‘Emeril Green’: Excellent Information and Food You Want to Cook and Eat

Emeril Green (Planet Green)

There’s a new and wonderful cooking show on in case it’s passed your attention. It certainly may have as it’s part of the new Planet Green channel on cable from the folks at Discovery. Unless you’re madly into saving the world from itself, are reincarnated hippies or a card-carrying member of Greenpeace you might not watch this network. So it is very possible you’ve missed this new show. If that’s the case, your missing a good one.

I’m talking of course about Emeril Green, the first new show in over five years from master chef Emeril Lagasse — and his first ever away from the Food Network. I didn’t know what this show was going to be about. I honestly expected a version of Jamie at Home where Jamie Oliver grows his own veggies then walks into a shack and cooks. This is nothing like that actually.

What it is something like is the cooking show genre called “help me” shows. You’ve seen those with Tyler Florence’s older Rescue 911 or the current Rescue Chef with Danny Boome or Take Home Chef with Curtis Stone. This is like those for sure, but it has two things going for it, one is unique twist and the second is obvious, it has Emeril.

First off the entire show is in a supermarket, a Whole Foods store in Washington, DC to be specific. And this special supermarket that has places set up for cooking — including an entire kitchen. So when Emeril wants to show the person he’s helping fresh diakon, he walks down the produce aisle and picks it up. (Aha, so that’s what it looks like, a friend of mine watching the show with me exclaimed) If he wants to talk about exotic ingredients he walks down the Asian aisle and says, let’s pick up some Sriracha hot sauce (funny, I’d seen Tyler this in something a week ago and I couldn’t remember the name, now I know the name and saw what it looks like.) In short, it’s the world’s greatest pantry: It’s an entire supermarket as a pantry!

Having viewed at least 14 or 15 Emeril Green episodes now I can tell you this: This is an excellent teaching show. And I mean that from beginners to more established cooks too. Why beginners? Pretty obvious; it goes through the paces. Why more established cooks, because as the bunch of shows demonstrate not everyone knows everything. The very first episode, “Fish Tales” has to do with a very experienced home cook, but one who just had a block when it came to fish. And another episode was yet another experienced cook who wanted to make Southern food for her husband, but being she’s a seafood-vegetarian (whatever they call that) she didn’t know how to make a meatless yet full-bodied Southern meal. I know of people who are exactly like both those folks, experience but you can’t know everything. Well, except a five star chef, natch.

Does the teaching get in the way if you are experienced? Nope! I’m pretty good with fish, but not great; I learned a few things. I have zero problems with pork and from that episode I didn’t learn anything new but it didn’t matter because I got to see some excellent dishes made. And that’s the beauty of this new show; in fact that’s the beauty of any really good cooking show in my opinion: find a new recipe, get some new ideas, maybe learn a little tip or a new technique. If you know the ingredients well, the teaching is done in a way that doesn’t take anything away from it; and if you don’t know the ingredient well, you learn even more. Emeril Green nicely hits this balance. It’s a lot more instructive than Emeril Live was, it’s much more like Essence of Emeril and then some.

If there’s any gripe at all about this show, it was something that was apparent only on the two very first episodes, where Emeril was slightly nervous and a few hokey things came out of his mouth — like “we’re going to tackle her fish problem” and “we’re going to toss her in the deep end now” or “we help her come face to face with her foul fish phobia” — which thankfully all ended after the first two episodes and he didn’t do anything like that since. So we’ll dismiss that as a shake out of the concept or as opening show jitters. Hey Emeril is a pro; it doesn’t take him long with his experience to slip more comfortably into a groove. And by episode three he had it down

In short, think of this concept — at first seeming a tad strange because it’s not been done before, certainly not to this degree — of cooking and gathering ingredients at a super market as the world’s ultimate pantry. I know I’ve mentioned this but it’s worth mentioning yet again. How would you love to — as he did during the Asian meat show — in the middle of cooking say I want a radish and walk 20 feet and pick up radishes super fresh off the produce shelf and start slicing?! Wow! Cook’s dream come true. Same thing when he’s showing people fish; entire whole fish, maybe 30 varieties sitting there.

Need advice on meat? Emeril and the person he’s helping walk over to the butcher, and of course he’s laden with hundreds of “show and tell” beef cuts right there. During a couple of other episodes a nutrionist is handily found down another aisle; again not your usual cooking show but something more added. So not only kitchen neophytes, but an experienced cook, a real foodie, can quickly fall in love with this idea; I know I have. The only bad thing is how do I go about figuring out how I can move into and live inside a super market too!

Among some of the highlights from the first group of shows. Emeril using lentils, definitely one of those foods you do not see used enough on television cooking shows. A woman showed Emeril (yes it can happen, love the give and take) that for making Cuban beans you need cloves, and he showed her how putting it ham hocks to it ups the flavor. Making a nice east makes west meal using bib lettuce leaves instead of bread. And speaking of leaves, one dish was an entire snapper with citrus in the oven, roasted and poached in a giant banana leaf. (I think he has the “green” part down.) Or when he showed a fire fighter how to make as a bit of a side a chicory coffee with orange peel studded with cloves.

In the end, the food looks sensational and you really want to both eat it and make it yourself. You learn some techniques, some new ingredients. He made a mojito with Jamaican ugli fruit — now I have to try that. It’s Emeril, probably the most comfortable chef to be around and one of the most knowledgeable, and all with a pantry as big as a supermarket. What’s not to love here? Both because I hate to give any show a five out of five star rating — I like to see how they do over the longer haul before crowning my top rating — and because I don’t have half stars, Emeril Green gets four out of five stars.

The TCB Ratings System : 5 stars : a sumptuous feast time and time again
: 4 stars : so good you want second helpings
: 3 stars : a decent meal but it needs spice
: 2 stars : brown-bag lunch with stale bread
: 1 star : a TV dinner from the Sixties
: 0 stars : I’d rather have salmonella

Much-Anticipated ‘Emeril Green’ Premieres Today with Six in a Row

The long-anticipated and slightly overdue, Emeril Green premieres today, Monday July 14 on the Discovery Green channel. The overdue part comes from earlier reports were that it was supposed to launch along with the new cable channel on June 6th. Making up for that, there will be six, that’s right, six new of the new episodes on tonight.

And if that wasn’t enough it’s going to be in what’s called “heavy rotation”, or to put in it viewer-speak “they’re going to be showing it a whole lot”. How much? A search on the DirecTv service shows over 48 showings in just two days. That means if you miss the initial six shown tonight at 8pm Eastern, pretty much turn on the channel anytime this week and you’re bound to hit upon one just by sheer chance.

So what’s big about this? Well for one, a new cooking show is always news. Second, it’s Mr. Bam! himself, Emeril Lagasse. Third, it’s not only his first show in something like four or five years — the last being the Essence of Emeril — it’s his first show ever outside of the Food Network. It’s also his first since the Martha Stewart buy out of his ton of “old stuff” too.

Seems anytime Emeril does something he does it big. And even though this is a “small show”. No giant audience. No cooking with his own band accompaniment. (Though we’ll miss Doc Gibbs and the boys.) This is big in terms of numbers. No idea how many episodes of this Emeril already has in the can, but each half-hour show will be shown daily, and not one, but two new shows each day, back to back. So again it’s a full-hour of Emeril.

Here’s the concept taken right off the site: “Picture an ultimate foodie fantasy store, then drop in some real people who have real culinary challenges and watch as America’s most beloved chef comes to their rescue, offering educational information on how everyday cooking can be healthy, organic, and eco-friendly.

On each daily episode, Emeril will be challenged with some daunting food dares that his fans or foodie wannabes throw at him. How many meals can he get out of that $20.00 fat ostrich egg? Is it possible to make a meatloaf ‘meatless’ for a vegetarian? Can he make a decadent angel food cake for someone allergic to flour? Can he combine cold fruit and hot meat together to make a gorgeous and green dinner dish?”

Where the green comes in — this is afterall the “Green Network” — is the focus on locally-grown foods and eco-friendly cooking. So what can we expect from this new show?

In “Fish Tales”, Chef Lagasse helps a woman prepare a meal made from several different types of fish that is worthy of her husband’s hometown New Bedford, Mass. On “Light for Life” Emeril fuels Laura’s new, healthy lifestyle with a recipe designed to help her keep off the 130 pounds she lost. “Cuba Libre” episode focuses on some of the most flavorful pork dishes come from Cuba with a new and modern twist. “A Winning Combo”, Helynn’s husband can make a gourmet meal out of beans and boudin. Helynn’s competitive nature won’t allow her to settle for second place, even in the kitchen. Chef Lagasse works to take a novice in the kitchen and up her game with dishes like Oysters with Hot Sauce Sorbet and Snapper Wrapped in Banana Leaves.

“Jambalaya Jones”: What if you’ve fallen in love with the flavors of New Orleans and want to recreate those memories? Chef Lagasse helps Mike recapture the flavors in his jambalaya. And in “East Meets West”, Americans still have plenty of questions. Which cut do you use for grilling, which grade makes the best hamburger, or how can you tell if a steak is done? In this episode Chef Lagasse meets Valerie who loves steak but doesn’t know which cut to buy, how to cook it or even how to handle it. Emeril gives her a little meat know-how and serves up his beef lettuce wrap with a chimichurri sauce and baby bok choy stir fry as a delicious solution to her dilemma.

What a Weekend - and Week - for Food TV: New Shows, New Episodes

What a wild weekend and week this is for food shows! Really. It’s probably the busiest in quite a while. Why? Changes in shows, brand new programs and new episodes and “seasons” of returning favorites.

First, a lot happens tomorrow, Sunday. The first big thing is the premiere episode of a certain Iron Chef’s latest cooking show: Grill It! with Bobby Flay How does this new one differ from Boy Meets Grill? Well, first-off Flay put the word out in the Spring he wanted to hear from the best grillers. So each episode features a guest, an amateur or pro-am griller who demonstates their specialty. Bobby then follows suit. Or as the Food Network puts it: “The guest griller’s best recipe will be the ‘food of the day,’ but Chef Flay will not know the selection until the guest arrives and will have to whip up his own recipe on the fly.”

Nice idea. And Flay behind the outdoor grill — hey, sure the guy is extremely versatile — but this somehow always seems where he’s happiest, or at least where we the audience are happiest to see him. Btw the first show features grilled beef short ribs! Interesting piece of trivia here. The “Grill It!” cookbook which came out months before the show is currently number 3 on the NY Times books list. The premiere show is on at (why do they do these ungodly hours?) 9am Sunday.

Immediately after at 9:30am Eastern is the second episode of the absolutely wonderful new Secrets of a Restaurant Chef with Anne Burrell who’s doing an entire roast leg of lamb and a peach crisp dessert. Right there are two don’t miss shows with two talented chefs. Love it. An hour later, Sunny Anderson returns with her new episdoes of her new and popular Cooking for Real; that’s on at 10:30am.

The rest of the news for manana is night and late night. First a brand new Iron Chef America episode with challenger Michael Cimarusti taking on Masaharu Morimoto. A quick “Google” of Cimatrusti shows he loves seafood, Japanese knives, sushi … sounds like a good pairing for an interesting food battle. Wonder what the secret ingredient is going to be.

Right after ICA is the latest episode of the Next Food Network Star. After that is a sneak peak of Sunny Anderson’s new road show — Yes, after a mere six episodes of her cooking show, she’s given a second show! That has to be a new record! — How’d That Get On My Plate? which is basically yet another new version of The Secret Life Of … and Unwrapped as far as I’m concerned. The premiere episode has to do with “honey”. That sneak peak is at 11pm Sunday or you can see it Monday night at 9:30pm (after two episodes of, ahem, Unwrapped).

Speaking of Monday …. Nope. Wait. Almost skipped over something. On PBS, at least for me … you see PBS local stations all do what they want when they want, some follow a logical pattern, some don’t, so what’s airing for me might be in 200 other markets the same day. On a different day what’s airing for me is no where else but in my area. Maybe it’s been shown two weeks ago elsewhere. Maybe it’s going to be shown elsewhere next week. It’s the whole insanity of PBS local station autonomy being both a strength and a weakness, but nationally always a confusion. In short, for me, but maybe or maybe not for you, on Sunday, Sara’s Weeknight Meals with Sara Moulton is showcasing Greek dishes and she has on as guest NYC celeb chef Michael Psilakis. They should have called this the Greek Y show. Why? Because they’re making Braised Lamb Yiouvesti, Yiouvarlakia and Vegetarian Yemista. That’s Y.

Ah, at last, on Monday … There’s been all this “flutter” I’ll call it about Emeril Live moving from the Food Network over to it’s sibling channel, the Fine Living channel. On the one hand, yeah, I get it, Emeril Live has always been a FN staple. But then, you see I found out just the other day that while, yeah, Emeril Live would be on FL at night, in fact at the exact time slot, 7pm Eastern it has been on on FN for a decade. Turns out that Emeril Live was not completely leaving Food Network, only “Food Network at night”. Huh? Yeah, reruns of Emeril Live are being shown everyday at 2pm now on FN. And then you have him again on Fine Living at night. So, as Bugs Bunny would ask, what’s all the hub-bub, bub? And my answer is. Dunno, seems much ado about nothing. (And you thought I couldn’t get Bugs, Emeril and Shakespeare into the same paragraph, didntcha?)

Anyhow last year, cleverly, chef Emeril Lagasse made between 50 and 70 new Emeril Live episodes at the very end of 2007. Food Network has been doling those out at a one-a-week pace since New Years, meaning you would get one new one amidst four reruns every week. So with it’s “move” to the Fine Living channel, this week, there’s all new Emeril’s. That’s right, never before seen one’s in other words. They’re burning through a month or two in a sense to showcase the new move. Then we assume FL will do what sister channel FN did and do a once a week new one with six (they’re putting Emeril Live on seven nights a week, not just five) old shows mixed in. Yeah, Emeril is gone but between the seven nights and now two networks there’s a whole lot more Emeril around … not that he’s gone. Wonderful and yet so very confusing at the same time.

And not to be outdone, over on the Travel Channel, Monday at 10pm it’s a brand new season of No Reservations with globetrotting philosopher and foodie extraordinare Anthony Bourdain at 10pm. First episode up, a visit to Laos. Is that enough of a wild and crazy food show week for you? If not, Tuesday night is the season finale of Hell’s Kitchen on Fox.

TV Heads-up: Three Big Food Shows on ‘Martha Stewart Show’ This Week

The first three shows this week of The Martha Stewart Show are all about food. So set your dial, your VCR, your TIVO for these. And remember, if you still miss them when they’re on during the day on your local network, you can see them each repeated the following night on the Fine Living channel. Dates listed are the first run major network days.

Monday, May 19: “Everyday Food Show” - The cooks from Martha’s food show on PBS with cooks from the show - Sandy Gluck, pineapple-glazed chicken, chicken salad, Lucinda Scala Quinn, lemon parsley pork chops, Emma Feigenbaum, crab cakes, Margot Olshan, potato and onion frittata, Sarah Carey, key lime tart.

Tuesday, May 20: “Simple Suppers” - Mario Batali, pizza margherita, Harold Dieterle (who is best known as the winner of season one of Top Chef), snapper with baby bok choy, Mark Strausman, linguini, Emeril Lagasse, pork tenderloin, Joey Campanaro, roast chicken, John Barricelli (known as one of the original Everday Food cooks now with Everyday Baking), pasta lazio.

Wednesday, May 21: “Small Plates” - repared foods platter, Emeril Lagasse, shrimp remoulade salad, Elizabeth Falkner, scallops with bacon, tomato, and avocado puree, Laurent Tourondel, heirloom tomato and watermelon salad, Marcus Samuelsson, shrimp piri piri.

Star Restaurants: Benoit Opens in NYC; De Niro, Ramsay Buy Hotels

In the past month’s restaurant happenings, the top story — many folks have been looking forward to this for as long as a year — is that Alain Ducasse has at last opened a stateside outpost of his casual Paris and Tokyo bistros of the same name: Benoit in the space that was formerly La Côte Basque at 60 W. 55th St in Manhattan.

The restaurant retains the polished, old-world look of its former self and feature a collection of antiques sourced from Ducasse’s personal collection. Executive chef Sebastien Rondier will serve a traditional French bistro menu with classics like roasted chicken with French fries mon ami Louis-style, steak au poivre with pommes soufflés, tarte tatin, and for dessert, vanilla profiteroles with warm chocolate sauce. To drink, there will be a 300 bottle wine list as well as a collection of Champagne martinis like Le Crazy Horse, made from blueberry vodka, lemon juice, mint and champagne.

Originally scheduled to open 10 days prior (nothing new about restaurant openings being 6 days to six months late!), the official launch was Thursday, May 1st. Gordon Ramsay was among those who made it there opening night.

In other restaurant news: Award-winning French chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten has opened a new branch of Spice Market by Jean-Georges in Istanbul at the recently opened W Istanbul in Akatlar district on April 8. Spice Market has won critical acclaim wherever it opened around the world. Its menu, especially prepared for Istanbul, was expanded to include traditional tastes from Turkey. The restaurant carries southeastern Asia’s culinary culture to the heart of the city …

Five years after a chilly Atlanta reception and a string of bad reviews, celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse is closing his Buckhead restaurant at the end of April. Rumors of its closing have circulated for months, but Atlanta-based restaurant owner and chef Tom Catherall confirmed Emeril’s was on the chopping block and its location at 3500 Lenox Road was primed for his new Asian-concept restaurant, Aja …

And now the latest trend: Restaurateurs opening up hotels too.

Robert De Niro plans to open Nobu Hotel, a Japanese-themed hotel-condo complex housing an outpost of the famous restaurant, in the financial district. … And Gordon Ramsay is also getting involved in the hotel business, having just purchased a 10-room boutique called York & Albany. His friend, chef Angela Hartnett will be running the kitchens, though.