The "F" stands for "food"

My new favourite television program is Gordon Ramsay's The F Word.

If you like Hell's Kitchen but somehow do not like all the swearing and berating, The F Word might be just right for you -- though I do not understand how you could like Hell's Kitchen whilst disliking the ranting and raving. Anyway.

The F Word is a more "traditional" cooking show in that Chef Ramsay actually teaches you to prepare dishes that you could make at home (if you liked foie gras). It also has a field-trip segment -- in the first episode I watched, Gordon took his kids to a turkey farm and then some British food critic journeyed to a kebab factory -- as well as a sort of celebrity-interview vibe. I use the term "celebrity" loosely; the episode I saw featured a comedian named Al Murray and an actress called Martine McCutcheon. I'm sure it's a UK thing.

(For the record, I am rather dismayed that Gordon took his kids to pick out six turkeys to raise in their backyard to kill in time for Christmas dinner. Though his motivation of showing the tots that dinner comes from someplace beyond the supermarket is indeed admirable -- and I am all for people's understanding that the meat on their plate was once a living, breathing animal -- the exercise of encouraging the little children to name and pet creatures that they'll have to consume in a few months is a trifle tragic.)

The best thing about the show just might be the exquisite Britpop theme song, an already-existing track called "The F Word" by Babybird, aka Stephen Jones, who is apparently a student of the Bright Eyes/Dashboard Confessional/Badly Drawn Boy school of naming oneself and one's rock and roll endeavors. Rachael Ray's 30 Minute Meals theme song is hopelessly square by comparison.

There's The F Word restaurant, where the food and interview segments are filmed. You can even apply to cook with Gordon in The F Word kitchen. Finally, he's undertaking an initiative to get women back into the kitchen. Which is bad-ass in its non-political correctness. Plus, Gordon Ramsay is strangely magnetic and hot. Is it wrong of me to say that? Probably. But still...for a freaking British chef who is in no way traditionally "attractive"...man alive.

Update: Just watched another episode on the TiVo. This one featured a bit on low sperm counts and whether chefs are more susceptible to them because range tops are at scrotum-level. Our man Gordon has a low sperm count, of which I'm struggling to find the significance because he has four (five?) children. There was also a piece on which of the major supermarkets in England is selling the "economy sausage" that contains the highest percentage of connective tissue, skin and sinew yet is still legally labeled "meat." Don't shop at Tesco if you like lots of actual meat in your economy sausage.

Though I am prone to superlatives, I must state that I'm not sure TV gets any better than this.

Looks like Michelle Rodriguez and Cynthia Watros will have a lot of time on their hands to collect DUIs

Lost. Wow.

I cannot recall the last television show I watched where so much jaw-dropping action happened during each and every episode. The X-Files wasn't even this good.

And that Hanso Foundation ad? More references to Bad Twin? Yes, Lost creators, please keep allowing this fictional world to encroach on our own. More evidence, if you ask me, that all the action in this series is unreal -- that human psychic activity is what's moving the plot forward, not polar bears and smoke monsters and menacing islanders.

Is Claire Jack's half-sister, the one Jack's dad was searching for in Sydney? [yes] Is Michael the Others' leader, the one Henry Gale describes as great but not merciful? [don't know, but he is looking rather messianic in the clips for next week] Is the actor who plays Henry Gale the single creepiest human on the planet? [absolutely] Did Michael's brief remorseful look following his shooting Libby signal that she is, indeed, an Other, and that he had made a mistake? [friggin' yes] Do Josh Holloway's abs ripple like a pebble dropped into a flat calm? [so much so it almost makes me uncomfortable]

All I can say is, thank goodness for May sweeps. And curses for the barren, lonely, Lostless summer to follow. Here's hoping Fox brings back Gordon Ramsay for another edition of Hell's Kitchen to attempt to fill the void.