She seethed at Gordon, "He isn't doing TAI CHI down by the LAKE you silly, green man! He is out pissing away our business on teenage tail you oblivious, naive patsy!"

Gordon, though scolded, is never cowed. He whispered back, "You can castrate your husband, love, and you have, but you shan't catch me!"

One evening Gordon put on his deerstalker cap and night-vision goggles and, come the witching hour, stealthily followed Akira out into the spangled neon night. He brought along a camera crew with him for this rather remarkable scene. He trailed Akira into a seedy part of LA and a strip-mall whorehouse, where Gordon confronted the errant paterfamilias in one of the alloted motel rooms.
Next ensued, confessedly somewhat strangely to the "viewing audience at home," Gordon's scathing critique of the prostitutes on offer.

"What's wrong with you Akira!!" he howled. "You're throwing away the family restaurant on a scrawny skank like this? Big boy, she looks like one of your broccoli tempura!!"
Gordon (still in deerstalker cap and goggles) next had the madam of the brothel line up all her "girls" in order of height and then he launched into a shocking, harrowing review of the girls on offer. "I don't know if I'd fuck any of you, even with Akira's dick!! Quite frankly I happen to prefer my children's blonde nanny!!" He turned to Akira again and said, "Akira, if you're going to throw away your marriage and your restaurant on floozies, and you are, at least make it worth your while!!" Then he nodded at one of the girls and said, "I'll have her. Come on Akira, let me show you how it is done."

I think that Gordon is losing sight of the original purpose of his show.