TV Chefs Blog is where we cover the celebrity chefs and cooking personalities: the news they make, the new products they sell, the restaurants they're opening. We also review the television cooking and food shows. We report on the more famous food authors and their new cookbooks too. If it has to do with eating it, making it and the star cooks who do it, it's here.
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.
This is a pretty sweet find I stumbled on. Just nine days ago the prestigious James Beard Awards were given out in New York City. And now, from that event, here is almost a half hour of video, broken into three parts, where cookbook author and television personality David Rosengarten interviewed celebrity chefs on the Beard red carpet, compliments of devour.tv and Bravo network.
Here, David talks with event hostess Kim Cattrall and event host Bobby Flay, along with José Andrés, Drew Nieperont, Terrence Brennan, Cesare Casella, Ted Allen, Tom Collechio and Todd English.
Part 2 of the video for some bizarro reason starts out with a total repeat of the Kim Cattrall interview. Don’t let that fool you though, for this is plenty of new material here. In fact the entire rest of the clips is with interviews featuring Masaharu Morimoto, Pichet Ong, Katie Lee Joel, Michael Psilakis, Donatella Arpaia, Thomas Keller and Douglas Rodriguez.
We go a slightly different place in part three with interviews as well as some background on the Beard Awards, and then interviews with chefs Wylie Dufresne, Marcel Vignenon (from Top Chef, season 2), Tony May, Dan Barber, Cindy Wolf, Michel Richard and Danny Meyer.
And yes David, we too find it both ironic and very scary a food award show has no food!
Baptism by Fire, Interesting Mix, Lack of Flay, Better Pulse
Yowsah! I would not want to be one of the Next Food Network Stars last night. I might rather be something a lot easier …. a skydiver using a reserve chute, Britney Spear’s publicity manager, a drug mule crossing the border, a cross-dresser locked up in a Southern jail, Bear Grylls drinking elephant dung in the Kalahari … Yeah, almost anything would have been easier I think than being a Next Food Network Star contestant on it’s opening night, last night.
Seriously — and maybe to the point of ridiculousness? — the ten (now nine) finalists were definitely given a baptism by fire. They were given the insane task of forming two person teams and then in a scant 30 minutes creating one dish each plus one team collaboration dish. Now wait! That’s just the obvious stuf. Let’s compound this intense pressure (they did) and recall that in addition to this the contestants: just got there, have no idea how the other person performs and have never been in that kitchen before. Ok, so that’s three dishes in 30 minutes. Nuts?
Totally nuts — especially when you compare that to what a seasoned Iron Chef goes through, namely: five dishes in 60 minutes with the help of two sous chefs all used to the kitchen. That’s right an Iron Chef has a much much easier time with having to complete 2.5 dishes within 30 minutes having a total of three people, not two, of whom both are skilled, experienced helpers who the head chef knows well. Oh and don’t forget the probably twenty years of culinary experience behind just the main chef, probably collectively with the two sous chefs it would be over forty years experience ….
What then did we get out of this competition? A few things. First, yes this running around insane makes for dramatic television. Obviously forced drama for drama’s sake because of the ridiculousness of the task. There’s no reason it couldn’t have been a slightly better 45 or a slightly more sane 60 minutes other than a) the judges didn’t want to sit for six hours and b) the point was to have them jump through hoops and make as many mistakes as possible — let the food suffer. And here we are at one of the elements that has made past seasons fail: when the amount of drama wins over the quality of the food. That is when all legitimacy is lost. I have to overall congratulate the contestants too — they did way way better than I would have thought it was humanly possible. Sincere and major kudos overall.
Back to the challenge: To use the analogy one more time, now having performed the cooking task at hand, an Iron Chef would then have to face three judges. The NFNS contestants on the other hand had to present their hastily-made concoctions to a table full of no less than nine, count them, nine Food Network heavyweights: two executives and seven stars — of which (yep, you guessed it) two of whom are actual Iron Chefs!! (Were I there I think I would have passed through the walls the way the do on the old cartoons where you leave behind the entire body impression and just ran for the nearest horizon. Really, I’ve seen submarines buckle under that kind of pressure!)
And if that wasn’t enough, for some crazy reason — maybe it was editing, I dunno — everyone at the table — the final judges, Alton, the Neelys, Giada De Laurentiis, Sandra Lee and Masaharu Morimoto — looked at the contestants as though they were either annoyed or going to pick a fight with them. I’m serious. I have never ever seen any of them individually like this. Collectively it was a scary sight. Really, I’ve seen bigger smiles on pall-bearers. So just what was that grimacing, tough-ass reception for? And if that really wasn’t the way it actually happened, then please tell me why they purposely edited the show in this manner? Really, is it to make our favorite stars a ton less likable to the general public? The reasoning behind this befuddles me.
Again, more questions come to mind: Why wasn’t this a scenario you should have on the last episode, not the first? No I don’t mean the angry faces, I mean having eight or ten top Food Network stars judging the contestants? Why have this for the very first challenge? If the idea was to say “we’re not pansys, we’re a grueling, serious contest show” then the message was sent and recieved. But tell me. a) was it worth showing America all your hosts can sport dour and nasty experssions? and b) so how you gonna top this in the finale, huh? Have 25 Food Network judges? Should be interesting to see if in 9 weeks time whether or not I’ll be pointing to this very first episode and saying how the show prematurely peaked or not. Guess we’ll see.
My big annoyance I had though — especially after all that promotion talk — was the “lack of Flay”. Bobby Flay supposedly is main host now, yet Alton Brown was the one showing the contestants around for each challenge. Alton also was among those who ate at the table, then disappeared at judging and Flay is suddenly back. This “tag team” crapola amounted to the very same feeling of inconsistancy that has plagued this show from it’s inception four years ago, where the viewer feels the show is “all over the place” and because of that one doesn’t feel that they know what they’re doing. The Flay as host scenario was supposed to eliminate this lack of continuity. Really, I’m telling you, this had better be fixed in future episodes or it will go from being a singular annoyance to a major reason to not watch. Remember as first show this is supposed to set the tone for the rest; right now it’s a discordant tone.
Next, a small peeve, but a peeve nonetheless: Nipa couldn’t find tumeric at the supermarket. I’m not surprised. Not every place carries it here in Philadelphia either. It’s very tough to find the right ingredients when doing more exotic dishes. Thing is, you’re the Food Network. You’re probably the best supplied food place any where on the North American contentinent. New York included. So why did you send folks shopping? And why didn’t you offer your vast — and I mean vast — reserves of product to them? Drama again? Doesn’t seem to work when probably two inches away from someone trying to make an Indian dish there is no doubt 50 lbs of tumeric sitting there. This is just one of those things that annoys me greatly — when the drama is put ahead of the food.
Hello! Are you the Food Network or the Drama Network? My answer to you: Do what you’re good at, do what you’re supposed to do and the rest will automatically follow. Your biggest problems, FN, all happen when when you forget this. Which is too often.
Now you might be thinking this is a bad review. Nope, it’s mixed. Just wanted to get the “bad” out of the way first. I think the challenge was beyond silly, beyond stupid and a dozen judges way too much for the first show. Alas, compared to other (reality) shows (on other networks) and similiar stupid things, I’ve seen a lot worse. The tumeric thing and the lack of Flay are both minor if held within to a one-show event; should they become like this throughout the series these kind of things could be a series killer. For now they aren’t — not yet.
Moving on to the more positive points. Yes there was drama, albeit too forced at times. The mix of contestants do have me interested. Happily, many there, if not all, seem to already understand the need to have their own culinery point of view. They come more aware of themselves and more aware of what is needed than the groups in seasons before this. Whew! A much needed change. Mind you, Lisa is interesting if we also have no freaking clue as to what she’s trying to say. She’s quite entertaining and easy on the eyes, but yeah she’s talking in Esperanza half the time. In other areas, the editing and pacing seems better than previous years too. As does the musical accompaniment. Speaking of which, music or not, every show on television has a beat, lust like a song does, a rhythm, and this show’s prevous dulled rhythm has jazzed up this season to a faster tempo. Again, a result of editing, pacing and other underlying elements. It feels more like it should.
As for individual observations …. Spoiler alert for those who haven’t seen the show yet, it’s with no surprise that “comedian” Cory is gone. If she hadn’t said she was a comedian I would never have known it, for not only did she have no sense of humor, she didn’t crack a smile once. She had the greatest amount of television experience and yet froze while on camera. She supposedly cooked, but you couldn’t tell that either. Very very weird! All of this supposedly in the package and not a single bit of it evident anywhere.
As for the contestant geniuses who thought a meat loaf and (on another team) a pork tenderloin were each good choices to cook (forget about resting the meat for 15 minutes huh?) and plate within 30 minutes …. I want to know, where you sniffing the oven fumes when you came up with those? Seriously, do you come from a planet where they cook with phasers or via time dialations? Exactly how the hell did you think they would actually get remotely done? Mind you, the challenge was as said insane on the part of the judges and producers. But given those restrains, that criteria, that level of insanity, just why make it worse on yourselves???
Overall, entertaining, interesting to watch, good mix of people, better pulse to show. So how is this season’s NFNS going to fare?
Well, if it doesn’t strain credulity (not have excessively stupid competitions), if Flay becomes the anchor thus giving the consistency the show so sorely needs, if they put the food above the drama and let the drama fall where it may …. in short if they avoid the few bad things about the opener and continue with the good things in future episodes, this is going to be an excellent season. If on the other hand Flay is not there enough, if it feels like the show is flapping in the wind again, if the challenges include having the contestants swim in pirannha-infested waters while making a creme brulee (and various similiar crapola), this show could fall flat on it’s face in no time too.
In short, right now, you’ve got me interested. Right now, you’ve got me intrigued. At the same time for the reasons mentioned, you’ve got me a little annoyed. Which way it swings is up to you, Food Network. But for now, I’ll say, good start. See if you can hold my interest past another three episodes and you’ve got a sure-fire winner (that only took you four seasons to get there, but at least one can say you’ve gotten there.) But, this show is able to swing in either direction just as easily, and with both the good and bad elements basically evening things out against the other, I’ll have to give The Next Food Network Star — for now — based on this first episode — three stars out of five. That said, we’ll see how this does at the mid point and of course at the end.
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
Back in late March we announced the International Association of Culinary Professionals 2008 book awards finalists. Yesterday in New Orleans, the winners were announced.
Among the familiar names, the double Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto won two awards for his book and Jamie Oliver won best in the general category, plus NY Times Food Columnist Mark Bittman takes home yet another one.
Jane Grigson Award (Tie) Beans: A History by Ken Albala; and To Cork or Not to Cork: Tradition, Romance, Science and the Battle for the Wine Bottle by George M. Taber
I’ve been working on this article for a week or so now. Funny thing, it started out as talking about two cities, Philadelphia in the US and Vancouver in Canada. Why? Because to me both are excellent food cities and yet both have not gotten the respect they deserve from the culinary world. So while different, they have much in common; additionally, I didn’t think I’d have enough to write on each city by themselves (again, why is that? From being ignored or underplayed in the food press.)
I’m a Philadelphian myself and it’s odd how, writing about this chef, that chef, this city, that city — heck I even did something on Beijing last month — yet I don’t get to write anything about Philly as it gets a bum wrap. So it has been very odd and thrilling to in the last week suddenly see Philly pop up in the press, multiple times and in outstanding ways. There’s Burke being named as one of the Best New Chefs of 2008 last week; and then chef Garces is up for a Beard award. Plus two Vetri eateries are up for Beard’s and then the dramatic development with Philly’s cooking patriarch, Perrier, just yesterday, I’m aflood (is that a word?) with things to write about all of a sudden! Ok, so, Vancouver, you get your own article later this week, for now, it’s Philadelphia’s time to shine.
Old Time meets the New Chefs
Go back just 10 years ago and a list of the top 10 restaurants in the U.S. would often have five in NYC, three in LA and one in Chicago and one in Philly (ususaly it was Georges Perrier’s Le Bec-Fin and probably also Le Circe). If it were a top 20, Philadelphia always had a mininum of three, and in some years 5 restaurants in the list. Now, people dismiss it. It’s like Baltimore’s problem being so close to D.C., except again, New York’s shadow falls deeper upon Philadelphia. And yet, look at the James Beard Awards Semi-Finalists and you’ll see six chefs and several restaurants. Look at the finalists and you see two restaurants and a chef.
What makes things even odder for Philadelphia is that is a big city (the fourth largest in the country) and casts it’s shadown over Atlantic City just sixty-some-odd miles southwest, and so when you put the combination of Philly and AC together, that should make for some mighty haute-cuisine power. Whethere Zagat or the snooty NY Times or whomever looks or overlooks it, the fact is, Philly’s reputation as a fine dining area is as good as ever and getting better.
Ripert’s Restaurant Opens in May
The biggest news is the arrival of superstar French chef Eric Ripert whose 10 Arts will be opening in May (May 10th to be exact) as part of the The Ritz-Carlton Hotel , just footsteps away from both City Hall and the Kimmel Arts Center. Ripert was named Best Chef by the James Beard Foundation and his New York City restaurant, Le Bernardin, has been recognized by the Zagat Guide as Best Food in the U.S. the past four years.
This year Philadelphia’s Osteria (Marc Vetri’s place) is up for Best New Restaurant in the country and another famous venue by the same owners, Vetri, is up for Outstanding Service Award. Jose Garces at Amada is considered one of the best rising-star chefs in the country — and in the running for a Beard Award — and he also has a Basque wine bar: Tinto. There are “destination restaurants” such as Fountain at the Four Seasons Hotel (a perennial Zagat’s number one favorite), Lacroix, Morimoto (opened by the Iron Chef who left it and went to NY and his protege is getting as high or higher marks without him), along with long-time staples as Stephen Starr’s Buddakan and the venerable Striped Bass. Smaller restaurants with up-and-coming chefs include James with chef James Burke — just named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs 2008 — and Xochitl by Dionicio Jimenez reflect only the tip of the fine-dining ‘berg.
And There’s Nearby Atlantic City
Toss in the star restaurants that have been added to Atlantic City’s Borgota Hotel, Casino and Spa between the last eight months and those coming in the next four and you have Bobby Flay’s Flay Steak, Wolfgang Puck’s American Grille, Michael Mina’s SeaBlue and Michael Schulson’s Japanese-pub reimagined, Izakaya, and there’s plenty of four- and five-star eating in and around the City of Brotherly Love.
One last word about Philly and it comes from no other than Food & Wine Editor in Chief, Dana Cowin who once slighted Philadelphia as not being a great food city. When she both re-examined her criteria and actually visited the city, she changed her mind — talking total 180! Two quotes worth noting from that article: “a series of scouting trips to Philadelphia showed her the true meaning of [food] greatness” and
I went to a BYOB called Marigold Kitchen and was amazed at the connection between chef Michael Solomonov (also ex-Vetri) and his customers. He got kisses of gratitude from old women, old men, young men…everyone, in fact. And then it dawned on me: The fantastic restaurants I’d visited had the pizzazz of a Starr production and the intimacy of a BYOB, with significantly more attention to the sophistication of the food and the professionalism of the staff.
These enormously satisfying, small new restaurants made me reconsider everything I’d thought about what makes a great food city. When I looked back at my seven criteria, I realized that Philly performed poorly in many categories, but it’s still an outstanding place to eat. The neighborhood restaurants, better than many of the top restaurants in smaller cities, allow you to have a good meal any day of the week—and to befriend the chef. Would the food scene be better if there were more fabulous destination restaurants? Perhaps. But birthdays and anniversaries come around only a few times a year. I love a city that inspires palates every day and brings a sense of fun to the adventure of eating out. Now, I’m planning to go back to Philadelphia for ravioli stuffed with mashed potatoes, pecorino and leeks at Melograno and a wood-fired pizza at Osteria. And it occurred to me: There are now more places I want to try in Philadelphia than in New York.
: 5 stars : a sumptuous feast time and time again
: 4 stars : so good you want second helpings
: 2 stars : brown-bag lunch with stale bread
: 1 star : a TV dinner from the Sixties
: 0 stars : I’d rather have salmonella
Back in late March we announced the International Association of Culinary Professionals 
