Nadia and I are so grateful for all of your support. You are going to see the good, the bad and the ugly for sure! Thank you.

If you miss it Sunday you can see it each week at the following times:

Each episode of TNFNS will premiere on Sunday at 9pm ET/PT and repeat throughout the week at the following times:

Sundays at 12am ET/PT
Thursdays at 9pm ET/PT and 12am ET/PT
Saturdays at 2pm ET/PT
Sundays at 7pm ET/PT

CLICK HERE TO VOTE

See all the contestants and highlights at www.foodnetwork.com/star

I hope all is well in your world. Take care.

Ina oozes the same amazing calming, pleasant nature in person as she does on TV. Her place is mind-blowing as well. It felt like cooking in a culinary monument! I knew Michael and I would nail this one (easy to say now, right). He is a great chef and we always got along well. I did not pause for a moment when I had to select a partner.

Michael’s chicken was so tasty! I added some dried cherries to bring some acidity and interest to the Nutella in the crepes. I also finished it off with a caramel and cayenne chile sauce. The ultimate in “Sweet Heat”. The acid of the cherries cut the richness of the chocolate and then the caramel sauce takes you back to sweet again but before the sweetness becomes cloying  the heat comes in with a pleasant, cleansing burn from the chiles. All wrapped in a tender, buttery crepe.

You can’t imagine how fast an hour goes when you are creating a menu combining two people’s ingredients and cooking for 12! You move as fast as humanly possible while wielding sharp knives and working in a kitchen you have never been in. All the while you know the most discriminating palates on the planet (not to mention super stars) are about to eat your food and critique you. It is impossible to capture the true intensity we all felt. Unbelievable! Thanks for watching. This coming week is painful….
Eat well, enjoy life, be happy.

What an event!! I had the opportunity to go to this festival as one of the finalists to represent the Next Food Network Star Season 5. There were over 10,000 people expected to eat the greatest food from across the country while listening to some amazing bands. Sorry, no time to talk about the music. The food! Wow! Everything from a bacon tasting at Zimmerman’s from the Midwest to Greater’s ice cream out of Ohio, the list goes on.

The goal is to promote the show. I am going from stage to stage introducing cooking demos and talking about the Next Food Network Star. Within an hour I see Bobby Flay and get a warm welcome and have awesome flashbacks of the filming of the show. Susie Fogelson is there who is always a pleasure. She is being mobbed by fans as well. I get to meet and hang out with Anne Burrell (who is very cool by the way). What a day. Is this really happening? And the crowning moment, I get to introduce Bobby Flay in front of thousands of people on the main stage!

Ok, it is getting even crazier. I have people stopping me and saying “you’re that Food Network guy, we love you, can we have a picture with you?” I am thinking, really? I am looking over my shoulder assuming Anne Burrell or Susie must be standing behind me. No, they are talking to me. What a trip. The Food Network fans are as passionate as they come. Speaking of passionate fans; Guy Fieri comes out on the main stage and instantly commands the attention of thousands of fans as the music blares. It was truly like a full blown rock concert.

I spend the day signing autographs, taking pictures, and talking to everyone about the show.  I think the best thing I ate was the Smore by Charles Chocolates. This smore is made from an organic graham cracker that eats like a thin cake with a crisp crust. On top sits a piece of chocolate that glistens and tries to hold its shape under the heat of the bubbling marshmallow on top. Marshmallow is not a fair word for this. It was a square and only about ½’ tall. As a result it covered the whole piece of chocolate and had lots of surface area to be caramelized by the torch.

What a day, what a show!

Eat well, enjoy life, be happy.

My back up plan was to make my own paste out of annatto seeds, and my third choice was to use dried chiles (ancho or guajillo) to make a deep red chile paste and then do the same thing. When I pulled chile powder out of the bag my heart stopped briefly, and my tongue rolled back! Chile powder works for a spice rub or to add to a homemade BBQ sauce, but when doing simple vegetables it becomes too prominent and can have a bad mouth feel and a muted flavor. Paprika is about the only ingredient that is meant to be great as a powder. Everything else suffers when powdered because you lose all the oils the carry the bright flavor (spices, chiles, etc). That is why grinding spices as you need them really intensifies a dish. A $20 coffee grinder and a load of fresh spices transforms your kitchen into a flavor factory!

I started to think about how I could wake up the chile powder, keep the citrus bright and allow the grilled zucchini to not get too muted. I needed to grill the zucchini enough to give it nice char marks for flavor but not so much as to soften it. When you keep it slightly hard it still has body and becomes a nice base for other flavors and ingredients. Ok, zucchini is done. Now I roast the mushrooms to golden. That is the key to great mushrooms. You need to sauté them on medium high heat and get them nice and dark brown. Mushrooms can take it.  Now they were ready to take the sauce. I juiced my oranges and limes and simmered it. I realized I needed something to soften the acid and round out the dish. I added some chicken stock and reduced. I then added some honey, a little at a time. The honey took off the edge on the chile powder, balanced the acid of the citrus and created a deeper flavor. Yes! Last minute right before service I decided to dollop some soft goat cheese on top. I figured the rich, creamy texture of the goat cheese would further balance the acid of the citrus while introducing a new form of sharpness to the dish.  In addition, goat cheese has the same tactile, slightly granular texture as the achiote. It worked! One down. Let’s see what happens next week. Thanks for watching!

Eat well, enjoy life, be happy.