Food Network Star Episode 5 Elimination Plus Star Salvation

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On tonight's episode of Food Network Star, the remaining contestants had to perform a live demo in front of hundreds of people at Knott's Berry Farm.  They all had to pick envelopes to determine which foods they had to prepare for their live demo, which was 4th of July themed.

The judges didn't seem to like much of the food that was cooked by the contestants tonight, and when they did, it seemed like the demo of that contestant was lacking.

Lenny and Loreal were considered the top two for the week by the judges, and Chris L and Rueben were declared the bottom two.  After deliberating between Rueben and Chris, the judges decided that Chris Lynch would be the one eliminated due to his demo.

Chris went on to compete on Star Salvation against Chad Rosenthal and Luca Della Casa.   Luca and Chad once again knock off the recently eliminated contestant in Star Salvation, and Chris Lynch was eliminated from the competition.  Chris will not be the next Food Network Star. (link to the Star Salvation).

Food Network's July 2014 Programming Highlights

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Here are some of the highlights of the Food Network programming scheduled to air on the channel in July:

• The start of the 5-episode Chopped Teen Tournament on Tuesday, July 15th at 10pm
• The series premieres of Food Fest Nation (July 21st) and King of Cones (July 28th)
• The continuation of season 10 of Food Network Star on Sunday Nights
• New seasons of Beat Bobby Flay, Diner's, Drive-Ins and Dives, Mystery Diners and Restaurant: Impossible in primetime.
• An Iron Chef America special on Saturday July 19th - Ultimate Bar Food: Bobby Flay and Anthony Anderson vs. Masaharu Morimoto and Simon Majumdar"
• New primetime episodes of Chopped, Chopped Canada, Cutthroat Kitchen, Guy's Grocery Games, Restaurant Stakeout, and Rewrapped
• New daytime episodes of Barefoot Contessa, Farmhouse Rules, Bobby Flay's Barbeque Addiction, Giada at Home, The Kitchen, Guy's Big Bite, and The Pioneer Woman

 The press release with episode descriptions and dates is below:

'The Kitchen' Co-Hosts To Compete On Chopped?

It appears that The Kitchen co-hosts Katie Lee, Marcela Valladolid, Jeff Mauro, and Sunny Anderson may be competing against each other on an upcoming episode of Chopped.  Marcela Valladolid posted the following picture on Instagram with the caption "#thekitchen on #chopped"

Photo - Instagram

Geoffrey Zakarian wasn't in the picture, so perhaps he was the odd man out, unless he will be one of the judges.  I would assume this is for a Chopped episode, but they could be filming a Chopped segment for The Kitchen.

Jeff Mauro and Katie Lee don't seem too happy about their early morning filming. 

Everyone has competed on an episode of Chopped before except Katie Lee.  Sunny and Jeff actually competed against each other on an episode, with Sunny winning that particular episode.

Bobby Flay, Giada In Paradise Win Daytime Emmys

The 2014 Daytime Emmy awards were announced yesterday, and Bobby Flay won the Emmy for Outstanding Culinary Host for his show Bobby Flay's Barbeque Addiction.  He beat out Giada De Laurentiis, Rachael Ray, and April Bloomfield/Sean Brook in this category to win the Emmy.

Giada De Laurentiis (Giada at Home) and Bobby Flay (Bobby Flay's Barbeque Addiction) lost to April Bloomfield/Sean Brook (The Mind of a Chef) in the Outstanding Culinary Program Category.

Giada In Paradise, which was a special on the Cooking Channel, took home 3 Emmy awards in the categories of Outstanding Special Class Directing, Outstanding Achievement in Single Camera Photography, and Outstanding Achievement in Single Camera Editing.  The show won all 3 categories it was nominated for. 

Here were the Food Network related nominations, and here is the full list of Daytime Emmy winners.

Food Network Star Episode 4 Elimination Plus Star Salvation

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On tonight's episode of Food Network Star, the contestants had the challenge of proving they could put together videos to market themselves on the internet.  In the first mentor challenge, they had to create a behind the scenes video of themselves in the Food Network Kitchen to prove they could put together a social media presence.  After that challenge, the contestants were teamed up to create an internet marketing video for a Hershey's candy product.  The videos were filmed at Youtube's soundstage, and were judged by two Youtube executives.

Emma won the first challenge and her reward was that she got to pick her team for the second challenge.  That paid off as her team also won the second challenge.  The bottom team and the three contestants up for elimination after the second challenge were Aryen, Lenny(again), and Chris L.

Aryen Moore-Alston was sent home by the judges after her poor performance in the Payday commercial where she was hard to understand.

Aryen went on to compete on Star Salvation against Chad Rosenthal and Luca Della Casa.   Luca and Chad continue to knock off the eliminated contestants in Star Salvation, and Aryen Moore-Alston was eliminated from the competition.  Aryen will not be the next Food Network Star. (link to the Star Salvation).

Food Fest Nation To Premiere July 21st On Food Network

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Food Fest Nation is scheduled to premiere on the Food Network on Monday, July 21st at 9pm ET/PT.  The show was on the list of new shows (working title was American Festivals) that are supposed to appear this year on the network, and is hosted by Anthony Anderson.

Anthony will travel to food festivals across the nation highlighting the regional food at each of them.  Series in their first year on the Food Network usually get six episodes, but Food Fest Nation will be an eight-episode series.  The festivals that Anthony will stop at include:

• Eight Flags Shrimp Festival — Fernandina Beach, Fla.
• Magnolia Blossom Festival & World Championship Steak Cook-Off — Magnolia, Ark.
• Long Grove Strawberry Festival — Long Grove, Ill.
• Ribfest Chicago -  Chicago, Ill.
• South Carolina Poultry Festival — Batesburg, S.C.
• Jambalaya Festival — Gonzales, La.
• Blue Ridge BBQ Festival — Tryon, N.C.
• Rockwood Ice Cream Festival — Wilmington, Del.

The press release about the show is below:

Anthony Anderson is on a mission to discover the most flavorful food festivals in the country on the new Primetime series, Food Fest Nation, premiering Monday, July 21st at 9pm ET/PT on Food Network. Tasting everything from classic interpretations of regional fare to surprising twists of favorite foods, Anthony uncovers what is truly at the heart of America - one delicious food festival at a time.

"Viewers got a taste of Anthony Anderson's true passion for food during his appearances as a judge on Iron Chef America and Chopped," said Bob Tuschman, General Manager and Senior Vice President, Food Network. "Anthony's love of food, quick humor, and engaging way with people make him the perfect guide through the quirky and wonderful world of food festivals."

Over the course of eight half-hour episodes, Anthony visits the most unique food fairs in the nation, sampling local specialties and meeting the characters devoted to the regional cuisine. Along the way, Anthony visits the Isle of Eight Flags Shrimp Festival in Fernandina Beach, Fla. and highlights delicious classics such as shrimp tacos, shrimp boil and shrimp jambalaya, as well as innovative shrimp ice cream. In one episode, he attends the Magnolia Blossom Festival & World Championship Steak Cook-Off in Magnolia, Ark., where over 4,000 different kinds of mouthwatering ribeye steaks compete to be the best of the best and for a $10,000 prize. Anthony also visits the Long Grove Strawberry Festival, where over 20,000 attendees flock to Long Grove, Ill. for three "berry" special days of enjoying all things strawberry, including Strawberry Ricotta Ravioli and Strawberry Balsamic Chicken. In another episode, he stops by Ribfest Chicago for a world-class rib-eating showdown that draws top competitive eaters from around the globe. Throughout the season, Anthony also gets a taste of the South Carolina Poultry Festival in Batesberg, S.C., the Jambalaya Festival in Gonzalez, La., the Blue Ridge BBQ Festival in Tyron, N.C., as well as the Rockwood Ice Cream Festival in Wilmington, Del.

Fans can visit FoodNetwork.com/FoodFestNation all season long for additional video, blogs and photo galleries from Anthony's travels, as well as connect on Twitter with the hashtag #FoodFestNation.

Anthony Anderson is no stranger to the Food Network audience, having competed on Chopped and appeared as both a judge and competitor on Iron Chef America, making his transition to host of Food Fest Nation a natural and delicious progression. He is an accomplished actor with roles on both the big and small screen, including over 20 films and the Emmy® Award-winning drama Law & Order, playing Detective Kevin Bernard. His performance on that series earned him four consecutive NAACP Image Award nominations for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series. Anthony also appeared in the DreamWorks' blockbuster Transformers, directed by Michael Bay; as well as in Martin Scorsese's Oscar® winning feature, The Departed. Anthony can also be seen in the upcoming ABC sitcom, Black-ish, this fall, in which he will both star and produce.

Food Fest Nation is produced by Magnetic Productions.

Food Network (www.foodnetwork.com) is a unique lifestyle network, website and magazine that connects viewers to the Power and joy of food. The network strives to be viewers' best friend in food and is committed to leading by teaching, inspiring, empowering and entertaining through its talent and expertise. Food Network is distributed to more than 100 million U.S. households and up to 35 million unique web users monthly. Since launching in 2009, Food Network Magazine's rate base has grown tenfold and is now the second largest monthly magazine on the newsstand, with over 11.6 million readers. Headquartered in New York, Food Network has a growing international presence with programming in more than 150 countries, including 24-hour networks in the United Kingdom, Asia, and the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. Scripps Networks Interactive (NYSE: SNI), which also owns and operates Cooking Channel (www.cookingchanneltv.com), HGTV (www.hgtv.com), DIY Network (www.diynetwork.com), Travel Channel (www.travelchannel.com) and GREAT AMERICAN COUNTRY (www.gactv.com), is the manager and general partner.

(BWWTV)

Food Network Star Episode 3 Elimination Plus Star Salvation

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On tonight's episode of Food Network Star, the contestants had to compete in a special edition of Cutthroat Kitchen.  They had to bid on sabotages that their fellow contestants would have to deal with, and the winning finalists in each group got to keep their remaining money.  Alton Brown played his normal role as the host of Cutthroat Kitchen, while Bobby Flay and Jet Tila judged each of the groups.  Giada decided to take the day off.

Chris L. and Emma were declared the winners for their rounds and were considered safe from elimination. The bottom four contestants that were up for elimination on this episode were Kenny(again), Chris K. (again), Loreal, and Lenny.

Kenny was sent home by the judges after not being able to put together a good dish without even being sabotaged.

Kenny Lao went on to compete on Star Salvation against Chad Rosenthal and Luca Della Casa.   Kenny also failed to impress the Star Salvation judges and was sent home for good and will not be the next Food Network Star (link to the videos).

Food Network Related News and Links

• Cutthroat Kitchen is already casting for their sixth season.  Here is how fast they are producing shows:
• The show debuted in August 2013. 
• In October 2013, they were already casting for season 3. 
• In February 2014, the show was greenlit for its 4th and 5th seasons and was also casting chefs for those seasons.
So, despite not even being a year old, Cutthroat Kitchen is already going to produce season 6.  It looks like they are going the Chopped route with the show and continuously producing new episodes due to the success of the show.  Chopped is well over 200 episodes filmed in about 5 years with multiple seasons per year.

*Side note - in the application, you can request chefs you want to compete against.

• Mario Batali's web series on Hulu called The High Road started this week.  The first episode of the 12-episode series features George Stephanopolous
• In Alton Brown's latest web video, he teaches you how to build a derrick to deep fry a turkey.
• Beat Bobby Flay is filming season 2 of the show in June and is looking for audience members for the show.  The pay is $50 to $60 for 6 hours of your time.  You basically have to be able to stand and clap.  It looks like there are 14 different time slots, so this season will be longer with 13 to 14 episodes.  Also, as audience members need to be there for 6 hours, it means that it probably takes 6 hours to film a 30 minute episode.
• Sandra Lee's property tax is set to go up 29% after a new assessment on her home valued it at $1.2 million.  Improvements were done to her house last month, and supposedly the proper permits weren't obtained.  The total amount of additional tax is roughly $8,200. (Link)

Restaurant Impossible - Portu-Greek Cafe Update

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Tonight on Restaurant Impossible, Robert Irvine and his crew are in Hudson, Florida to makeover the Portu-Greek Cafe.  The restaurant is eight years old and the owner Jordan is self described as a "stubborn owner."  There are some conflicts regarding control of the restaurant, so Robert is forced to bring the family to the beach for an exercise to force them to cooperate with each other.   Robert needs to figure out a way to take some control of the restaurant from Jordan to help keep everyone in the family and in the restaurant happy.  As I normally do with Restaurant: Impossible episodes, I searched around the Internet to read stories, comments and reviews about Portu-Greek Cafe 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):

Paula Deen Launching 'Paula Deen Network'

Well, it looks like Paula Deen will be launching her own online network that will be require paid subscriptions.  No word on how much the subscriptions will be yet, but the network plans to launch in September.


She posted the following message on her website:

Come Join the Paula Deen Network!

Guess who’s going digital, y’all!
I’m so excited about my new online Network and can’t wait to show everyone what we’ve been working on. We’re going to have so much fun being together and cooking up some wonderful new and classic dishes. Y’all can get my recipes, tips and cooking anytime you want – this is for you. I can’t wait to crank up the oven and get cooking for the people I love: my family, my friends and my fans!

Join today for a chance to win!
The Paula Deen Network is a paid subscription-based online offering. Early registration will begin in July, allowing Paula’s most passionate fans to ensure they are fully subscribed when the Paula Deen Network launches. Individuals who pre-register at PaulaDeen.com will be automatically entered into a sweepstakes for a chance to win an all-expense paid trip to Savannah to join the live studio audience. A 14-day free trial period will be available to all users at the time of launch in September.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, she said "she had offers to launch a new show on TV but saw the Web as a way to reach her fans directly and to take ownership and control over her career and intellectual property."

I am not sure how much truth there is to that, but when I think of Paula Deen's fanbase, I do not think of Internet savvy people wanting a paid subscription online network.

The preview video of the network is below as is the press release about her network:

Pastori's From Restaurant Impossible Has Closed

Pastori's in Ellington, Connecticut, which was featured on season two of Restaurant Impossible, has closed for good after the close of business on Sunday June 8, 2014.

The restaurant posted the following message on their Facebook page:

"Today, after 28 years, we CLOSED our doors. Thank you to all our loyal customers and our amazing staff over the years. We wish the new owners much success.
The Savvidis Family."

Also, on the owner Bill's Facebook page, he said "I hit the lottery. 28 years ago made great friends have great employees am blessed had an offer can't refuse for my family so its bitter sweet."  
They have also wished the new owners success and said they are great people.  So, it appears the Pastori's owners were ready to move on and are happy with selling their restaurant location.

This is the 11th restaurant from season 2 (2011-2012) of Restaurant Impossible to close, and the Restaurant Impossible Update Page has been updated to show this closing.

Food Network Star Episode 2 Elimination Plus Star Salvation

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On tonight's episode of Food Network Star, the finalists first had to teach Alton Brown a recipe in the mentor challenge.  They then had to create a video demonstrating one of their own dishes for a home viewer.  The viewer ended up being Alex Guarnaschelli, who tried to recreate their dishes based upon their video.

The bottom three contestants that were up for elimination were Kenny, Chris and Luca.

Kenny was declared safe, and then Luca Della Casa was sent home by the judges.

Luca Della Casa went on to compete on Star Salvation against Chad Rosenthal and Martie Duncan. In Star Salvation (link to the videos), Martie Duncan's comeback was short lived, and she was eliminated from season 10 of Food Network Star.

Restaurant Impossible - Grace's Place Bagels & Deli Update

Photo - Facebook

Tonight on Restaurant Impossible, Robert Irvine and his crew are in Palm Coast, Florida to makeover Grace's Place Bagels & Deli.  The owners Grace and Eddie bought the place about two years ago by using their life savings as well as borrowing money from family and friends.  They are supposedly $320,000 in debt and they seem to be the main problem with the restaurant.  Robert needs to teach them how to communicate and has a lot of work to do to turn around their problems in and out of the restaurant.  As I normally do with Restaurant: Impossible episodes, I searched around the Internet to read stories, comments and reviews about Grace's Place 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):

Food Network's June 2014 Programming Highlights

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Here are some of the highlights of the Food Network programming scheduled to air on the channel in June:

• Season 10 of Food Network Star began on June 1st.
• New primetime episodes of Restaurant Stakeout, Chopped, Chopped Canada, Restaurant Impossible, Diner's, Drive-Ins and Dives, Mystery Diners, Cutthroat Kitchen, Guy's Grocery Games, and Rewrapped.
• A special episode of Iron Chef America on Saturday June 7th where it is a dessert themed challenge with Iron Chef Alex Guarnaschelli and Johnny Iuzzini vs. Iron Chef Geoffrey Zakarian and Elizabeth Falkner.  Alex and Elizabeth competed against each other on Next Iron Chef, and many people were upset when Elizabeth was eliminated.
• The pilot episode of The Big Tip with Rachael Ray on June 8th
• New daytime episodes of The Kitchen, Giada at Home, Southern at Heart, Farmhouse Rules, Pioneer Woman, and Guy's Big Bite.

Press Release with more details and episode dates/descriptions is below:

Food Network In The News

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Here is some more recent news involving the Food Network and Food Network personalities:

• Giada De Laurentiis's restaurant Giada is opening tomorrow in Las Vegas, and Eater Vegas has her new menu and the prices of each dish.  Which should come as no surprise, she decided to phonetically spell out all of her pasta dishes for reference such as (Spah-geh-tee) and (ree-ZOHT-oh).
• Today Alton Brown announced that there will be a second leg of Alton Brown Live! The Edible Inevitable Tour.  It looks like there is about an additional 45 shows that span across the country. 
• Alton Brown appeared on Andrew Zimmern's podcast Go Fork Yourself, and Andrew Zimmern returned the favor by appearing on Alton Brown's podcast The Alton Browncast.  They are both pretty good listens if you like them, and Eater has some highlights from the podcasts.
• Guy Fieri met 50 Cent, and in Guy Fieri fashion, took a photo with 50 Cent while pointing at him.
• Willie Degel from Restaurant Stakeout recently agreed to pay $900,000 to settle a wage and hour lawsuit at his restaurants.  The lawsuit "alleged that the restaurants failed to pay them at the legally required minimum wage, routinely shaved their hours when they worked over 40 hours and refused to pay them overtime wages for hours worked over 40, misappropriated gratuities belonging to the waitstaff, failed to pay spread of hours pay when the employees’ workdays exceeded ten hours, and refused to pay for employee uniforms or laundering of such uniforms" (Link).  Willie also had a lawsuit filed against him last year by his maid alleging she worked 70 to 80 hour weeks and was paid only $400 to $500 in cash (Link).

Food Network Star - Star Salvation Episode 1

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This year on Star Salvation, Geoffrey Zakarian and Damaris Phillips are acting as mentors to the eliminated contestants who are trying to earn their way back onto the show.  Also, this season, two fan favorites from previous seasons were brought back to compete, who were already revealed as Chad Rosenthal and Martie Duncan.

In this episode of Star Salvation, Chad and Martie competed against Donna Sonkin Shaw, who was the first contestant eliminated from season 10 of Food Network Star.  The videos (2 parts) of the first Star Salvation episode and the contestant eliminated is after the break.