Top Chef Now Casting Season 5
Do you KNOW that you could mop the floor with the chefs on Bravo’s smash hit cooking competition series?
Well no, some of those pointy haired folks are pretty slick but if YOU do Bravo is inviting you to try out for the next season of their hit cooking reality show Top Chef. If you’ve never seen it, Top Chef is by far the most cerebral of the popular cooking reality shows. If you’ve been soured by Hell’s Kitchen which is more about the yelling (fun its own way) don’t let that stop you from checking out Top Chef on Bravo. Why? Because Top Chef is really about food and sensible competition. You’ll learn something or at least how not to do something. And that’s really something. Anyway new episodes are Wednesday nights at 10pm but Bravo shows the earlier season reruns it seems almost constantly (often in marathon like fashion) so its not too hard to get caught up.
Casting Call For Top Chef Season 5
Popularity: 27% [?]
Food Network names Michael Symon new host of ‘Dinner: Impossible’
Food Network announced today that Michael Symon will replace fired host Robert Irvine on “Dinner: Impossible”
Symon won last years Next Iron Chef competition and appears on Iron Chef America. Food Network will begin taping new episodes this week to air later this summer. The new show will be one hour.
According to the AP Symon said-
“I’m really looking forward to the challenges that are going to be thrown my way and nothing gets me more pumped than someone telling me that something is ‘impossible’”.
Popularity: 20% [?]
Gordon Ramsay Sued For Insulting Restaurant Owner on Kitchen Nightmares
Speaking of Gordon Ramsay (and I’m about to twice in one day) a restaurant owner who got his culinary arse chewed by Ramsay is suing the celebrity chef for ruining his business by insulting him on the TV show Kitchen Nightmares (USA).
So his business was failing, an expert came in (word is Gordon knows a thing or two about restaurants) and yelled at him, then gave him expert advice, then refurbished his restaurant and it still failed. On the surface who’s to blame here?
But on the other hand the owner Martin Hyde claims much of the show was faked and he and his business were made out to be a lot worse than they actually are.
According to the Daily Mail Hyde said (in part)-
“Being ridiculed by Gordon Ramsay on TV has wrecked my life,” he said. ‘Gordon completely assassinated my character.
He also claimed some of the scenes were faked for the cameras.
“I’d love people to be able to see the unedited footage,” he said.
“Gordon called me a fake - but the whole show is a fake.”
Read the article and let us know what you think.
Gordon Ramsay sued by angry restaurant owner
Popularity: 17% [?]
Gordon Ramsay Loves Fast Food - So What?
Apparently Gordon Ramsay has been ‘caught’ by the British press in LA scarfing down fast food hamburgers. Good for him. Probably the most annoying thing about the recent popularity of celebrity chefs and general interest in preparing quality food are the quasi-chefs/food snobs who would have you believe that you have no idea what good food is unless you prepare dishes (usually French, small portioned and boring) using ingredients that no one else has ever heard of. Truth of the matter is I’ve known a number of 3 and 4 star chefs who can hardly wait to hit the local Krusty Burger on the way home from the kitchen. We call these ‘real people’ in this neck of the woods and its good to know that Gordon Ramsey for all his showmanship and faux arrogance put on for TV is really one of us.
Besides its not really news since Gordon has ‘come out’ of the closet more than once professing his love for some (In and Out) fast food burgers. If you’ve never seen Ramsay other than in his American TV shows (where he’s always yelling at someone) he’s quite funny and entertaining. There was a great clip of him with Jay Leno on YouTube where he ‘admitted’ to loving American fast food burgers but I can’t seem to find it any more. If I find it later I’ll be sure to post it.
Gordon Ramsay Sneaks In and Out
Popularity: 15% [?]
Recipes From The Bed And Breakfast Pancake Contest
If you want a great pancake recipe I’ll be glad to hook you up but if you want to take your pancakes to the next level then check out some of these recipes from the BedandBreakfast.com Pancakes With Personality National Contest. Everyone knows if you want your dish to have ‘personality’ then it needs a cool name. Just seeing the titles of recipes like Happy Apple Pancakes with Cinnamon Cream, Original Yates House Caramel Apple Pecan Pancakes, and Sweet Potato Griddle Cakes with Rum Butter Drizzle has us firing up the griddle before even reading them.
Check out the contest page, all the recipes from the finalists and honorable mentions are listed there.
BedandBreakfast.com Pancakes With Personality National Contest
Popularity: 38% [?]
Dinner Impossible’s Robert Irvine Fired
TMZ is reporting that Robert Irvine’s been canned by Food Network.
After it was discovered that Robert lied about his credentials — including having designed Princess Diana’s wedding cake — Food Network honchos investigated the situation and today released a statement saying they “have not renewed Robert’s contract for future seasons” and “will be looking for a replacement host.”
Popularity: 44% [?]
Food Network’s ‘Best Burger’ Contest A Little Fishy
If a friend from some far away place was visiting you in the U.S. and said ‘I’ve heard of this thing called a burger, I’d like to try a really good one’ would you offer him a tuna fish sandwich?
And yes I’m aware of ‘veggie burgers’, ‘turkey burgers’, Krusty Burgers and Hamilton Burger but would you really refer to any of these as the ‘best burger in the galaxy?’. Well Food Network does.
In what had to be their low point 2nd lowest point of the year (so far) this weeks ‘Ultimate Recipe Showdown’ winner in the burgers category was a fish sandwich. As an aside this show is terrible. It’s like a cross between an episode of ‘Iron Chef America’ except the contestants aren’t anybody you’ve ever heard of and ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ with $975,000 less production effort and prize money. The only redeeming quality are the hosts Marc Summers (Unwrapped) and Guy Fieri (Guy’s Big Bite, Diners) both who we like a lot. Additionally together they have good chemistry which at the very least makes the show listenable albeit in the background while you putter away at some nonsense, like say writing articles about fish burgers. Anyway hope here is that these two pair up on something of quality. And soon.
As for the winning selection, the winner of each contest has their recipe replicated by Fridays restaurants and included on their menu so maybe Fridays needed a tuna dish more than real burger. Or maybe they were also disappointed because they turned it into a slider(mini-sandwich) instead of a full blown entree.
As for what Marc Summers (hopefully at gunpoint) called the “best burger in the galaxy”, you’ll notice that Food Network reviewers have rated it 3 out of 5 stars.
Popularity: 36% [?]
‘Journalist’ Flubs Up Attack On Iron Chef America
Like Christopher Columbus Robert Sietsema of the Village Voice has discovered something millions of people already knew about - that TV shows aren’t always what they seem.
Wow.
Sietsema had the good fortune to watch a taping of Iron Chef America and once he saw what television was all about he attacked with the vengeance of a child who just discovered there isn’t a Santa Claus. And he does it in such a mean spirited way that if you didn’t know better you’d think he was actually on to something.
But he isn’t.
What isn’t clear is whether this food critic toying with investigative journalism is is trying to whip up a sensationalist piece hoping his readers are as equally uninformed or he’s just the worst researcher on the planet.
Additionally a large part of Sietsema’s issues with the production of Iron Chef seem to be a knee jerk reaction to learning for the first time how television shows are made. For example the audience is smaller than he thought but crafted and edited to look large (like SNL, Letterman, Leno, poorly attended sporting events, etc) and stars that are not going to be part of the particular episode don’t show up to be taped. That obvious bit of reality so effected the now disillusioned Sietsema (who apparently never heard of stuntmen or stand-ins) that it brought him to the absolute low point of his article at which for no good reason he levels personal insults about the physique of the poor staff member just doing his job standing in for Mario Batali. It was mean spirited and without cause, Sietsema would do well to learn the difference between insulting an inanimate piece of food as he does as a food critic and completely unnecessary personal insults directed at human beings. For this and other personal remarks he owes staff members of Iron Chef a huge and humble apology.
I’ll try not to waste too much time on this but suffice it to say that pretty much every allegation of pseudo-substance made by Sietsema has been well discussed by the Food Network themselves in their self produced special Food Network Unwrapped 2.
A summary of which can be found on Wikipedia-
Several of the secrets to how the show is taped were revealed in an episode of Unwrapped entitled “Food Network Unwrapped 2.” It was stated that the chefs find out what the secret ingredient is about 15 minutes before the battle begins because the opening sequence is recorded many times. It is only the final taping of this sequence where the words “Allez cuisine” are said and the battle begins. Moreover, at the end of the one-hour battle, the chefs must still prepare 4 plates of each of their 5 dishes for the judges and the chairman. This is done during a 45-minute period after the battle ends and before tasting begins. They consider this to be part of the competition, and it is timed, but it is not recorded or shown to the viewers. The plates which the audience sees prepared during the one-hour battle are the plates used to obtain close-up footage of the dish for use in the final episode. Usually, on taping days, two different battles will be taped, one beginning at about 10 a.m. and the second at about 4 p.m. A Food Network crew has about 90 minutes between each show to clean the set and prepare for the second show.
Chefs provide the producers with shopping lists for each of the possible secret ingredients. Consequently, they can surmise what the secret ingredient will be just before it is officially revealed, based on which of their items was purchased.
So while it is true there is no Santa Claus, you have to feel a little sorry for the last kid in class to figure that out.
That is until he gets nasty about it.
Popularity: 36% [?]
Emeril Gets ‘Owned’ By Martha Stewart
From CNN:
“The New York-based media and merchandising company founded by domesticity maven Martha Stewart announced Tuesday that it bought the rights to the Emeril Lagasse franchise of cookbooks, television shows and kitchen products for $45 million in cash and $5 million in stock at closing.
The final price could rise to up to $70 million if certain benchmarks are achieved.
The company did not acquire Emeril’s Homebase, which includes Lagasse’s 11 restaurants and corporate office.”
Popularity: 31% [?]
St Pete Times: Food Network Chef Lied About Credentials
The St Petersburg Times is reporting that Robert Irvine, the host of Food Network’s Dinner:Impossible has lied about his credentials and experience including claims that he has a degree from Leeds University and worked on Charles and Di’s wedding cake.
One scathing accusation:
Irvine’s bio on his own Web page lists a B.S. degree in food and nutrition from the University of Leeds.
True?
“That was a program set up through the Royal Navy,” Irvine said. Then he paused. “We don’t call it a bachelor’s of science.”
Sarah Spiller, a press officer at the University of Leeds: “We cannot find any connection in our records between Robert and the university.”
St Petersburg Times Investigation Of Robert Irvine
And TMZ is quoting a Food Network rep as saying:
“It’s unfortunate if Robert embellished the extent of his culinary experiences,” said a Food Network rep. “We are investigating the matter and taking the necessary steps to ensure the accuracy of all representations of Robert on Food Network and foodnetwork.com.”
Popularity: 29% [?]
