The End of the Campaign Trail

Back when voters were men, the ladies apparently whiled away the day baking a multi-hour, yeast-raised Election Cake.

Thank gosh those days are over and we can spend the afternoon bending an elbow and watching television. So where's the election party, and can Bites attend?

The Pain in Spain

Is anyone watching Spain...On the Road Again, the PBS documentary with chef Mario Batali, Gwyneth "Spain Is, Like, My Passion" Paltrow, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman and actress Claudia Bassols road-tripping through Spain? I am trying. The food looks divine, and the Spanish backdrop is stunning. But so much about the unscripted junket makes me cringe that I haven't made it through a whole episode.

It could be that half of the dialog is in Spanish, which I don't speak, so I feel like I'm back in high school watching the cool kids have a conversation that I'm not invited to join. And then there are interminable Real World-style exchanges like the one in which a positively radiant Gwyneth—with golden locks unfurling from the passenger seat of the convertible Mercedes—kvetches to Mario about how she doesn't have any spa time now that she's a mom. Gag me. No, better—gag her.

Maybe Bittman reminds me too much of the Scene's own bald curmudgeon, Jeff Woods. Either way, I'd rather watch Woods tour the taco stands of South Nashville than endure the Times' columnist ogling Bassols all the way from Galicia to Gehry's Guggenheim.

In Mario's defense, he has been pretty non-grating. In the footage I've seen, he's been mostly behind the wheel while the camera focuses on everyone else. It sort of makes me wonder if somewhere along the way the Crocs-shod chef realized that this well-intentioned culinary documentary would inevitably devolve into a prolonged self-indulgent glamour shot, so he offered to drive.

Is it just me, or is this show making anyone else green—with either envy or nausea?

Krystal Square-Off Tonight on ESPN

The question occurs to me: How drunk would I have to be to participate in a Krystal eating contest? The answer, I think, is "too drunk to participate in a Krystal eating contest." (Of course, I've been known to have lapses in judgment where competitive eating is concerned.)

Anyway, tonight on ESPN's E:60 show—their news magazine-style joint where Jeremy Schaap is always dramatically lit and acting like the fate of mankind depends on what athletes do—they're featuring the Krystal Square Off V.

There are 80-100 competitive eating events a year at venues across the country. The top two are Nathan’s in New York and Krystal’s hamburgers in Tennessee. In a sport replete with colorful personalities, E:60 correspondent Jeremy Schaap takes an in-depth look at competitive eating . . . Highlights include interviews with some of the greatest “eaters” in the world such as Takeru Kobayashi, Joey Chestnut, Juliet Lee, “Crazy Legs” Conti and Tim “Eater X” Janus.

Since it's up against Game 1 of the World Series (of baseball), I guess they're probably looking for a different viewership than they normally get. Watching competitive eating (especially Joey Chestnut) makes me sick to my stomach, so it's a good thing for me I'm a baseball fan. Anybody here actually attend one of these things?

The Staff of Life: A Bread Commercial About History

In the 1980s, a young filmmaker named Ridley Scott made a beautiful, nostalgic and slightly hokey commercial for Hovis, a national brand of bread in Britain. It documented the most-beloved principles and icons of the Green and Pleasant Isle: winding streets and thatched cottages, wholesome food and hard work, respect for elders, a simpler time, and child labor. In one survey, Brits voted it the kingdom's best-ever advertisement.

Hovis recently commissioned a new commercial, a high-budget production that tells the 1-minute history of 20th century England. There are esoteric bits, like the 1966 FIFA soccer victory that they're STILL talking about. Most of it you'll get as you watch it over and over: the Titanic, suffrage, WWI, between the wars, WWII and the Blitz, the coronation, the 1966 England soccer victory over Germany, mini skirts, immigration by former colonials, miner strikes, millennium.

There's a limit to what the filmmaker could include, but they could have shortened the suffrage and WWI segment and included at least one of the founding fathers of rock: the Who, Stones, Beatles, Zeppelin, or Pink Floyd. Where was James Bond? Where was Charles and Diana's wedding?

Go watch the commercial and tell Bites what you see that was left out, or might have been done differently.

Everyone's A Critic: Insecure Walrus, Meet Chuck Waggon

Watch your back, Walrus. Here comes Chuck Waggon with his Nashville restaurant round-ups. If the Walrus projects something of the tone of a cubicle dweller broadcasting his notes on lunch from the home-office basement during a tornado drill, Chuck is more the raffish, folksy country boy angling for his own food show on RFD. Where the Walrus covers the Cool Springs waterfront, Chuck has evidently staked out downtown and parts north. In a perfect world, they'd join forces and fight crime.

Of special note: the sushi joint Chuck recommends. "Good place, crazy name."

The Thrilla in Vanilla: Las Paletas Throws Down With Bobby Flay Tomorrow Night

To recap: Last November, Irma Paz Bernstein and her sister Norma from Las Paletas showed up one afternoon at Fido, thinking they had been invited by the Food Network to participate in something called "Brain Freeze Stunt Week." To their shock, they were ambushed by superstar chef Bobby Flay. On the spot, the red-headed rouxmeister challenged them to a paleta-making showdown in a taping of his popular series Throwdown with Bobby Flay—whereupon Irma burst into tears.

“I wasn’t even pregnant and I was all hormonal!” the very pregnant Irma recalls. “Hey, he’s an Iron Chef, hello?” Fear not: she insists her tears were of joy—and when the dust settled, we suspect Flay was the one with reason to cry.

But the outcome has been kept secret until now. The long-awaited episode airs locally 8 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 13, on Comcast Channel 65, and Las Paletas is setting up a giant screen in its parking lot so its many friends can watch the fateful face-off. Since the 12South popsicle palace famously has no sign, just look for the crowd at 12th and Kirkwood catty-corner from Sevier Park.

Said to be swearing off television for the night: Carrington Fox, our bashful Bitesmistress, who judged the contest with Slow Food Nashville’s Robin Riddell. With babes that hot on TV, you'll need something cold to suck on.