Food Network's November 2013 Programming Highlights

The Food Network has put out a press release detailing the programming in November on the channel, which includes a lot of new and returning series.  Some of the highlights include:

• The series premiere of Restaurant Express on November 3rd, although the first episode has been On Demand for some time.
• The series premiere of On the Rocks on November 17th, which is pretty much a Bar Rescue knock-off, where a bar expert tries to help struggling bars.
• The series premiere of Farmhouse Rules, which is a daytime show with Nancy Fuller.
• A Food Network 20th Birthday Party celebration on November 9th.
• New Daytime episodes of Trisha's Southern Kitchen (See the celebrity guests on this season), Guy's Big Bite, Rachael Ray's Week In a Day, Southern at Heart, Giada at Home, and Pioneer Woman.

Restaurant Impossible - Ducky's Family Restaurant Update

Tonight on Restaurant Impossible, Robert Irvine and crew are going to Kokomo, Indiana to makeover Ducky's Family Restaurant.  Ducky's is a 33 year old business that has 'terrible food' and a 'dysfunctional management style.'  Also, when the family and long time staff begin to open up to Robert, emotions will erupt.  As I normally do with Restaurant: Impossible episodes, I searched around the Internet to read stories, comments and reviews about Ducky's Family Restaurant to get an idea of how the restaurant is doing since Robert Irvine visited, and here is what I found (note - all reviews are post Restaurant Impossible):

Guy Fieri in Fight With His Hairdresser. Plus See His Courtroom Sketch from Monday

Photo - NBC Bay Area

Guy Fieri testified this Monday at the trial of the man who was accused of stealing his Lamborghini, and we were treated with the courtroom sketch to the right of Guy.

Also in unrelated, weird Guy Fieri news, TMZ came out with a video today of Guy Fieri in a fight with his hairdresser, which was described as a 'Knock-Down, Drag-out' fight.  His hairdresser is outside of the car trying to attack Guy, while Guy is kicking him.  A rep for Guy told TMZ, "A bunch of guys were messing around.  Things got a little out of hand, but they're all good now."


Video of the fight is after the jump (Warning: bad language):

Ree Drummond Cookbook and Book Tour

Ree Drummond released another cookbook today called The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Holidays!: 150 Step-by-Step Recipes for Simple, Scrumptious Family Feasts.

Ree seems to be someone people either love or hate, and there aren't too many people in between.  She has quite the cult following from internet bloggers and people who seem to be interested in the 'ranch life.'  Other people, such as myself, cannot stand her and think she is boring.  If you are like me, a great site to read is The Marlboro Woman, where the website owner and the people commenting make fun of Ree, expose things about her, expose her stolen recipes, etc.

If you are in the 'love' Ree category, enjoy the book, and the dates for her book tour are below:

Guy Fieri Family Cruise Special Airs Tonight

Good news... The Food Network decided to break up the usual Monday tradition of 10 straight hours of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.  The bad news is that they are breaking it up with more Guy Fieri, with a Guy's Grocery Games re-run at 7pm, and a new special called Guy's Family Cruise at 9pm.

Guy's Family Cruise will follow around Guy and his family on a Carnival cruise that makes stops in Miami, the Bahamas, Turks & Caicos Islands, and Jamaica.  The Flavortown port of call did not make the cut. 

Guy has a partnership with Carnival Cruises (which some people call the 'Wal-Mart of cruise lines') and has restaurants aboard some of their ships.  This will probably be a 1-hour advertisement for Carnival Cruises, and who knows if it was paid for by the company.  So, if you are interested in seeing Guy Fieri without sleeves for an hour, wonder what the Fieri's do on their vacations, or want to watch for unintentional comedy, then tune in tonight.

Damaris Phillips - 'Southern at Heart' Preview

Southern at Heart, the show from the recent winner of Food Network Star Damaris Phillips, will premiere tomorrow at 10:30am ET/PT on the Food Network.  Some preview clips have been put online, and I have put them below.  There are 3 clips in total including the intro to the show.

Here is the intro to her show where "if you supply the love, I'll supply the food... The food of love."



Here is a clip of her teaching someone to make icing:

Rachael Ray's New Food Network Show - '3 In A Bag'

Rachael Ray's newest concept/gimmick for a TV show is called 3 In a Bag, where she makes three meals out of ingredients that supposedly fit into one grocery bag.  Her previous gimmicks have been things such as Week in a Day, 30-Minute Meals, $40 a Day, etc.

There was a section in her Week in a Day book that came out this week, which previewed the 3 In a Bag concept.  Using the 'Look Inside' feature in the link above, scroll down to page 328, and you will see some of the grocery lists needed for the '3 in a bag' recipes.  The amount of ingredients in each bag I looked at were about 16 to 20, and that doesn't include items that are considered pantry items such as 'EVOO', butter, garlic, tomato paste, chicken stock, mustard, bread crumbs, etc.  You better have a large reusable bag (she sells those too) if you want to fit all of the items into one bag, because they sure will not fit into a plastic bag.

The show should debut on the Food Network in early 2014 according to Rachael's Twitter.

'Restaurant Divided' Premiere Tonight - Mia Famiglia

Tonight at 10pm ET/PT on the Food Network is the series premiere of Restaurant Divided, which is hosted by Rocco DiSpirito.  Restaurant Divided is pretty much the same thing as a past show on the Food Network called 24 Hour Restaurant Battle.  However, Restaurant Divided is testing two different concepts of an existing, supposedly failing restaurant, where 24 Hour Restaurant Battle was more of a competition that tested two concepts of a dream restaurant and actually had a prize.

Below are the descriptions of Restaurant Divided and 24-Hour Restaurant Battle for reference.  The first is of Restaurant Divided:

Restaurant Impossible - Mama Campisi's (Mama's On The Hill) Update

Tonight on the season 7 premiere (7th season despite debuting in 2011) of Restaurant Impossible, Robert Irvine and crew are going to St. Louis, Missouri to makeover Mama Campisi's.  Mama Campisi's is also known as Mama's on the Hill and the restaurant claims to be the creator of toasted ravioli.  The restaurant is suffering due to frozen food, recent employee thefts and finances that are not adding up.  As I normally do with Restaurant: Impossible episodes, I searched around the Internet to read stories, comments and reviews about Mama Campisi's to get an idea of how the restaurant is doing since Robert Irvine visited, and here is what I found (note - all reviews are post Restaurant Impossible):

'Restaurant Express' Premiere Available On Demand

Photo - Food Network

Restaurant Express, the new competition show with Robert Irvine as the host, is not scheduled to premiere until November 3rd at 9pm on the Food Network.  However, if you have Comcast as your cable provider, the first episode is available to watch On Demand (not sure about other cable providers, so if you have another provider, let me know in the comments if the episode is on there as well).  I am not sure if this is a mistake having it On Demand early, or they are trying to generate interest.

The episode starts with Robert Irvine meeting all of the contestants, and they have to pitch their idea for their restaurant.  One of the contestants is eliminated after their pitch and is not allowed on the bus to start the journey.  Then, the remaining eight contestants have to set up their own lakeside restaurant in Las Vegas with $500.  The 5 chefs who make the most money are safe from elimination, while the bottom 3 have to face Robert and one chef is eliminated.  Of course Robert had to spit something out that he didn't like when trying the food.

'Beat Bobby Flay' Picked Up - Now Casting

Back in August, there was a pilot of Beat Bobby Flay that aired on the Food Network, which many people seemed to like.  It now is confirmed that the Food Network has decided to green light the show and will produce the first season.

Beat Bobby Flay is casting right now and is looking for ideally 8 chefs in the tri-state area and 8 chefs that they would travel to.  That means there will be 8 episodes for the season of Beat Bobby Flay, and the season should air in January on the Food Network.

I reached out to Jeff Mauro to see if him and Alex Guarnaschelli would be participating in all of the episodes (they were in the pilot), and he responded "Not sure, regardless,would donate a love handle to charity to have the opportunity to work w my boo guarnaschelli again!"

So, we will have to wait and see if they use Alex and Jeff or use different people in the episodes.

If you are interested in applying for the show, the flyer with information is below:

Food Network In The News

• The New York City Wine & Food Festival is this weekend in New York City.  Pretty much every Food Network chef/personality will be in attendance and I will try to post some updates after the weekend about the festival. (NYCWFF)


• Anne Burrell left some fans angry after her recent live show at Turning Stone Casino because she gave rude answers in a Q&A and left right after an hour was complete. (Link)


• Alton Brown has partnered with Hook + Albert to design and sell bow ties, which go on sale Oct. 21st.  According to an interview on Zagat, there are only 100 of each style, meaning 500 total bow ties will be for sale.
 
• Alton Brown's live tour is set to start tomorrow with the first date being in Palm Desert, CA.  Visit his tour site for more dates.


• Guy's Grocery Games premieres Sunday Night at 8pm on the Food Network.


• Tyler Florence has signed on with Stouffer's to try to help increase their macaroni and cheese sales (Link)


• Amanda Freitag's restaurant in New York City is about five weeks from opening. (Eater)

Jeff Mauro Has The Highest Rated Food Network Recipes

Photo - Food Network

Wired recently partnered with Food Network to take a look at 49,733 recipes and 906,539 comments for those recipes on the Food Network website.  They crunched numbers and analyzed all of the data to come up with some pretty interesting conclusions.  It is a very interesting read and if you are into statistics, you will enjoy it a lot.

The first part of the data comes to conclusions such as having bacon in a recipe makes it rate better in recipes for sandwiches, asparagus, salads, and all recipes overall, but it made ratings decrease for pasta and dessert.  Also, foods with more ingredients had better ratings.  There is also a chart that has the food fads in recipes from 2007 to 2013.

Cutthroat Kitchen Already Casting For Season 3

Despite still being in the middle of its first season, Alton Brown's Cutthroat Kitchen is already casting for season 3 of the show.  After all of the chefs/cooks are cast, the filming of season 3 will be in December of this year.  So, if you are interested in cooking without utensils, sabotaging other people, or think this show will somehow help your career, then feel free to apply.

Cutthroat Kitchen premiered on August 11th on the Food Network, and Season 2 of the show was already being cast in late August.  The filming of season 2 happened in September - October of this year, and that season should air in January of 2014.

The ratings must be good enough that two seasons/26 additional episodes are going to be produced.  While many people complain about the show and say they will not watch it anymore, it still brings in about 1.5 - 2 million viewers at the Sunday night 10pm time slot.  Get used to all of the competition shows on the Food Network as they will be around for a while.

Scott Conant and Anne Burrell Release Cookbooks Today; Not Paula Deen

There were a few Food Network related cookbooks that were released today, with one being from Scott Conant (The Scarpetta Cookbook) and one by Anne Burrell (Own Your Kitchen: Recipes To Inspire & Empower).

Scott Conant plans to do several events to celebrate his book signing.  The first event is at Scarpetta Los Angeles on October 22nd that is a $110 4-course menu inspired by the cookbook and includes dinner and an autographed book.  The second event is at Scarpetta Las Vegas on October 24th that is a $150 for a private cocktail party that includes an autographed book.

Anne Burrell is doing the standard book tour and has dates on both the East and West coasts.  The dates and times for her book tour are below.  You can also flip through her book on Amazon with the link above with the "Look Inside" feature.

In other cookbook news, the Paula Deen cookbook that was cancelled earlier this year was supposed to come out today.  I guess the 609,000 Paula Deen supporters on Facebook will not be able to support her financially just yet.

Food Network News - Shows, Castings, Etc.

Here is some recent news involving some of the Food Network shows:

• The Food Network recently ordered 26 more episodes of Mystery Diners (Hollywood Reporter). The show averages over a million viewers per episode, so I guess someone is watching it.  Just not me or most of the people who don't like where the network is going.
• For the next season of Worst Cooks In America, it looks like it will be Anne Burrell going against Bobby Flay again as Anne posted a photo of both of them at a recent casting (Twitter).
• Food Court Wars is coming back for another season and is currently casting (more info below).

 
Here are some upcoming shows that are casting if you are interested on being on the Food Network.  Just know that we will probably complain about you or the show you are on.

Robert Irvine's eat! Abruptly Closes

Robert Irvine's eat! in Hilton Head, South Carolina closed abruptly earlier this week for "emergency repairs."  There is a message on the restaurant website that states:

"We regret to inform our customers and the local community that we are currently closed for emergency repairs to the restaurant. The timeline for repairs is still not currently known to us and we apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause. On a separate note, earlier this week the landlord listed our building for sale. Our lease expires in January and because of the pending sale and repairs necessary to operate we've debated renewing. Our focus right now is on completing the repairs that are keeping our doors closed. Once those repairs are complete we will decide with our staff how we want to proceed. We will keep everyone updated as we receive further information.

'The Scoop' - Food Network's New Talk Show

Photo - Instagram

Back in August, 18 Label Studios posted pictures (pictured right) on their Twitter and Instagram accounts that showed a filming of a show with Geoffrey Zakarian, Jeff Mauro, Sunny Anderson, Katie Lee, and Marcela Valladolid.  It wasn't clear what the show was, but after doing a little research (with help from a loyal reader), it seems like the show was a pilot they were testing out.

It now appears that they are going to go forward and produce the show, and that it will be called The Scoop.  The show will be a talk show about food related topics that should premiere in early 2014 on the Food Network.

The Paula Deen E! True Hollywood Story

There will be an E! True Hollywood Story about Paula Deen that will air this Monday, October 14th on E! at 10:00 PM/ET.  The story will detail her story of coming from nothing to soon having a multi-million dollar empire.  It will then take a look at how her empire crumbled after the national scandal that was ignited by a lawsuit.

Many people weigh in on her success as well as the lawsuit that took her down including Gordon Elliot (producer), Jamie and Bobby Deen, Allen Salkin (author), as well as legal and PR experts. 

Press release with more details and some quotes from people appearing on the show is below:

Rodney Henry's Piestyle Tour Is A Real Thing

Rodney Henry, who was a finalist on the latest season of Food Network Star, is starting a tour called the "Let's Get Piestyle Tour 2013."  Rodney's POV on the Food Network Star was 'Pie Style,' but it was never actually clear what 'Pie Style' was to anyone except Rodney.

The description of his tour, which is set to begin October 9th in Detroit, doesn't reveal too much more about 'Pie Style' in typical Rodney fashion.  It will be his band playing with random people, and there will be pie, and you can bring your own pie to the show too.  If this somehow interests you, or even the thought of there actually being a 'Pie Style Tour' entertains you, the description and tour dates are below:

ULive.com - Free Food Network Episodes and Clips

Scripps Interactive, which runs Food Network, Cooking Channel, Travel Channel, DIY, and HGTV, launched a website that allows you to view many of their shows online for free.  Obviously as it is free, you will have to watch ads to view the videos.

The website is Ulive.com and right now has 75 different Food Network shows available for viewing.  Some of the shows have full episodes plus shorter clips available, while other shows just have short clips.  The 75 shows are a mix of both current shows like Barefoot Contessa, Restaurant Impossible, etc, and shows that have been on in the past.  However, many of the past shows have a single clip and not full episodes.

Also available are Cooking Channel shows, Travel Channel shows and Original Series.  So if you don't currently have the Cooking Channel as part of your current cable package, you can take a look at the 51 shows available there, or watch Travel Channel shows like Rachael Ray's $40 a Day.

Scripps seems to now be embracing the digital world with the launch of this website, and their earlier agreement with Amazon to have episodes of many shows on Amazon's site.

Rachael Ray Show Renewed for Two More Seasons

Deadline reported today that Rachael Ray's Emmy-Award winning daytime talk show Rachael Ray was renewed for an additional two seasons and will run through the 2015-2016 season.  That season will be the 10th season of the show.  Rachael Ray was renewed in 90% of the country including on ABC Owned Television Stations in New York, Philadelphia and Raleigh, N.C; and stations from the CBS Television Stations, Hearst, Post-Newsweek and Sinclair.

In other Rachael Ray news, a new season of her show Rachael Ray's Week In A Day premieres this Sunday at 9am ET/PT on the Food Network.

Trisha's Southern Kitchen - Season 4 Celebrity Guests

Photo - Food Network

Season 4 of Trisha Yearwood's Trisha's Southern Kitchen will begin on Saturday, November 9th at 10:30am ET/PT on the Food Network.  Looking at the episode descriptions of this season, it looks like Trisha will be bringing in her usual friends and family as well as some celebrities to cook with her.

The celebrities include: Kelly Clarkson, Wendy Williams, Chef Art Smith, Olympic Gold Medalists Nadia Comaneci and Bart Conner, and NFL quarterback Kurt Warner and his wife Brenda.

The descriptions of those episodes is below:

From Scratch: Inside The Food Network

There was a book released today called From Scratch: Inside the Food Network, which was written by Allen Salkin and details many behind the scenes details of the Food Network and reveals some previously unknown stories about Food Network personalities.

I received an advanced copy of the book and haven't been able to read through much of it, but I did scan though a lot of it.

The beginning of the book details the early days of the Food Network, and how it got started.  The book also details a lot of the biggest Food Network stars, how they got started, the controversies they were involved in, and some random facts about them.

Author Allen Salkin has tumblr page that is counting down "50 things you didn't know about the Food Network," which will give you an idea the type of things that are in the book.  This book may be of interest to a lot of the people who visit this site.