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.

Video: Celeb Chef Interviews at the James Beard Foundation Awards

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!

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.