Gordon Ramsay on Jay Leno: Funnier than Hell

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Last night, Gordon Ramsay appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and he was effing funny -- funnier than hell. Gordon came onto the stage at high speed and set Jay to copy his every move as they made tortellini from scratch. First, Gordon and Jay mounded flour, made a hole in it, and dumped in a pinch of salt and then an egg. Jay's mix came out a bit unmixed, and Gordon slammed his hand into it and sent a cloud of unmixed flour into the air. Moving right along, Gordon whipped out some partially rolled pasta dough and had Jay assist him in rolling it out thinner. Then, they stuffed the tortellini, brushed on egg as glue, and formed the tortellini -- which is to say that Jay fumbled through one, two, three, and four tortellini, each of which Gordon inspected in a flash and tossed backstage. The entire process was punctuated with an ever-increasing number of Gordon's trademark expletives (at one point there was a nearly continuous stream of bleeps by Tonight Show editors), wonderfully counterpointed by Jay, who acted either pissed off with Gordon's bullying, laughed at his antics, or imitated his accent to humiliate him back -- but lightly, and expertly. After seeing Gordon with Jay, one could wait forever to see the final episdoe of Hell's Kitchen this coming Monday (August 1, 2005). As a finale, while they tasted the tortellini, Jay commented that they were missing a pinch of something -- and threw a fistful of flour in Gordon's face, which Gordon returned, followed by a hug. The flour Jay dusted Gordon with was a light, wonderful moment of everyman revenge for all the amateurs who were gratuitously humiliated episode after episode on Hell's Kitchen. Obviously, Gordon's bullying works better with professional equals, who can resort to their own counter offensives -- which gives rise to a new TV show idea (see previous article for Iron Chef America) for Gordon: why not have a Hell's Kitchen for celebrities like movie stars, rock stars, sports stars, and especially great comedians? Some of these people really love to cook and are even excellent cooks -- how many people know that 1940s and 1950s actor-comedian Danny Kaye was such a food hottie that there is a Danny Kaye Theater at the Culinary Institute of America? Get in some hip stars who can already cook, and now we're talking about confident people who have come to learn... As primus inter pares, Gordon just couldn't run roughshod over stars the same way he does with amateurs. And a good director could keep the tone more in check, to minimize the humiliation with [CAREFUL: SPOILER] a finale in which Gordon gets a massive dose of his own... Of course, Wolfgang Puck did somewhat the same in a 1987 video he made called Spago: Cooking With Wolfgang Puck (see Super Chef, pp. 36) in which he cooks sedately with movie star guests from Spago, but Wolf freezes on camera, despite his warm charm in person -- whereas Gordon Ramsay will do anything to keep the camera on him. Fox TV, remember to thank Jay and crew at NBC for letting Gordon show his real TV talent (which superchefblog has recognize): better yet, do something about it, please! Previous articles: Hell's Kitchen a la Apprentice: You're Fired! Bobby Flay: Tonight Show With Jay Leno Hell's Kitchen on ICE Iron Chef America Meets Survivor Gordon Ramsay Joins Richard Branson in Fox's Reality TV Hell Technorati Tags: chefs food restaurants cooking branding cuisine Television Reality TV Jay Leno --> back to superchefblog