Some people say that President Obama has been on TV too much since he became President a year ago, but his wife is about to make a big splash on one of Food Network's most popular shows.
First Lady Michelle Obama will reveal the secret ingredient on the January 3 special episode of Iron Chef America (I don't think it's the season premiere because we're in the middle of new episodes right now). There's no specifics yet on what the secret ingredient will be, but it is something that grows in the White House garden and ties in with the First Lady's "Healthy Kids Initiative" to get kids eating better and exercising. Beyond all that, this sounds like its going to be a great episode of the show. It will pit White House chef Cristeta Comerford and Bobby Flay against Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse.
You know what I'd like to see as the secret ingredient on Iron Chef America? Ring Dings. Or how about Atomic Fireballs?
This is one of the more enjoyable clips you'll see this week. Paula Deen was on the Today Show a few days ago to make some coffee cake, but things got out of hand after some mysterious guy walked onto the set and laid on the ground behind the counter.
Deen gets off one of my favorite lines of the year, wondering where the guy came from. As a bonus, another TV personality makes a random appearance to try some of the cake and Ann Curry acts all Ann Curry-ish.
It has gotten to the point where I really don't care what the hell Anthony Bourdain cares about anything. I liked Kitchen Confidential (the book, not the TV show) and some of his other writing, but this need to speak out on anything and everything in the food world he finds lame or disgusting or "evil" has gotten old. Now he (and chef David Chang) is speaking out on other things he can't stand, and one of them is Food Network host Guy Fieri.
Personally, I wouldn't bleach my hair and wear those shorts, but come on, is it really worth bad mouthing his hosting and cooking? I love Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives and Ultimate Recipe Showdown!
When you're a cable network and you're only reaching 55 million households and want to reach twice that amount, what do you do? If you're Scripps Networks, you rebrand the channel and give it a new name. That's why Fine Living will become the Cooking Channel in 2010.
The way I see this, since Scripps owns the Food Network, the Cooking Channel will be sort of a Food Network annex. Food Network 2.0. Food Network, Two. In actuality, a lot of the programming on Fine Living now is connected to Food Network. Old Iron Chef episodes, Emeril LaGasse and Mario Batali and Wolfgang Puck ... all cooking shows that were once on Food Network.
Now that it's going to drop the Fine Living angle and concentrate on cooking, all the overflow from Food Network will have somewhere to go.
Given the popularity of the second-season opener of The Next Iron Chef, I figured it was a good time to pull out this interview I did with the show's host, Alton Brown, at the network's TCA party in July. It was definitely the tastiest party of the tour, as each Iron Chef contestant plied the critics with delectable morsels of their creativity at various stations.
In a bit of a surprise, one of the contestants, Amanda Freitag, was being assisted by her friend Ariane Duarte, one of the more popular contestants from rival program Top Chef's New York season (I was so flabbergasted by the turn of events, I snapped a pic of the two with my cell phone). When I pointed this tidbit out to Brown, his response was very interesting...
Even though I watch a lot of programming on the Food Network, I have to admit I missed almost all of the The Next Iron Chef in season one. Last Sunday, the second season of The Next Iron Chef blasted off with the best ratings for a series opener in Food Network history. Over two million viewers, a 1.1 rating among adults 25-54.
Why the big jump? Well, I think a lot of other people are like me. On Sunday, before I switched over to watch pro football, I clicked on Food Network where they were showing a marathon rerun of the first season of The Next Iron Chef. It only took half an episode for me to kick myself for not having watched the whole first season when it aired. It was terrific.
I'm of two minds aboutThe Next Iron Chef. I love a lot of food competition shows and this one is enjoyable, but at the same time I've always thought that being an Iron Chef was something important, something big, something you couldn't become just by competing in some reality show. But then I remembered that it was a reality show and that I'm overthinking it and I should just shut up.
Yes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but this a bit much. TLC has given the greenlight to BBQ Pit Masters, a new food show about American barbecue competitions. Does Bobby Flay, Mr. Food Network grill master himself, know about this? I can see him getting as red as his hair when he reads about it.
So, TLC is saying that this new show, a documentary about the über-competitive world of competitive grilling, will run for eight hour-long episodes commencing December 2. How this will be different from similar food competitions on other networks -- like Food Network -- remains to be seen.
It has come to my attention, via this article at E! Online, that you are thinking of doing a View-like women's talk show. I don't know if this is a bad idea in general, though I think that you are better off just doing your cooking shows and not risk spreading yourself too thin. But I'm not worried about you doing a talk show as much as I'm worried about the person who you might do the show with.
Remember how in Miss America, the emcee would always say that in the event that Miss America cannot fulfill her duties, the first runner up would step in? Apparently that's how it works with The Next Food Network Star, too. Just three weeks after Melissa D'Arabian was declared the winner, her number one challenger -- the guy who placed second -- Jeffrey Saad has been given his own show. It's not on the network, but it's a show nonetheless.
According to Food Network honcho Bob Tuschman's blog, Jeffrey Saad will be doing a mini-series on the web site -- exclusively for now -- called The Spice Smuggler. The premise is based on the Alton Brown directed pilot that Jeffrey presented in the finale of The Next Food Network Star.
If you think this image of french fries looks delicious and appetizing, this post is for you.
There are so many cooking shows and food competition shows, everything from Hell's Kitchen to Top Chef to Man v. Food, but there's a new one that started up recently that I'm really, really enjoying. Maybe because it's just about the joy of eating! Whatever the reason, The Best Thing I Ever Ate is a winner.
I could probably write something about politics, sex, healthcare, education, or religion and it wouldn't be as controversial as what I'm about to say: Anthony Bourdain is wrong and Sandra Lee is right.
If you haven't been keeping track of the things Bourdain has been saying about the Food Network host, here's a quick summary. Bourdain wrote some unkind things about Lee and her Semi-Homemade Show (and some other Food Network hosts) a couple of years ago. Among other things he called her "pure evil," a "hell spawn," and said "she must be stopped." Ouch. There's also this video of Bourdain at a food festival dumping on Lee, and now Bourdain has written on his blog about his recent brief encounter with Lee. at the premiere of Julie & Julia.
A week ago -- in TV time -- Melissa D'Arabian was crowned the winner of The Next Food Network Star. Presto-chango and one week later, her new show debuted on The Food Network, called Ten Dollar Dinners with Melissa D'Arabian. That wasn't the concept she was talking about during the competition, but within hours of last Sunday's finale, FN had decided that this would be the format for Melissa.
It was with a lot of curiosity that I checked out the debut of Ten Dollar Dinners. Would Melissa be able to adapt her "kitchen survival guide" and perky homemaker style to a skin flint, sawbuck a dinner concept? Would the personality -- that the judges harped on wanting to see -- come out in a slickly-made premiere episode?
Unless you've been living in a cave the past five years or so, you know that celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has emerged as one of the biggest stars on TV. But if you only watch Gordon on his Fox TV shows -- Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares -- you've only seen one side of the bellicose chef. On those shows, he's a screaming, cursing, demanding, hard-driving taskmaster. He's compelling, but you wouldn't want to be on the other side of one of his verbal tongue-lashings.
That's right, less than 24 hours after cleaning up the confetti, Ms. D'Arabian was handed a new show with a new angle. The title will be Ten Dollar Dinners with Melissa D'Arabian.
Some people say that President Obama has been on TV too much since he became President a year ago, but his wife is about to make a big splash on one of Food Network's most popular shows.
It has gotten to the point where I really don't care what the hell Anthony Bourdain cares about anything. I liked Kitchen Confidential (the book, not the TV show) and some of his other writing, but this need to speak out on anything and everything in the food world he finds lame or disgusting or "evil" has gotten old. Now he (and chef David Chang) is speaking out on other things he can't stand, and 
When you're a cable network and you're only reaching 55 million households and want to reach twice that amount, what do you do? If you're Scripps Networks, you rebrand the channel and give it a new name. That's why 
Given the 
I'm of two minds about 
Yes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but this a bit much. 
Paula,
Remember how in Miss America, the emcee would always say that in the event that Miss America cannot fulfill her duties, the first runner up would step in? Apparently that's how it works with The Next Food Network Star, too. Just three weeks after 
I could probably write something about politics, sex, healthcare, education, or religion and it wouldn't be as controversial as what I'm about to say: Anthony Bourdain is wrong and Sandra Lee is right.
A week ago -- in TV time -- 
While reading 
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