The Food Wife
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"The Food Wife"
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Episode Information
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"The Food Wife" is the fifth episode of season 23 of The Simpsons and the four-hundred and ninety-first episode overall. It originally aired on November 13, 2011. The episode was written by Matt Selman and directed by Timothy Bailey. It guest stars Mario Batali as himself, Anthony Bourdain as himself, Tim Heidecker as Amuse Bruce, Gordon Ramsay as himself and Eric Wareheim as Fois Garth.
Synopsis
- "Marge, Bart, and Lisa start a food blog where they review different restaurants together. However, Homer starts to get jealous at being left out."
Plot
Bart and Lisa's reward jars get filled with marbles, which means that they'll get their Saturday Surprise Dad Day that weekend. Homer takes Bart and Lisa to E4, a large video game convention where they even have VIP passes. The three of them go around the convention and have a great time before they go home. When they get home, the kids bounce around on space hoppers they got at the convention before Marge deflates them and tells the kids to get a bath. That night, Marge laments about not being "Fun Mom" because she's stuck doing mom stuff. Homer then tells Marge that she can take the kids to do something fun next weekend.
The next weekend, Marge accidentally takes the kids to the 
-GAMES, thinking it's the X Games. All three of them hate the trip and are disappointed on the way home. In the car, Lisa tells Marge that Homer will make it up to them by taking them somewhere fun next weekend. At that moment, the car breaks down in Little Ethiopia. The district intimidates and scares the three of them a bit until Bart and Lisa tell Marge that they're hungry so they get out and go to Haile Delicious Ethiopian Food and drag Marge with them. Marge tries to back out, not wanting to try the ethnic food, until Bart and Lisa pressure her to be more adventurous and try it. Marge orders the Zelzel Minchet Aletcha Wat, which she and the kids enjoy eating. Several foodies, including Comic Book Guy, Sideshow Mel, Fois Garth, and Amuse Bruce then enter the restaurant to try the food and join the Simpsons in eating as they hadn't tried that dish before either. Lisa explains to Marge that they're foodies who went to the restaurant on purpose.
Back at home, Bart and Lisa eat leftovers from the restaurant, which concerns Homer who refuses to try something new. Marge, Bart, and Lisa then decide to start their own food blog, the Three Mouthketeers, to blog about their experiences in trying different food at restaurants. Marge is excited to be included with them and is happy to go along with it. Eventually, their blog becomes so popular that they get invited to dine at the most exclusive restaurant in Springfield, El Chemistri. Homer is disappointed by this as he had also gotten tickets to go to Krustyland on the same day as their reservation. Homer gets upset and jealous over how much time Marge is spending with the kids and goes to mope.
In the garage, Homer is making baseball bats, which he does when he's upset. Marge then invites Homer to El Chemistri with them so he wouldn't be left out, which excites Homer. When Homer tells the kids that he's going with them, they get excited and start referring to Homer as "Food Dad". That night, Marge has a nightmare where Anthony Bourdain and several other celebrity chefs and the foodies follow Homer on space hoppers because they're having more fun with Homer than Marge. The dream ends with Gordon Ramsay telling Marge that she was stupid for inviting Homer. The next day, Marge tries to talk Bart and Lisa out of letting Homer go with them, but they don't listen to her and think it'll be a good idea for him to go with them. When Marge is on the phone with Homer, she tells Homer the wrong address. 1501 East Oak Street instead of West Oak Street, so he won't show up at El Chemistri.
The night of the meal comes and Marge, Bart, and Lisa go to El Chemistri without Homer. Homer shows up at 1501 East Oak Street, which turns out to be a meth lab. As Marge, Bart, and Lisa enjoy their meal and wonder where Homer is, Homer still thinks that the meth lab is the restaurant and decides to start without the family. However, the police show up to raid the lab while he's there. Back at El Chemistri, the family gets ready for their main course, pork chops 100 ways. Bart and Lisa begin to worry about Homer still being missing so Marge decides to call him, only to hear his panicked voice over the phone about him being in a meth lab. Marge, Bart, and Lisa leave El Chemistri to go and rescue Homer and find he's being held hostage. Marge throws the dessert she got from El Chemistri into the meth lab owner's mouth, which reminds him of his childhood, and he lets Homer go. Marge apologizes to Homer about what happened as the kids tell Marge she was awesome for what she did. The next weekend, the family goes to Krustyland, but Homer and Marge tell the kids to go enjoy themselves while they spend time together.
Production
One of the scenes in this episode was mentioned in the table read for the script of this episode. "Exterior Simpsons Family House, Day. Marge stands at the doorway as the family car pulls into the driveway. Homer, Bart, and Lisa bound out." The dubbing for this episode wrapped up on September 27, 2011.[1]
The episode's spotting session took place on September 9, 2011, with Chris Ledesma, Alf Clausen, Larina Jean Anderson, Dominique Braud, Jesse D. Miller and Matt Selman.[2]
Reception
Hayden Childs of The A.V. Club gave the episode a B+ rating. Childa said that by the standards of modern episodes, "The Food Wife" was "pretty sharp". Child also says that the jokes in the episode "run from amusing to quite funny". However, Child found Anthony Bourdain's guest role in the episode "sadly underused". Childs ends the review by saying that the "episode was funny and well-observed".[3]
As of April 2024, the episode has a 7.1 rating on IMDb.[4]
Gallery
References
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Wikisimpsons has a collection of images related to "The Food Wife". |
