Food Network’s The Next Iron Chef (season 2)

As a fan of the original Japanese Iron Chef (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Chef), I’ve been watching Iron Chef America since day one. The original show had only a few Iron Chefs. While Iron Chef America started with only three, the quickly added Cat Cora as number four and then realized they could make a whole (mini) series of competition shows, which of course everyone seems to love, to pick yet another active Iron Chef. The Next Iron Chef (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Next_Iron_Chef) debuted in October of 2007 with eight chefs battling to become another Iron Chef. Six episodes later, chef Michael Symon, having won most of the Challenges defeated chef John Besh to become Iron Chef America’s fifth guru.

Now, as if they needed yet another Iron Chef, Food Network is bringing back The Next Iron Chef (http://www.foodnetwork.com/the-next-iron-chef/index.html) on Sunday, October 4, at 9pm/8c. This time there are ten top chefs competing to wear the slowly-devaluing Iron Chef crown. Being an avid Food Network watcher, I’d seen/heard of some of the original Next Iron Chef’s competitors before (and was rooting for John Besh). This time around I’m unfamiliar with most of the competetors excepting one – Amanda Freitag. Chef Freitag lost to Bobby Flay on an earlier episode of Iron Chef America and is a frequent host of Food Network’s new competition series Chopped (http://www.foodnetwork.com/chopped/index.html). I find Freitag to be somewhat arrogant and condecending. I’m sure she’s a tremendous cook, like all of the competitors, but her personality is a bit grating for my taste.

A full half of the chefs in this season’s competition are listed as working in New York. I get that most people think some of the best chefs work in the Big Apple, but recruiting five of ten competitors from the same city doesn’t seem appropriate – I’m sure there are marvelous resturants all over the country (and world) who could produce equally competent chefs. Moreso, where are the black chefs? Not one?

Currently with five Iron Chefs and a weekly format, each chef would only compete every five weeks. Couple this with an inconsistant production schedule and the challengers choosing some chefs (Flay) more than others and you end up with only seeing the precious Iron Chefs once every few months. Now add The Next Iron Chef season two’s winner and you end up with just too many. Maybe they should make all six of the Iron Chefs compete to remain as Iron Chefs and ‘thin down the herd’ – there’s another new competition show for the Food Network!

Finally, let’s clear the air about what really goes on with Iron Chef America. I know they are the best chefs out there, and that they *could* create dishes from scratch after learning of the ‘secret’ ingredient minutes before. But let’s be real – the ingredient is no secret to the chefs. They clearly come in with a game plan and a practiced procedure for preparing and plating pre-selected, pre-tested dishes using the special ingredient that’s only a secret to the judges and audience. They play up not knowing and being surprised, but the evidence doesn’t lie. Chef’s have special plating and cooking devices that I’m sure they don’t normally carry around. I’ve seen presentations that wouldn’t have made any sense to bring the dishes for unless they already knew what they were making/plating. Answer these: Why did the chef have pig-shaped cookie cutters if they didn’t know it was Battle Suckling Pig? Why did Ming Tsai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Tsai) bring an air compressor if he didn’t know he was going to be making Peking Duck? Why did the chef bring obscure jerusalem artichokes to Battle Artichoke?

Make sense now? Thank you!

As a fan of the original Japanese Iron Chef, I’ve been watching Iron Chef America since day one. The original show stuck to only three to four Iron Chefs at once. While Iron Chef America started with only three, the quickly added Cat Cora as number four and then realized they could make a whole (mini) series of competition shows, which of course everyone seems to love, to pick yet another. The Next Iron Chef debuted in October of 2007 with eight chefs battling to become a new Iron Chef. Six episodes later, chef Michael Symon, having won most of the challenges, defeated chef John Besh to become Iron Chef America‘s fifth guru.

Now, as if they needed yet another Iron Chef, Food Network is bringing back The Next Iron Chef on Sunday, October 4, at 9pm/8c. This time there are ten top chefs competing to wear the less-and-less-coveted Iron Chef crown. Being an avid Food Network watcher, I’d seen/heard of some of the first season’s The Next Iron Chef‘s competitors before (and was rooting for Chef Besh). This time around I’m unfamiliar with most of the competitors excepting one – Amanda Freitag. Chef Freitag lost to Bobby Flay on an earlier episode of Iron Chef America and is a frequent host of Food Network’s new competition series Chopped. I find Freitag to be somewhat arrogant and condescending. I’m sure she’s a tremendous cook, like all of the competitors, but her personality is a bit grating for my taste.

A full half of the chefs in this season’s competition are listed as working in New York. I get that most people think some of the best chefs work in the Big Apple, but recruiting five of ten competitors from the same city doesn’t seem appropriate – I’m sure there are marvelous restaurants all over the country (and world) who could produce equally competent chefs. Also, where are the black chefs? Not one?

Currently with five Iron Chefs and a weekly format, each chef would only compete every five weeks. Couple this with an inconsistent production schedule and the challengers choosing some chefs (Flay) more than others and you end up with only seeing the precious Iron Chefs once every few months. Now add The Next Iron Chef season two’s winner and you end up with just too many. Maybe they should make all six of the Iron Chefs compete to remain as Iron Chefs and ‘thin down the herd’ – there’s another new competition show for the Food Network!

Finally, let’s clear the air about what really goes on with Iron Chef America. I know they are the best chefs out there, and that they *could* create dishes from scratch after learning of the ‘secret’ ingredient minutes before. But let’s be real – the ingredient is no secret to the chefs. They clearly come in with a game plan and a practiced procedure for preparing and plating pre-selected, pre-tested dishes using the special ingredient that’s only a secret to the judges and audience. They play up not knowing and being surprised, but the evidence doesn’t lie. Chef’s have special plating and cooking devices that I’m sure they don’t normally carry around. I’ve seen presentations that wouldn’t have made any sense to bring the dishes for unless they already knew what they were making/plating. Answer these: Why did the chef have pig-shaped cookie cutters if they didn’t know it was Battle Suckling Pig? Why did Ming Tsai bring an air compressor if he didn’t know he was going to be making Peking Duck? Why did the chef bring obscure Jerusalem artichokes to Battle Artichoke?

Make sense now? Thank you! Now, as of September 22, 2009, a quick vote poll on foodnetwork.com listed these results:

Who is your favorite Iron Chef?
Bobby Flay	30%
Mario Batali	25%
Masaharu Morimoto	18%
Michael Symon	17%
Cat Cora	10%

Combine this with Cat Cora’s winning percentage of just above 50% and I think we can determine who season two’s The Next Iron Chef winner should replace.

New Food Network show: What Would Brian Boitano Make?

It’s always cool when a celebrity or athlete has a sense of humor about themselves. Too many times a so-called celebrity or washed-up athlete gets sue-happy when someone uses their name or likeness in a parody, often not realizing that it could actually serve to boost their notoriety rather than hurt it. I guess their precious ego ends up bruised somehow – who knows.

Well, not the case with Brian Boitano (who claimed gold in the 1988 Winter Olympics with his excellent long program, featuring eight triple jumps, two Axels, and a triple-triple combination). In 1995′s infamous South Park short, The Spirit of Christmas Stan asks Cartman, “What would Brian Boitano do?” when the battling Jesus and Santa both ask the boys for help. This of course is in the spirit (and parody) of the phrase “What would Jesus do?”

In 1999, the parody was revisited in the movie South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (buy from Amazon, rent from Netflix) with an entire song (I recommend disabling the captions) dedicated to asking, “What would Brian Boitano do?” and exploring the skater’s all-around coolness. Rather than be offended by the homage, Boitano showed his sense of humor by skating to a slightly modified version of the song as part of Brian Boitano’s Holiday Skating Spectacular television special later that year.

Now ten years later, the Food Network has decided to try Brian Boitano on a cooking show, cleverly named What Would Brian Boitano Make? I say congratulations to Brian and the Food Network for having a sense of humor and not taking everything so seriously. Boitano’s new show premiers August 23, 2009.

UPDATE (9/4/2009): I’ve watched an episode of What Would Brian Boitano Make? and I’d have to say it’s not quite as appealling to me as I’d hoped. First of all, it’s campy – not acceptable-level Good Eats campy but somewhat over the top, at least for my taste. The situation was too contrived for me – Brian was making a bacon-themed meal for a troop of roller derby gals. Some of the camera-work was interesting, but the scripting, antics, and overall production just wasn’t my cup of tea. Maybe it’ll find a niche once everyone is more comfortable, but for now I don’t see myself DVR-ing it anytime soon.