Tag Archives: Food Network

Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

New competitors bring the heat to Chopped Canada this fall

From a media release:

Twenty-eight chefs from across Canada prepare to compete for the coveted title of Chopped Canada champion in seven new episodes of Food Network Canada’s #1 original series. * In each episode, beginning Saturday, September 3 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, four skilled chefs put their culinary expertise to the test in a battle against the clock and their fellow competitors as they create three gourmet dishes from daunting mystery basket ingredients.

The chefs featured will cook before a rotating panel of expert judges including Massimo Capra, Lynn Crawford, Eden Grinshpan, John Higgins, Susur Lee, Mark McEwan, Roger Mooking, Antonio Park, Michael Smith and Anne Yarymowich. Course by course, the judges critique each meal and chop the chefs from the competition until only one remains to win the $10,000 cash prize.

Episodes of Chopped Canada currently air Saturdays at 9pm ET/PT exclusively on Food Network Canada.

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Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Shaw Media greenlights Season 4 of Chopped Canada

From a media release:

Shaw Media has green lit a super special fourth season of Food Network Canada’s hit series Chopped Canada. A country-wide casting call for the high-stakes culinary competition series is underway, searching for amateur chefs to compete in the prestigious Chopped Canada kitchen. Produced by Paperny Entertainment, in association with Shaw Media, Chopped Canada Season 4 includes six Juniors episodes (ages 9-13), five Teens episodes (ages 14-17), and four themed specials featuring grandmothers, firefighters, celebrities, and Chopped Canada judges. Broadcast details for the new season will be announced at a later date.

Chopped Canada is looking for grandmothers who rule their families’ kitchens, firefighters with a fiery passion for cooking, and young chefs between the ages of 9 and 17 who cook like pros. The series will be filmed in Toronto this Spring and all Canadians or permanent residents are welcome to apply. Online applications for Chopped Canada can be filled out by visiting choppedcanadacasting.ca. Deadline for applications is April 11, 2016.

Chopped Canada Season 4 sees Brad Smith return as host alongside the series’ esteemed panel of rotating judges – Mark McEwan (Top Chef Canada), Lynn Crawford (The Great Canadian Cookbook), Michael Smith (Chef Michael’s Kitchen), Susur Lee (Top Chef Masters), Roger Mooking (Man Fire Food), John Higgins (George Brown College), Anne Yarymowich (George Brown College), Antonio Park (Park Restaurant in Montreal), Massimo Capra (Restaurant Makeover), and Eden Grinshpan (Eden Eats).

Winners of the celebrity and Chopped Canada judges specials will each receive $10,000 to donate to the charity of their choice. Winners from each of the themed and teens episodes will each be awarded $10,000, and the winners of junior episodes will each receive $5,000. Celebrities and Chopped Canadajudges competing in the new season will be announced at a later date.

In each episode of Chopped Canada, four chefs compete before an all-star rotating panel of three expert judges. Armed with skill and ingenuity, the chef competitors race against the clock to turn the mystery ingredients from their iconic baskets into an extraordinary three-course meal. Course-by-course, the judges decide which competitor host Brad Smith will “chop” from the competition until only the winner remains.

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Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Chopped Canada launches Season 3 with Chopped Canada Teen Tournament

From a media release:

Food Network Canada today announced premiere dates for season three of its hit, high-stakes culinary competition series, Chopped Canada. Season three kicks off with its new host, Brad Smith, and the world premiere of Chopped Canada Teen Tournament  (5×60) on Saturday, November 28 at 9 pm ET/PT. Chopped Canada’s third season continues with all-new regular episodes premiering January 9 at 9pm ET/PT.

Chopped Canada Teen Tournament  pits 16 of Canada’s best teen chefs against each other, battling it out for a chance to win $20,000 in this five-part special. In each episode, four young chefs face the clock – and each other – putting their skill and ingenuity to the test in an attempt to turn baskets of mystery ingredients into an extraordinary three-course meal. Competitors between the ages of 13 to17 from across Canada square off against each other, with the winner of each episode advancing to the finale. Course by course, the judges decide which teen chef Chopped Canada host Brad Smith will “chop” from the competition until only one remains. The last competitor standing collects the grand prize and will be crowned the first-ever Chopped Canada Teen Grand Champion. Competitor assets available at www.ShawMedia.ca/Media.

This season, celebrity chef, author, and television personality Mark McEwan joins Lynn Crawford, John Higgins, Antonio Park, Anne Yarymowich, Eden Grinshpan, Massimo Capra, Michael Smith, Susur Lee, and Roger Mooking at the rotating judges’ table, critiquing each meal and deciding which Chopped Canada contestants will be chopped.

CHOPPED CANADA TEEN TOURNAMENT PART I: Dukkah-ing It Out (1×60)
Four young chefs pull out all the stops to impress the judges in the first ever Chopped Canada Teen Tournament as they take on the sous vide, a CO2 canister and the anti-griddle.  Tensions run high as a kitchen mishap jeopardizes one teen’s chance of making it to the finale.

CHOPPED CANADA TEEN TOURNAMENT PART II: Lunchbox Letdown (1×60)
It’s back to school in the second competition of the Teen Tournament with four teen chefs testing the classic snack favorite, “Ants on a Log”, in the appetizer round. Things quickly heat up and snap, crackle, and burn in the entrée round.

Season three of Chopped Canada continues with all-new, edge-of-your seat episodes on January 9 at 9PM ET/PT.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Corbin Tomaszeski cooks up truly Incredible prize on Food Race

Corbin Tomaszeski laments the fact that, with many having busy lifestyles, families aren’t able to enjoy quality time preparing or sharing dinner together.

They’ll get a little bit of both—in a seriously amped-up manner—via The Incredible Food Race. Debuting Wednesday on Food Network, celebrity chef Tomaszeski and ET Canada host Rick Campanelli serve as hosts and ringmasters as two families face off in physical challenges followed by a live cook-off in front of an audience; the audience then tastes both meals and votes for the winning family. What does the triumphant squad go home with? Groceries for a year courtesy of Walmart Canada.

“Competition shows usually award product, some kind of service or monetary amount,” Tomaszeski says. “There’s something really attractive and tangible when it’s food and you have the control over what you buy. And, hello, food is a basic necessity.” The former Restaurant Takeover host explains The Incredible Food Race is more about bringing people together and having fun, with a big prize at the end.

It doesn’t take long for the “fun” challenges to turn into a bona fide competition in Episode 1. The super-athletic Snyman family face off against the vegan Buddle-Gills in three tests designed to give distinct advantages during the final cook-off. The biggest of those three advantages? Several minutes with Tomaszeski coaching them while preparing food for the hungry voting audience. The Dinner Party Wars judge admits that, unlike feelgood co-host Campanelli, he wants to hear smack talk and see some tears because it makes for good TV. One of Tomaszeski’s favourite challenges is called “Sumo Sushi,” and features a team member rolling their own rice-based recipes … while wearing inflatable sumo wrestler costumes.

At this point, Season 1 is a mere six episodes filmed in Toronto, but Tomaszeski hopes, if a sophomore season is ordered, The Incredible Food Race can become a country-wide affair.

“I think we’ve only just scratched the surface with Season 1,” he says. “I think we should travel or have people from across Canada come here because there are so many different types of families and components of families out there that it’s a good idea.”

The Incredible Food Race airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Food Network.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Food’s Chef In Your Ear the ultimate in culinary improv

Simply put, Chef In Your Ear is unlike any culinary competition on television today. In it, unskilled cooks prepare a restaurant-quality dish in one hour with help from a professional Canadian chef. The hook? The chefs are ensconced in remote booths, directing competitors orally through earpieces while observing them via a bank of monitors.

“It’s like an improv performance,” says series executive producer Daniel Gelfant. Developed from an idea by Justin Scroggie and Ricardo Larrivée, Gelfant’s final product—debuting on Food Network on Monday at 10 p.m. ET/PT—Chef In Your Ear (hosted by Second City’s Greg Komorowski) is a wild mix of laughs, excitement, a little embarrassment … and a huge learning experience for chef Cory Vitiello.

“We lose three of our most important senses in taste, smell and touch,” Vitiello says on the phone from his latest Toronto restaurant, Flock. “But because we lose that, I found I paid attention to so many other little details than I would if I was actually down there. Watching through five monitors, I’m able to see a pot boiling on the back, or bones being left in meat.” Vitiello and fellow Canadian chefs Jordan Andino (Harlow Sag Harbor), Devin Connell (Delica Kitchen), Craig Harding (Campagnolo) and Rob Rossi (Bestellen), have to call on their skills as coaches, mentors and psychiatrists to guide their charges through to success with recipes for pork schnitzel, eggs Benedict, spaghetti and meat balls and eggplant Parmigiana.

Vitiello and Rossi are in tough in tonight’s first episode of 26, “The Big Bang”; the former is paired with violin superstar Rosemary while the latter teams with toymaker Nick. At first, it seems like a recipe for disaster, especially since Rosemary screams when she’s under pressure. Suffice it to say, there is a lot of screaming from her side of the kitchen and Vitiello struggled early on to keep her focused.

“I think every one of us started each episode saying, ‘There is no way this is going to work,'” he says. “But then you build some trust and some confidence and there is a point where it just clicks and you work together. You can see the transition on the floor, where they realize, ‘Oh my God, I can do this!'”

Chef In Your Ear airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Food Network.

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