"aaron sanchez" news and stories

Still casting about for vacation plans this summer? Well, here's something to consider: the Food Network has teamed up with Celebrity Cruises to offer what we desperately want to picture as a mash-up between The Love Boat and Iron Chef. The seven-night eastern Caribbean voyage sets sail from Ft. Lauderdale on August 22.

The Food Network calls the cruise a "unique opportunity," which we hope means that they'll be trying to dazzle high-seas gourmands with more than just the cascading mounds of all-you-can-eat shrimp and rambling breakfast buffets that have become de rigueur on most cruise ships. Details, however, remain oddly sketchy.

Here's what we do know: the Food Network's Cat Cora, former host of Melting Pot and the first (and only) woman to be anointed Iron Chef, and Aarón Sánchez, co-star of Chef vs. City, will be aboard. They will be leading "enriching culinary demonstrations," whatever that means. Equally tantalizing (or perplexing, take your pick) is the promised "dine around" event "featuring favorite Food Network recipes," which sounds suspiciously like a dressed-up buffet, or a game of musical chairs with food. (Break out the Dramamine!)

Seafood plus citrus equals ceviche, but, depending on where you're eating that ceviche, the citrus may be grapefruit juice (as in Chile), bitter-orange juice (Peru) or lemon juice (Panama). And the seafood may be shrimp, halibut, scallops or sea bass. This quintessentially Latin American dish is claimed by many countries, and is given a unique flavor in each. At the recent Taste of Tribeca event, chef Aarón Sanchez, of New York restaurant Centrico (which specializes in regional Mexican cooking), offered up this seafood blend in a sweet citrus sauce, and crisped up some plaintain chips to serve it with. Blogger peekandeat declared it the dish of the day.

You may have to stop by Centrico to try this version, but here's a Sanchez recipe for a scallop ceviche that sounds like it comes straight from Veracruz, Mexico: It's made with lemongrass, coconut milk and shredded coconut (along with lime juice, tomatoes and ginger). Which makes sense, since Sanchez is the son of chef, television personality, and cookbook author Zarela Martínez, who has brought the soul of Veracruz (and many other regions of Mexico) to the American kitchen. (A note on preparing ceviche: While most restaurant versions are made with raw fish marinated in the citrus mixture, for the sake of safety in the home kitchen, cook the fish a bit before combining it with the other ingredients, as in this Kitchen Daily recipe.)

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Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

• It's Christmas Eve -- if you haven't bought a present for your gourmand better half; well, we're here to save you with these last-minute ideas.
• Risking one's life by consuming food from dubiously hygienic vehicles was the big food deal of 2009.
• If you're too tuckered out to make a grilled cheese after the gift-buying crunch --and who isn't? -- cook up this oven-made version.
• A Christmas Dining Miracle -- brunch on a Friday!
• When holiday candies depart from traditional flavor and hue, do you skip the seasonal aisle?
• We won't tell if you cheat on your (gingerbread) man with gingersnap palmiers this Christmas.
• Chef Aarón Sanchez is developing a taco town.

Next Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET/PT, the Food Network will premier Chopped, its new chef-competition series with host Ted Allen. On the Food Network's site, you can check out the contestants of the show, many of them coming from the NYC restaurant scene. On Allen's blog, he defends the need for another "cook-off show" by explaining that, unlike existing shows, on Chopped, there are four new chefs that compete on each episode. The one that wins that episode receives $10,000; the one with the worst food is "chopped." Since each episode features new contestants, there is none of the drama and sleep deprivation present on shows like, 'Project Runway'.

Alright, so Chopped is not entirely based on shows like Top Chef. Nevertheless, after watching its video promo I couldn't help but to view it more like an Saturday Night Live satire of Top Chef and Project Runway, than as a serious TV show. Clips of contestants panicking and asking "what am I going to do?" and saying "my worst nightmare" seems slightly ridiculous if host Allen is going to state that the show is so different than previous chef-competition series. "This January, a new kind of competition." Really? At the end of the clip, Allen, in Heidi Klum style, states "you have been chopped." While the show seems to borrow several elements from other reality based competition shows, we'll have to wait until next Tuesday night to judge whether this a fresh concept or more of the same.