June 17, 2011 | Short Order
Happy Birthday Cooking Channel, and Please Pass the Gelato
by Alissa Merksamer
The stars slurp gelato for the photogs. Photo: Alissa Merksamer
“Delicious gelato. We have delicious gelato. It’s really delicious,” the MC chimes every twenty seconds. I consider walking over to lend him a few alternative adjectives but get distracted by my own machinations to nab a sample. It’s Tuesday afternoon, and a small crowd dominated by fifteen photographers huddle outside the Chelsea Market facing a turquoise truck bannered with the words “Cooking Channel.” Inside, a worker from L’Arte del Gelato uses a melon-baller to scoop an elf’s portion of blueberry gelato into mini cones.
The fuss marks the Cooking Channel’s first birthday and the start of its summer “Frozen Treat Truck Tour.” Throughout July, the truck will park in five cities to hand out free ice cream and give fans an opportunity to fawn over some of their favorite celebrity chefs.
On this day, baseball-capped Ben Sargent, also known as the “Brooklyn Chowder Surfer” and host of Hook Line and Dinner, beams by a group of female admirers. (“He’s so hot,” pants the reporter standing next to me.”)
Bite-size blonde Kelsey Nixon of Kelsey’s Essentials looks as if she's just jumped off the top of a pyramid at a pep rally. Who could guess she was once overweight and resorted to Weight Watchers? “I can plow through a bag of salt and vinegar chips,” she insists.
Bitchin' Kitchen's Nadia G, the Cooking Channel’s resident rocker-chick, sports an enormous silver ring that spells “bitchin,” but she’s so minuscule, it’s hard to take the heavy chains and black eye-makeup seriously.
As the stars pose with groupies and talk to journalists, the photographers loaf quietly. Then from vapor, Queen Rachael arrives, and I’m pummeled by a man’s husky camera bag. Ray does “Ray” for the cameras, indulging the paparazzi's pleas to “Look this way. Once more. Over here,” smiling as sweetly, as convincingly as she does each night for her TV viewers.
She and the B-list players start spooning gelato into paper cups, and I glance down for a second. When I look up, Ray is gone, the cameras retreat into their black cases, and the gawkers disperse. The party is over.
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To read more by Alissa Merksamer, visit her blog, Glamorous Snacker
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