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.
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!
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.
And so the third month, another four weeks, has rolled by already and it’s time to do a monthly recap — the last one — on Top Chef. Pssst, here’s the first and the second monthly recaps we did in case you want to recall what happened from the beginning.
Top Chef, Season 4. The standings at the end of Week 12.
Super quick Top Chef recap of the past month:
Week 9: This is the one where the Quick Fire was the prep relay and Dale throws a tantrum. What we remember most about this ep is it’s the one where Padma says there are no restaurant wars this year, instead it’s Wedding Wars. In the end, Nikki who was handed the reigns basically by nature of what the groom wanted decided not to take responsibility, and that blew up in her face. Natch, as it was a wedding, there were also two cakes, which made pastry chef Gale Gand the perfect guest judge. Week 10: Salads and lunches. In the QF Spike won and Antonio came in second for making salads. The Elimination was to follow a set of guidelines to make better lunches, in this case for Chicago’s Police Officers. Andrew got clever and stupid at the same time and lost out. Guest judge was a TC Season Two favorite, Sam Talbot. Week 11: So what’s more surprising then ditching Restaurant Wars this year for Wedding Wars? By then doubling-back and having Restaurant Wars after all! That’s right with basically only three people left on each time (though eliminated members Nikki and Jennifer came back for several hours to lend a hand). With Antonia, Stephanie and Richard on one side and Dale, Spike and Lisa on the other, it came down to many flaws on the latter team and Dale not taking responsibility as exec chef. Dale exits. Anthony Bourdain is back at the judges table for this one. Week 12: After deboning half a steer into steaks for the QuickFire, it’s off to Rick Tramonto’s steak house for the Elmination Challenge. In the episode that has taught everyone never to use frozen scallops when featuring them as the main course, Spike finallys gets his.
And this leaves four challengers left and only the two big final shows. Next week two of the four will be axed. The week after the remaining two chefs go head to head in the finality. In the best and most promising season for women yet — a woman has not won the Top Chef honors in the previous three seasons — right now one male is left, Richard, and three women, Antonia, Stephanie and Lisa.
We’ve mentioned Foxwoods before back in March. Well, finally the casino’s expansion, plus the opening of the MGM Grand there, all happens this weekend. And of course while there are tons of new and wild things to mention about rooms and casinos and such — we’re choosing to ignore all of that and just concentrate on the food. From the Hartford Courant:
Foxwoods was always bigger, but foodwise, Mohegan Sun cast a large shadow over its nearby casino neighbor. With Michael Jordan’s Steak House, Todd English’s Tuscany, Jasper White’s Summer Shack, SolToro Tequila Grill and many other venues that offered great burgers, barbecue and Asian fare, Mohegan Sun always trumped Foxwoods when it came to good eats.
That changes this weekend. With three high-powered chefs opening restaurants at Foxwoods Resort Casino and the new MGM Grand at Foxwoods, the casino giant in Mashantucket can now rightly claim that it’s as much a culinary destination as a gaming and resort destination. With the arrival of Tom Colicchio’s Craftsteak and Michael Schlow’s Alta Strada (both at MGM Grand, which opens this weekend) and David Burke’s Burke in the Box (which opens this weekend at Foxwoods, to be followed later in the summer by a lavish steakhouse called David Burke Prime), Foxwoods is now a culinary high roller.
Robert Mondavi, the vintner who built his career and helped an iconic Northern California industry blossom by insisting that Napa Valley wines can compete with the best in the world, died in the valley Friday. He was 94. […] ”It is hard to imagine anyone having more of a lasting impact on California’s $20 billion-a-year wine industry than Robert Mondavi,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement.
[…] When Mondavi opened his winery, California was still primarily known for cheap jug wines. But he set out to change that, championing use of cold fermentation, stainless steel tanks and French oak barrels, all commonplace in the industry today. He introduced blind tastings in Napa Valley, putting his wines up against French vintages, a bold move. His confidence was rewarded in 1976 when California wines beat some well-known French vintages in the famous tasting known as the Judgment of Paris.
L to R: Peter Mondavi, Sr., Magrit Mondavi, Martha Stewart and Lee Schrager and Robert Mondavi, (seated)
And lastly, CBS spends nearly two billion dollars to acquire the vast CNet holdings. From The Times:
CBS said Thursday it would buy CNET Networks for $1.8 billion in cash, marking its biggest online acquisition since hiring Quincy Smith, a former media and technology investment banker, to lead its interactive unit in late 2006. The deal came as CNET, whose assets include a popular technology-news Web site, was trying to fend off a group of activist investors seeking to take control of its board of directors.
And from CBS itself a list of CNETs holdings and why they wanted it:
Based in San Francisco, CNET Networks owns many of the Internet’s leading entertainment, news and information sites including CNET, ZDNet, GameSpot.com, TV.com, mp3.com, CNET news.com, UrbanBaby, CHOW, Search.com, BNET, MySimon and TechRepublic. The company, which reported significant profits in 2007 on revenues of $406 million, has a large international footprint, particularly in China.
The news to us foodies is that in buying CNET, CBS now owns Chow.com and the ChowHound food forums.
So another month, another four weeks have gone by, and that means four more of our “favorite” (or sometimes not) Top Chef cheftestants are but a mere memory. Here’s the first monthly recap we did in case you want to recall what happened then. (Put all of these together at the end of the show and you’ll have the world’s coolest Top Chef Season Four recap, you just know.)
That out of the way then, here’s the quick summary of the past four weeks with the very last TCB “What’s Happening on Top Chef” score card for you.
Top Chef, Season 4. The standings at the end of Week 8.
Super quick Top Chef recap of the past month:
Week 5: In the what’s poor what’s quality blind taste-testing QuickFire (QF), Antonia had best palette. For the elimination challenge (EC), it’s “The Elements”, that’s right: earth, air, fire, water and the gang broken up into teams. Zoi is axed for no seasoning on her mushrooms. Nancy Silverton makes a dining room cameo. Ming Tsai is guest judge. Week 6: QF is about da beer, but elimination is about da Bear’s. It’s the tailgating episode. Ryan basically refused the challenge, making totally non-tailgating food. Duh! Both judges came from the well-known restaurant Avec, with Koren Grieveson as QF judge, and owner Paul Kahan the EC judge. Week 7: “Improv”. QuickFire was making a desert. EC was the improvisation. Dale and Richard won out. Jennifer went home. Desert chef Johnny Iuzzini was the guest judge. Week 8: I’m skipping the QF (You’ll thank me later.) Art Smith was the guest judge so you can figure out this had to do with the Common Threads foundation. You’ll recall this ep as the one when the cheftestants had the little kids as sous-chefs. Kiwi Mark went home for lack of protein in his family budget meal.
Two comments. First, I had pretty much liked Mark the whole way through … until the end and then after. (After?) At the end he thought — sincerely — that Tom had it in for him. And then in his exit interview he likened Padma to Yoko Ono and said how she had (Padma) “destroyed the band”. — ????? — Yes, this one is going to cryptically live on for some time …
By the way tonight would normally (based on the past two seasons) be the fan-fav “Restaurant Wars” episode, but they’ve changed things up — gasp! — and gone back to Season Uno for inspiration. Instead tonight is going to be “Wedding Wars”. This should be a good one! Plus, we get to find out what Anthony’s “culinary boner” is all about too. (Assuming we actually want to do that.)
First up is Tyler Florence who travelled to Boise for a food charity event, 
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.)
