Now hold on.  The word “pimp” doesn’t always refer to some slimy guy setting up clandestine meetings in dark alleys.  In this case it means the magical ability to turn lowly grits into the food of the Gods. You pimp them when you take them to new heights through the addition of non-traditional ingredients. Above, Chef Vivian Howard demonstrates one of the grits recipes in her restaurant in North Carolina.   In her show  “Life of a Chef” on CREATE,  she devotes her time to featuring a “farm to table” menu   I learned about four ways to pimp my grits on the new CREATE channel which appeared magically on my television set when I dumped my cable service and installed the “Eye Gouger 2000.”  (That’s a story for another day but basically it’s a homemade antenna my son CREATED from coat hangers.  If someone ran into it in the dark it would gouge out an eye for sure.)

I’d never heard of the channel which is distributed by American Public Television and it’s all about cooking, gardening, travel, and home improvement.  It’s like HGTV on steroids – or what it used to be before they got lazy and relegated their programming to couples looking to buy cold and uncozy million dollar houses.

My cable doesn’t carry the network and I got sick of paying $110 a month to watch TV-Land.  However, I couldn’t pick up CREATE  when I had Direct-TV either.  I’m wondering if anyone else can pick it up without an antenna or “Eye Gouger 2000”. My current Create TV favorite is Chef John Besh (right) of New Orleans. His show happens to come on just before my bedtime and I go to sleep with him every night.  Oh, that sounded a little risque didn’t it?  But he is pretty cute and his food looks divine. CREATE TV is one of the great discoveries in my recent history, and the channel has enriched my life in so many ways.

I learned how to hang crown molding and take my cooking to a new level through use of fresh, locally grown ingredients.  I learned how to build a compost pile from stuff you can pick up for free and spend an evening in an Irish pub and sing along with “Danny Boy” one of my all time favorite songs.

This is TV at its best in my opinion. Call your cable company and beg them to add this station to their line-up. Tune in and be inspired to taste, grow, imagine, explore and live more fully. See more at www.createtv.com.