"Trust me. It's game on!"
Chef Ludo Lefebvre is psyched for viewers to watch Tuesday's episode of The Taste (8/7c, ABC), when the culinary reality series shifts from the audition to competition rounds. Now that he and his fellow mentors -- Anthony Bourdain, Nigella Lawson and Brian Malarkey -- have chosen their four-person teams of home cooks and professional chefs, it's time to pit them against each other. Beyond the increased heat in the kitchen, the possibility of eliminating one of their own team members during the blind taste-test drove the mentors to drink.
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Nigella Lawson is proof that you can have it all, even if you are a just a home cook.
The British TV star, who herself is a home cook, can add ABC's culinary competition show The Taste, which airs Tuesdays at 8/7c, to her string of hit cooking shows. On the new series, she and three other chefs — Anthony Bourdain, Ludo Lefebvre and Brian Malarkey — select contestants to be on their team based on a one-bite, blind taste test. Therefore, professional chefs and home cooks alike have an equal chance to compete, but it's not an easy thing to impress four widely different palates and deal with their mentoring styles.
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What is the secret ingredient that Anthony Bourdain wants his team to use on The Taste? Tears.
When ABC's new cooking competition show kicks off Tuesday at 8/7c, Bourdain and three other judges — British TV cook Nigella Lawson, Ludo Bites America's Ludo Lefebvre and former Top Chef competitor Brian Malarkey — will taste-test one bite of food from each of 29 hopefuls competing for one of only 16 spots on the judges' teams. But the tastings will be conducted blind, which means the judges won't know if a professional chef or a self-taught home cook prepared the dish.
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Those Magical Elves have done it again. The producers who helped put Bravo on the map with the original Project Runway and Top Chef have revitalized the seemingly exhausted cooking-competition format with a new winner that smartly combines elements of The Amazing Race and even Survivor. Though not initially quite as exotic as BBC America's new No Kitchen Required, the kitchen culture-clash possibilities appear endless in Bravo's instantly addictive Around the World in 80 Plates (10/9c).
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