A conversation with Gordon Ramsay
On Monday, May 30, the Fox Network premieres “Hell’s Kitchen,” a reality series set in a Los Angeles restaurant that some have described as a culinary boot camp. Indeed, Chef Gordon Ramsay, who runs the place, could probably give lessons to a Marine Corps sergeant major on how to get people to be the best they can be — with “best” being the operative word. Over the course of the series (which is the American version of the highly successful show Ramsay hosted in England), the group of aspiring Cordon Bleu cooks and hopeful restaurant owners will be competing with each other until only the best (there’s that word again) among them survives the tough conditions imposed by Ramsay, whose mantra is: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
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Gordon Ramsay, who hosts “Hell’s Kitchen,” says it was no problem going from being one of Europe’s top soccer players to one of the continent’s most honored chefs. Ramsay, who was born in Scotland and raised in England, points out that while the transition from spiked shoes to a chef’s toque meant learning a lot of new skills, the most important element didn’t change: his mindset.
“I’ve always believed that doing less than your best is not an option, whether I’m on a (playing field) or in a kitchen,” he says. “That’s what I loved about being in sports: It’s not so much competing against another team, but against yourself. Each time you go out there to play, you have another chance to be better than you were. … It’s a constant challenge.”
Ramsay says it’s the same in the restaurant business. “Becoming successful means giving it everything you have. Staying successful means staying in the game; you don’t go off to sit on the sidelines now that you’ve scored a goal, so to speak. You continue to work hard to improve, to do better.”
On the show, Ramsay deals with people who believe that they have what it takes to be successful.
“But believing is one thing,” Ramsay says. “They have to prove it.”
And proving it can mean everything from trying to make a sauce come out the way it should, but won’t, to dealing with a kitchen catastrophe or confronting personal issues that can cut as deeply into someone’s self-esteem as the proverbial hot knife through butter.
As for any personal regrets he may feel when he does some of his own slicing and dicing among that week’s less successful contestants, Ramsay says, “Of course you don’t like to make people unhappy. But I would hope that they would have learned something not only about the work but also about themselves, and that they’ll be able to use the experience (to good advantage).”
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In Focus
Annika Peterson (“No Such Thing”) stars as the brilliant and beautiful (and somewhat mysterious) Sonja Astrov in “Frederick Forsyth’s ‘Icon,’” airing May 30 on the Hallmark Movie Channel. Others in the cast include Michael York (“Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me”), and Patrick Swayze (“King Solomon’s Mines”) as Jason Monk, a former CIA operative who is the only one who may be able to stop Russia from once again becoming a military dictatorship. The actors on “Icon” feel the film is chillingly timely. We’re witnessing the still very young Russian democracy dealing with challenges that could help revive the old Soviet-style government. “Watching ‘Icon,’ ” one observer noted, “is like seeing something that could happen if we let it.”
Dial Tones
HBO’s “Empire Falls,” a two-part miniseries airing May 28 and 29, features an all-star cast that includes Ed Harris (“The Hours”), Helen Hunt (“As Good as It Gets”), Paul Newman (“Road to Perdition”), Robin Wright Penn (“White Oleander”), Aidan Quinn (“Michael Collins”), Dennis Farina (“Law and Order”) and Joanne Woodward (“The Three Faces of Eve”). The film focuses on the people in a declining New England town whose future is overshadowed by the ghosts of the past.