"next food network star" news and stories

Debuting on the Cooking Channel this past Saturday, Kelsey's Essentials features The Next Food Network Star's Season 4 "fan favorite," Kelsey Nixon. Though the title didn't win her a show at the time, Nixon went on to co-host a web series on Food2.com called Kelsey & Spike Cook, where she shared the cutting boards with Top Chef alum Spike Mendelsohn as well as appearing on Chef's Vs. City.

On the first season of Kelsey's Essentials, she takes a topic like quick breads, knife skills or roasting and dedicates 30 minutes to demystifying the techniques behind them. The goal is for the viewer to work these "essential" tips into his or her everyday repertoire. Though trained at Hollywood's Le Cordon Bleu and the French Culinary Institute, Nixon doesn't come across as elitist on Essentials -- she connects just as well with amateurs as with pros.

Slashfood spoke with Nixon about what's essential in her kitchen, her days spent as a recipe developer and her lifelong connection to lime Jell-o.

Kelsey's Essentials premiered on November 6 at 2:30pm on the Cooking Channel.

This past summer, fans of The Next Food Network Star got familiar with out-of-work chef Tom Pizzica, who despite an initial flare for the slacker persona, finished as runner-up to Aarti Sequeira. Dubbed "Big Chef," Pizzica's enthusiasm for food translated well onto screen -- he often displayed a boyish grin whenever he spoke about his creations, even if it was that ill-fated bacon steak he served during the Iron Chef portion of the competition.

Those behind the Food Network were charmed enough by Pizzica to employ him outside the confines of a reality cooking competition by giving him his own series, Outrageous Food. In this series, Pizzica takes viewers on culinary explorations of unusual items like the 72-inch burrito from Gus's Mexicana Cantina in Franklin, Wisconsin, to the rattlesnake pierogies at Church Brew Works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In other words, if it's big, expensive or just sorta out there, Pizzica's trying to track it down.

Last night, The Next Food Network Star crowned its Season 6 winner: Los Angeles based food blogger Aarti Sequeira edged out world's greatest Dad candidate Herb Mesa and "Big Chef" Tom Pizzica. She now joins the ranks of Bobby Flay, Rachael Ray and Guy Fieri in the Food Network's stable of TV personalities, with the hopes of spicing things up with a little Indian flavors on her new show Aarti Party.

Although it wasn't necessarily made evident during the season, Sequeira is a former producer for CNN who over the last year developed her own YouTube cooking show that just so happened to be called -- yep, you guessed it -- "Aarti Paarti." So even before the season started taping, she was quite used to being around cameras, both from a technical standpoint and in developing an onscreen personality. Consistent throughout the season was her point of view -- the party seeks to fuse Indian flavors with recognizable American favorites, introducing a new way of using spices in the kitchen.

The first season of Aarti Party premieres this Sunday, August 22 at 12 noon, where she dives into Bombay sloppy joes and pistachio pops. Other first season highlights that look promising: a recipe for quick pickled cucumbers using rice vinegar and cilantro, shrimp and pineapple "not-so" po' boys and a pulled pork smothered in a mango barbecue sauce.

Slashfood spoke with Sequeria about the origins of "Aarti Paarti" and making Indian food more accessible in the United States. Read the full interview after the jump.

As The Next Food Network Star winds down its sixth season, we here at Slashfood are taking time to chat with the final contestants about their experience on the show.

Click through for our interview.

As The Next Food Network Star winds down its sixth season, we here at Slashfood are taking the time to chat with the final contestants about their experience on the show.

Click through for our interview.