Life lessons from cable

I spent the better part of my summer living with my grandmother, who happens to have a fondness for both MSNBC and the Food Network.

Here’s what I learned.

1. How to properly crack an egg: flat on the counter — it breaks more cleanly.

2. If you’re a television cook with the tagline “How easy is that?” you can fool your audience into thinking what you’re making is, in fact, easy.
For example, making a breakfast basket with orange marmalade, homemade muesli and date nut spice bread is actually easier than sticking a bow on a box of Fruit Loops.

Granted, the Barefoot Contessa’s primary demographic probably isn’t college students, and no one asked me what I thought. I’d just as soon have the Fruit Loops.

3. When you’re sick of seeing the Barefoot Contessa make her husband’s favorite meal again, you can flip to a news network to learn something practical about the world around you.

If you’re lucky, a royal baby will be on the way and you can watch the whole day to find out it’s a boy. Or pop royalty if it’s a slow summer. Here’s looking at you, North West.

4. When a pastry expert or some other food expert comes onto a Food Network show, the show’s host listens attentively and allows said expert to take the reins.

The result is the perfect cookie, or pie, or chocolate-dipped strawberry. When an expert comes onto a news show, the show’s host listens attentively, and the result is a fair and fact-based representation of the news.     

Wait, no. That doesn’t happen. Usually when an expert comes onto a news show, the host talks over the expert.

The host can usually be seen as coming out on top with this method.

The host can also stop an argument with a simple, yet effective, “We’ll have to leave it there.”

5. A newscast never truly ends until someone says, “We’ll have to leave it there.”

6. Once Paula Deen is outed as a racist, they stop showing her reruns. I liked her food, so it’s kind of a bummer.  

7. People who eat good food are cheerful. Everyone in Food Network-land is always smiling.

Why? Eating makes you happy.

I wonder what would happen if you gave Chris Matthews a cheesecake on air.

8. Leaning is better than standing. MSNBC has commercials telling you to “lean forward” on certain political issues, reflecting its political identity in an entirely subtle way. Sheryl Sandberg based a book on the concept of women “leaning in.”

Me, I’ve been learning to lean away from the dream world in my head in which newscasters and politicians always tell the truth and some Food Network chef is always holding a dessert.

Now I’m going back to months of crappy dorm food, Ramen and Easy Mac. Back to reality — sort of.

It’s easy to forget that reality stretches beyond this small Indiana college town.

There’s actually a whole world out there. Leaning toward issues that matter in this
world, that’s important.

I just wish someone would jump already.

­— cjellert@indiana.edu.
Follow columnist Caroline Ellert on Twitter @cjellert.