I’m The Narrator

I like cooking shows.  Not cooking competitions, but the old fashioned kind where it is just a chef and the camera talking you through what they are making.  Julia Child and Graham Kerr, better known as the galloping gourmet, were early stars in the cooking show world that I used to watch as a child.

PBS was the original source of those kinds of shows, then came the Food Network and now it’s the Cooking channel.  Food Network has gone into shows with more production like Iron Chef, Chopped and Restaurant Impossible.  Cooking channel has picked up the less expensive shows to make where it is just someone cooking in the kitchen telling you how. I like having the expert just narrate what they are doing as they are doing it.

When Carter and I were in London she brought it to my attention that I narrate what I am doing.  “I’m just going to pack my suitcase now,” or “I’m going to write my blog then take a shower.”  I guess Carter is right.   I do tend to narrate.  Those are just statements and not conversation.

Today I was watching Giada at Home on the Cooking Channel while I was eating my lunch and I realized that my narration sounds a lot like a TV chef, even when I am just narrating in my head.  I wonder if I always narrated or if my narration has been influenced by watching cooking shows?

Probably my constant narration is some sort of OCD.  I like to think of it as part of my storyteller personality and less of a disorder.  Maybe it is tied to my extrovertedness since neither of the introverts I live with tend to narrate.  Whatever, I am now on the lookout for when and what I am narrating because I am trying not to do it, at least not around my child.  I know that one day she will have the authority to commit me to a facility and I don’t need to give her more ammunition for my needing full time care.

I think that my narration defense could be that I am just practicing for when I get my own comedy cooking TV show.  Apparently I am very comfortable carrying on a one sided conversation.  I think in the TV world it is called the monologue.