Beloved Anthony Bourdain, in his show "No Reservations", hops back on the tube tonight, with a season premiere that looks pretty darn delicious -- and fattening -- if this preview video is to be believed.

In it, Tony tucks into a 12-inch-long Chilean hot dog covered with sauerkraut, guacamole and an avert-thine-eyes-health-care-professionals incredible slop of mayo. His thoughts? "I don't know whether to eat this thing or conceal it in a brown paper bag."

We can't wait.

[Via Youtube]

It's amazing what a couple of rabbit ears will pick up, and it pays to do a little futzing around with the remote to sample the bevy of weird and wonderful channels and sub-channels blazing through the airwaves in all their pixelated glory.

Case in point: "The Dotch Cooking Show." This little gem of Japanese pop culture may have ended in 2007, but it lives on thanks to Los Angeles' KSCI-TV channel 18.2 -- not to mention online, in countless YouTube clips and less-than-legal downloads.

America's cook-off shows seem downright sleep-inducing by comparison. As TV spectacles go, Dotch occupies a space somewhere between the loose, tipsy fun of the celebrity-studded '70s staple "The Match Game" and the free-wheeling nuttiness of "Peewee's Playhouse."

Tomorrow night on Top Chef, Gail Simmons has a special surprise for the Chef'testants. She's throwing her girlfriend a bridal shower and they are cooking!

Creating a menu around the old maxim:

Something old, something new
Something borrowed, something blue
And a silver sixpence in her shoe.

... should be no trouble for the teams (Old, New, Borrowed, and Blue ... where's Sixpence?).

The only problem is, some of them don't look too excited to be Gail Simmons' personal chefs. Isn't this supposed to be a competition, not a service?

The episode airs tomorrow night, Wednesday, December 10th, at 10/9c on Bravo with guest judge Dana Cowin, Editor-in-Chief of Food & Wine Magazine.

Bravo's Top Chef has cooked up a Restaurant Finder website.

Who better to tell you where to eat than the Top Chef chefs? You can type in the cuisine you desire and a city to get listings and reviews, or browse each chef's personal picks!

Some restaurants are recommended by multiple chefs, like Alinea in Chicago, which is recommended by Stephen, Radhika, Harold, and Tre. Their plugs for the restaurant even include "must eat" items. That's right. Top Chef even tells you what to order!

Stop bossing us around, Top Chef, jeez.

The new season of Bravo's Top Chef begins next Wednesday, November 12th, at 10/9 Central, and features new judge Toby Young, food critic and best-selling author of the book How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.

More info here at BravoTV.com.

I know you've all been waiting with baited breath for the return of Iron Chef Japan. Well here it is! It's not going to be on Food Network anymore though. Nope, now you'll be able to catch it on the Fine Living channel.

Starting on May 5, you can watch all of the amazing craziness of Iron Chef Japan every week night at 11pm. In the meantime, you can indulge your Iron Chef craving by watching some video clips, you know, just to tide you over til next week.

Even though I really love Iron chef America, I'm glad that the original is coming back on the air. There really is not much on TV like it, unless you know where to catch Most Extreme Elimination challenge. You can't beat the secret ingredients, the sweat, the dubbing and ,of course, the original Chairman!

Though I know for sure I don't have what it takes to be a Top Chef (heck, I doubt I have what it takes to be just any chef), there might be some of you out there who have the endurance, the stamina, a thick enough skin to take words from Tom Colicchio and cold stares from Padma Lakshmi, and of course the talent.

If so, get yourself to an open call for the next season (wow, they're already on Season 5!) of Top Chef. New Orleans and San Francisco already happened, but there are calls scheduled in May for Vegas, New York, LA, Denver, and Chicago. If you can't make it to one of those cities, you can also "apply" by sending in a video.

Have a bizarre or touching food-related story to tell? Tell Uncle Al all about it.

Al Roker and the Food Network are compilling a collection of stories about how food changed people's lives (or...something) that they can fit into a yet-unnamed new show.

The press release that Phoodie posted listed the examples: going from homeless to being a restaurant-owner, only eating one food, or making art from food.

I could give them several ideas (see: man who makes bubble gum sculptures, girl who eats nothing but french fries...)

If you want to be casted, e-mail a brief description of your story with contact info and a photo of yourself to michaelraptis@alroker.com, or call (646) 732-9848 to be considered.

How did we miss this?!?!

Apparently, even if Rachael's show were actually getting cancelled (it's not), she won't go down without a fight. The TV chef is working on an animated series that stars herself as a young chef. The show is being produced by Oprah's company, Harpo Productions (naturally) and is scheduled for debut in January 2009.

Now, I'm not sure how I feel about this one, but to be quite honest, an animated version of Rachael might be easier on the eyes. Then again, it'll still be her voice.

[via: PopCrunch]

Unfortunately, it's only her syndicated daytime show on ABC, not all 9,832 of Rachael Ray's other shows on the Food Network. According to an "impeccable" source to New York Post's Page Six, "They are seriously talking about taking her off the air."

Is her grin too scary? Too much Yum-o? Apparently, it's her ratings, which was a meager 2.2 when the show debuted two years ago, and has dropped down to a measly 2.0. Yikes.

Did you catch the guy eating toasted cicadas on The Colbert Report last night? David Gracer, a Rhode Island writing teacher, is on a quest to convince chefs to cook with insects, claiming that bugs offer more edible protein per pound than beef cattle.

Lots of cultures eat insects. I've enjoyed tiny grasshoppers, known as chapulines, in Oaxaca, Mexico. Slathered in guacamole and rolled in a tortilla, they were salty and undistinguished-tasting. Toasted and tossed with salt and chili powder, they were like corn nuts with legs. Cicadas, earthworms, crickets - bring 'em on.

Colbert was not convinced though. "I might ask one of my writers to eat a bug," he said. "Let me check their contract."

These and other equally pressing questions were answered recently when Cookie Monster (and Cheryl Henson, Muppet creator Jim Hensen's daughter) were interviewed for NPR as part of the station's "In Character" series. Henson revealed that Cookie Monster's large black mouth is actually a hole in the puppet costume, where most of the food is deposited (directly on top of the puppeteer's head). The rest is mashed into crumbs and flies around his head during his frenzied eating.

Cookie was asked several questions similar to the format adapted by Inside the Actors' Studio host James Lipton. We've summarized them here for you, using actual quotes from Cookie himself, to reveal just a little bit more about what goes on inside that big furry blue head of his.

Favorite word: COOKIE! Ahahaha....What did you expect?
Least favorite word: "OUT OF COOKIES! Does that count? Okay...how about pusillanimous?"
What sound/noise do you love: "Anumumumum!" (the noise that he makes as he's devouring cookies)
What sound/noise do you hate: Snoring.
Favorite curse word: "Well, me have favorite dirty word: Oscar the Grouch! That is one dirty word."
Who would you like to see on a new bank note? "Bert. Me think he'd look really nice there, just the shape of Bert's head would fit nicely in the center of the bill."
What profession would you least like to try? Ophthalmology
If you were reincarnated as another animal, what would you like it to be? A Snuffulupagus.
If heaven exists, what you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates? "COWABUNGA!"

Aside from an occasional Egg McMuffin hangover cure from McDonald's, or perhaps a very rare moment of utter stress-peration (stressed-out desperation) that drives me to Jack in the Box for two tacos for ninety-nine cents, I don't pay much attention to fast food chains.

Yikes! Take a look at Wendy's Baconator - the name alone "Bacon Terminator?" - is meant to strike fear into the hearts of every cardiologist, and from the picture, why wouldn't it? It has two burgers, two slices of cheese, and six, yes six, slices of bacon.

The scariest part of the Baconator, however, is not the burger itself. It's the commercial. It's just so wrong.

Yet, it's so right.

No matter how irritating it is to have your favorite TV show interrupted with commercial breaks, the fact of the matter is that companies usually put a lot of effort into their advertisements and that some of them turn out quite well. Unlike ads with the King, or any of the other creepy fast food mascots, there will always be a handful that are actually enjoyable. Neatorama has a list of their top ten picks for the best cereal commercials of all time that list a couple of these types of commercials. Most of them seem to be from the early 1990s or before (which could be taken as a sign that breakfast cereal commercials are going downhill) and two of the top ten use the word "indubitably" somewhere in their descriptions of the food.

Number one is the Star Wars-themed C3PO cereal shown in the video above. Two more of the top ten (including the "indubitably delicious" Crispy Critters cereal clip) are after the jump.

Kid's television shows may be cheesy, but if one group has their way, the ads will be cheese-free from now on. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has requested that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ban cheese and cheese-related advertising from airing during children's TV programs. The Committee feels that cheese, as it is very high in fat, is "is not an acceptable food to be promoted to kids during the obesity epidemic." This means that cheese in any form - grilled cheese, string cheese, Laughing Cow cheese snacks and pizza, to name just a few - would be off limits.

Believe it or not, there is precedence to back up their request. The ban on junk food advertising during children's TV programs in the UK, which has been in place for several months now, includes cheese.

Despite a high fat content, cheese should not be made a villain. Cheese is high in protein, vitamins, and minerals like calcium, phosphorus and zinc. Eating cheese can also help prevent tooth decay - and let's not forget that there are plenty of low and reduced fat cheeses out there, including cream cheese, cottage cheese and sliced sandwich cheeses. The FTC is under no obligation to honor the PCRM's request, so we will just have to wait and see how things turn out.

Professional football players have heavily regulated diets, but regardless of what they're eating when they're off the field, they're clearly working off those pounds when they play. The same cannot be said for the rest of us. During the Super Bowl, it is estimated that 30 million pounds of food, of which 4 million is fat, will be consumed across the country. Chips are the most popular snack, with 11.2 million pounds of potato chips sold for the game. Other snacks put up impressive numbers, as well: 8.2 million pounds of tortilla chips, 4.3 million pounds of pretzels, 3.8 million pounds of popcorn and 2.5 million pounds of nuts. And it doesn't look as though they counted calories from beer, sodas and other drinks in these numbers.

To avoid packing on the pounds during the game, there are a few simple things you can do:

• Eat breakfast or lunch before the party, so you won't be as hungry and as likely to binge.
• Try and go for a walk/run in the morning before the game and burn off a few extra calories.
• Try drinking diet soda or water to avoid the hundreds of calories that come from drinks alone.
• When it comes to snacks, make a low fat/low calorie dip to bring to the party, such as salsa, a bean-based dip or a yogurt dip made with nonfat yogurt.
• Limit your chip consumption by sticking to veggies or lower fat crackers for dipping - especially if you're planning on chowing down on pizza or buffalo wings.

One last suggestion? Stand up and cheer for your team when they get a first down and do your own little touchdown dance when they score. Taking the opportunity to burn off a couple of extra calories never hurt.