I don't cook...

I really don't cook.  I am not a foodie by any definition.  I can cook - I even made a pork tenderloin once using a recipe of Giada's from Food Network and it turned out well - but I am so not interested in cooking (except when certain people visit me and the kitchen then becomes my hideout and a method of avoiding contact, without being obvious - and thus the pork tenderloin event).  As a general rule, my favorite food is anything prepared by someone else.  What is really weird is that my favorite TV channel is Food Network.  I'll watch almost anything on Food Network, except those competitions where people yell at each other - I am not a fan of yelling, which is why I watch so few family-based sitcoms.  Have you ever paid attention to how often people are yelling and talking sharply to each other on sitcoms?  I hate it!  But I digress...

I was just watching Iron Chef America tonight and realized that almost all of what I know about food I learned from Food Network - I know about uni (sea urchin roe) and langosteins (some shrimp-like kind of critter) and creme freche (heavy cream with a yogurt type consistency I think).  One of my dreams in life is to be a judge on Iron Chef one day.  I'd be a horrible judge since I really have no kind of discerning palate and when they say that something is "unctuous" as if that is a good thing (it makes me think of something slimy) but I'd love to try it just as the "hey let's have some regular joe on to judge whether it's good or not good, rather than all this fancy-word judging stuff!" 

I admire the folks I see on Chopped and Next Food Network Star and the various Iron Chef incarnations ... how you can take random ingredients and make them into something edible is magic as far as I'm concerned.  I have friends who play Chopped at home - their spouse or kids pick out 3-4 random things from the cupboard and make them try to cook with them.  Wow.  So not happening here.