Aw fuck, Holmes, the man died back in 2012! Where were your sweet reminiscences then?

You didn't know he'd died? Well neither did I.

I made fun of him, in an affectionate way, for all the reasons why he was so awesome-- because of his enthusiasm, his working class charisma, the way he set off my gaydar, the way he sold that ridiculous catch phrase. You'd watch the whole segment because you wanted to hear him say "Oooo, it's so good!". I used to ask the TV perverted questions that could be answered with that tag line, in classic Rocky Horror fashion.

And, of course, I made fun of him because his name was MR FOOD!

Art Ginsberg started out as a butcher. Can't you just see it?

There's a YouTube video of Art on the Conan O'Brian show. It didn't go well because Mr Food was nobody's straight man. Conan was doing jokes, Art was doing jokes, and they were stepping on each other's rythyms. Conan was actually starting to look hostile.

I can see why he was never on the Food Network. If you're on the food network, and your name is Mr Food, what does that make everybody else on the food network?

I was never familiar with him, but I see now that he's awesome. I checked out that Conan segment. He really took Conan out of his element. I guess Conan is a guy who just has to dominate the routine or he gets pissy.

This doesn't make any sense to me: a show about food where they talk about food and show you how the food is made? Where is the countdown screen? At what point do tarantulas fall out of a trapdoor in the ceiling?

RIP food guy :(

Mr. Food wasn't *exactly* a food show. He never did any cooking, and the spots lasted two minutes and were syndicated to local morning news shows. He supplemented his income with little magazines sold on the end caps of the lower middle class non-chain grocery stores.

I think what Mr. Food did best was giving you THE IMPRESSION that he had a full show, where he cooked, and it was the greatest show ever, only for some reason you always missed it.

You've got a point, but its not that important. For the REAL fans, the ones who did the cooking, the proof of the pudding is how well the recipes work out. For these people, who used to send in self-addressed envelopes, the real action is on the website, which is now the home of the MR FOOD TEST KITCHEN.

The name says it all. Whether you actually saw him cooking, I suspect that the foundation of his empire was the quality of the recipes.

Nicely done, Homer, I owe you stars for that!

You can still find this recipe on mrfood.com Search for "sweet vadalia pie"; just searching for vadalia onions didn't work.

The Mr Food Test kitchen is still active. Particularly since I am learning to control diabetes, the website looks like a valuable resource, but anyone who wants to enjoy food, and therefore life, will find a ton of useful information.

But for all its useful matter, it really needs more ART!