Food Network's October 2016 Programming Highlights

Here are some of the highlights of the Food Network programming scheduled to air on the channel in October, most of which have a Halloween theme:

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• A new season of Halloween Wars starting Sunday, October 2nd.  The winner of the season will take home $50,000.
• The series premiere of Worst Bakers In America on Sunday, October 2nd.  The winner of the season will receive $25,000.
• Halloween Baking Championship (with Damiano as a judge) beginning Monday, October 3rd where the winner of the season will get $25,000.
• The Kids Halloween Baking Championship starting on Wednesday, October 5th where the winner of the season will receive $10,000.
• An All Star Halloween Spectacular special on Saturday October 8th featuring Egypt Sherrod, Duff Goldman, Tia Mowry, Adam Richman, Drew and Jonathan Scott in a haunted house competition.
• The premiere of Chopped: Beat Bobby Flay on Thursday, October 20th.
• The Cutthroat Kitchen: Tournament of Terror finale on Wednesday, October 26th at 10pm. 
• New primetime episodes of Beat Bobby Flay, Burgers, Brew & ‘Que (featuring celebrities on each), Cake Wars, Chopped, Chopped Junior, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, Guy’s Grocery Games, Star Plates and Worst Cooks in America: Celebrity Edition. 
• A new season (the 24th) of Barefoot Contessa where the theme of this season is Ina Garten cooking for her husband Jeffrey.
• The series premiere of Ayesha Curry's show Ayesha's Homemade on Saturday October 22nd. 
• A new season of Giada’s Holiday Handbook on Sunday, October 30th at 12pm.
• New daytime episodes of Brunch @ Bobby’s, Farmhouse Rules (new season - 7th), Guy’s Big Bite, The Kitchen, The Pioneer Woman, Trisha’s Southern Kitchen and Valerie’s Home Cooking. 
• Buried at the bottom of the press release, it looks like Eddie Jackson has been given a web series called Eddie Jackson’s Game Day Playbook. 

Press release with episode descriptions and air dates is below:

Jersey Shore's Vinny Guadagnino Gets Food Network Show

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MTV's Jersey Shore cast member Vinny Guadagnino will have a new show on Food Network that will air this Sunday at 10pm ET.  The show is called Vinny & Ma Eat America, and as the title implies, Vinny will travel the country with his mother trying American dishes.  It looks like this is just a sneak peak of the show and more episodes will air at a later date.

The episode description states:

"Watch out Georgia! Vinny Guadagnino and his mom, Paola, head south, where Ma reluctantly ditches Italian food for some real-deal Georgia grub. First up, Vinny introduces Ma to the gold standard of Southern food: good old fashioned barbecue ribs. His goal is to get Ma to taste it for the first time in her life! From there, it's Southern-fried chicken and fly fishing with a few sweet pit stops in between."

Vinny and his mother are on this season of The Great Food Truck Race and their show will air right after The Great Food Truck Race season finale this Sunday.  Vinny and his mother also happen to be in the finale, so who knows if them having a show right after means they won.  I wonder if Food Network had them compete on The Great Food Truck Race knowing they would give them another show or if they decided to give them another show while filming The Great Food Truck Race.


Food Network has now had three members of MTV's Jersey Shore to appear on the channel with JWOWW and Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino appearing on Worst Cooks in American: Celebrity Edition.  I wonder who will be next...

Food Network Related News and Links

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Here is some recent news involving Food Network shows and chefs/personalities from the Food Network:

• Ina Garten bought a New York City apartment last month for $4.65 million and you can take a look at some of the pictures here.
• Sony recently bought the rights to Sandra Lee's life story and can create up to two four-hour specials based on her memoir Made From Scratch. (Link)
• Ree Drummond announced that The Pioneer Woman Mercantile in Pawhuska will open on October 31st.  That is the building she bought in 2012 and has been renovating for quite some time. (Link)
• A Chopped: Beat Bobby Flay tournament will air on Food Network in October 2016.  Twelve returning champions will face off and Bobby will judge three episodes.  The winners of those three episodes will get a chance to beat Bobby Flay in the finale for an additional $25,000 prize. (Link)
• Katie Lee's show on the Cooking Channel Beach Eats was picked up for a second season and eight new episodes were ordered. (Link)
• Giada De Laurentiis was on the cover of October's Health magazine and there were online articles that said she posed topless, but you can judge for yourself.
• Food Network fast tracked two pilots into series by ordering episodes of All Caked Up (married couple making sculpted cakes) and Ginormous Food (looks at big meals across the country). (Link)
• Ayesha Curry's show Ayesha's Homemade premieres on October 22nd at 12pm on Food Network.  Ayesha is the wife of NBA player Stephen Curry and is releasing a cookbook next week.  She has a popular YouTube cooking channel and has over 4.2 million followers on Instagram.
• The Robert Irvine Show premiered this week on CW.

Damiano Carrara To Be A Judge on Food Network's Halloween Baking Championship

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A new season of Halloween Baking Championship will begin on Monday, October 3rd at 9pm ET on Food Network.  An interesting thing about the show is that Food Network Star season 12 runner-up Damiano Carrara will be a judge on the show along with Sandra Lee and Carla Hall.  The show will be hosted by comedian/ventriloquist Jeff Dunham.  This means he will appear of Food Network before Food Network Star winner Tregaye Fraser (she has done filming for The Kitchen Sink according to her social media).


Sandra Lee also makes another appearance on Food Network after a long absence due to her battle with breast cancer. We all know from her show Semi-Homemade that Halloween is her time of the year after seeing years of her over-the-top costumes.

The press release about the show from Multivu is below:

Food Network's September 2016 Programming Highlights

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Sorry about not posting for a bit, but it has been a bit hectic... Here are the highlights of the Food Network programming scheduled to air on the channel in September:

• The season premiere of Burgers, Brew & ‘Que on Friday, September 9th at 10pm.  This season it seems like Michael Symon is meeting up with a celebrity each episode.
• The season premiere of Worst Cooks in America: Celebrity Edition on Wednesday, September 14th at 9pm.  Here are the celebrities appearing on the show for season two.
• The Chopped Teen Tournament finale on Tuesday, September 20th at 10pm where the winner takes home $25,000.
• The finale of Camp Cutthroat 2: Alton’s Revenge on Wednesday, September 21st at 10pm where the winner could take home up to $75,000.
• The finale of Guy’s Superstar Grocery Games on Sunday, September 25th at 8pm where the winner could win up to $40,000 for their favorite charity.
• The finale of Food Network Star Kids on Monday, September 26th at 8pm where the winner will get a series on Foodnetwork.com.
• The series premiere of Star Plates on Tuesday, September 27th at 11pm.
• A Cutthroat Kitchen: Tournament of Terror  tournament that begins on Wednesday, September 28th at 10pm and is a Halloween-inspired tournament.
• New primetime episodes of Beat Bobby Flay, Cake Wars, Chopped, Chopped Junior, Cooks vs. Cons, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, and The Great Food Truck Race. 
• New daytime episodes of Guy’s Big Bite, Brunch @ Bobby’s, Giada in Italy, The Kitchen, The Pioneer Woman, Smollett Eats, Trisha’s Southern Kitchen and Valerie’s Home Cooking.

Press release with air dates and descriptions is below: