Ten sticks of butter

When I lived in Santa Barbara, I wandered the aisles of the 24-hour Ralphs supermarket for relaxation. I would do this at 2 in the morning, when my only aislemates were UCSB students hunting for Corona, bread distributors restocking the shelves, and the Dude drinking half and half out of the carton. I found contentment in picking over pluots and persimmons (fuyu, not hachiya) in the middle of the night.

The District of Columbia has no such luxuries. Sure, there's the 24-hour CVS in the Ritz-Carlton. It does the job in a pinch, but it's really just a pretender to the throne. Faced with the loss of the heroin that was Ralphs, I've turned to the methodone of Great Chefs of the World -- which, thanks to the miracle of TiVo, I can watch at 2 in the morning if I so choose. When I hear Joe Byrd's bass kicking off the theme song followed by the rest of the Charlie Byrd Trio playing over images of people skiing in the Alps or lounging on Elbow Beach in Bermuda, I'm lulled into a pleasant vegetative state that may or may not include drooling.

Like a meal, the show is divided into three parts -- the appetizer, the entree, and the dessert. Typically, each course comes from a chef who works in a different region of the world. The Charlie Byrd Trio's music plays only during the beginning and end of each segment -- never while the chef is preparing the dish. Indeed, while the chef prepares and cooks, the only background noises are the humming of a nearby walk-in refrigerator or the Wolfe-ian fwalops of the wisk working through eggs, sugar, and milk.

Many of the featured chefs do not speak English, which means that they describe the cooking process or the recipe in their native tongues -- typically German (for the pastry chefs, who are nearly always Austrian), French, or Italian. This also means that the show must enlist a narrator to explain in English precisely what's happening.

The narrator is Mary Ann Conroy, a native of New Orleans whose soft Southern accent doubles as Calgon. Great Chefs does not feature "light" or "low-fat" dishes. We're talking real-deal, heart-attack-in-every-bite, classically prepared dishes that contain butter. Or, as Ms. Conroy calls it, "buddah." And not just a pat of butter. Two sticks of butter. Five sticks of butter. Ten sticks of butter. Yes, it's glorious. I could watch episode upon episode, not only for the bountiful skills and ideas, but for Ms. Conroy to roll another "Chef then adds two sticks a'buddah" off her tongue.

Sometimes, ten sticks of butter isn't nearly enough.