Has there ever in the history of the English language been a statement quite so beguiling as, "Additionally, Fabio also works as William Shatner's private chef"? Just what does one feed a Shatner? Tribble trifle? Scenery shards? Groaning platters of ham?
We'll find out when Fabio Vivani of Ventura County joins this season's crop of seventeen Top Chef contestants. There's nary a fauxhawk on the menu, but count on the standard melange of C.I.A. alum, self-taught chefs, the baroquely facial-haired, some stilettoed camera candy, and one aspiring hot air balloonist.
With all the food videos now available on the internet, it's sometimes hard to figure out which ones are worth your time. Monika does a great job of finding interesting shows for her Monday column Foodie Flicks and several other Slashfood bloggers regularly offer up good video content as well.
Here's a show that a Slashfood reader recently brought to my attention that I think is worth passing along. This 10-episode series, called Appetite for Health, stars Chef Scott Uehlein, the corporate chef at Canyon Ranch (the swanky and award-winning resort) and is done in an Alton Brown-style (quirky cuts and charmingly scripted dialogue). It's fun, instructive and incorporates a number of delicious-looking recipes.
Getting together for dinner and a movie can be one of the most prosaic (Domino's and Blockbuster) of gatherings. But it can become something significantly more special if the food and the visuals connect.
When I was a broke, just-outta-high school teen, my roommates and I would host Godfather parties, for which we'd make a lot of pasta, get some jugs of cheap wine and follow the rule of shouting "Godfather!" then clinking and drinking every time someone got whacked.
There was a "cases of champagne and little black dresses" Breakfast at Tiffany's birthday party, but the master of the art was my great friend Mr. Diva, who threw annual, movie-themed award show parties, paying homage to Picnic (fried chicken) or Blue Velvet(cherry pie and PBR).
Lots of attention gets focused on the tobacco industry and how advertisements appeal to the kids, but that's not the only industry making the unhealthy irresistible. There is, of course, those cartoon characters that promote sugary goodness.
The BBC reports that a new report conducted by Which? is focusing on those cartoon icons and accusing them "of not aiding the fight against childhood obesity." They note that out of the 19 characters used by food companies, none of them helped promote healthier foods, and how the foods they promote easily suck up much of a child's suggested max for salt and sugar (nothing surprising there). But they are careful to note that they don't want us to lose the characters we've come to love over half a century, but rather to see them promoting some healthy products. Meanwhile, the Food and Drink Federation said it was "baffled as to why Which? wants to take all the fun out of food." Well that's just a bit of an overreaction.
I have to say, Which? has a point. I remember giving my parents a heck of a fight over the "no sugar cereal on weekdays" rule. I was obsessed with sugar cereals, the toys, the whole thing. I wanted Snap, Crackle, and Pop toys, I would've eaten Honeycombs 3 times a day if I could. And it certainly wasn't just cereal -- I can't count how many jugs of Kool Aid I drank to get a special pitcher and glasses....
Starting this Friday, October 3rd, Food Network will be holding tryouts for the next season of The Next Food Network Star. They'll be auditioning people in the flesh over the next four weeks in Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles, Charleston, S.C., Portland, OR and Philadelphia. For those of you who don't live in one of the cities they'll be visiting, you can also apply on online by filling out the application form and uploading a short video, stating why you want to be TNFNS.
Complete details about the casting calls is after the jump.
And it sure looks pretty! It's got all sorts of nice features like a recipe finder that searches by meal, ingredient and prep time, an at-a-glance about-the-chefs widget and lots and lots of streaming video. It's a huge step up from the old Food Network site, as it makes utilizing the all the tools they have to offer far easier. Congratulations to everyone who worked to make this redesign happen.
Oh, McDonalds. I'll always love their fries, but man... So in case you haven't caught it, or almost never see commercials (like me), look above. That's the fast food chain's new ad for sure-to-be-tasty lattes, mochas, and cappuccinos under the golden arches.
Those poor women -- having to suffer through reading and a removal from reality television. Having a handle on geography is so oppressive!
I can't help but wonder: Is McDonald's just alerting people to their new products, or do they actually think that specialty coffee drinkers will be lured in by this news? Most likely, it won't be better than wherever anyone gets their joe now, so it's not like they can coax people out of their habit and into the bright lights of fast food service.
Hollywood has endorsed products for decades: cigarettes, perfume, hair color, facial products, and now wine. According to Wine Enthusiast west coast editor Steve Heimoff, everyone from Paris Hilton to Wayne Gretzky and Brett Favre are hawking their own wine brands. (Hilton's Prosecco comes in three fruit flavors, no less.)
I'll admit I am sometimes sucked in by celebrity brands. As Eli Portnoy, a branding strategist interviewed in a New York Times article about celebrity endorsements, said, we're just a gullible generation who likes to live vicariously through the beautiful people. (It's not just this generation, of course: my five-year-old daughter can spot a Hannah Montana product from 20 feet away, and she'll pick Barbie toothpaste over SpongeBob SquarePants toothpaste regardless of flavor.)
A beautiful celebrity can sell me anti-aging cream, but when it comes to wine, I'm strictly a what's-in-the-bottle girl. I don't care whose picture is on the label or who is being paid big bucks to move it off the shelves, if it's a good wine at a good price. Generally, the more money put into the making of the wine and the less put into marketing, the better for my palate and pocketbook.
Yet Nielson reports that the celebrity wine market is growing, with Phoenix and Los Angeles leading the celeb-obsessed masses. It's true that wine-buying can be a confusing and intimidating process, and if you don't know exactly what you're looking for and you see Brett Favre's sweet mug on the bottle it might make a better adventure than an unknown brand.
Are you more or less likely to buy a bottle of celebrity wine, and why?
And her first interview was with me! Last week, while I was out in Los Angeles, I had the pleasure of meeting up with Average Betty at the Getty (a gorgeous museum in the hills overlooking the city). We talked about Slashfood, blogging, Fork You (the online cooking show I make with Scott) and Philadelphia food. She took my rambling answers and distilled it all down to a fun and concise 5 minute video.
If you haven't watched any of Betty's past videos, take some time to check them out. She has a particular way of combining food with quirky characters that is different from what anyone else out there is doing and it's really terrific!
For the last couple of weeks, the Pushing Daisies mobile Pie Hole (a transportable version of the pie shop featured on the show) has been zig-zagging the country giving away free pie. They've already been to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Denver and Dallas. Over the next two weeks, they'll be visiting Chicago, Philadelphia and New York. For more information on their stops, check out the Pushing Daisies Touch of Wonder tour page.
If they aren't coming to your town, make sure to tune in on October 1st at 8 pm for all that Pushing Daisies pie goodness (there are a few pie recipes on the tour page, if you want to make an pie for the show's premiere).
For fans of Gordon Ramsay's reality TV shows on Fox, there's some good news. According to Grub Street, Fox has just renewed both Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares for two more seasons. But wait- there's more!
The media empire that is Gordon Ramsay is also going to adapt another of his BBC shows for American audiences. The show is called Man Camp, which will be sort of a boot camp where Gordon will make men more manly at least in part by teaching them to cook. I can not wait to see this.
Fox has also signed Mr. Ramsay to do a live cooking event which will be "cooking for the young, the vibrant and the tenacious." Sign me up!
Paula Deen really likes her political figures. She has chilled with Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn, and now she's jumping on the campaign trail and itching to party with the potential first wives. The AP reports that Paula Deen is cooking with Michelle Obama in an upcoming episode of Paula's Party, which will air on the Food Network on September 20.
The pair chat about their familes' favorite meals and make super-tasty, super-healthy dishes like fried shimp and french fries. Deen recently said of Obama: "She was getting her hands dirty. I think they are like us -- they like real food, not a bunch of prissy food." But it looks like only the women are allowed to get their hands dirty. Deen says that's she also invited Cindy McCain to cook with her, as well as running mate Sarah Palin. No Barack, no John, no Joe. Hey Deen, Palin is the vice presidential running mate; she's not a potential first wife. I know, this is not the presidential campaign you're used to, but times they are a-changing.
Sometimes I could shake that woman, but instead, I think it'd be more fulfilling to grab that butter drinker and put her in a new reality show -- one where she has to eat all vegan fare and "prissy" foods. Think Survivor, but without the bugs. She spins the wheel, dying to get the Twix, but instead lands on the ... confit! Or the gelee! It'd be great.
On more nights than I'd like to admit, Scott and I succumb to the blue flicker of the television screen while eating dining. We park ourselves on the couch with our plates and watch Jeopardy or reruns of The Daily Show. But when we go out to eat, we avoid places with TVs, knowing that we get plenty of tube viewing time in at home.
However, CBS has recently opened a restaurant where the point is to watch television while you eat. Over the weekend, they opened a 15,000-square-foot restaurant that will serve upscale pub food and will prominently feature approximately 130 high-definition televisions. Included in that number are table-side flat-screens programmed with CBS content, so that you can choose from 60 years worth of CBS programming while you dine.
The restaurant, called CBS Scene, has been opened in partnership with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and is located in Foxborough, MA, adjacent to Gillette Stadium. Video about the new restaurant is after the jump (it starts playing as soon as you open the page).
Next time you sip on a deliciously hoppy ale, you may want to take a moment to reflect on the men who made it all possible. Or at least that's what the Discovery Channel might have us believe.
News out of Yakima, Washington, via the Yakima Herald-Republic, is that Mike Rowe and the rest of the Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs crew visited a hops processor in the area to film a forthcoming episode of the show. According to the article "Rowe spent two days picking and inspecting hops, working the kilns that dry the hops and making bales." Hops, a flower that helps give beer its distinct flavor, seems like a topical choice. Rising hops' prices, the result of a global hops shortage, has received significant media coverage. While picking hops certainly doesn't sound like much fun, I'm yet to be convinced how "dirty" the job actually is. Though, truth be told, I'd probably be more apt to watch a Dirty Jobs episode about beer over filthier fare simply because it's a topic I enjoy (unlike, say, cleaning my toilet).
However, don't fire up your DVR quite yet: The episode probably won't be airing until between January and October of next year.
The image of a friend offering a popsicle with high fructose corn syrup and being treated like a drug pusher could have been taken straight out of my life. Although, at this point, our friends know better than to even offer.
What are your thoughts on high fructose corn syrup? Did the commercial and the associated web site, Sweet Surprise, change your behavior towards the sweetener?
Has there ever in the history of the English language been a statement quite so beguiling as, "Additionally, Fabio also works as William Shatner's private chef"? Just what does one feed a Shatner? Tribble trifle? Scenery shards? Groaning platters of ham?
Lots of attention gets focused on the tobacco industry and how advertisements appeal to the kids, but that's not the only industry making the unhealthy irresistible. There is, of course, those cartoon characters that promote sugary goodness.
Hollywood has endorsed products for decades: cigarettes, perfume, hair color, facial products, and now wine. According to 
Paula Deen really likes her political figures. She 
New York Times Magazine's food issue
Chicken McNuggets frolic at New York City pet store
Eat your broccoli orbs! 
