FoodieBuddha.com

The Food Network has enlisted celebrity chef Tyler Florence to help bring food truck culture to reality TV.  On Sunday August 15th, the Food Network’s The Great Food Truck Race premiers at 10PM EST.  Sadly, no members of Atlanta’s burgeoning community will be on the show.  However, a number of notable street slinging foodies are featured.  The complete list … after the jump!

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Later today, Atlanta’s best bar meets restaurant (a.k.a. Holeman + Finch) is set to be a location for an upcoming episode of the Food Network’s Chefs Vs City.

The premise of the show centers around a challenge from the show’s hosts (one part Aarón Sánchez and one part Chris Cosentino).  They find two local foodies chefs and dare the challengers to eat some of the more adventurous dishes from the city they call home.  While I’m not one of the challengers (good thing – cuz I’ll put most any dish in my tummy), it’s no surprise the H+F showed up on the schedule.

The gastro pub is best known for their burger, their hot dog [it is freakin awesome], and their cocktails.  However, true fans know that the establishment serves up what most people would call “exotic” parts of the animal.  Chances that the veal brains and/or the rabbit livers show up? I’d say strong to very strong.  More later as the details leak out.

I’ve been waiting months for this evening.  The Food Network should be the “it” place for all foodies.  In what is sure to be lots of fun, Iron Chef America’s season premier is tonight.  The episode, tagged as the Super Chef Battle, will feature Mario Batali & Emeril Lagasse on one side, and Bobby Flay & Cristeta Comerford on the other.  Comerford, in case you are wondering, spends her days as the executive chef for our first family.  Michelle Obama will also make an appearance.  Keep reading for all the goods!

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Now this is one hell of a great idea!  RoamingHunger.com is a site dedicated to those lovely little food trucks we’ve heard so much about.

While these little wandering snack shacks are noticeably absent from Atlanta’s dining scene (since the demise of Via Elisa), this is a great site for the foodie on you. [sic ]  Roaming Hunger is a glorified twitter aggregator that tracks the daily location of roughly 200 trucks.  It comes complete with user ratings and little tidbits about each truck. 

Food trucks are a trend that has grown from underground “coolness” into on the cusp of being overdone.  I’m sure it will definitely hit here sometime … but for now, we have Ketel One vodka’s alcohol-free truck on the loose.  Top Chef’s Ilan Hall is behind the wheel on that.  Meanwhile, Taco Bell got busy, and Ingrid Hoffmann (of the Food Network) is doing it up Miami style.

[thanks FC]

Why is this newsworthy? Who the fock knows.  But it’s Paula Deen and Atlanta and Hosea Feed The Homeless … so here we find ourselves.  Details are as follows:  Paula Deen was in town to participate in the well known Hosea Williams food thingy. However, no good deed goes unpunished.  With Food Network cameras in tow, Deen and an unidentified helper dude started playing toss the hog.  On the return throw, Porky got all up in that … leaving Deen with a swelled nose and impeding nightmares of Old Major ahead.  But as they say … all publicity is good publicity.  So in keeping with that theme, why don’t ya’ll send some love Hosea’s way.

[via WSBTV]

Though I’m a much bigger fan of the Japanese original (that’s a wiki link), Iron Chef America isn’t half bad.  Hosted by Atlanta’s own Alton Brown on the Food Network, the competition show features a number of great cooks (remember the Richard Blais episode?).

Now, a couple of Iron Chef’s (Mario Batali & Bobby Flay), will join Emeril Lagasse in a Super Chef Battle at the White House.  I must admit, it saddened me to hear that Atlanta’s White House Restaurant was not the hosting location.  Instead, the trio will take a trip to our nation’s capital to challenge White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford and first lady Michelle Obama.

The episode, a two-hour special, will premier Sunday January 3rd, 2010 at 8pm.  The challenge at hand?  Create a meal for America using the White House Kitchen’s local produce as the secret ingredient.  Talk about taking Farm to Table to the next level?  I’ll be watching!

[via prince of petworth]

Yesterday, I mentioned how online media portal Hulu.com added Martin Yan’s Hong Kong to their repertoire.  Today, I figured that I might as well expand on that post just a bit.  If you don’t spend a lot of time on the computer, and/or don’t try and stay plugged in to the “what’s happening at an internet near you,” it is quite possible that the name Hulu is nothing more than a head-scratcher.

The joint-venture startup launched just shy of three-years ago and currently houses thousands upon thousands of hours of television.  Unlike some of those other sites offering free television programming, Hulu has several major advantages.  Most notably, it’s legit … so everything is super duper high quality.

The site offers commercial-supported streaming video of TV shows and movies from TV stations like NBC, Fox, ABC and many other networks and studios.  Of particular interest to ya’ll is the website’s Food & Leisure channel.  There you’ll find all shows from the likes of Paula Deen, Bobby Flay, and Gordon Ramsey (who doesn’t love to see Gordo go ape all over some moronic excuse for a restaurateur – aka Kitchen Nightmares).  Meanwhile, Bravo TV shows like Top Chef are available for your viewing pleasure, as is the Food Network’s Good Eats with Atlantan Alton Brown, and the PBS show Diary of a Foodie.

Even if food related television isn’t your favorite, Hulu is definitely worth a visit.  The site is just loaded with great stuff.  Alright folks, until we eat again.  Meanwhile, any of you who actually have employees working under you – make a beeline for your IT Department and ask them to block the website … otherwise, you’re gonna have some ravenously unproductive people in your office in about 30-minutes.

Get your DVRs ready for Saturday afternoon.  Long before he graced our screen as the darling of Top Chef, Atlanta’s own Richard Blais showed up TV sets across the states on an episode of the Food Network’s Iron Chef America.  The challenge, which took place back in ‘06, featured chickpeas as the ingredient du jour and a battle of fisticuffs between Blais and the well-regarded Mario Batali.

Keen eyes will notice the One Midtown Kitchen logo across Blais’ breastplate.  At the time of filming, he was the executive chef at 1MK.  Appropriately, Blais brought his sous chef at the time, one Eli Kirshtein, along for the ride.

For those unfamiliar with the show, a challenger will enter a 1-hr cook-off against one of a stable of cook masters, appropriately named “Iron Chefs.”  The trick is that a single ingredient is used as the basis for the meal.  Though I much prefer the Japanese version, complete with kitschy voice dubbings, the US version comes with Alton Brown’s quick witted commentary.  I won’t spoil it for those of you who haven’t seen it yet.

And speaking of Blais, you’ll be able to get your fill of him on Saturday.  In what is probably a coincidence, Richard and his funktastic hairdo will be on the main stage of Taste of Atlanta 2009 from 12pm-12:45pm.  So head out in the early afternoon to see him live, then check him out on the tube just before dinner time.

Battle Chickpeas: Batali vs. Blais

Re-airs on the Food Network on Saturday October 10th, 2009.

5pm-6pm, 11pm-12am, 2am-3am (on Sunday)
Comcast channel 57 or 857 for HD

Got a vivacious personality?  Love food? Want to be a TV star?  If the answer to those questions is yes; then here is your chance to be the next Guy Fieri.  Food Network’s “The Next Food Network Star” is running tryouts for season 6, scheduled to drop sometime in 2010.   Tryouts will be held between 10am-4pm on Monday, August 24 at the W Hotel in Midtown.  If you are interested, you should spend some time reading the rules & requirements.

If you can’t make those tryouts, you aren’t up a creek without a paddle. Here are two other options for you:

• Online Submission: Submit a full application [link] via email (as a pdf) to nfns6@yahoo.com.  Then, visit this site to submit your video.
• Snail Mail Submission: Mail in your 3-minute video (DVD/mini DV tape) and application to: CBS/The Next Food Network Star, 524 West 57th St. NY, NY 10019

Alright folks, get cracking!

It’s late Friday and I’m actually home for once.  That leaves me to my own devices with plenty of time to scour my RSS feed of unread material.  Here’s one thing that turned up the past couple of days! Enjoy Ms. Sandra Lee of Food Network fame and some creative editing: