Posts Tagged ‘Food Network’
Eye on NoVA: Food Shows Feast on Local Talent
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, July 12th, 2010
View NoVA Food Show Tapings in a larger map
Seems you can’t throw a rock these days without hitting a reality TV/cooking show camera.
Of course, if you’ve been dining at any of the buzzy eateries above–or now plan to hightail it out to one of the upcoming tapings–you’ll have no one to blame but yourself when Joel McHale gleefully mocks you on The Soup.
–Warren
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, April 15th, 2010
Charm City dough boy Duff “Ace of Cakes” Goldman will be strutting his stuff, both figuratively and physically, at the May 1 Virginia Gold Cup–spent several afternoons there during my college years; never once saw a horse–where he’ll unveil his homage to the 85th race and judge a birthday-centric cake walk.
The first 30 contestants who register for the confectionary throwdown ($50 to enter; grand prize is $100 in VA lottery tickets–and bragging rights, ‘natch) will get a chance to parade their homemade sweets in front of Goldman et al. from 1-3 p.m. on race day.
Fire up those flute pans!
–Warren
Food Network Seeking New Talent
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, February 18th, 2010
(Image: Pop Culture Madness)
Think you have what it takes to become a Food Network star and have your own restaurant?
Here’s your chance.
The Food Network will be casting two teams for a new series, 24 Hour Restaurant Battle.
The show involves two teams competing to design a restaurant within 24 hours. Similar to “Restaurant Wars” on Top Chef, contestants have to create the restaurant’s concept, décor, and menu. Restaurants will be judged and the winner receives money toward a new restaurant.
There will be a casting call in Washington, DC on Monday, February 22 from 10am-3pm at Zentan Restaurant at the Donovan House Hotel.
The producers are looking for three things:
1. Two to five person teams with pre-existing relationships (such as siblings, best friends, parent and child, etc.)
2. Skills to run a restaurant. Any level of restaurant/culinary experience is acceptable. That means you can have little to no culinary training or restaurant experience. They want to make sure one person can run the front of the house while the other person can handle the kitchen.
3. Personality. Anyone who is charismatic, outgoing, energetic, or charming should apply.
Make sure to read over the rules and fill out the application prior to attending the casting call. For more information, contact casting24dc@gmail.com
If you do decide to compete, let us know how it goes!
Good luck!
–Aisha Salazar
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
Staff Sergeant Nolan Kniss competing at the US Army Culinary Arts Show, Ft. Lee, Va.
It’s not often that I read something that gets me fired up enough to call out another writer, but enhancing an inaccurate stereotype of a group worth respecting is reason enough for me.
Let me be clear in saying that my purpose is only to correct the stigma most food writers and civilian chefs have towards military chefs and pointing them out when I see them.
The target of my angst today is Washingtonian food blogger Melissa McCart and an article she wrote for Gourmet magazine about soldier-chefs taking courses at a local D.C. culinary school, Culinaiere.
Full disclosure – for eight years, I was a military chef. And as a former military chef, I was offended by Ms. McCart’s portrayal of military chefs as cooks forced to rely only on their hot sauce to get by. More importantly, several of Ms. McCart’s claims are just plain inaccurate.
“But Army cooks only have one cooking school available to them — the Quartermaster Center and School, based in Ft. Lee, Virginia — and it offers a choice of just two courses: Basic Skills Training (also known as IET), during which they learn culinary and baking skills for 10 hours a day over the course of eight weeks; and Advanced Culinary Skills Training Course (ACSTC), which emphasizes knife skills, menu development, buffet platter production, table service, and purchasing. While Quartermaster courses provide basic culinary training, career cooks such as this crew found themselves hungry for a deeper understanding of ingredients, flavor dynamics, and cooking techniques that their classes hadn’t had time to cover.”
Yes, Ft. Lee does have one culinary school with both the Basic and Advanced skills programs. However, Ft. Bragg, the base these soldiers are assigned to, has an Advanced Culinary School of its own, taught year round by an American Culinary Federation (ACF) Certified Executive Chef. Additionally, Ms. McCart fails to properly check the accuracy of her source’s information when she quoted Master Sergeant Arthur Vernon as saying:
“It was difficult to convince the Army that a civilian cooking school was good for our unit, since it’s expensive and somewhat of an experiment,” but he argued that improved skills would cut down on waste, saving the Army money. His request was funded. As far as he knows, his group is among the first cooks at Fort Bragg and elsewhere to formally train among civilians.
While it was kind of Ms. McCart to qualify the quote with “As far as he knows,” a quick google search would prove that military chefs have been formally trained among civilians for several decades now. Heck, two paratroopers from Master Sergeant Vernon’s Ft. Bragg, N.C., unit just finished a training program at a local country club.
Several points need to be made here; first, there are numerous units locally and around the world who work hard to give their soldiers the best training possible. Locally, an over whelming majority of military cooks in the Washington D.C. area have at some point been sent to a civilian culinary school or apprenticeship for more training. Additionally, Stratford University was teaching culinary classes in kitchens at the Pentagon, Ft. McNair, the Naval Yard and Ft. Myer as early as 2000. One local Air Force unit has a partnership with several Northern Virginia restaurants that allows the airmen to train in those kitchens for several weeks at a time. And finally, the Army as a whole has sent numerous soldiers to train at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., at no cost to the soldier. (Heck, even Bobby Flay came to Ft. McNair in 2002 to do a post-9/11 show on military chefs.)
I’m not even going to get into the fact that the Army has an annual Culinary Arts Show; an Iron Chef-like competition that has been covered in the past by the Food Network, where teams of cooks come to represent their base in numerous static and live cooking competitions judged by ACF judges. Or that the Army Culinary Arts Team (USACAT) has dominated culinary competitions worldwide for several years.
The bottom line is this, yes, it’s great that the chefs from Ft. Bragg were able to take classes at Culinaiere, but military chefs are not what they used to be. Even in a combat environment, culinary skills are trained and nurtured by good leaders. While it is true that many meals in combat environments are ready-made, those too can be enhanced by talented chefs, not just hot sauce.
-Stephen Ball
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
I’m not sure if any of you saw this over the weekend, but The Food Network premiered a new show, “The Best Thing I Ever Ate.” In it, each of the Food Network stars share the best thing they ever ate (pretty self explanatory right?). Anyways, it got me thinking the obvious question, what’s the best thing I ever ate?
To get me started I surveyed each member of our office staff and got some pretty good answers:
Courtney (Account Executive) - ”Crespelle di Mele at Il Fornaio (Reston) – - I picked it because I like caramel and Crepes!”
Hana (Design Director) – “For me, I’ll take dessert (I wouldn’t claim it to be the best …tough to think of “best” right now): Polish water ice at Ocean City Boardwalk because the incredible smooth texture took me by surprise from the very first mouthful. I was expecting something similar to a snow cone, but boy was I pleasantly wrong in both flavor and texture.”
Terry (Account Executive)- “Venison tenderloin au poivre, grilled over a campfire in bacon grease. It was fresh, taken that morning.”
Laura (Graphic Designer)- “After a full day of moving into a new apartment in the snow, and having skipped lunch, my husband and I were staaaaarving and had no idea what there was to eat in our new neighborhood. We stopped at the first place we saw – Hamburger Hamlet - and I had the very best (or at least most-appreciated) burger and beer I have ever consumed. Even thinking about it now I get a little warm fuzzy glow in my belly.”
Carla (Administrative Assistant)- ” The best thing I ever ate was the crispy rice spicy tuna at Katsuya Restaurant in L.A. it was delish and my mouth waters just thinking about how good each little bite was!! I picked it because I like rice, tuna and anything spicy so this was perfect!”
Susan (Assignments Editor)- ”Seven-piece chocolate dessert from The Inn at Little Washington. Why? No one eating there that night wasn’t ordering it. It was irresistible.”
Natalie (PR/Copywriter)- ”I guess it’s a toss-up between the heavenly cheesy tapas in some little cafe in Barcelona or the authentic Greek salad (with a big chunk of feta) I had in Santorini on my honeymoon. As for why I picked the cheesy tapas: tired after a long flight, craved some comfort food. As for the Greek salad, I love fresh veggies and was looking for something refreshing for lunch on a super hot day.”
Kristin (Editorial Intern)- ”Triple Chocolate Meltdown from Applebee’s.I’m obsessed with chocolate and anything sweet. This melt in your mouth dessert hits the spot every time without hitting the wallet too. It’s my choice for a dessert any day.”
Warren (Food Editor)- ”Not necessarily the best thing I’ve ever eaten, but certainly the most memorable dish in recent memory: Momofuku Ssam Bar’s spicy rice cakes: pan-Asian medley of scallion-laced sausage, assorted hot peppers, crushed garlic, Chinese broccoli and pillowy Korean rice cakes sears every taste receptor in my mouth, but I still raced to shovel the sensory-inflaming stir fry into my face.”
As for me? Well I tend to appreciate the more simple things in life. Having grown up in Southern Md., I know a good crab cake when I see one. So far, (and really the competition hasn’t been close) Stoney’s in Solomon’s Island Md., has the best in the Mid-Atlantic. Picture lightly fried crab, roughly the size of a softball, just enough filler to hold it together, seasoned perfectly but not overwhelmingly. Two words: Love It!
Next week, I’ll invite some local chefs to share the best thing they ever ate, but until then, use the comments section to let us know what the best thing you ever ate was!
-Stephen Ball
Chefs Who Give Back- Teddy Folkman
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, June 4th, 2009
Granville Moore Executive Chef Teddy Folkman may be "The Next Food Network Star"
Those who haven’t heard of Chef Teddy Folkman likely soon will. The co-owner and executive chef of Granville Moore’s Gastropub in Washington is expanding his celebrity one Food Network show at a time. Last year, Folkman topped Bobby Flay in a mussels challenge on the Food Network’s “Throwdown with Bobby Flay” and, now, he is one of 10 finalists on “The Next Food Network Star.” (Premiering Sunday, 9 p.m.)
For Folkman, 33, the opportunity to showcase his Belgian cuisine “fetish” and upscale bar food is a dream come true. Though what excites him most is the opportunity to teach “generation foodie” what being a chef is really like.
“I love teaching and entertaining people,” Folkman said in a telephone interview. “What better place to do it than the Food Network?”
Though Folkman appears to be a natural in front of the camera, it was in front of a group of teenagers where he honed his teaching style. As a volunteer for the last seven years at D.C. Brainfood, a non-profit youth development group that uses food and cooking to teach at-risk high school students life skills and healthy living, Folkman has helped cultivate what could be the next generation of area chefs.
Originally involved by default when Chef Sam Adkins became ill the day prior to an event, Folkman stepped in with no idea what he was getting into.
“I didn’t know what to do when I got there,” Folkman said. “But, the next thing you know we’re cooking hanger-steaks, having a good time. Seven years later here we are.”
For Folkman and Brainfood, “here we are” is a pretty good place to be.
When the program began 10 years ago, it filled the required community service credit hours for high schools, leading some students to enroll just for that reason. But now, as interest in the program has gained traction the results are evident.
Now armed with a waiting list 100 deep, Brainfood has developed numerous success stories.
“In the beginning it wasn’t something they (teenagers) wanted to do,” Folkman said. “But as the program has grown, we’ve seen more and more success stories. There are several who have gone on to be executive chefs of major hotels and restaurants in the area.”
Folkman’s personal goal for each class has also been Brainfood’s best recruiting tool — to ensure that the students have fun and learn something.
“You’ve got to know your audience. I don’t have them in there searing foie gras or making a gastrique,” Folkman said. “We stick to the basics — butchering chicken, filleting a salmon, the difference between grilling and searing, knife skills, food safety and sanitation.”
But for Folkman, it’s not just the students who go on to a career in food that are the successes.
“Success here is everywhere,” Folkman said. “As far as I’m concerned, teaching these kids to cook a good, healthy meal for their families is a great success.”
Down the road, Folkman hopes to become a member of Brainfood’s board of directors. But in the meantime, he’s content teaching classes and help Brainfood recruit chef volunteers. The goal now, Folkman says, is to work towards restaurants giving students internships and real world experience.
In a class Folkman taught last week, he challenged his students to a gourmet hamburger contest. First prize? The winning burger will appear on Folkman’s summer menu at the Capital Lounge.
As far as his own aspirations, Folkman can’t reveal how he fared in the reality show, but whatever the result he plans to maintain his commitment to both Brainfood and Granville Moore.
“I’ve been blessed by the most talented employees and supportive business partners,” Folkman said. “I plan to keep working there as much as I can.”
Asked to describe what his hypothetical cooking show’s concept would be, Folkman laughed.
“Without letting too many secrets out of the bag,” Folkman kidded, “I really believe that the Food Network viewers, or Generation Foodie as I call them, want to be challenged. They’ve taken a few cooking classes, bought nicer equipment than most restaurants, but still have no idea what it’s like to really be a professional chef. Each show I’d challenge them to keep up with me in a real-time cook off. Let’s see if they can manage jumping from one product to another and then back again.”
Catch Teddy Folkman live, Thursday, June 11th (6:30-9:30 p.m.) when he and other area
chefs team up with Brainfood students and food lovers from around the region at
Brainfood’s 3rd Annual Grill-Off. Decautur House on Lafayette Square, 1610 H St., NW,
Washington, D.C. Tickets: $75 Team Entry: $3,000; 100 percent of proceeds benefit DC
Brainfood; http://brain-food.org/brainfood-grill-off-june-11th-2009
- Stephen Ball
Ray’s Lands Virginia on the Food Network Burger Map
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
(Photo: James Kim)
The Food Network Magazine has put together a coast-to-coast guide to their favorite burger joints as part of their “50 States, 50 Burgers” project (just wait till the D.C. protesting world hears they’ve been snubbed once again; instead of organizing another limp teabagging attempt, perhaps they could combat this media black out by enshrouding the Food Network’s offices in beef curtains?).
Not surprisingly, they tapped Ray’s Hell Burger as their Virginia go-to–noting that:
“Regulars don’t mind the lack of fries–they come for serious burgers served blackened, with a peppercorn crust, or ‘Diablo,’ doused with chipotle pepper sauce.”
The national acclaim should lessen the sting from Hell Burger’s disappointing showing in Washingtonian’s much ballyhooed “Burger Brackets” showdown (the early favorite was knocked out in the second round by Central; EatBar eventually claimed the best beef patty honors).
Other Food Network-appointed standard bearers that have passed through these lips include In-N-Out Burger’s famous “double-double” (“animal-style” fries are where it’s at) and Nage’s truffled prime rib entry.
Meanwhile, this guy can’t wait to boogie his way up to Charm City to do battle with Mother’s “Heart Attack on a Plate” (a cheddar-stuffed, ale-battered, deep-fried cardiological double-dare). And I’ve no doubt that I will one day take down Chicago’s “The Slayer” (a chili-, andouille sausage- and cherry pepper-topped challenge), and possibly Denver’s “The Juarez” (a ham-, hot dog- and guacamole-clad behemoth).
But first, I need to see if Pfizer needs a new Lipitor spokesman…
Tweeting A Path to Kitchen Stadium
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, April 20th, 2009
Seems like all of our guilty pleasures are rapidly overlapping these days, due in no small part to the mass proliferation of social media.
Case in point: over the weekend, fellow tweeter @readergirl fired off a random thought into the interweb:
watching iron chef & i think @anamariecox needs to be a judge
For those who don’t know whom JM (@readergirl sticks firmly behind her Twalias for privacy reasons) was floating as a guest judge for Iron Chef America, that would be none other than D.C.’s own, one-time Wonkette-cum-McCain campaign scourge-cum Air America correspondent, Ana Marie Cox.
(Photo: Nina Subin)
JM swears she doesn’t know Cox personally and insists she has no discernible pull at the Food Network.
She just figured Cox would liven up the show with her rapier wit. “It really was just a random tweet that started it all–but I would love to see it happen. I’m a big fan of the show,” JM shared.
By the following day, Cox paused just long enough from her customary cat adulation, political sniping and cathartic hashtagging to whole heartedly endorse the grassroots judging campaign:
I SUPPORT THIS EFFORT RT @readergirl: join me in getting @anamariecox on Iron Chef as a judge?? FN contact form: http://twurl.nl/tzg52f
The Food Network didn’t respond to our query about the efficacy of email petitions or online nomination drives.
But given that the coveted third judges chair has hosted the likes of everyone from self-described media gadfly Mo Rocca to professional wrestler Dave Batista to entertainment juggernaut Tina Fey (yes, I choose to believe this is actually her), who’s to say Cox might not one day escape the intellectually stagnant White House briefing room for the sensory-blowing surroundings of Kitchen Stadium?
That is, unless the Food Network can’t take a little constructive criticism.
–Warren Rojas