From Scratch by Allen Salkin

Author:Allen Salkin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

New York charities did well in the deal. For years, Reese and Pat could be counted on to donate a pair of Emeril Live tickets to benefit auctions.

—

On August 10, 1999, Jennifer Patterson, the spectacled half of Two Fat Ladies, died of cancer. Heidi phoned Eric with the news. Food Network had made Jennifer famous in America. “We have to do something,” she said.

He sent Heidi to England. “I’m dispatching you like the president dispatches the vice president,” Eric said. “You’re on funeral duty.”

The funeral was as bombastic as Jennifer. Her casket was preceded by pallbearers carrying her motorcycle helmet.

Back in New York, Eric met with Eileen. Two Fat Ladies was still one of the network’s highest-rated prime-time shows. Eric wanted the show to continue, death be damned. “You know, it’s like Menudo!” Eric said, referring to the popular Mexican boy band that retired members when they reached puberty and replaced them with new boys. “Why don’t we find another fat lady and just make it the Two Fat Ladies again?”

Eileen was appalled. She had known Jennifer and Clarissa since she’d worked at the BBC. “We can’t do that!” she protested.

Eric was dispassionately calculating: Hits are hard to come by. “Well, why don’t you call the producers and find out?” he pushed. “Because I’m sorry she’s dead, but there’s no reason not to try to continue the show.”

Eileen stopped protesting, but she ignored Eric’s order and he did not bring it up again. With Reese on his way out of the picture, Scripps was promising to loosen the purse strings, trusting that they would be able to wrest Food from its troubled path into the sunlight of the Scripps way.

Even without new episodes of Two Fat Ladies, the network’s cultural cachet was rising. More than one teenager in the late 1990s was indulging in the after-school habit of grabbing a bag of chips and watching Food Network after school. There they would sit, shoveling Doritos in their mouths while imagining that they were actually eating ravioli with sage, flourless chocolate cakes, and colorful fizzy cocktails. Food Network was small enough to still be cool, and you didn’t have to hide it like porn.

The ongoing road show overseen by Joe Allegro and Rich Gore, rebranded as Food Network Live, was profitable and drawing crowds at its stops around the country. Tyler, Sissy, Mario, Boggs, Emeril, and Ming were all making regular appearances, each pulling in a few thousand dollars a night and selling stacks of cookbooks along the way.

Even with the debuts of Iron Chef and all the other new shows, the cultural cachet was only rising so far. Food was still a minor cable player at best. When Eric pulled Joe and Rich into his office and demanded to know why they were still featuring PBS stars on the road shows, Joe explained that they needed them to sell tickets. He showed Eric a marketing survey that showed only 17 percent of households had ever heard of Food Network.

The network president didn’t want to hear it.

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