I’ve watched enough of the regular episodes of Food Network’s Chopped to see through its paint-by-numbers plotting. Within the first couple of minutes of an average episode, I can all but predict which aspiring chef, caterer or cooking instructor, wrestling with that mystery basket of ingredients to fashion an appetizer,…
When the Cooking Channel first debuted last year, I had heard that a fair chunk of its programming was imported from Canada. Well, if the Cooking Channel can be qualified as an emerging gastro-nation on the television grid, then its number one emissary of all around sweetness and gap-toothed light…
It only took me seven seconds to fall for Nadia Giosia — a.k.a.Nadia G., the fully-functional nutso charmer on her grunge-named Cooking Channel show, Bitchin’ Kitchen. In those vital 7 seconds of Nadia G.’s promotional sound-bites, I was hooked: “If you were to ask me whether I’d rather make out…
From the moment my inner ear first caught a bit of Jamie Oliver’s East End, London, accent, with its gargled consonants and street urchin patois (he’s the Artful Dodger with a frying pan) I was hooked. I’ve always considered Oliver to be a cut above most of the air-brushed, Pepsodent-polished…
It almost risks redundancy for the 1,000-kilowatt cooking couple of Gina and Pat Neely to do any kind of Super Bowl-related show. Since, by all outward appearances, each of their cooking shows seems choreographed to climax with a whoopin’ and hollerin’ game-style party involving friends and family members too numerous…
Everything about Aaron McCargo Jr. — a.k.a. Big Daddy of Big Daddy’s House — is larger-than-life, from those dueling, glimmering earrings to the ingratiating grin as wide as the Rio Grande to that infectious laugh that serves as constant exclamation point to every brashly flavored meal he turns out. It’s…
Known for her culinary prowess beneath her signature white smock and spiked blonde hair, Anne Burrell is having her moment.
Everything about Guy Fieri is big and boisterous, and has been that way ever since he walked off a winner in the Food Network’s second season of the Next Food Network Star. His voice’s volume and rasp call to mind an overworked cattle-auctioneer. His shock of hay-colored hair has only…
I’ll gladly admit it: I’m a nostalgia freak. If I don’t answer my phone immediately, it’s because I’m gorging on the video I.V. drip of YouTube, jaw slackened as I watch old interviews with fave bands from the bell-bottomed ’70s. That same penchant for the grainy imaged past plunks me…
Rachael Ray’s new program, Week in a Day, on the equally fresh Cooking Channel, makes for surprisingly pleasant — and informative — viewing. Confession: Despite Ray’s vaunted status as one of the original founding chefs, along with Emeril, of the original Food Network, I’ve always found her to be a…
(We asked some of our City of Ate contributors to write paeans to their favorite Thanksgiving dishes. Jesse Hughey kicked us off with a…well, let’s call it a “poem” honoring green bean casserole. Today, Andrew Marton writes about good gravy. Tomorrow? More CofA poetry. You’ve been warned.) Among the many…
In the third part of our visit with Casey Thompson, Top Chef star, former executive chef at Shinsei and current chef at Fort Worth’s Brownstone, Thompson shares a recipe for a beefy pasta dish. For parts 1 and 2 of our interview with Thompson, go here and here. Pasta and…
Yesterday, we gave you an in-depth profile of Casey Thompson, Top Chef star, former executive chef at Shinsei and currently parking her toque at Fort Worth’s Brownstone. Today, we lob a few questions her way, yielding such important personal tidbits as her fondness for The Kings of Leon and The…
In sleuthing around for the primary culinary influences on Casey Thompson — yes, the same Casey Thompson who first impressed The Mansion’s Dean Fearing, bowled over the Dallas dining establishment with Shinsei, wowed the cable-ready food world on Top Chef, and whose Brownstone in Fort Worth is the area’s latest…
Fort Worth’s Brownstone has decided to celebrate its four-month anniversary by launching Sunday brunch. The Fort Worth restaurant – the gastronomic love child of Dallas’ Top Chef finalist and fan favorite, Casey Thompson (late of the Mansion on Turtle Creek and Shinsei), and local club-e-sario Sam Sameni — is bringing…
