I’d been looking forward to Dave Lieberman’s debut show ever since hearing about it awhile back. I just finished watching it today and at least for this initial show am pretty impressed. Some initial thoughts:

Pros:
Down to earth, accessible.
Genuinely concerned with prices.
Will use canned food.

Cons:
Show is actually too short!
I would like it if, like Rachel Ray’s 40 Dollars A Day, he gave each recipe’s total price.

First, it should come as no surprise that he isn’t going to concern himself ONLY with Cheap Eats… forming a cooking show around that theme would be highly unrealistic especially on the frou-frou Food Network. However, I’ve got to give him some props for at least attempting to inject some cheap eats tips into various parts of his show.

To start with, New York food writer and chef Dave Lieberman is actually a pretty down to earth guy on TV which makes the show more palatable. He isn’t condescending, stuck up, or acerbic like Bobby Flay can be, yet he’s more organized and less sloppy than The Naked Chef. He reminds me of college student or something. A funny side note is that he sounds almost exactly like Scott Wolf (from Party of Five in the 90s).

Anyhow, in this first show he sets up 4 different dishes for a last minute dinner party. I started writing down all the ingredients before I found out they’re available on the food network site:

Cannellini Bean, Red Onion, and Arugula Salad
Roasted Cauliflower
Apricot Glazed Chicken with Dried Plums and Sage
Pudding and Berry Tart with Graham Cracker Crust

All of his recipes were surprisingly cheap and I would probably recommend trying any of them. He has no qualms about using “instant” things, like the cannellini beans straight from a can, store-bought bread crumbs, instant pudding mix, canned chicken stock, and dried oregano. Overall, he seems to geniunely want to present pseudo-gourmet cooking in a way that saves money and I’m pleasantly surprised because I thought this might turn into a stuck up Yale grad more concerned with selling his cookbook (Young and Hungry: More Than 100 Recipes for Cooking Fresh and Affordable Food for Everyone) than actual cheap eats.

I liked how when shopping for apricot jam for his Glazed Chicken they actually showed him grabbing the jar that cost less. Most chefs are beyond this, but good shopping is truly important for cheap eats. I think he might have saved some by getting a premade crust for the tart instead of his own graham cracker one but I could be wrong. Also, he insisted on Italian “Moderna” balsamic vinegar for the bean salad which seemed pricey as did fresh basil/arugula. But I liked that he mentioned parmesan cheese being expensive but that a “little goes a long way”. That would probably hold true for the vinegar too, especially since it will keep in the cupboard.

As I said my biggest issue was that they didn’t do an itemizing of each recipe’s cost at the end of the show, a la $40 A Day. I would seriously like to see how much each recipe cost. Or at least, if they could show him picking out various items at the supermarket and show the amount. I suspect they didn’t include this feature because it would make it too similar to Rachel Ray’s show as well as being impractical. (Trust me, it is really difficult to try to itemize how much EACH ingredient in a recipe ends up costing since I’ve done this many times!)

All in all, this was definitely worth watching and I found myself wishing that they’d extended his show to an hour (and thereby bumping off Bobby Flays’ BBQ extravaganza that was up next). I think I’ll be watching this show frequently to see if the standards put forth by his debut are met in the future. In any case, he’s definitely the chef to watch on the Food Network for Cheap Eats theory.

Cheap Eats Score: 7/10