Mark Bittman is totally on point in this piece about the charade that is TV cooking.

Bittman argues, and we agree, that a lot more reality needs to be injected into reality cooking shows, celeb chef cooking shows and all others that purport to teach home cooks. That way, when things fall apart in the kitchen -- when the cake literally sinks or the roast burns, as is often the case in life -- people can know that the end of the world is not near and that dinner might still be saved.

It's what Julia Child did best as PBS' The French Chef. She was quirky, she was real, she dropped things (a chicken here, a potato pancake there.)

Even a little more of this might help. Dubbed the Great Giada Disaster of 2006, it shows the Food Network goddess tasting something godawful and looking, well, not quite as lovely as in the photo below. Still makes us giggle. We're only human, after all.