The Best Food Network Show To Watch To Remember Anne Burrell

The foodie world was rocked today by the death of celebrity chef Anne Burrell at age 55. Platinum-blonde, spiky-haired Burrell, whose Brooklyn home was featured as one of our picks for the best celebrity chef kitchens, had an energetic and infectious TV presence matched only by her masterful culinary knowledge. She discovered her love of cooking at a young age by helping her mother in the kitchen and watching an earlier TV cooking doyenne, Julia Child, cook French favorites like her favorite soup, vichyssoise.

We loved watching Burrell in action on Food Network favorites like "Best Thing I Ever Ate," "Chef Wanted," and "Beat Bobby Flay," but, in our opinion, we'll always remember her while watching old episodes of "Worst Cooks in America." While other chefs might have made a nonstop mockery of the gross incompetence of the novice cooks featured on the show, Burrell's wry humor and teacherly approach never strayed far from caring and instilling wisdom. 

We still think about her red marker every time we see someone hold a knife incorrectly ... don't extend your index finger along the blade, for cheese's sake! While many TV chefs before her, like Ina Garten, have imparted sage cooking tips that home chefs should know, Burrell's brand of instruction was candid, funny, and ultimately supportive, leading us to believe that, if the poor souls on "Worst Cooks" could do it, so could we.

Speaking of Anne Burrell's famous red Sharpie, raise your (scribbled) hand if you learned something new about proper knife-cutting technique after watching her laboriously coach kitchen noobs out of their bad chopping habits on "Worst Cooks." We always look askance at a plate of diced veg if those cuts are uneven. What would chef Anne have said? 

Likewise, we also saw the devastating (okay, and often hilarious) consequences of not tidying up your cooking station as you work — mushroom stems and onion roots flying everywhere and the stovetop flaming out of control as a sweating, praying Worst Cook tries desperately, and usually unsuccessfully, to remember the fundamentals of kitchen safety and not destroy their dinner. We don't have Anne watching over our shoulders to extinguish our stir-fried disasters, so we preach the gospel of mise en place and "clean as you go."

The world is a sadder, less vibrant place without Anne Burrell in it. We're glad that we have multiple seasons of "Worst Cooks in America" to watch when we want a dose of her snarky, affectionate good humor and kitchen smarts so that we can laugh when we feel sad.