Food Network

Adam, Lisa & Aaron It’s down to these three for the title of "The Next Food Network Star" . The last show was so close that instead of eliminating one finalist like usual they decided to bring all three contestants back for America to decide the winner. It’s been a blast to watch the [...]

From the harsh critiques of the judges this week, "I hated it!", you would have thought that some of the food this week was bad enough to be thrown out...The 4 losers go to Las Vegas. Well, technically speaking, only 3 of them will be losers and there will presumably be one winner...eventually. Each of them talks about their shortcomings and what they have to do to win. (Cook and not be annoying.)

To be the Next Food Network Star? Well, if you do, Food Network is currently casting for Season 5! All you have to do is submit an email with your name, contact information and why you should be the Next Food Network Star. All entries should be sent to NFNS5@foodnetwork.com.In the meantime, catch up with the finalists from previous seasons. What are they up to since competing for the dream job of

This a Meet & Eat from the folks behind Serious EatsName: Shane LyonsLocation: Colorado Springs, COOccupation: CookURL: thebluestar.netFavorite comfort food? I LOVE Buffalo wings with thick and stinky blue cheese.Guilty pleasures? Ben and Jerry's Cinnamon Buns ice cream.What food won't you eat? Soy butter.What would you like to try but haven't yet? Haggis.Favorite food person? Alton Brown.When

Well, sort of. I'll get to that later. Bobby comes in and tells the 5 remaining contestants that their next challenge will be Surprise! Surprise! A COOKING DEMONSTRATION!What a revolutionary idea that they would actually have to demonstrate a recipe! This is the first time they’ll be doing something that directly relates to the point of this whole thing…giving cooking demonstrations.AND Whoo O

Episode 6 of The Next Food Network Star was somewhat interesting. As I told you last week the finalists created a 4 minute demo for the Rachael Ray Show. They also had to create a dish for a Girl Scout that was to be their partner. Most did a good job on camera and involving their girl scout.Aaron, was the most improved, he let the real Aaron out this week. He made a Broccoli Burger pizza that act

Oh my, Adam’s doing push-ups in his boxers. Gross. I certainly hope that means he’s going home, although many others should be up for that honor as well.And guess what? Another pointless challenge this week…Cat Cora delivers the good news. (Shane is really taken by her and gawking at her hotness like a 19 year old. Oh wait, he IS 19 years old.)Each contestant is given a picnic basket with in

I apologize for being late with this recap. It has been hectic around here the last few days.This week on the Next Food Network Star the six remaining finalists were challenged by Chef Cat Cora. She had them each make a dish with six surprise ingredients and then describe it to the camera. They had to describe the taste and smell for the home viewers. They all thought they would be describing thei

Have you ever thought you could host your own show? Food Network tests that belief in this contest that focuses on both cooking and camera skills. Season four brings 10 new finalists, a new time slot, and brand new challenges. All so the Committee can choose the best person for their own six-episode show. Come along as the brightest stars from the network, and select special guest judges coach the

Adam exclaims a little too enthusiastically, if you ask me, his admiration for Tyler Florence upon seeing him come striding out. Tyler tells the contestants that their challenge this week is to do a 60 second video on a specific cooking technique. The finalist that does the best will have his or her video on the FN website. It’s not clear initially if they get to choose what they do. No they don

Adam realizes he has undercooked food two weeks in a row. He has to work on that. The contestants leave the house to meet up with Bobby. He wants them to demonstrate their culinary points of view with a potato. They have to actually express themselves THROUGH the potato. The next thing you know they’ll be asked to create a dish using the Stanislavski method. Nipa is happy…about the potato, not

I'm probably letting myself in for more heartbreak by watching this show. What if I fall in love with someone and then they're yanked off the air prematurely...as can happen on these nitwitted reality shows? I’ll give it a try..We have seconds-long vignettes of each of the FN stars hopefuls. The only thing that interests me is their interaction with current Food Network “Stars”. I don’t ev

Enter Food Network's Ultimate BBQ Sweepstakes for a chance to win $65,000 in cash to transform your backyard into a monster outdoor entertainment destination! Plus, Bobby Flay Grillware and Kohl's gift cards totaling $5,000 and new KitchenAid appliances from BrandSource. Also, 10 lucky first prize winners will win a copy of Bobby Flay's hot new cookbook, GRILL IT.

Cleveland restaurateur and Iron Chef Michael Symon is set to take over as the new host of the Food Network's Dinner: Impossible series this fall. Great news for Chef Symon and Cleveland in general, but what does this have to do with employment law? According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Food Network fired the show's prior host for resume fraud: Symon is stepping in at "Dinner: Impossible" after the St. Petersburg Times revealed in early February that original host Robert Irvine exaggerated a wee bit on his resume. Like that bit about cooking for England's royal family. And being a White House chef, among other things. Resume fraud is a big problem for employers that largely goes undetected. Some surveys show that perhaps as many as 30-40% of resumes contain intentional inaccuraci

Food Network announced today that Michael Symon will replace fired host Robert Irvine on “Dinner: Impossible” Symon won last years Next Iron Chef competition and appears on Iron Chef America. Food Network will begin taping new episodes this week to air later this summer. The new show will be one hour. According to the AP Symon [...]

In the interest of full disclosure, I do not work for Public Broadcasting, or any of its affiliates, heirs or assigns. I just love it. I also have no personal axe to grind with The Food Network, aside from the fact that, as a foodie, I feel completely ripped off in every possible way by [...]

Does anyone have cable? Change the channel to the Food Network TV. I love this tv show, watching the food cook offs competitions and how the cheifs make and prepare their dishes look, so easily and beautiful on a plate.Food Network, also, have a website, you all show check out for yourself. They have video on some great dishes from famous chiefs, like Rachael Ray to Jamie Oliver. Even if you are having a party, they have a whole section on holiday and parties. Plus, they have a section on Healthy Eating from cooking and tips on weight loss.

If a friend from some far away place was visiting you in the U.S. and said ‘I’ve heard of this thing called a burger, I’d like to try a really good one’ would you offer him a tuna fish sandwich? And yes I’m aware of ‘veggie burgers’, ‘turkey burgers’, Krusty Burgers and Hamilton Burger but [...]

The St Petersburg Times is reporting that Robert Irvine, the host of Food Network’s Dinner:Impossible has lied about his credentials and experience including claims that he has a degree from Leeds University and worked on Charles and Di’s wedding cake. One scathing accusation: Irvine’s bio on his own Web page lists a B.S. degree in food [...]

There's NO Michael Chiarello to be found on the FN this morning. Imagine my horror when I turn it on and check the listings. There is a RR special(!!!), which is not only NOT Michael, but horrid as well. I can't have been dreaming when I saw Easy Entertaining listed at 11:30, can I? I think they're practicing the old bait and switch. Well, it didn't work. I'll go nag my kids until Giada at noon.UMMMM...after some more intensive research, it seems THAT I WAS WRONG. Yes, it's true. And I'd like to offer the Food Network a halfway formal apology (only about THIS). It seems that the schedule I was looking at was FRIDAY'S, when MC was INDEED on at 11:30. BUT why did Friday's schedule come up as TODAY'S, after 1 am??! Then it's Saturday, genuises. I do apologize, but I'm not changing my headline...

For some inexplicable reason, when I was checking the Food Network schedule for Saturday on the digital cable program listing thingie, it kept saying To Be Announced. Just now, when I looked at the FN website, it says MICHAEL IS ON AT 11:30 am! Could it be?!! Have they finally listened to reason and brought my California cowboy back where he belongs? Actually I prefer 1 pm, but I'll take 11:30 am. And just because there's a review on the website of one of the recipes from 2005(!), I still don't care. A 2 year old Michael episode is worth more than a brand new one from...well, so many of the current FN hosts...I won't even go into it. Thank goodness harmony is being restored in the universe. I better not get up in the morning to find a different program schedule...If I see Ingrid's face at 11:30, I will be in a tizzy from here to South Beach.

According to Times Online, a rare invention will hit the eBay market soon, thanks to the master chef & historian Tom Bridge. Bridge has reinvented the Welsh rarebit and it is not a wee bit rarer at $605 a slice. The Welsh rarebit snack dates from the 18th century and is also known as toasted cheese or cheese on toast. The snack is made by blending grated cheese with beer or a little milk and butter adding some seasoning (usually mustard) and spreading the mixture onto hot toast and then grilled. The cheeses most often used in the Welsh rarebit are Lancashire, Cheddar or Double Gloucester. Tom Bridge will use the finest of ingredients for his Welsh rarebit, including Umbrian truffles and matsutake mushrooms which are so valuable that they are harvested under armed guard. Bridge has opted to use Warburtons Toastie bread and Lancashire cheese. The chef will be just in time for National Cheese on Toast Day on April 27. A version of the snack is to be auctioned on eBay and the winner

Hi everyone, the poll winner today is no doubt Food Network (photo courtesy of CityFood), the most highly watched cooking channel in USA. I myself have been a huge fan of this channel and there was a time when tuning to FN was our favourite passtime. But lately, I regret saying that it has lost its glory. Lets look at the good and bad of thisIt still has the best food shows and the most intriguing and well-planned shows with lots of information. The shows like Unwrapped, 40$ a Day, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, Good Eats provide great revelation and insight into the food industry, best culinary restaurants and chefs. This is the only cooking show which transgressed into actually being a Network in a true sense, launching its own brands, website and forums, contests, Food network weddings and Food Network Star Awards! It also provides great inspiration and a launching platform to yound and aspiring chefs or entrepreneurs with shows like Iron Chef America and numerous food and pastry comp

I had seen Rory's ad asking people to vote for her on Perez Hilton's website and smiled at seeing American ingenuity at work. But according to this post from Second Helpings it seems she and her supporters went way overboard in soliciting votes.And then there is a comment on Second Helpings from Jayne that helps to illuminate the situation more: "I think America got it right, but, Rory's reaction shocked me! She couldn't even bring herself to congratulate Amy and seemed to take the air out of Amy's victory by gathering up the cast to soothe her wounded ego. Very bizarre reaction. Disappointment is one thing, but, a narcissistic fit is rare to see on television."In hindsight, I am doubly glad Amy won the Next Food Network Star. Here's a post on Reality Cooking about her win. Whoops, we used the same photo of Amy, but there are so few of her out in the ether that show up her personality. I suspect she is not as uptight or snooty as she sometimes appears to be.

Which Chef Will Win The Next Food Network Star?Just in - The Next Iron Chef America on Ruhlman's blog: Who will be the fifth iron chef? Stay tuned to this new Food Network series and find out.Here is another link to JAG quitting, along with a video.

We had a quick visit with Ingrid Hoffman on CBS this morning. Who even watches that show? My excuse was that I was waiting for the painters.The good news is that not only did she not cross contaminate anything...THIS TIME, but she didn’t even TOUCH the long strip of pork ribs that she was cooking.She talked about the tamarind sauce in her recipe, which she said is "nice and tarty". Immoral or not, I happen to LOVE tamarind sauce. She gave a less than adequate explanation of Aji Panca. At first I thought she was talking about garlic flavored Japanese bread crumbs. Next she was using "wooshie" sauce, her overly cutesy pronunciation for Worcestershire sauce, telling us that it was made from tamarind, which I cannot believe I didn’t know. Then she gives a few “chica tips” (isn’t that kind of sexist?) for her cole slaw with mango. She says not to use an overly ripe mango. They can be stringy and you don’t get the beautiful clean cut pieces that you do from one that is slightly l

Rory a shoe-in? Amy a star? America's got two days to make the choice. Go to www.foodnetwork.com and vote, or click here, then tune in next Sunday to see who won.A pall hangs over the final talley is that of JAG's resignation. He was. Dumb. Stupid. To have lied. How could he possibly have thought he could fool the viewers? Too bad. He was among the most talented chefs on this show and quite colorful, but he wanted fame so much that he was willing to fudge the facts. See my previous post on the subject.Frankly, I was puzzled by the judge's decision to initially cut Amy. While Amy has the least star quality of the three contestants, she nailed the XM radio and Star magazine interviews, and she engaged Rachael Rae in her five minute on air cooking demonstration. Yeah, she's not glam. But few at Food Network are. I must admit those poached eggs didn't look appetizing. So I imagine she lost major points there.Rory? She hasn't been my favorite but she performed well this week. The fir

Ever since Iron Chef of Japan became a cult classic U.S. television has been experimenting with cooking contests (including Food Network’s excellent American version of Iron Chef itself). From cakes to risotto we all want to know whose ‘cuisine reigns supreme’. Allez Cuisine! Two of the most popular are ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ which has even made it into the primetime lineup on a decent network Fox and The Next Food Network Star which is Food Networks effort to get into the American Idol business of validating your talent’s popularity before engineering their stardom. On the surface you’d think a blog called Kitchen Warfare would just love a show called Hell’s Kitchen. Hell’s Kitchen - From Our Garbage Can To Your Table If you’re expecting to watch a cooking competition or learn something about food I’ll save you an hour of your life. Much to my surprise popular chef Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen isn’t really about the food.

HINT: It's not his or hers. IT'S MINE...And JB'sThe July issue of Bon Appétit arrived the other day with an inviting looking cover showing Barbecued Ribs. It was the winning recipe of Rory Schepisi, competing in one of the weekly competitions on The Next Food Network Star. I took a look at the recipe. It was pretty darn good for having to put it together in 2 hours. One thing does worry me a bit though. The Food Network put this at the bottom of the recipe: This recipe was provided by a finalist, who may or may not be a professional cook, for The Next Food Network Star. Food Network has not tested this recipe and therefore, we cannot make representation as to the results.I sure hope Bon Appétit tested it before putting it on their cover!While we're nitpicking, the grilled cantaloupe, alongside the ribs, probably looks better than it tastes. The best idea for grilled fruit that I've run across is Bobby Flay's grilled lemons. For some reason, I find that a positively sensational

Seen on the blogosphere, Anthony Bourdain discusses Episode Two of the Next Food Network Star in Ruhlman's blog. Do we sense a bit of sarcasm and irony here? Thanks Top Chef: They Cook, We Dish, for pointing me to Anthony's take on NFNS, one of the shows I recap.Here is Anthony's take on the first episode.The man minces no words, but he did get some details wrong. Ah, well, the Great One's biting humor makes up for his lack of pesty accuracies.

I don't love the new Food Network Homepage. The one feature I used all the time is not there. The Find a TV Show box used to be on the home page. Now you have to click at least once to get there. There's a Find A Recipe From An Episode, but that takes you to a dumb list that gives you a DESCRIPTION of each show and a link.AAARRRGGHHH!!!! And yes, I know there are various other ways to get to where I want, such as the alphabetical list of shows, BUT they all involve more clicks than before. So now I have to go to Find A Recipe From An Episode, choose a show and leave the "Episode Topic" box empty and THEN when I get to that page which is just a dumb list of SOME episodes, but not all, I can click AGAIN in the Find A TV Show box and get what I want. Oh, but luckily there IS room for a giant picture of Rachael Ray AND a poll by Kraft on whether we prefer Shrek Mac and Cheese to Hamburger Helper. (I kind of made that up, but not entirely.)

Hello! One of us is the next Food Network Star, well, what's left of us. Eleven started out tonight, and two of us already got cut after serving a potluck dinner, creating a wedding cake, and catering a wedding reception from start to finish for 100 people in an impossible six hours.Sheez! You'd think Food Network would take things slowly and make this a true competition between us and TOP CHEF! After all, we beat them to the starting gate and sprinted out first. Can't they make this show last? What's the hurry?Our Chef characters are as good as Top Chef's; maybe better. We'll wait and see.There's Tommy who snores, which is hard when you're all sleeping in one room. He claims he can cook, it's just that he's never had any formal training. Tommy's kind of slow in the kitchen, and he made a really dumb move adding chicken stock to a vegetarian polenta entree. But he's a charmer, and he'll probably go far.Then there's JAG, a former marine in the shape of a bull dog. He likes

All week on Food Network it is “Grillin’ and Chillin’” week, it’s a great time to catch up on you favorite BBQ and grilling episodes. They also have a chance to win $65,000 in cash, to build your outdoor dream kitchen, in the Ultimate BBQ Sweepstakes!

All week on Food Network it is “Grillin’ and Chillin’” week, it’s a great time to catch up on you favorite BBQ and grilling episodes. They also have a chance to win $65,000 in cash, to build your outdoor dream kitchen, in the Ultimate BBQ Sweepstakes!

I caught Emeril on Regis and Kelly Lee (as Dave Letterman says). Apparently, they're spending some time in New Orleans to highlight all the progress that's been made. When asked how things are, Emeril replies, "Everyday gets a little bit better." From your lips...Emeril tells them that he came to N'Orleans 25 years ago to take overCommander's Palace from Paul Prudhomme and work with the Brennan family. I'm glad he mentioned all those folks. I want to believe that Emeril is as nice a guy as he appears. But I could be wrong, because he's obviously trying to do in Reege. He's making a Hot Crab and Crawfish Pasta with ONE AND A HALF CUPS OF HEAVY CREAM! Not exactly what the doctor ordered after heart surgery. Reege smiles weakly as he looks on, thinking...if I want to stay alive another year, I won't even LOOK at this. They come back after a break and, luckily, he doesn't even have a plate in front of him. Emeril talks about Cafe Reconcile and he does a bit about other restaurant

I am not happy. Someone at the Food Network has decided that my wonderful Michael Chiarello doesn't belong on the Saturday afternoon television line-up - which is the primetime of my Food Network viewing. They put Spiky Haired Guy on instead. He's ok, his food is actually rather exciting, but he's no MC. And he doesn't need to be on on Saturday afternoon, when I have my appointment with destiny, I mean with my favorite chef on Easy Entertaining.A quick perusal of FN's website leads me to conclude that this is not just a temporary move. Michael's keeping his 12:30 pm SUNDAY slot, but those were usually old shows. Now they have him on every weekday at 3 pm. Is that supposed to make up the fact that they took away his Saturday afternoons? Who can possibly watch at 3 pm and who wants to tape something every day at 3? (It's true, I actually TAPE the shows. Don't ask...It's a long story, but it has to do with being able to take the tapes and watch them on any tv and not having to ge

To be honest, I'm not sure it happened exactly that way. It was reported to me by a young friend. Apparently on Thursday's show, Jimmy Kimmel talked about an interesting article in the Chicago Sun-Times. It was about the lack of black chefs on the Food Network and in restaurant kitchens in general. We don't usually think of Jimmy Kimmel as being at the forefront of the issue of race in America. But we just might be wrong. He mentioned this problem and then he said that he had to give the Food Network credit, because the very next day they gave his security guard Veatrice her own cooking show. And he showed her on the set of her cooking show, which was, I'm sure, hilarious. Veatrice has the warmth of a prison guard and the charm of a rattlesnake. Too bad that it was just a sketch on late night televison.But think about it...the number of black chefs or hosts on the Food Network has been and continues to be really paltry. I guess that shouldn't be a surprise, but more of a reflectio

The Food Network is becoming a more diverse place. Instead of just featuring so-called master chefs, iron chefs, executive chefs and the like, the Food Network has also started featuring just really good cooks. One such cook on the Food Network is Giada De Laurentiis, otherwise known as “Sorriso a 64 Denti” in my family. My [...]