News Bytes: Deen Show Peek; Chefs’ Night Out; the Beards; Tyler in Idaho

Many weekends are slow, food news-wise. This is definitely not one of those.

On the air we have a preview of Paula Deen’s new cooking show on Sunday early afternoon and later that night episode 2 of NFNS. Off the air and live, the biggest thing of this weekend and perhaps of the year is the Annual James Beard Awards Sunday night.

First up is Tyler Florence who travelled to Boise for a food charity event, A Chefs’ Affaire. What it is involves a five-course gourmet dinner created by Idaho chefs from 20 different restaurants. There is also a live chef auction and a silent auction. Benefits go the the Idaho Foodbank. Celebrity chef Tyler Florence presents a cooking demonstration prior to the dinner.

Sunday night is the 2008 James Beard Awards, basically the Oscars of the Culinary World. For who’s up for what check out are post on the Beard Finalists we did in March. On Monday we’ll let you know who the winners were. Ah, but for a moment let’s look at last night in Big Apple, namely the Chefs’ Night Out party hosted by Bon Appetit at the Edison Ballroom in New York City.

Well some bloggers (not me, sniff) were lucky enough to go, so let me quote the ulterior epicure:

It’s kind of an unofficial kick-off for the James Beard weekend of festivities leading up to the James Beard Awards Ceremony and Gala Reception at Lincoln Center on Sunday, June 8. The event involved loud music, a dance floor, lots of cocktails, a dessert “buffet,” passed finger foods, an ice cream truck, and lots of people-watching.

Attendees included: Barbara Fairchild, Andrew Knowlton, Tom Colicchio, Tracie des Jardins, Johnny Iuzzini, Anita Lo, Drew Nieporent, Gail Simmons, Ilan Hall, Grant Achatz, Donatella Arpaia, Michael Psilakis, Bradford Thompson, David Kinch, Harold Dieterle, Anne Burrell, Fabio Trabocchi, John Besh, Lee Ann Wong, and many more…

And for photos of the event there was “live blogger” snack (that’s her cool name) taking photos on her cellphone straight to her blog. No captions but I know for sure I saw Gail Simmons, and Ted Allen with some guys and Daniel Bouloud sucking on a Good Humor bar (I kid you not), and a blurry pic of a guy against a wall who’s hair reminds me of Marcel from the first season of Top Chef. Not saying it was, some blurs look like other blurs, but it could have been.

As for television, on Sunday night there is a brand new Iron Chef America with star chef Marcus Samuelsson entering Kitchen Stadium for the first time, taking on Iron Chef Bobby Flay; that’s at 9pm Eastern, followed at 10pm Eastern with the second episode of The Next Food Network Star (which we both showed a clip of and talked about the other day.)

In the daytime however, there’s a Paula Deen marathon from 11am to 2pm, culminating at 1:30pm with a sneak peek of her latest new cooking show, Paula’s Best Dishes. As FN describes it this way: “What happens when America’s favorite Southern cook opens up her kitchen to family, friends, viewers, and the best home cooks in the country? Paula is cookin’ up something new as she rescues viewer recipes, learns the secrets of some of America’s best cooks and shares stories and traditions with friends and strangers alike.”

For this Sunday’s show the theme is “Deli Delights” with guest local Savannah chef, Alan Nowell paying a visit. Next week the show premieres in its regular Sunday at 12:30pm time slot with Paula managing to get her husband Michael into the kitchen with her.

New Planet Green Kills Off Discovery Home; Several Cooking Shows Gone

I am surprised and very very annoyed on a couple levels.

I knew from many months ago that Planet Green was coming. Turns out it’s one of the very first posts I made here, that Emeril Live was through production on the Food Network and that the Cajun with the Big “E” and “bam” was starting a new summer time show on a new summer-time launched channel called Planet Green from the Discovery network.

I had no idea until yesterday that it was ever going to replace another channel. I thought it was a new addition. Never in any writings I came across in the past half year did I see “Planet Green which will replace/kill the Home Channel”. Never saw it. So I literally never saw it coming. Until it was over, until the deed was done. Now I’m majorly annoyed. Pissed even. Not only for what has gone, but for good what has gone could have been.

Let me tell you what I mean. Basically, we Americans alas get only American programming. Oh sure, we get our fill of the Brits via BBC America, and that is majorly cool. But overall, we live in our own little bowl and forget there’s an entire world out there. Mind you, not all of the cooking shows came from outside the US on the Home Channel, but some did.

So besides having to say good bye to the non-cooking shows I enjoyed such as Toolbelt Diva and Holmes on Homes and some other good non-food content …

Goodbye License to Grill with host Rob Rainford. A show from Canada that this channel did keep picking up new seasons, so they showed three or four years worth of Bob, though not the last year. Along with Bobby Flay’s shows his made for the two best griiling and BBQ shows around! He’s still on Food Network Canada, a lot of good that does me.

Goodbye Chef at Home with Michael Smith (I really enjoyed this show) — another Canadian show — mind you they were too stupid to buy any of the last three seasons of his show so we kept watching ones from 2004 and 2005, but I liked them anyhow. At least, again he’s still shown in Canada, but no help to me.

Goodbye Inner Chef with celeb chef Marcus Samuelsson and owner of Aquavit restaurant. One of the top chefs in NYC. With that unique blend of specializing in Ethiopian and Scandanavian. Yeah he did the help at home type show, but was anyone ever so overly qualified? I mean that in a good way. Wow.

Goodbye to Cookin’ in Brooklyn with Alan Harding. Not a favorite by any stretch, I probably watched it less often than the others. Still I really did enjoy that quirky, off-beat way the host was and how he did the show. It was a definite original. And often enjoyable; I just had to be in a mood though to see it or not.

 

Semi-Sorta-Half-Hearted-Goodbye to Take Home Chef. It’s only semi because — whew! — Curtis Stone and his show are mainly on Discovery’s TLC (The Learning Channel) and just made extra apperances on the Home Channel. So this show is thankfully still around!

Goodbye to that show — I had to look this up for this article the name didn’t even stick in my mind — to Simply Magic with Kylie Kwong — the one show I will not miss one iota. Kwong’s voice was always so irritating and grating. And I could never ever get into her recipes. And even if I had I would never have been able to make a single one of them. You see, she specialized in Australian meets Chinese food … you want to talk about two cuisines who’s ingredients she used that you never heard of before and will never find here in the States! Now if you could find the Chinese ones — and she used some wild stuff I’d never heard before or even seen at the good Chinese stores here — then you surely would never never find the Aussie ones.

But you know, even this I will miss in a small way, because it was different. Very different. Chinese-Australian fusion? Might be a very normal thing 17,000 miles away from here, but it’s anything but normal here. And so showing it … I greatly appreciated that!

I said I was annoyed on a couple levels. The second level is all that the Home Channel never did. Why did it keep showing the same shows over and over. Why did it rarely get new seasons of shows that were popular? Why did they do such a lousy job in other words? Now while sure, on one level you might be saying — and you would be right — well then good enough they shut up and are no more as they didn’t do a good job did they? In that sense, true enough. They really did basically take some foreign content, tossed it up on a wall, saw what stuck and let it hang there. They never worked it to it’s full potential. Hell, they never worked it to even it’s minimum potential. They never worked it period.

But … what a wonderful window they opened! One I don’t want shut. Why doesn’t someone come fill this void? Food Network? PBS? Someone else? Why not take these cooking shows from Britain and Canada and Australia and wherever else and put them on American television for us to watch? Why not let us see what’s happening elsewhere. Oh I know, the Celsius to Farenheit thing is a pain, and the mililiters instead of ounces is even worse, but I have a solution: they have these things since 1949 where you can actually put words at the bottom of the screen. You might have seen it. Hint hint.

Look at what the original Japanese Iron Chef being shown here caused … a sensation and a highly-rated spin off or two. And as said, were it not for License to Grill, there pretty much would just have been Bobby Flay and that very annoying guy on PBS as the only ones rubbing and mopping. More points of view, more different culinary skills are appreciated. And desired.

So how about someone out there pick up the slack? Pick up the food shows the Home Channel killed off and go out there and pick up some more foreign cooking shows and expand our palates and our horizons. Don’t you think it’s a damn shame someone like me has to ask this? Don’t you think it ashame PBS or Food Network or whomever you are that you haven’t been doing this already? If you’re not ashamed, you really really should be.

And Discovery, thanks — and thanks for nothing too.

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.

Next Big Thing: Celeb Chef Eateries in Your Department Store?

Celebrity chefs with restaurants in airports … Star restaurants in Vegas and Beijing … in casinos …. even in new museums. So what’s the next trend? We think we’ve spotted it.

Based on this Ocean County (duh, where else, huh?) newspaper report, it looks like big name stores are all going to get trendy little star chef eateries next. And you know if it happens in LaLa Land, it make end up happening everywhere else after.

La Brea Bakery will open inside the Macy’s at Fashion Island, probably late this spring. At the same mall, Dean & DeLuca, a gourmet food retailer coming next year, will have a café.

At South Coast Plaza, the Macy’s Home Furniture Store plans to test a high-end food court with a Frontera Fresco by chef Rick Bayless, Cat Cora BBQ and a Burger Bar from Marcus Samuelsson. No opening date has been given.

Also at the Costa Mesa mall, Bloomingdale’s will welcome a Charlie Palmer restaurant in early May. The store will also have a second restaurant that hasn’t yet been named.

Wait. Didn’t I just say in my previous post that Cat Cora had no restaurants? I guess I should have said “yet”!

Common Thread’s Third Annual World Festival Monday in Chicago

Dozens of celebrity chefs at Common Thread’s Third Annual World Festival on Monday, March 17 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

The annual event takes place the Monday of the Housewares Show, in order to bring national celebrities who serve on the Chef Advisory Board to the festival. This year Padma Lakshmi of Bravo’s acclaimed Top Chef will serve as the honorary chair and mistress of ceremonies.

From ABC 7 Chicago:

Festival guests will be treated to global delicacies by renowned chefs including founder Art Smith, TABLE fifty-two; David Burke, David Burke’s Primehouse; Tom Colicchio, Craft; Gale Gand, Tru; Ken Oringer, Clio; Marcus Samuelsson, C-House; Jacques Torres, Jacques Torres Chocolates; Rocco DiSpirito and Ming Tsai, Blue Ginger.

[….] Common Threads, a not-for-profit organization, was founded in 2003 by Art Smith, personal chef to Oprah Winfrey. The organization employs cooking and the arts to teach children cultural diversity, nutrition and personal well-being

From The Trib:

If you want to nibble on dishes prepared by Ming Tsai and Paula Deen, be prepared to shell out $500 for the VIP reception at 5 p.m. (where Tsai will produce caviar-topped blinis along with Dennis Joel of Blue Water Grill) and an after-event party hosted by Deen (she’s making banana pudding and minty brownies) at The James Hotel, 55 E. Ontario St., complete with a special performance by John Legend, the Grammy Award-winning singer.

General admission tickets are $250; VIP package, which includes the preview receptions and post-party are $500. For tickets and more information, call 312.752.2692 or visit OurCommonThreads.