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Wednesdays are rough, and by the end of a hard work day, I am exhausted. When it’s finally time to commute home, I stand up, walk 8 steps out the office door, down 14 steps, walk 6 steps to my living room, and then I sit my fat ass down on the couch. Hump day am I right? Usually at the halfway point of the week, we all need a little pick-me-up, I know I do. That’s why I pick up the remote and tune into Food Network for what is undoubtedly the greatest Wednesday evening lineup in cable television history. From 2 p.m. until 4 a.m. the greatest TV show in modern American history plays nonstop: Guy’s Grocery Games.
I hope that anyone reading this is also a fellow disciple of Guy Fieri that longs to one day permanently live in Flavor Town. If for some reason that sentence made zero sense to you, then I am worried that you are in need of some serious psychiatric help. Many people are familiar with Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, but I would like to take all of the Triple-D fans and introduce them to the Triple-G. What is Guy’s Grocery Games? Oh boy, let me tell you.
Picture a grocery store. The store is fully loaded with every ingredient and item imaginable, from lobster, to cheez whiz, to shallots, to liquor. The grocery store is perfectly lit and also equipped with four huge cooking stations. Cooking stations?! Oh yeah, just wait. There’s also a large stand where three judges sit. Enter Guy Fieri, possibly the greatest cultural icon of our time. Guy typically calls out four chefs from around the country who then enter the grocery store and lineup. Guy then introduces his lineup of judges. What seems like it would be a normal boring cooking show from the start will soon take all kinds of insanely twisted turns.
The rules seem simple: take your grocery cart, go buy your ingredients, and cook a winning meal based on the theme of the round in 30 minutes. However, right before the chefs get ready to go, Guy Fieri tells everyone the special game for that round. Guy always seems to have a creative game, and these are a few examples:
ABC Game: All ingredients must begin with the same randomly chosen letter of the alphabet.
Garlic. Ground Lamb. Garbanzo Beans. Guava. Gouda. Now make a meal.
Food Pyramid: Like the game “Plinko,” a ball is dropped down a peg-covered pyramid to determine what ingredients, on three levels, must be featured in a dish.
I love Plinko and I love Food Pyramid.
Grocery Bowl: Chefs roll melons toward soda bottles labeled with ingredients or aisle numbers, and must use whatever they leave standing or knock down, depending on Fieri’s instructions.
Love the competition control by Fieri here.
Musical Carts: A song plays during the shopping phase; when it stops, the chefs must abandon their own carts and find another one (usually an opponent’s cart). Variations on this game include switching to abandoned carts with some undesirable ingredients.
Strategy here is to load my cart with a bunch of useless crap to hurt my opponents’ chances.
One Ingredient Per Aisle: Contestants must use one ingredient from each of the store’s 10 aisles beginning with Aisle 10 and ending with Aisle 1.
This usually means no meat or produce or basically any fresh ingredient.
Red Light Special: During the round, one item in the store is marked with a sign and a flashing red light, and the chefs must get that item and incorporate it into their dish. The item is typically not associated with the assigned dish, such as beef jerky for a dessert.
I don’t know about you, but I’d definitely eat beef jerky for dessert.
The chef that remains standing then gets to go on a scavenger hunt throughout the grocery store with the chance to win $20,000. Guy Fieri is basically the Jigsaw of Food Network. Guy’s Grocery Games is an exciting show that always leaves you feeling good, but be careful you don’t accidentally spend 14 hours of your Wednesday watching it. Whoops..
Image via James W. Photography / Shutterstock.com
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The image of Fieri as the jigsaw of food network is both terrifying and accurate at the same time.
There are 3 reasons this article is great. 2 of them have to do with you and I enjoying the same shows. The other 1 is that I pretend to do this when I GO to the grocery store.
Shane Torres defending Guy Fieri is one of the funniest stand up bits I’ve seen.
Wow thank you for brightening my Wednesday that was hilarious
If I had to bet on it I’d say your Wednesday Triple-G routine also involves a 4th G, Ganja
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Guy’s transition from looking like Kevin Malone to the tanned, debonair superstar that he is today, is one of the most amazing changes. Look up old pictures of him if you haven’t seen it, it’s unbelievable
I am here for this. I love Triple G and watching other people cook and get stressed about making an arbitrary meal in 30 minutes. They also show it a ton on Sunday afternoons/evenings. It is pretty effective against the Sunday Scaries.
I read this whole article in Guy’s voice like he was doing his intro for the show. Did not disappoint.
I used to hate watch triple D and triple G. Now I just watch them. PGP