Bobby Flay, The Next Food Network Star
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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Bobby Flay by Seth Browarnik/WireImage.com
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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Top Chef's Padma Lakshmi by Glenn Watson/Bravo Photo
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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Rory, Josh, Adrien and Nikki, The Next Food Network Star
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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Back in February, all of the Food Network stars got together to celebrate a weekend of fine food and fabulous fans. Everyone keeps asking me what I loved most about being able to hang around other Food Network chefs, and the truth is that they are nicer and kinder than you could ever imagine! I know South Beach pretty well (we had filmed about a year ago for the Exotic Foods episode for "Ham on the Street") and I remembered this spectacular Cuban diner called Puerto Sagua that made the best Cuban sandwiches and coffee. It was good home-made Cuban cuisine...fast and cheap. So this year during the Wine and Food Festival I decided to head there with my friends to show them what it was all about. I had this new dish called "Vaca Frita", which literally translates to "Fried Cow". It was pure beef heaven. Pulled beef that had been marinated in garlic, onions, and lemon juice, and then seared to perfection. I couldn't get enough, and neither could my friends.Anyways, the next day was the ...
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Guy Fieri, Guy's Big Bite
On Sunday at 10 am/ET, Guy Fieri, the winner of Season 2 of The Next Food Network Star premieres his off-the-hook prize. Guy's Big Bite promises to cater to America's appetite for big, bold and broad flavors, whether it's a Philly Cheesesteak egg roll, a Bloody Mary steak or a pasta-stuffed calzone. Shortly after he won Food Network Star, but before his show had been officially named, TVGuide.com called Fieri to get a taste of what's to come.
TVGuide.com: What was that music I just heard as your cell phone rang?
Guy Fieri:
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Marc Summers hosts The Next Food Network Star.
Food Network is looking for its next star with a second round of (c'mon, guess the title...) The Next Food Network Star, premiering March 19 at 9 pm/ET. Again hosting the so-much-more-than-a-cook-off is Marc Summers, whom you either know from his "scintillating snack-making secret spilling" on Unwrapped or from his former gig on Nickelodeon's Double Dare. TVGuide.com chatted with Summers about the hunt for another Star — and not just because this writer (plug-plug) appears on the April 16 episode.
TVGuide.com: Well, I just finished watching the Season 2 premiere....Marc Summers: For my money, the big difference this year is that the show moves a lot quicker&n
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Stephanie March, Conviction
Tonight at 10 pm/ET, NBC premieres Law & Order creator Dick Wolf's latest legal drama. Set inside the New York City district attorney's office, Conviction even breathes new life into a onetime Law & Order: SVU player, Stephanie March, who is reprising her role of assistant district attorney Alexandra Cabot. How will Conviction set itself apart from other procedurals — including Wolf's own? And how is it that Alex was able to come out of hiding in the Federal Witness Protection program? TVGuide.com asked March those questions and more.
TVGuide.com: When you left SVU, did you ever have any inkling that Alexandra Cabot might return on either that show o
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Question: A while back, I saw a preview for a movie with Johnny Knoxville in which he's confessing to a priest and his confessions are so bad the priest kicks him out of the church. I haven't heard about it since, but would love to know the title.
Answer: I haven't seen the trailer to which you're referring, but Johnny Knoxville has two completed movies kicking around, one awaiting a belated release and the other playing theaters on a regional basis. The Ringer, a broad comedy directed by Barry Blaustein and executive produced by Bobby and Peter Farrelly, stars Knoxville as an all-around failure who comes up with
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