utenzi

This past Sunday I watched The Next Food Network Star (and isn't that an awkward name?) and was quite disappointed. When the season started around 3 months ago there were 3 contestants that I immediately liked. Those three were tough competitors and have stayed on the show through thick and thin---at least until this week. Brad, my favorite of the three, just got booted off. Now there's only Herb (who I don't like), Aria, and Aarti (adorable!) left. Aarti has her own website. Aarti Paarti . See what you think. Of the three that are left, she's by far my favorite. On Hell's Kitchen there weren't any chefs eliminated last week so this week two got the axe. The lovely Autumn was no surprise since she'd been sent up for elimination more often than anyone else on the show---I think she was victimized due to her being the prettiest one on this season but I'm sure there's other opinions on that---but Ben's elimination was more of a surprise. His skipp...

Last Monday I posted about a Moroccan themed dish that Melissa d'Arabian's prepared on her new show Ten Dollar Dinners (Food Network). Well, I finally got around to making it myself. You can get the recipe by following this link . Here's all the ingredients it takes to make the meatballs and the sauce: Let's tackle the sauce first. So, you want to chop up some garlic and onions and then saute them: Then add in around 4 ounces of olives plus lemon zest: Next up add a half cup of white wine and let it reduce by half: Now we add a quarter cup of chicken stock along with 14 ounces of diced tomatoes plus all the spices and such: Ta-dah! That's the sauce. The cumin and ginger give it some bite. Now let it hang out while we move on to making the meatballs. First mix an egg into 2 TB of tomato paste and then add spices: Then add in the meat-- 12 ounces or so of hamburger: At this point grind up a third of a cup of oats and add to the hamburger along with salt and pepper: ...

Food Network premiered a new show today, " What Would Brian Boitano Make ?", and if the first show is any indication, this is a major league home run. Please forgive my using a metaphor from the wrong sport. Seriously, which might be the wrong attitude to use when discussing the show, everything works here. Boitano mixes deadpan humor with almost slapstick asides and his personality pervades every minute of the show. And that's a good thing. Now don't get me wrong, while the food on the show is good and Boitano seems to know his way around the kitchen, this show is not about food. The show uses Boitano's celebrity from the ice rink and from the Southpark " What Would Brian Boitano Do ?" song to great effect. The first episode was really a work of art and I hope they can maintain this quality level across multiple shows. There was irony--like when they show a chef stand-in doing the nut chopping then Boitano exclaims about how difficult it was to chop t...

I was watching some Food Network this weekend and I caught one of those biography shows they have (Chefography) on the Pat and Gina Neely. It was quite good. They're such a great couple and I enjoy watching them interact. It's surprising they don't have more Chef-duo shows like that on. I just wish I liked barbecue more. That's pretty much all the Neelys do, and I just don't like the taste. The other show I really enjoyed this weekend was the second episode of Melissa d'Arabian's new show Ten Dollar Dinners . If you'll recall, Melissa defeated Jeffrey Saad to win Season 5 of The Next Food Network Star. Anyway, the first episode was Perfectly-Priced Parisian and I didn't like the recipes very much and Melissa seemed a bit jumpy. Okay, she's always high energy--I should say she was jumpier than usual. But always cute as can be! Yesterday's episode was titled Less Money, More Moroccan and the food really looked good. I plan on trying out the th...

As most people who watch the Food Network know, the fifth season of The Next Food Network Star has been going on for the past few months. Tonight was the final episode. **Spoilers Follow** I didn't watch the first 3 seasons of the show so I don't know how well it played out in the past. I can only judge by the shows that have been hosted by past winners. And I'm not very impressed. But this season gives me a lot of hope. The two finalists, Melissa D'Arabian and Jeffrey Saad were both great. I wish both of them had their own shows---or one show with both of them. They complement one another well. I did think that Jeffrey was a little better on his demo show than Melissa and Julie agreed with me (not an altogether common thing)--but we also both thought she had the advantage of having a better demographic to pull in. Something a cable network would obviously consider extremely important in deciding to whom to award a new show. Congratulations to Melissa D'Arabian for...

I was watching a show on Food Network tonight and the subject, as you can probably guess given the title of this post, was Good Eats and narrated, of course, by Alton Brown . If you're not familiar with the show, here's the description of it from the Food Network site: Pop culture, comedy, and plain good eating: Host Alton Brown explores the origins of ingredients, decodes culinary customs and presents food and equipment trends. Punctuated by unusual interludes, simple preparations and unconventional discussions, he'll bring you food in its finest and funniest form. ...or you could look at the very good summary of Brown & Good Eats on the Wikipedia site. Anyway, this show was an hour long and is about the creation of the Good Eats show and some of the behind the scenes shenanigans that go on. Tonight was the first showing of it, but it's going to be on 5 more times in the next week. Of course my main interest was to learn more about the infamous W, the saucy se...