Dr. Phil Makes a Move on Cat Cora

I'd guess that the last thing a celebrity chef would want while attending a fancy event at music mogul David Foster's Malibu estate is Dr. Phil sneaking up behind her... but he did just that to Cat Cora this past week!




Whoa... step off, Phil. Cat has a wife, you know!

The big party was actually hosted by Dr. Phil. Cora treated the guests to Italian chocolate cake (in honor of guest Andrea Boccelli) and other deserts featuring Edward Marc Chocolates. Yum!

Wonder if all those goodies fit into that diet plan Dr. Phil used to promote? Hmm...

Sandra Lee does TODAY

Sandra Cuomo Lee appeared on the Today show a while back and managed to get in about 50 bullet points (that everybody already knows already) about what semi-homemade is, what her magazine is, what the name of her new cookbook is, and even what kind of sausage she had cooking in the pan (answer: "breakfast.")

According to Aunt Sandy, "one of the fun things about fall is that you can have breakfast for dinner."

And by "breakfast," I can only assume she means 3 shots of Jack with a twist of gin. Or does it mean you should drink your brunch's bloody marries at night? I'm not sure.



If you can't get enough of Food Network peeps on Today, Sunny Anderson will be on it tomorrow morning during the 8 a.m. hour.

Anne Burrell Sued for Discrimination!

Anne Burrell's Food Network show is called Secrets of a Restaurant Chef. At the show's inception, Anne was the chef at New York's Centro Vinoteca -- an Italian restaurant in the West Village that recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

WELL--Anne isn't working for a restaurant anymore (guess they should change the title to "Secrets of a TV Chef"), but she is being sued by former restaurant employees.

Former employees at Centro claim she referred to them in derogatory terms like "slutty," "saggy," "ho," "whore," and "stupid dumb whore… idiot."

The plaintiffs also claim Burrell commented on their cleavage and harassed them with offensive remarks like, "have you f****d that [co-worker] yet? and "You must be tired today from f***ing all night."" They also claim they were fired in retaliation for complaining about Burrell.

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I've met Anne a few times and she's been nothing but nice. Hell, Food Network just put her on the damn turkey float in the Macy's parade, so they must be backing her! Hopefully this will get worked out soon.

[Source and Source]

Alex Guarnaschelli's Got Love... For Herself!

"Joined" or "started it yourself," Alex G?


Haha...just kidding, Alex! Nothing like a little self love to get you through the day.

Where the F Has Dave Lieberman Been?

Longtime Food Network Addict readers know fondly about my affinity for Food Network's onetime golden boy Dave Lieberman.

I reviewed and commented on his show Good Deal and his webisode series Eat This and Dave Does, often (check out one of my favorite posts on Dave here) and even got the chance to chat with him for a few moments at the South Beach Wine & Food Fest back in 2007.

Thennnnn...he kind of disappeared. His show stopped taping new episodes (my TiVo sometimes records the random Good Deal repeats, perhaps to honor ole' Dave) and his website/blog went dormant--actually it never really got started to begin with. (He has since relaunched his website and blog, although it hasn't been updated since June.

Now, he doesn't seem to be cooking all that much--least in front of a camera. He is, however, doing a video for Rockport shoes... and that's good enough for me to post!




He still looks good, but let's take a look at him in his more youthful days:



Keep on keeping on, Dave!

Sunny, Anne, & Claire In the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade... sponsored by Food Network?

Thanksgiving is all about food, family, and facilitating lucrative advertising deals!

Sunny Anderson lets us know on her blog that she, Anne Burrell, and Claire Robinson will be riding on the famous Tom the Turkey float in tomorrow's annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade... plastered up with the Food Network logo!


I don't know how I feel about this one. I get that things need to be sponsored and everyone's looking to get their brand out there in new ways (Macy's is obviously the big brand name that people probably just say unconsciously when mentioning the parade by name), but some things are sacred... can't the turkey float just be nice symbol of Thanksgiving and not another billboard?

What's next? The GoDaddy.com Turkey float? The official Butterball brand Turkey float? The Endorse Sandra Lee for First Lady of New York Campaign Turkey float?

Be on the lookout for the Food Network ladies... and the Food Network LOGO tomorrow when you watch the parade!

Paula Deen Hit in the Face with a Ham

I admit it. When I read the headline: "Paula Deen Hit in the Face With Ham" I figured it must have something to do with Smithfield and protesters.


But apparently it didn't.

Pauler was in Atlanta this morning, taking part in a "25,000 lbs of protein" donation to Hosea Feed The Hungry & Homeless when an errant ham hit her right in the nose.

In the video, Paula and others are playfully tossing the hams, so I assume this was just an unfortunate accident. Looked like it hurt, though! I hope Paula--and her nose-- are okay.

Those frozen hams and heavy. No tossing turkeys this Thanksgiving, mmmkay?

[Thanks for the tip, Jen!]

See Me with Ina--Again! Dear Food Network Thanksgiving Desserts

Oh wow! The episode of Dear Food Network that I appeared on last year is airing again--right now! It'll also be on several more times throughout the week leading up to Thanksgiving.

I can't believe an entire year has passed since my visit to East Hampton. Such an amazing experience, that was.

I gotta get cracking on my mixed berry cheesecake!

Review: Food Network's Cook Or Be Cooked for Nintendo Wii

I recently had the chance to test out Food Network's first ever Nintendo Wii game "Cook Or Be Cooked," which was released to stores on Nov. 3. Since I don't own a Wii (I'm afraid I'd get addicted... and I'd probably still just want to play old school Mario Bros), I sent it to my friend Daniel, a fellow Food Network addict, to review. Here are his thoughts:

So I was pretty excited to test Food Network's new game for Wii since I'm a big fan of Cafe World on Facebook, however I wasn't so impressed after playing it for 30 minutes. The basic premise of the game is to collect medals for performing cooking tasks at specific times using the Wii remote. Each medal opens a new recipe for you to cook. There appears to be about 20 recipes that you can cook, with each one getting progressively harder and harder. You have to time them correctly in order for the food to be hot when it's served. Food Network was nice enough to include the recipes in the game manual so you can actually cook them in real life.

After cooking in the solo mode, you are judged by Susie Fogelson and Mory Thomas. The Susie character is spot on. I don't ever remember seeing Mory on TV, so I can't say anything about him. After opening up the recipes in solo mode, you can then compete against a second player in dual mode.The downside of dual mode is that you just get scored and you don't see Susie or Mory.

All in all, it's an ok game as long as you know what you're playing. It could potentially improve cooking technique and timing, but since the goal is to cook all the recipes and get a gold medal for each one, when you're done... you're done. Don't really see the replay value in this one.


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Thanks Daniel! Hmmm... I guess if you're awesome from the start and get gold medals for every recipe you would get bored pretty quickly with this game. Anyone else out there test it out yet?

Guy Fieri On His Still-Not-Sold-Out Roadshow

Tickets for the Guy Fieri Road Show, a 21-stop, 30 day "concert-style cooking tour" featuring Fee-Eddie himself that kicks off tomorrow in Lowell, MA, went on sale in September. According to his website, none of the dates have sold out.

To use one of my hated, ever-present food puns... did Guy bite off more than he can chew?!?!


Onstage with Guy will be L.A.'s DJ Cobra and— alert Sandra Lee — a 6-foot-tall, 25-gallon margarita maker.

"The show is about, if you love food like I love food and you're into the world of food like I'm into the world of food, then why shouldn't there be a food-a-palooza? Why shouldn't there be a food thing? We get together, we bring some other chefs in. We make food, we tell stories about food, we talk about 'Diners Drive-ins and Dives,' we cook food, we make some drinks, we have some laughs, we pull some antics and we just have a food concert." Guy told Pop Eater.

"Besides seeing your favorite person on TV, when do you ever get to see them live, see them real? That's the point. See it live, see it real."

Paula Deen tried her hand at a food tour several years ago, albeit on a much smaller scale. And if I remember correctly, it did not sell as well as expected.

Could it be that food fans, even the most devout Guy-lovers (who are they?), still don't want to spend $250 for an "Off tha Hook" package including stage seating and the chance to sample the goods?

Giant food festivals like the South Beach Wine & Food Festival and other smaller, more regional fests in other cities make sense for celebrity chefs to appear at. They're a big draw, but not the only attraction. You have to REALLY like Guy to shell out this kind of money... and if you're only paying for nosebleeds, is it really worth it just to see him "live, see it real" in a giant stadium?

I guess I will never understand.