BEFORE: I'm fighting with the cable company AGAIN, it's the company whose name rhymes with "rectum". I've got an older DVR and I can't upgrade it, because it's full of movies that I PAID FOR but haven't had a chance to watch yet, because I've got a system, and they don't understand that. And they persist in downloading NEW software updates to my OLD (three years old) DVR, which causes it to crash and reboot, over and over. So now I'm trying to get them to reinstall the old software, which worked and didn't crash, and they say they can't do that. OK, well, how about you download all these saved movies from my current DVR drive to another drive, and let me have a new box with those movies THAT I PAID FOR on it? Nope, they can't do that either. Well, here's an idea, since they KNOW that my DVR can't handle the new software, what about just opting me out from the update, and NOT downloading the new software to it that causes it to crash repeatedly? Nope, that's not an option either. It's so simple, just DON'T send me the update, and they can't handle that. "Oh, we want everybody to have the best, most upgraded software..." Great, only it's like putting the wrong gas in your car, you just know the engine can't handle it, but sure, let's do it anyway. Idiots.
Their only proposed solution is to give me a new, empty DVR and I then lose access to about 65 movies that I PAID FOR with my monthly cable bills, and many of those movies are not currently running on any channel, so then I'd have to go and watch them on another service, maybe iTunes or YouTube, which would cost me money, so no, you can NOT upgrade my DVR, not unless you figure out a way to transfer all those movies over to the new drive. I'll cancel my service completely before I let that happen. The best advice from the service technician was to try and clear some of the movies off the DVR, put them on VHS or DVD, and then turn in the box. Well, yeah, that's a constant process for me, but not every channel allows me to make dubs like that, plus the new DVR won't allow me to dub movies to DVD at all, AND how do you expect me to do that when the DVR keeps crashing? Thanks for the non-helpful advice, buddy, go take a long walk off a short pier while you're at it. I realize that all equipment has a lifespan, and someday my DVR will die and need to be replaced, but there's no need to hurry the process along by downloading new software to it that it can't handle. This is why I avoid updates on my phone and computer, too, it's a scammy process that eventually leads to me needing a new phone or new computer, so no thanks. I want to be the one who decides when I upgrade my hardware, not a software incompatibility problem. OK, rant over.
Julia Child carries over from "Julia".
THE PLOT: An intimate portrait of the life and work of the original "celebrity chef", Wolfgang Puck.
AFTER: At first glance, Wolfgang Puck appears to be a very happy guy - but when he starts talking about his early days getting into cooking, he mentions that he hated his stepfather. Wolfie grew up in a poor-ish family in Austria, and his stepfather always made him feel like he was never good enough, that he'd never amount to anything, that if he started working in the restaurant industry he'd be sure to fail, and he'd come home a month later, admitting defeat. In other words, his stepfather was German. Oh, I know that level of mind-fuckery very well, I had two German grandmothers, plus a Polish grandfather and another half-German one (from Alsace, so possibly French). Actually, one grandmother was half-German and half-Irish, so she was the nicer one - the full German grandmother gave me that same treatment when I was a teen, and she moved into my parents' house. I was lazy, I needed a haircut, I was doing well in school but somehow I was still never going to amount to anything - so I feel you, Wolfgang.
I don't know if this all goes back to Germany losing World Wars I AND II or what, because my grandmother left Bavaria before Hitler took over - Wolfgang Puck was born in 1949, so post WWII but by then the national resentment was probably twice as bad, and they took it out on their children. But for some Germans and Austrians, there was a hidden motivating effect, Puck was twice as determined to succeed as a chef JUST to prove his stepfather wrong. And he didn't just stay away for a month, he didn't return home for YEARS, that'll show 'em. He was doing well working in Provence, Monaco and Paris, but even if he weren't, he'd probably rather live in a rundown flat or on the street rather than go home and give his stepfather the satisfaction of being proven right.
But then Puck came to the United States, and spent two years in Indianapolis - though this doc makes it seem like he headed straight for L.A., where he became chef at a French restaurant named Ma Maison, at a time when people didn't care who cooked their food, they only sort of cared who owned which restaurant. That seems silly, don't you pick a barber or a doctor based on their abilities, not by who owns the barber shop or the hospital? Wolfgang first changed the menu at Ma Maison, then he went and changed the whole industry by becoming the first celebrity chef. But he still wanted to own his own restaurant, so when the owner of Ma Maison offered him part ownership of the restaurant but less pay, he hit the road and opened up Spago instead in 1982.
There's no mention here about Wolfgang's first wife, but his second wife was his business partner at Spago - funny, I thought you shouldn't mix business with pleasure, but it seemed to work for them, for a while, anyway. After 15 years of success they moved Spago to Beverly Hills and then opened up other restaurants all over the world, so they must have been absolutely raking it in. Nothing gold can stay, Puck was jetsetting around the world and hosting Oscar parties, and he and Barbara split up in 2003. I wonder, did she get half the restaurant empire, or just the money? The documentary doesn't say. Puck issues the same refrain I've heard many times in these documentaries, from Frank Zappa to Luciano Pavarotti, all these guys wish they hadn't worked so hard and that they'd spent more time with their kids, been better fathers. Puck sort of has an excuse here, because he didn't have a child until he was 40 and a success, and of course it takes time and effort to run a restaurant empire, but still, if his stepfather was so shitty he really should have figured out a way to be a more hands-on father.
Wolfgang's been around so long that we've all gotten used to him as the elder statesmen of chefs - it's a bit weird to see footage of him when he was in his 30's and 40's and realize that he was young once, too. Kind of like seeing that glamorous nude photo of Julia Child...shudder... And as this documentary shows, he appeared on nearly every talk show in history, doing cooking segments of one kind or another. Julia Child might have been one of the first chefs to host a TV cooking show, but Wolfgang was really the first one to be on every talk show, every channel. A familiar face, a household name, and who knows, there might not even have been a Food Network if he hadn't been so high-profile. Julia gave way to Wolfgang, who gave way to Emeril, Rachael and so on.
And there might not have ever been smoked salmon pizza if Puck's restaurant hadn't run out of bread on the night when Joan Collins showed up, and he invented the dish to satisfy her. He maybe didn't single-handedly invent California cuisine, but he sure popularized it. Mixing the fresh local produce with French cooking techniques might have been genius, but why did it take so long for this Austrian to finally put some damn weiner schnitzel on his menu? To me that should have been a no-brainer from the start. French cooking gets all the good press, but to me German cooking is where it's at. Three years ago we were at the buffet at the Paris Hotel in Vegas, and there were five food stations, representing different regions in France - Brittany, Provence, Normandy, Burgundy and Alsace. Just genius - but my favorite was the Alsatian food.
Another casino-related story, in February 2017 we visited Wolfgang Puck's American Grille at the Borgata in Atlantic City (an apparent casualty of the pandemic, it re-opened without Puck as the American Bar & Grille...). I enjoyed New England clam chowder, a roast half-chicken and a chocolate peanut butter tart for dessert. But this story is about the guy at the table next to us, who we came to call "Twitchy" for obvious reasons. My wife had noticed him earlier at the Borgata, because they're both smokers, and she kind of notices the other people who step outside for cigarettes when she does. At his table he was acting, well, very twitchy, and talking to himself, wondering out loud how soon his pizza would arrive, he had left something in his car, and he asked us to watch his stuff while he ran to his car - who DOES that? We never answered him, we pretended not to notice him, but he acted as if we'd agreed to watch his coat and bag, so he stepped out. Dude, we never agreed. So the waiter came over to us and saw Twitchy's coat and bag, but in a public place you're not supposed to leave a bag unattended, and an unattended bag is something of a security risk. We told the waiter about this twitchy guy who might have said he was heading to his car in the garage, but the waiter really wanted to turn the table, so he picked up the coat and bag and took them to lost and found - we tried, Twitchy, we did, but the waiter didn't want to hear it. Within minutes, a couple was seated at Twitchy's table and we just sat and waited for the fireworks that were sure to happen when he returned. I think we told the couple what had happened before they arrived, and when Twitchy came back, the waiter had his pizza boxed up and ready to go, and sent him on his way. I guess the moral is that the biggest sin at a Wolfgang Puck restaurant is taking up space without actually being present, they'll pack up your stuff and your food and kick you out. Good to know.
Anyway, Wolfgang Puck's getting older and he's got some regrets, sure, but he's still crushing it on the restaurant scene. Like Julia Child and so many of this year's documentary subjects, he's reinvented himself a couple times over, but he's also looking forward and not back, while still wondering how much "forward" he's got left in him. Well, he's on wife number three and got two more kids out of the deal, so there's a second chance to be a better father, I guess. I'm still not sure if being rich and famous makes that easier or harder, though.
Also starring Wolfgang Puck (last seen in "The Weather Man"), Evan Funke, Barbara Lazaroff, Byron Lazaroff-Puck, Laurie Ochoa, Michael Ovitz, Mark Peel, Christine Puck, Gelila Assefa Puck, Ruth Reichl (also carrying over from "Julia"), Nancy Silverton, Patrick Terrail,
with archive footage of Ed Begley Jr. (last seen in "Eating Raoul"), Anthony Bourdain, Michael Caine (last seen in "The Eagle Has Landed"), Johnny Carson (also carrying over from "Julia"), Charles Gibson (ditto), Emeril Lagasse (ditto), David Letterman (ditto), Rachael Ray (ditto), Joan Collins, Sean Connery (last seen in "Spielberg"), Tom Cruise (ditto), Katie Couric (last seen in "The Go-Go's), Billy Crystal (last seen in "Sammy Davis Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me"), Tony Curtis (ditto), Arsenio Hall (ditto), Shirley MacLaine (ditto), Sidney Poitier (ditto), Giada De Laurentiis, Angie Dickinson (last seen in "The Kid Stays in the Picture"), Paul Newman (ditto), Craig Ferguson (last seen in "We Feed People"), Bobby Flay (ditto), Martha Stewart (ditto), Guy Fieri, Bryant Gumbel (last seen in "George Carlin's American Dream"), Tom Hanks (last seen in "A Hologram for the King"), Nicole Kidman (last seen in "Margot at the Wedding"), Kelly LeBrock, Joan Lunden, Dick Martin (last seen in "Betty White: First Lady of Television"), Bette Midler (last seen in "Lucy and Desi"), Joan Rivers (ditto), Jamie Oliver (last seen in "This Must Be the Place"), Sean Penn (ditto), Vincent Price (last seen in "I Am Divine"), Gordon Ramsay, Julia Roberts (last seen in "Ben Is Back"), Al Roker (last seen in "The Bill Murray Stories"), Diane Sawyer (last seen in "Robert Klein Still Can't Stop His Leg"), Arnold Schwarzenegger (last seen in "Aftermath"), Steven Seagal (last seen in "The Onion Movie"), Sylvester Stallone (last seen in "Mr. Saturday Night"), Curtis Stone, Orson Welles (last seen in "Dean Martin: King of Cool") and the voices of Tom Brokaw (also last seen in "Dean Martin: King of Cool"), Robin Leach
RATING: 6 out of 10 frozen pizzas
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