A Day with Canal Cocina

Yes, we have no ham.

Cooking shows have been all the rage for years. Spain is not different except for the fact that it was a food-obsessed nation long before the idea of the Food Channel—or Canal Cocina as it is called here—came along. In this era of Youtube and 24 hour food networks, bad food—like a heart attack—is something easily avoided.  Before I begin any new dish I scout it out first in Youtube, as I mentioned before in my post on The Abuela Project.  Youtube is the next best thing to having someone walk you through the dish for the first time. Today I plan on watching the cooking channel all day long (or until I get sick of it but I’m going to say that I watched it all day—how would you know if I did or didn’t?). I’m doing it so that you don’t have to watch or lie about  it.

The most obvious thing and what I learned almost immediately is that watching cooking shows makes you hungry.You would think that an essay about watching a Canal Cocina marathon would have a lot about the shows but I’m not really watching all of them. I basically just have the TV tuned to the channel and I’m going about my day more or less as usual.  I made some lentils and threw in some of the scraps from the end of my paleta of ham.  I also made Pollo al Chilindrón again. I made a video for this a couple of years ago so I took this opportunity to make another one in which I left out myself. As far as my cooking videos go, I probably have more people spying on me through my kitchen window than viewers on Youtube. I only wish that I had the skills and the equipment to make better videos.

Pollo al chilindrón with lentils