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by BS

ES Chats with Ted Allen About Chopped

As you are all well aware of by now, we can’t get enough cooking reality TV here at ES. Fortunately, Food Network is feeding our addiction with a brand new season of Chopped, which premieres tonight (Tuesday, September 8), at 10pm ET. ES caught up with host Ted Allen to ask about cooking with string cheese, whether he misses Top Chef, and what he’s doing with all his tomatoes.

ES: So tell us about this new mini-season of Chopped.
Ted Allen: One of the things that sets Chopped apart from other cooking shows is that we have different chefs each week – it’s kind of like a culinary game show. But people have expressed a lot of interest in seeing particular contestants — for example, James Briscione from the first season — return. So what we’re doing is having four episodes where all the winners from season one return and compete against each other. These contestants have never been chopped before, they’ve only won, so it raises the stakes. And of course they’re the winners so they’re all great chefs.

Any other changes in store for this season?
One thing that’s different is the mystery ingredients. Last season we did a lot of processed junk food — gummy bears, string cheese — the network thought it was funny to ask real chefs to cook with fake food. But this year they decided to do less of that. We still have some junk food ingredients like root beer and donuts, but we’re moving away from the string cheese and gummy bears. There’s just not much good cooking you can do with string cheese. So we’re no longer driving them insane with string cheese, instead we’re driving them insane with sea urchin and eel.

What’s the key to making a winning dish on Chopped?
You have to figure out the ingredients. The ingredients are chosen very carefully — the producers sit around and if they can’t think of something that could feasibly be made from them, they empty out the basket and start over. The thing is they set a trap. So let’s say they give you three Asian ingredients — bok choy, soy sauce and sesame seeds — and then they throw something in like blue cheese. Some chefs are gonna plow ahead and make an Asian dish and then crumble a little bit of blue cheese on top, hoping the judges won’t notice it. But the person who wins will be the one who figures out how to make a blue cheese souffle that works — I don’t know what that would be like, but if they can do it, they will win.

Do you watch other shows on Food Network?

in Celebs / TV 4 comments

by tvff

Cheflebrity Smörgåsbord: (Thy)Roid Rage

Isn’t it funny when a word or topic that you rarely hear comes up two or three times in a short period of time?

As you probably know, there’s a discussion going on in the comments of the recent Spend vs. Skimp post about the virtues of sea and kosher salt and the need to make sure we actually get some of that healthful iodine that you find in table salt.

Despite the fact that the phrase “tincture of iodine” is one of my all-time faves, the topic is not one that you regularly hear at cocktail parties. So you can imagine my surprise when I heard on the news that the health department of Pennsylvania is calling on residents that live near the state’s nuclear power plants to pick up new iodine tablets since the old ones have expired.

Iodine twice in one week…what are the chances?

Frankly, if there’s a meltdown, I’d be more more concerned with the giant rabbits. But never let it be said that Endless Simmer doesn’t provide a public service: If you hear the sirens go off, start chugging your Morton’s!

On to the smörg…which is always a low-sodium product.

– ABC brings us the most brilliant child in the world: “Bacon is good for me!”

– The Food Network Mafia brings home a bunch of daytime Emmys, including the statue for “Outstanding Achievement in Making Sandra Lee Seem Lifelike.”

After the jump…How Food Network spent its summer, Jamie gets his groove on and TLC breaks new ground (no, not really).

by Maids

Analyzing the Culinary Offerings of Our Former Colonial Overlords (with the Aid of My Comrade in Arms, Celebrity Chef Jamie Oliver)

Jamie Oliver lets me snap his pick while thinking up his next culinary masterpiece

Brit, you might not want to read this…..

When I was gallivanting about last month, one of my main priorities (apart from saving humanity and all that) was to understand the cuisine of an obscure little country located on the island of Great Britain—a nation that once struck fear in the hearts of even the most stalwart champions of freedom: England.

This tiny little swath of land, located in the Northern Atlantic, shares land borders with better known Scotland and Wales. Apparently, the citizens of this country “England” were some of the first immigrants to our great nation. Yeah, who knew! Having sampled some of the traditional English fare, I understand why these Englishmen put off the massacre of the indigenous Americans until after they learned some culinary skills from America’s first people.

I found all of this out over a gruesomely disgusting meal of black and white pudding with famous English celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. That’s a picture of him pondering the quirks of the English palate above. More on that and some complimentary analysis of the cuisine of our former colonial overlords after the jump.

in Celebs / Food Travel / Personal / Veggie 6 comments

by tvff

Cheflebrity Smörgåsbord: New Toy

In my never-ending battle to make myself even chubbier, I am proud to say that I have a new weapon.

I finally broke out the ice cream maker that’s been sitting on the shelf for a while. This baby is super-simple to use and gives you soft-serve type ice cream in about 40 minutes. And you can pop the output in the freezer to let it set harder. I suppose you can make sorbet with this thing, too, but that would be verging on the healthy, and we don’t want that, do we?

Batch number one was a “control,” as the scientists would say, and I was happy with the process and my ability to not screw it up. I went with a simple french-style (i.e. eggs) vanilla to which I added roasted almonds at the very end.

You and I know that this will not end with a simple vanilla, right? I think it’s about time we made ice cream dangerous!

Look for more of that in the coming weeks…for now, you’ll have to tide yourself over with some smörg.

– Grub Street spots a missed opportunity for Anthony Bourdain during a recent episode of his show. Funny, Bourdain doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who would take a shot at Guy Fieri. </sarcasm>

– Guess who’s back on top: Julia Child! This is fantastic news…now a whole new generation can get into the kitchen and find ways to screw up omelets.

After the jump…Alton Brown in full-geek mode, Tom keeps cashing in and everyone loves Lidia.

in Celebs / Desserts / TV 2 comments

by BS

Hott Link: Happy Barfday to Rachael Ray

If you’re wondering why everything seems to be closed and empty today, you must have forgotten that August 25 is a national holiday — the 41st anniversary of the birth of gourmet chef/frequent ES punching bag Rachael Ray.

To celebrate, YumSugar has put together a post on the Top 10 Wackiest Named Rachael Ray Recipes. But a fair warning: these super-groan-worthy puns make the folks over at Snickers look like literary geniuses (that’s shallota flavor spaghetti, anyone?) In fact, they’re so bad, you might need a stiff drink afterwards. Perhpas a strawberry marg-alrighta?

Rachael Ray’s Wackiest Named Recipes [YumSugar]

in Celebs / Lists / TV 1 comments

by tvff

Cheflebrity Smörgåsbord: Authentic Mexican Cuisine?

Little known fact: Gael Greene’s article on Rocket Pops has long been regarded as the pinnacle of novelty ice cream criticism. I think we can all agree that we have a new King of the Mountain.

Seriously, though, it’s refreshing to see a critic with a sense of humor about the topic they cover, so I think I like Frank Bruni even more than I did before.

We always eat dessert first here at the smörg!

Some interesting news on the PBS front:

– The Ripper will be starring in a new, behind-the-scenes show. Icy glares are sure to be a regular feature of the program.

– Gourmet magazine will be launching a new show featuring editor Ruth Reichl. I know what you’re thinking: Gourmet…PBS…wayyyy to classy and refined. You’ll want to cleanse your palate with some Paula Deen after watching this one.

After the jump: another reason to hate celebrities, Jeffrey Saad returns from the land of the undead (i.e. where former reality show contestants live forever) and a familiar face goes dancing.

in Celebs / Desserts / TV 0 comments

by Bliz

Feed Us Back: Comments of the Week

Flip Flop Inducing Quaffability

– This week we all learned a little something about the utility of shoe wear and alcohol. It’s no surprise that ES readers were in full support of the makeshift opener.

andrew added icing to the cake:

Plus alcohol kills germs, right? that’s what I’ll tell myself if I drink one from this opener.

Charles Thompson was happy to hear of the brand’s multi-purpose:

Reef flip flops are the best. I bought a pair not knowing about the bottle opener on the bottom. What a great and convenient surprise!

Summer makes a good point though:

I’ve also seen beer-themed flip flops that have a bottle opener embedded in the strap that goes across the foot… it seems a bit more hygienic to open your drink with the top of your shoe rather than the bottom.

The Best Birthday Present a Girl Could Ask For

– Also, Phillies fans can look forward to celebrating America’s two favorite past times: baseball and junk food during the upcoming Gluttony Night. They also have this to look forward to in the fall.

ladygoat had an ambiguous response:

That … is awesome. The name alone is brilliant!

Cheflebrity Smörgåsbord: Amtrak is a Culinary Wasteland

– And the jury is still out on how ES readers feel about Spike’s email sign off “Love and Bacon.” Trying too hard or downright awesome?

(Photo by OhGizmo – yes, the flops are effing real)

in Bacon / Celebs 0 comments