Bourdain, Top Chef, Project Runway Lead Nominations for 2010 TASTY AWARDS SHOW

TasteTV today announced the nominees and categories for the most exciting and prestigious event ever to celebrate food and fashion programs on television, in film, and online, the 2010 “TASTY AWARDS.”

Anthony Bourdain, Top Chef, Project Runway, Cake Boss and Guy Fieri lead the awards finalists with several nominations each.

Hosted by food and travel television star Zane Lamprey of “Three Sheets” fame, the two-hour red carpet event takes place at the Sundance Kabuki theatre in San Francisco on January 14th. The program will air on stations nationwide in February 2010, reaching millions of households.

The show features a star-studded lineup of food and fashion TV celebrities, including Tyler Florence, Joanne Weir, G. Garvin, Tanya Holland, Leslie Sbrocco, Gary Vaynerchuk, Marcy Smothers, Novella Carpenter, Anita Chu, Dominique Crenn, Brian Solis, Marissa Churchill, and more.


Special Achievement Awards have been announced for Anthony Bourdain, Martin Yan, Paul Prudhomme, YouTube, Alton Brown, Jacque Pepin, Meryl Streep, Giada De Laurentiis, and Tim Gunn, among others.

The viewer appetite and response to food and style programs has surged over recent years, making them some of the highest watched video content. The TASTY AWARDS spotlight the year’s best achievements in food and fashion programs on television, in film, and on the web.

To participate in the Viewers Choice voting, or for a full list of nominees, please go towww.TastyAwards.com, as well as get updates on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/TastyAwards.

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TasteTV Celebrity Chef Updates

TASTY AWARDS in SF- January 14th

It’s official!

The 1st Annual TASTY AWARDS, the “Grammys” for outstanding food & fashion programs on television, in film, and online, will be on January 14th in San Francisco.

First round Judging is taking place now.

Finalists will be announced on December 1st. We’ll also be announcing the location, the events, honorees, presenters, and sponsors.

How Successful Are TV Food Chef Contestants?

Apparently your future success as a television career competition winner really various. Maura Dieringer of USA Today provides an interesting follow-up on the careers of various reality food/fashion/design competition show winners, and it’s not all peaches and cream.

Here are three examples out of several that USA Today gave:

HGTV Design Star, Season 2 (2007): Kim Myles

Myles, known for her use of unconventional design on a tight budget, is in her third season of Myles of Style. She was a hairdresser in New York before the show and earned an associate’s degree in theater in Bakersfield, Calif., her hometown. She lives in Los Angeles and has been a guest designer on several HGTV shows


Hell’s Kitchen, Season 2 (2006): Heather West

With a reality-show victory under her belt, West is working on two books while shooting the pilot of her own show, Eat This. As her prize from the show, West was the senior chef at Terra Rossa in the Red Rock Casino Resort in Las Vegas for a year. She graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 2003 and is chef Gordon Ramsay’s sous chef on this season of Hell’s Kitchen


The Next Food Network Star, Season 3 (2007): Amy Finley

Finley completed her six episodes of The Gourmet Next Door for Food Network, but decided not to sign on for a second season. In February 2008 she became the first columnist for Bon Appetit‘s new column, Family Style, and stayed for about a year. Then she left the magazine, moving to France with her family to write a regional cook book. She remains out of the public eye.


On the other hand, none of them can be called losers. Most in general of the food types are or have started their own restaurants, which many had wanted to do before the shows but couldn’t. So for many it has been career building, even if that career isn’t on television.

Who Wants to be a Famous Food Critic?

Who Wants to be a Famous Food Critic? Especially if no one knows it’s you.

That’s the question that’s being asked about the new Food Critic for the New York Times, who by design can’t let people know who they are in a time when all the money, fame, and power comes from being a recognized brand.

Recounts the New York Observer, here is part of the dilemma, as described by someone from the outside:

Mr. Ozersky is the 41-year-old restaurants editor for Citysearch who blogs at the Feedbag…

Mr. Ozersky now wants to be a food personality. He wants to be a judge on Iron Chef. He wants to host his own television show. He wants fame. He said he’s 55 percent there. And, he said, even though the Times restaurant critic holds an incredibly powerful position, it’s the last thing he would want to do. Not in a million, zillion years, he said.

“The Times critic can’t go on TV!” he said. “What would you do with that power? You can’t go to the restaurants you like, you can’t shmooze with the chefs and writers you like. You can’t go on Top Chef!”

“As far as I’m concerned, you have to be on television,” he continued. “You can win the National Book Award and you can write on the front page of The Times every day, and you’re still not as famous as some busty tramp on Tough Love on VH1.”

Mr. Ozersky is part of an army of writers who don’t profess to be critics, or to do what Mr. Bruni does—he, instead, is trying to do something entirely different, he said.

Too true, too true.

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New Tasteable T-shirt Idea


When we get around to it, maybe TasteTV will get our new line of t-shirts out the door before October 11th. One we like at the moment:

“Life is too short, so why waste precious thyme”

Of course, we think it’s sort of original. It’s based on a Pat Benatar lyric.

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Michael Jackson’s Personal Chef tells tale


PEOPLE Magazine has the scoop from Michael Jackson’s personal chef:

Michael Jackson’s personal chef says Dr. Conrad Murray was a fixture at the household of Michael Jackson – so much so that when his routine changed the day of Jackson’s death, she knew something was wrong.

“I thought maybe Mr. Jackson is sleeping late,” Kai Chase, hired by Jackson to cook the family meals, told the Associated Press of the morning of June 25, when she noticed that the singer’s doctor had not come down Jackson’s bedroom carrying a pair of oxygen tanks, as he did every morning.

The celebrity chef, 37, hired by Jackson in March, says the Jacksons’ was a happy home, with a focus on healthy living.

Jackson, preparing for a series of comeback concerts in London, had fruit drinks and granola for breakfast every morning, and ate healthy foods like chicken and spinach salad for lunch with the kids. Dinners might include a seared tuna steak, and Dr. Murray was often a guest at the table. Jackson’s daughter, Paris, 11, started each meal by saying grace, Chase says.

As for Chase, who expected to go to London with the family, she plans on publishing a cookbook – an idea that Jackson encouraged. The book will focus on her time with the family.

Not that it promotes her cookbook, right? Hopefully it comes with photos.

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