Cross-contamination 101: NBC Today Show co-host learns to cook, sorta

People wonder why ratings are falling for NBC Today.

Last week chef Bobby Flay spent some time trying to teach Savannah Guthrie some cooking basics (because apparently she didn’t know).

Whatever she learned in celebrity cooking school, it can’t all be Savannah’s fault because teach and student were both cross contaminating everything with all sorts of microorganisms.

Flay started with chicken stock and tomato sauce – basics that are easy and usually better to make at home. (Note the disdain from Flay in the video below).

A roasted chicken is a cooking basic that may require advanced food safety precautions. Don’t wash it, check that it’s done with a thermometer, and whenever anyone in the kitchen touches raw chicken or anything, wash your damn hands before touching something else.

This is the stock about to percolate from last week’s roast chicken in our household.

As noted by The Braiser: Things Savannah finds confusing: chicken bones, dicing onions, why we make stock when we can buy it in a box at the grocery store. (The answer, Savannah, involves shriveling up with dehydration and/or going into sodium shock.)

By Friday, Savannah potentially poisoned prepared a meal for the other bingo callers on the morning gabfest. However, The Today Show only gave Savannah 45 minutes to cook all those courses, so of course, she adopts two sous chefs to help her. 

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How to know if it’s done? Don’t listen to Good Housekeeping or NBC

 Amy’s getting to the final stages of pregnancy. Our house on the hill isn’t quite so attractive. All of her teaching is in the afternoon, so lunch-time TV usually includes Days of Our Lives. Sure it’s a stupid soap opera, but if hockey great and hometown pal Wayne Gretzky can appear on The Young and the Restless with a bad mullet, Amy can tune out to an hour of Days of Our Lives.

Loving husband that I am, I flipped the TV to NBC about 10 minutes before the soap was due to start. What I saw was horrifying.

Kathie Lee Gifford has apparently attempted to resurrect her career by doing some NBC Today Show extension. And they did a piece with some woman from Good Housekeeping on how do you know if it’s done. These people perpetuated every food safety myth and probably made some folks ill. The only way to tell if it’s done is to use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer. Color is a lousy indicator.

Stick it in.