"Gordon Ramsay, at Your Service" will feature the host of FOX's "Hell's Kitchen" cooking competition traveling the world in a "'MacGyver' meets 'A-Team'" food-inspired comedy, Cuppa Coffee's Adam Shaheen told Slashfood.
Find out why Ramsay "makes a good-looking puppet" after the jump.
What do chefs eat when they need a palate cleanser after so much fancy restaurant fare? When they take off their aprons, they reach for the same indulgences we do -- perhaps just with an upgrade. Slashfood asked celebrity chefs to share their favorite cravings.
Mario Batali When orange-clogged chef and television personality Mario Batali isn't reinventing Italian cuisine, he's still got it in the bag -- of Doritos, that is. "I love two things: good gelato and, strangely enough, Doritos and salsa. It has to be Doritos, though. I especially like the lime-flavored ones with chili."
Nigella Lawson Which foods make domestic goddess Nigella Lawson feel sinful? None! Nigella, who is famous for her intimate, relaxed cooking style says, "I don't have any guilty food pleasures. The only thing one should ever feel guilty about is not taking pleasure."
See what snacks Bobby Flay, Tom Colicchio and other celebrity chefs sneak after the jump.
You may soon have a "Friend" in the restaurant biz.
We told you back in August that Jennifer Aniston was considering opening up her very own eatery. And on Tuesday night's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," the sitcom-turned-movie star confirmed our report, revealing she wants to open a Mexican restaurant in New York City.
The secret ingredient to Jennifer Aniston's success might be in her kitchen.
In the September issue of "O, The Oprah Magazine," Aniston says that her friends, celebrity and non-celebrity alike, love the food served in her Los Angeles home.
"It's the best restaurant in town," claims Aniston.
The actress can be seen in culinary action most nights of the week alongside her personal chefs, sisters Jewels and Jill Elmore.
"She makes a place where people want to come and hang out," jewelry designer Jennifer Meyer told People magazine about Aniston's dinner parties.
Taking the rave reviews to heart, the sitcom-turned-movie star is now considering opening up the reservation book to everyone.
According to Grub Street Los Angeles, the 40-year-old starlet is reportedly chewing on the idea of opening up her very own eatery.
So, Slashfood wants to know if you'd give Chef Aniston a shot.
Couldn't swing a trip to Food & Wine Magazine's Classic in Aspen this year? S'okay -- we've got you covered. Kick back with a glass of bubbly and some schmancy nibbles, bookmark this post and keep on checking back for real-time Twitter coverage from the event. Keep up with pictures from the red carpet and around the festival here.
Apologies to anyone dining in a marquee New York restaurant on Wednesday night -- we were hogging all your chefs and a restaurateur or 10 over at the Roseland Ballroom. And no, we won't apologize; it was all for a great cause.
Since 1988, the Share Our Strength organization has drawn together chefs, mixologists, volunteers and food fans in cities around the United States for Taste of the Nation events benefiting local food assistance organizations via funds generated by ticket sales, sponsorships and silent auctions. New York City's 2009 installment featured small-plate fare from more than 50 eateries and chefs, including newly minted James Beard Award winner Dan Barber's Blue Hill, Danny Meyer's entire armada of restaurants and the revitalized Oak Room as well as generously poured tipples from the likes of Audrey Saunders, Tony Abou-Ganim, Jim Meehan and many (many ... so, so, many ... ) more.
After the jump, read more about celeb spotting, volunteer opportunities and the best bite we had all night.
Just this week, Bravo announced the host and judges for the new series that's a Top Chef spin-off - Top Chef Masters. The host will be food journalist Kelly Choi and the judges will include restaurant critic Gael Greene (pictured on the right), culinary expert James Oseland, and food critic Jay Rayner. Unlike Top Chef, the show will feature 24 chefs that have already made it big.
These world-renowned chefs will compete against each other in a series of weekly challenges, and only one chef will win a prize for the charity of their choice. Their food will not only be tasted and evaluated by the judges, but also by a wide range of tasters for whom the challenge is aimed. This can include patrons at a five-star restaurant or a room full of hungry kids.
As exciting as it is to see Gael Greene, NYC food critic institution, star as one of the judges, I'm dying to know which chefs will be competing on the show. Entertainment Weekly predicts that the series will probably cast chefs, like Anthony Bourdain, who have guest-judged on Top Chef in the past. Who are some chefs that you'd like to see compete?
Several things I did not know about Bobby Flay before our brief, but amusing phone chat last week:
1. He has a trademark* on the term "crunchify" -- which means to add potato or tortilla chips to a sandwich or burger for the express purpose of introducing a textural element.
2. He's Churchill Downs' official Kentucky Derby Party Host. Though actually that puts to rest the nagging questions I'd had as to why a born and bred New Yorker would put a Hot Brown sandwich (it's a Bluegrass State thing) on his menu at Bar Americain.
3. Chips, dips and burgers for the Superbowl celebration chez Flay? Nope -- he's a paella man for big parties.
4. Holy heck, is he an entertaining radio host.
Bobby Flay Radio is a limited run series wherein the titular host waxes authoritative on subjects ranging from football, personal style, dating, and oh yeah -- food. While an audio-only cooking show might seems a tad spare, Flay manages to demo a Sandwich of the Week, conduct on-air taste tests (consisting largely of potato chip bags being opened loudly in front of open microphones) and dispense hardcore cooking advice to callers in a manner appealing enough to make one want to ratchet up the caliber of one's lunch plans once the show wraps at noon.
Bonus -- occasionally his wife, actress Stephanie March, shares mike duties and misses not a single chance to rebut his claims or bust his chops. A Burns & Allen in the making? Dunno -- how 'bout giving 'em more than five weeks to find out, Sirius?
Bobby Flay Radio airs on Sirius / XM Channel 108 from 10-12 on Thursdays (replaying Saturday and Sunday from 3-5) through February 5th. Don't subscribe? Sign up for a free online trial.
Won't mid-week lunches pack so much more panache if a star chef like Alice Waters, Grant Achatz, Tom Colicchio or Mario Batali has a hand in 'em? You'll still have to make your own PB&J, but now you can tote it along in celeb-stamped style with a one-of-a-kind lunchbox decorated by your favorite chef.
"The Lunchbox Auction presented by Gourmet which benefits hunger-relief organizations Food Bank For New York City and The Lunchbox Fund of South Africa, kicks off live on the World Wide Web at www.thelunchboxauction.org on Thursday, December 11th at midnight and continues through Thursday, December 18th at noon. Almost 100 celebrities from film, television, fashion, art, music and the culinary world have united to remind us that food matters and that hunger is an on-going problem.
Each lunchbox reflects the personal style and individual flair of the person designing the box and no two lunchboxes are alike. Collectors will find that each box is signed and numbered, and some will even contain hidden surprises inside. The collectible lunchboxes make a great gift for the holidays!"
I've already been outbid on Grant Achatz's stainless steel and tension wire armature, and Ruth Reichl's epicurean treasure trove, yet still hold out hope for Michel Richard's mustard-gilded, postprandial bonescape. Mostly because I'd have a chance to say "mustard-gilded" all the darned time -- for charity.
.000001%* of the population will be paid actual cash money to step foot into the on deck circle at Yankee Stadium. Still, that doesn't stop hordes of fans from TiVoing Inside Baseball, poring over box scores and suiting up in team regalia on game day. For some of us, food holds an equally compelling balance of gut-level devotion and wonkish stat-based compulsion. A reservation at elBulli is akin to scoring home team dugout seats for the seventh game of the World Series. Food fans -- here's your program.
It's said that 2,000,000 requests a year come in for just 8000 seats at Ferran Adrià's Spanish temple of molecular gastronomy. The closest many of us will come is grazing through this brand new 528 page play-by-play, A Day at elBulli An insight into the the ideas, methods and creativity of Ferran Adrià. It's not so much the common parlance's "food porn" as it is a post-millennial culinary junkie's process orgy, documenting each staff motion and motivation, every microgram of alginate and liquid nitrogen, and fetishistically breaking down quantity and custom and customer/server semiotics.
The proverbial sausage has never been so obsessively, graphically made for public consumption, and rarely has it been so deliciously presented. There are pleasing pictures and recipes, to be sure (Hazelnut praline air, anyone? Perhaps some Garrapi-nitro pine nuts?), but sans easy access to an Isomalt-R-Us, it's a fever-dream cookbook. It is, however, a deeply heartening food-ifesto.
No wonder the Internet is swarming with a horde of wanna-be celebrity chefs. Forbes reports that those faces we all know and love (or loathe) are making some decent coin as faces of the cooking world.
Sure, some of them are making a heck of a lot more because they're taking over the airwaves with a million different shows (Rachel Ray), but man, it just hurts me to see Paula Deen ahead of the likes of Bourdain, Flay, and Batali.
The Top 10 Earning Celebrity Chefs:
10. Anthony Bourdain - $1.5 million 9. Bobby Flay - $1.5 million 8. Tom Colicchio - $2 million 7. Mario Batali - $3 million 6. Paula Deen - $4.5 million 5. Alain Ducasse - $5 million 4. Nobuyuki Matsuhisa - $5 million 3. Gordon Ramsay - $7.5 million 2. Wolfgang Puck - $16 million 1. Rachel Ray - $18 million
Yes, proceeds from the sales of Nutrish will indeed go toward funding no-kill shelters and awareness campaigns, and it's not as if she's the first media-centric chef to go to the dogs -- or cats (remember Rocco DiSpirito's Fancy Feast Elegant Medleys?). Still, I'm continually shocked by the branding stretches some of these folks are making.
(Aaaannnd I've just run across Paula Deen's Butt Massage. I know it's likely a handy and delicious mix of herbs, spices and faerie dust, but still. Ew.)
Healthy officials say celebrity chefs often fail to maintain basic hygiene standards, according to an article by BBC news.
Interestingly, however, the article only cites one health official, but it states that the issue was brought up at a medical conference in Edinburgh. Crimes by the celebrity chefs include not washing lettuce and using the same utensils for raw meat and cooked foods. Guilty shows include BBC's Ready Steady Cook and Celebrity MasterChef, which I've actually never seen.
I'm not sure whether the problem, if it exists, happens here in the U.S. as well, as I have never thought about the issue while watching food TV. I guess I always presume that ingredients are pre-washed, or that the washing is edited out of programs like Top Chef and Iron Chef America. Your thoughts?
How many times have you traveled and been outraged at the limited airport food options and the few snacks provided onboard? After experiencing a recent two-hour flight delay at West Palm Beach Airport and being stuck with only fast-food chains, I got excited about a recent New York Timesarticle, which focuses on a new trend whereby internationally recognized celebrity chefs are opening up restaurants at airport terminals around the world.
Earlier it seemed that there were just a few chefs, like Wolfgang Puck, who brought their food to airport terminals, but now there are a much larger number of celebrity chefs doing it. And, while chefs such as Wolfgang Puck brought fast-food versions of their food to airports, the current crop of chefs – Todd English, Gordon Ramsay, Nicolas Le Bec -- are opening bonafide, three-course meal, sit-down restaurants.
From New York's JFK to Geneva's International airport, you can now order foie gras (Gilles Dupont's Altitude), braised lamb (Ramsay's Plane Food), Kobe beef burgers (Todd English's Bonfire Steakhouse), and Valrhona chocolate fondue (Plane Food) while waiting for your flight. With the increase in flight delays and cancellations, this is sure to relieve a foodie's worst nightmare, which is being stuck at the airport for endless hours with no options but Burger King, Cinnabon, and Sbarro.
Chef Paul Prudhomme was setting up his tent at the Zurich Classic (golf) in New Orleans when he felt something on his arm and thought he was stung by a bee.
When he opened his shirt sleeve, a .22 calibre bullet fell to the ground!
Fortunately for Chef Prudhomme, the bullet was apparently not aimed at him, but had simply fallen, probably shot from somewhere within a mile-and-a-half radius of the golf course.The chef's shirt was torn and his skin was cut, but he was back to cooking within five minutes.
So he wasn't shot at, but I still like to think that chefs, given what they do in their tiny restaurant kitchens, are invincible.
Several things I did not know about Bobby Flay before our brief, but amusing phone chat last week:
.000001%* of the population will be paid actual cash money to step foot into the on deck circle at Yankee Stadium. Still, that doesn't stop hordes of fans from TiVoing Inside Baseball, poring over box scores and suiting up in team regalia on game day. For some of us, food holds an equally compelling balance of gut-level devotion and wonkish stat-based compulsion. A reservation at elBulli is akin to scoring home team dugout seats for the seventh game of the World Series. Food fans -- here's your program.
In response to the unleashing of 
Healthy officials say celebrity chefs often fail to maintain basic hygiene standards, according to 
Chef Paul Prudhomme was setting up his tent at the Zurich Classic (golf) in New Orleans when he felt something on his arm and thought he was stung by a bee.
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