Like any other couple who have been together long enough to drop our camouflage shields and start showing our true, obnoxious selves, The Girlfriend and I tend to disagree pretty frequently on what constitutes good television. My picks tend toward PBS documentary series like Nova and The American Experience, old TV shows, and movies. Anne, on the other hand, is into all the do-it-yourself, makeover, and “slice of life” reality shows that clog up the basic cable channels. Which means that about nine times out of ten, when I show up at her apartment, the tube is set on TLC or The Food Network, and it’s all I can do to keep from groaning out loud. (To be fair, she has much the same reaction when I run across an old Godzilla flick and settle in for a blissful evening of daikaiju silliness…)
Anyway, there is one basic-cable show that manages to cross party lines, appealing to both of us more or less equally with its mixture of travel, nostalgia, and greasy-spoon cuisine and culture, a Food Network program called Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. The set-up is that the host — a boisterous Gen-Xer like ourselves called Guy Fieri — drives around the country in a classic Camaro, stopping into, well, diners, drive-ins, and dives to sample regional food favorites and give a little history about the featured establishments. It’s a fun show; a half-hour episode typically covers three quirky, mom-n-pop-style locations, and the eps are often themed in some way, like all family-owned diners, or places that are open 24/7.
The show’s website includes a feature called “Tell Guy Where To Go,” and not too long ago, The GF and I had some fun coming up with a list of our favorite Salt Lake-area places we thought the show ought to visit. We never got around to submitting our list, but it turns out we didn’t have to: Guy was here last week, filming segments for the new season, and as it turns out, the places he visited match our list almost exactly:
