Food Network | Channel Guide Magazine

Chef Wanted Season 2: Anne Burrell says the tests are even harder

January 30, 2013 | By Lori Acken
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In her nearly 25 years in the restaurant business, Food Network star chef Anne Burrell has seen and done it all — right down to teaching the tricks of the trade at New York’s Institute of Culinary Education. That’s why, she says, she feels right at home scouting executive chefs for some of America’s top restaurants in the network’s fascinating Chef Wanted With Anne Burrell, which launches its second season Thursday night at 10pm/9pmCT. “I have been in the restaurant industry since I was 19 and one thing that I love about this show is that it really shows people what restaurants [...]

7 Questions With … Hines Ward of “Rachael vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off”

December 26, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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He’s the legendary Pittsburgh Steeler who broke records (and one opponent’s jaw) on the field, then broke hearts in the Dancing With the Stars ballroom before retiring from the NFL last May to become an NBC football analyst. Now Hines Ward is testing his game in a whole new arena — the kitchen — as a contestant on Season 2 of Food Network’s Rachael vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off, battling Johnny Weir, Kathy Najimy, Carnie Wilson, Gilbert Gottfried and others for celeb-chef supremacy. “I thought it would be good that people can see a side of me that they don’t normally get [...]

Semi-Homemade star Sandra Lee hits the road for two new shows

October 12, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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Longtime Food Network favorite Sandra Lee is leaving her semi-homemade masterpieces behind and hitting the road for a pair of new series, Sandra’s Restaurant Remakes and Sandra’s Taverns, Lounges & Clubs. On Sandra’s Restaurant Remakes, which premieres Sunday, Oct. 14 at 10am ET on Food Network, Lee visits famous restaurants and food spots across the nation in search of the secrets to their most famous dishes, then takes recreates them in simpler fashion for harried home cooks. In the premiere episode, “On Top of the World Tastes,” Lee makes a chicken variation of a memorable duck dish she had at ultra-chic Alizé [...]

Tyler Florence and “The Great Food Truck Race” are back … with a twist

August 10, 2012 | By Karl Paloucek
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It seems like only a few years ago that they came out of nowhere and pulled up into our awareness to feed our appetites and our imaginations. Food trucks have been around for a while now, and for people interested in seriously good and innovative eating, they’re one of the most happening culinary developments around. They boast relatively low overhead and, let’s face it, not a little amount of sex appeal. It’s an attractive business to be in, and more and more people are getting it in their heads to get behind the wheel and behind the stove. And that’s [...]

Paula’s oldest boy, Jamie Deen, invites you “Home For Dinner” Saturdays on Food Network

June 15, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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As the son of Southern cooking’s grande dame Paula Deen — and now her partner in the iconic Savannah eatery The Lady & Sons — Jamie Deen knows all about good food. So when it came time to ask for his now-wife Brooke’s hand in marriage, Deen went to his kitchen and whipped up … egg salad. “Egg salad is her favorite thing to eat on,” Deen — now dad to sons Matthew, 1, and Jack, 5 — laughs. “People know my family’s history — and I’ve been so fortunate to travel and eat everywhere — but I made egg [...]

Meet Food Network’s “Invention Hunter” Steve Greenberg

May 18, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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Gadget Nation author and “Innovation Insider” Steve Greenberg grew up in a family that celebrates invention — and a great meal. So it’s only natural that Greenberg — who parlayed a gig as a TV reporter into a career heralding gadgets — would find a way to combine his passions and give inventors a boost to boot. This week, he and his pal, Patrick Raymond — founder of the Inventors Association of Manhattan and former Executive Director of the United Inventors Association — debuted their new Food Network series Invention Hunters, which follows the duo as they scout out potential million-dollar kitchen gizmos [...]

Trisha Yearwood debuts “Trisha’s Southern Kitchen” Saturday morning on Food Network

April 13, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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Trisha Yearwood had been a beloved country music superstar for nearly 20 years when she put her music career on hold to craft a pair of best-selling cookbooks (Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen and Home Cooking with Trisha Yearwood) with her mom, Gwen, and sister, Beth. “Miss Gwen,” Trisha’s most ardent supporter, was battling breast cancer [the disease that would ultimately take her life in October 2011] and the project gave the woman the opportunity to spend time together, to preserve treasured family recipes — and to put a healthier spin on some of those tried-and-true favorites to reflect [...]

Food Network doc “Hunger Hits Home” addresses childhood hunger in America

April 13, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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Did you know that more than 16 million children right here in the United States regularly go hungry? This Saturday, Food Network and Share Our Strength‘s No Kid Hungry campaign team up for the new documentary, Hunger Hits Home, which premieres on the network at 8pm ET/7CT. Narrated by Oscar-winning actor and national Share Our Strength spokesman Jeff Bridges, the hourlong film takes a first-hand look at the crisis of childhood hunger in America via the stories of three hardworking American families struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table. The film also gives firsthand accounts of ongoing [...]

Willie Degel gives struggling eateries the [better] business in Food Network’s “Restaurant Stakeout”

April 10, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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William “Willie” Degel, owner of New York’s Uncle Jack’s Steakhouse chain and Jack’s Shack all-natural eatery — and star of the new Food Network series Restaurant Stakeout — developed his entrepreneurial spirit at an early age, working multiple odd jobs to help fund the parochial school education his parents demanded for their sons. “I was the baby of four boys and my parents wanted us to get a good education,” Degel says. “My father worked two jobs and my mother had to work for us to go to Catholic school and get a good education. We had to pay at least half [...]

Ron Ben-Israel is Food Network’s sincerely “Sweet Genius”

March 30, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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Fans of Food Network’s most fantastical dessert competition Sweet Genius couldn’t help but notice a few intriguing changes when the multi-sensory sensation debuted its second season debuted a few weeks back. Most notably, the show’s “Dr. Evil of Dessert,” celebrated Big Apple-based pastry chef Ron Ben-Israel — AKA the Sweet Genius — finally gets to be … well, sweet. In other words, himself. The Israel-born former professional modern dancer — who shot to fame when Martha Stewart noticed his amazing confections displayed in the window of Fifth Avenue’s Mikimoto store — laughs when I tell him that the show’s discussion [...]