As if the restaurants, cookbooks, TV shows, and the line of sauces and rubs weren't enough, now Southwestern cuisine king Bobby Flay takes on responsibilities as host and head judge of The Next Food Network Star, which kicks off Season 4 Sunday night (10 pm/ET, Food Network).
TV Guide: There seem to be a lot of tears this season.… Bobby Flay: They're never ready for how intense it is. This is what's great about these finalists — they are so passionate and they want it so badly that it gets really competitive.
TV Guide: What's your take on judging the contestants?Flay: Being critical without being hurtful us the best way to go about being a judge.
TV Guide: Tonight's first challenge is: "In one sentence give your culinary point of view." What's yours? F
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The hardest-working man in the saute business is garnishing another TV series with his name. Premiering in July, Grill It! with Bobby Flay will find the star of Throwdown and Iron Chef America (and seemingly a good third of Food Network's other programming) inviting "master grillers" to share recipes and techniques as they cook alongside the celeb chef. Interested master grillers (Mom always warned me I'd go blind.... ) can submit audition videos, two to three minutes in length, at FoodNetwork.com/GrillIt. — MWM
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For someone whose kitchen prowess pretty much stops at the microwave and the George Foreman grill (New York-apartment size), I am unusually caught up this year in the hot summer-reality trend of cooking competition shows. Those who can’t do, watch in rapt fascination.Two in particular are among my tastiest guilty pleasures: Bravo’s scintillating Top Chef, which looks better than ever in its third season set in Miami, and Food Network’s more modestly entertaining The Next Food Network Star, also in its third season, though this is the first time I’ve watched. My least favorite of this batch, though also popular in the way that some people can’t seem to avert their gaze from any sort of train wreck, is Fox’s shrill and unceasingly unpleasant Hell’s Kitchen, also in its third go-round. (And this is the second consecutive year I’ve decided to bail after just a few weeks. I need to give my bleeding ears some time to recuperate.)Top Chef and Food Ne...
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OK, is this weird? I could watch the Food Network all day. I'm serious. I might have even spent a Sunday doing just that. Anyone else? (Ali, I know you're out there!) Now, I have no culinary experience aside from watching my grandmother whip up family-size entrees without measuring a thing or glancing at a cookbook. In fact, I'm pretty sure she could peel all the apples for her unbeatable pie blindfolded before I finish rolling out the dough. But despite my lack of entertaining or occasional cereal dinners (that's right, I admitted it), I crave the ability to perfect recipes, chop garlic super fast and pull biscuits out of the oven while viewers watch in admiration.Among my favorites on the Food Network are Giada De Laurentiis and her simple approach to Italian cooking; Paula Deen for the mere amusement of her endearing accent and mounds of butter; Bobby Flay for his masterful grill skills (I'll never forget the lobster quesadillas he made one day); and last, but not least, Rachael ...
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If you're a kitchen whiz looking to be the next Rachael Ray or Guy Fieri... then The Next Food Network Star is actually not for you. As celeb judge Bobby Flay explains, the biggest mistake that contestants in the competition, which just kicked off Season 3 and airs Sundays at 9 pm/ET, make is "trying to be somebody else, trying to be the next Emeril, the next Giada. We have those people," Flay tells TVGuide.com. "We want you. Be the person you are." Giada De Laurentiis herself, another guest judge, echoes that advice, saying that too often the wannabes "don't allow their true selves to come out, and we know it."
That said, look for "many surprises, and twists and turns"
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