"TvFood" news and stories

Just in time for the Golden Globes, the Food Network aired a special on their work behind the scenes of Queen Latifah's movie, Last Holiday. The special, creatively entitled Food Network Goes to Hollywood, was a fun behind-the-scenes expose of how food is styled for the silver screen.

In Last Holiday (which, Cinematical tells us, receives raves from all the critics), Queen Latifah plays a housewares saleswoman with a heart of gold and a love for Emeril, whose dishes she cooks up for the kid next door. But the plot's not so important here: we care more about how many chickens they had to be purchased so the Queen could make Chicken Tchoupitoulas along with Emeril (on TV in her kitchen). They never actually said, but it was clearly dozens. We care that the actors usually don't get to eat the food in restaurants scenes, but in this movie? They did, and ate cassoulet and roasted quail with brioche and chorizo stuffing and spiced lamb shanks with blood orange relish. Oh my.

The funniest part of the whole show, though, was one of the chef consultants explaining that, because Queen Latifah's character ate Lean Cuisines for dinner, she was making a red wine sauce to go over the frozen entree: "so it will taste better for Queen Latifah." That's so sweet.

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It's that time of year, the time to look back on the stories that made 2005 great. Our countdown began with God and moves on to - what else? - TV.

It all began in 1998. My obsession with the Food Network. I was hanging out in New York awaiting the beginning of business school. I'd quit my job and, other than boning up on the calculus, I had absolutely nothing to do. I scheduled my life around Too Hot Tamales, Ready Set Cook! and Cooking Live with Sara Moulton. In those days, the Food Network was all about cooking, especially cooking at home. I mean, Cooking Live - Sara would list the ingredients the day before so you could be prepared to cook along with her. People called in and they were actually in front of their stoves, yes, cooking live.

It was gradual, but the channel has changed over the past seven years. A couple of major things happened this year that indicate a turn away from the original core audience - people who liked to cook - to a new and (for whatever it's worth) bigger audience. People who eat.

The Food Network, it seems, is divesting itself of the foodies and embracing food, of the edible and eye candy variety. And this is such a shame. Some of the big changes that spell doom for the home chef: