Top Chef

As you know, we’re totally addicted to reality food TV. But Top Chef is almost over, Hell’s Kitchen is a predictable highlight reel of Gordon Ramsay disgustedly spitting out the contestants’ “signature dishes,” and Chopped doesn’t even count.  I had it on last weekend and I couldn’t pay attention long enough to determine the exact rules of the show. That, of course, leaves us with The Next Food Network Star, which also veers towards the boring side, but won’t this season if we have our say!

You see, while Top Chef mines the finest restaurants in the land for its contestants and Hell’s Kitchen chooses folks who already work in the food service industry, TNFNS goes the “salt of the earth” route and encourages people like you and me to give it a try.  All you need is a video camera and a dream.

On the season premiere of TNFNS they air a montage of submissions, highlighting the most unique/unusual of them and stressing how the eight or ten that we’re actually going to see on the show were culled from THOUSANDS of outstanding entries.  When I see this, I just think of the poor production assistants who had to suffer through hours of terrible videos, looking for someone — anyone — that they can mark down as a”maybe.”

Fortunately, Food Network has decided to share with us some of the entries by posting submission videos on their site, and I don’ t feel so bad for those PAs anymore, because these videos are a-mazing.  And, if you have some spare time on your hands and are in need of a good laugh, these vids are about twice as entertaining as anything currently airing on the Food Network.

As of my last check, they’re up to 17 pages, with each page sporting 36 videos.  That’s a whole lotta entries, but we dug through them to find the best of the best.  A few cautionary tales of what not to do with your entry video, and at least one that is a no-brainer to make the final cut…