Behind The Scenes of Food TV

Many steps lead to a cooking show at the Food Network

By Francine Segan, Tribune Media Services

January 6, 2010

"People don't realize how many hands are involved even before Rachael, Guy or Melissa touch the food," says Rob Bleifer, executive chef of the Food Network Kitchen. The names he mentions will be familiar to fans of the network — they are stars Rachael Ray, Guy Fieri and Melissa d'Arabian. "There's an entire kitchen behind the kitchen on one of our cooking shows."

He's not kidding. The Food Network's behind-the-scenes kitchen, in its studio located above the Chelsea Markets in New York City, is a gigantic space with five separate kitchen areas, so chefs can prepare the food for several different shows at the same time. These spaces were designed to function just like a typical home kitchen, each with its own oven, stove top, sink and fridge. It is here that the ingredients are prepared for the hosts to use on air.

"Typically between 15 and 20 people are involved just for the culinary elements of a basic cooking show," says Michelle Betrock, publicist for the Food Network. For a bigger show like "Iron Chef America," she adds, the number could be double or more.

Planning for a daytime cooking show starts several months in advance in meetings between the host of the show and a culinary producer. The producers make sure the recipes selected will make an interesting show and that everything can be cooked within a program.

A lot of enticing recipes don't make the cut. "I had to tell chef Alex Guarnaschelli ("Alex's Day Off") that she couldn't make the chocolate crostata — sort of (like an) Italian chocolate pie — that she wanted to prepare," notes the show's culinary producer Ashley Archer. "It just had too many components for a 30-minute show."

Culinary producers "organize every detail" of a given episode, says Jill Novatt, who oversees the network's programming as executive culinary producer. That includes "what goes into the cabinets and fridge; what cooks on the stove top and what in the oven; and even what utensils and pots will need to be handy."

Claire Robinson, host of the popular Food Network show "Five Ingredient Fix," says she and her producer, Wes Martin, often spend six weeks working on the recipes for just a single episode. "There are sometimes 20 points that can be mentioned for any one recipe, and Wes and I break down those points to fit into the show's format."

The culinary producer also plans all the "swap-outs" — the examples of a single recipe prepared at different stages of completion. "We don't want the TV crew to have to stand around and wait for three hours for the osso buco to cook," jokes Susan Stockton, senior vice president of culinary production. The culinary producer gives a list of recipes to a food stylist, who tests them so the home audience can be assured that the recipes work and are written with easy-to-follow directions.

One of the most surprising behind-the-scenes facts is the tiny earphone worn by many of the cooking show hosts. "Cooking on TV is a hard job," Novatt says. "You need to really actually cook while listening to the culinary producer whispering in your ear telling you to smile and to move your hand because it's blocking the celery, all while you also have to pay attention to the studio director on the floor who is pointing to which camera you have to face."

"What's great about the Food Network studio environment," says Sunny Anderson, star of "Cooking for Real," "is having a team where, if I miss an ingredient in the rush or forget how much time I have left, a gentle voice chimes in my ear to keep me on track."

See the rest of the story, including some nice recipes here.

Padded Resume Costs Chef TV Show

New York -- Robert Irvine, host of the popular Food Network series "Dinner Impossible," has lost his job following allegations that he padded his resume.

Irvine had claimed that he helped design Princess Diana's wedding cake, worked at the White House and graduated from the University of Leeds. But an article was published in the St. Petersburg Times last week that cast doubt on his claims.

On Friday, the Food Network announced they were not renewing his contract with the show, and released the following statement:

"We looked into the situation and found that, as Robert has already admitted, there were some embellishments and inaccuracies in his resume. The few and minor incidents of the inclusion of these embellishments into 'Dinner Impossible' have been removed. The show is, and has always been, completely accurate in the depiction of the cooking challenges faced by Robert. We will continue airing both old shows and the new season of programs currently in production. We have not renewed Robert's contract for future seasons but will fulfill our contractual obligations.

We rely on the trust that our viewers have in the accuracy of the information we present, and Robert challenged that trust. We appreciate Robert's remorse about his actions, and we can revisit this decision at the end of the production cycle, but for now we will be looking for a replacement host."

At the same time, the network also released a statement from Irvine, who expressed remorse for his actions:

”I was wrong to exaggerate in statements related to my experiences in the White House and the Royal Family. I am proud of my work as part of the Guest Chef program in the White House, the opportunities I had on the Royal Yacht Britannia and my culinary accomplishments, and I should have stood on those alone, without embellishment.

I remain committed and enthusiastic about my work with Food Network and other future endeavors. I am truly sorry for misleading people and misstating the facts.To all my family, friends and loyal fans, I will work tirelessly to regain your trust and continue to use my show and life to benefit the less fortunate."

The "Glamorous" Life - Reality Check

Don't Just Be A Chef, Be A Glamorous Chef!

(CBS) Dorothy Hamilton is used to fledgling chefs. In 1984 she founded the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan. But even she has been astounded at what's happened in the past five years.

In that short time, she says enrollment has doubled in size. Today there are about 2,000 students taking six month immersion courses at the school.

The story is the same all over the country. Professional cooking schools are expanding and new ones are starting, in part as a tribute to Americans' increasing interest in fine food. But there's another factor, too. Hamilton says the 24-hour Food Network deserves some of the credit.

While early TV chef's like Julia Child helped convince Americans that they could create fine cuisine at home, a later generation of colorful characters such as Emeril Lagasse and the Barefoot Contessa has made cooking seem like a pathway to fun and stardom.

Now many culinary students have stars in their eyes, and who could blame them for dreaming when you watch Guy Fieri? He had worked in the food business for years, already owned four restaurants and then last season he triumphed on a TV competition show.

Now he hosts two Food Network shows himself and is launching a third, but Fieri worries that his success may give some people the wrong impression.

"People that get into it thinking that they're gonna bet all their chips on, on this happening," he told Sunday Morning correspondent Rita Braver. "That's just kind of a long shot."

And it's not just being a TV star that's an enticing long shot, there's also the allure of your own restaurant. Cathal Armstrong is one of those people. He owns Restaurant Eve, one of the top-rated restaurants in the Washington, D.C. area with a six-week wait for Saturday night reservations. He loves his work, but believes there's far too much focus on the glamour of his industry.

"An awful lot of what we do is the same thing all day every day, peeling potatoes and peeling more carrots and cutting more celery, and it's mundane and repetitive," he said. "The kitchen staff arrive between 10:30 and 11 and then they work lunch and dinner service. So they're here until about midnight."

That's more than 12 hours a day, five days a week, at the going rate of about $30,000 a year. So it's no wonder that even as more people want to become chefs, it's harder to recruit good kitchen staffers.

Armstrong says some of the cooking school grads he hired just couldn't keep going. "And have actually dropped out of the restaurant business entirely because of their realization that this isn't the glamorous thing that they expected it would be," he said.

After attending culinary school, Edric Har thought he'd work his way up in the kitchen of a great restaurant, but the pay was too low, the hours too demanding. He now works as a caterer. "While I did love food, and I wanted to be a cook, and that was part of who I was, it wasn't all of who I was," he said.

At the French Culinary Institute, Dorothy Hamilton says that makes perfect sense. Not every one can become a famous chef. "The great thing about our profession is there are hundreds of thousands of jobs every year for cooks," she said. "What you have to have is the right path."