What the Food Network Stars are Doing

It’s been a long time since I’ve written about Food Network, although Food Network programs make up a large percentage of my television viewing. I haven’t written anything because nothing has changed in the past several years. There are still a lot of competition shows and a handful of straight cooking programs. Certainly they made some changes at the height of the pandemic as to which shows were taped and how they were taped. For the most part, however, Food Network has been pretty stable.

What frustrates me is that the top, most skilled Food Network chefs focus on competition shows when they could be teaching us innovative recipes.

Anne Burrell once had a good cooking program called Secrets of a Restaurant Chef. Now she focuses on Worst Cooks in America, which must be popular as the network renews it season after season. Tyler Florence once had a show I really enjoyed called Tyler’s Ultimate. Now he’s all about The Great Food Truck Race. Bobbie Flay, once known for his grilling and brunch programs is tied up with Beat Bobby Flay and BBQ Brawl. On the other hand, Valerie Bertinelli spends a lot of time on Kid’s Baking Championship, but still finds time for Valerie’s Home Cooking. It’s just that her recipes the past several weeks haven’t caught my attention.

I have to give the hosts of The Kitchen credit for giving proper attention to that program, which Terry and I both enjoy, while they still do other work. Alex Guarnaschelli, the newest Kitchen host, stays busy both as a competition host and competitor. Sunny Anderson works as a judge and Jeff Mauro his own competition shows, but we still see them consistently on The Kitchen. Geoffrey Zakarian is frequently off on QVC promoting his merchandise and has the occasional competition program on Food Network, but always offers interesting recipes on The Kitchen. We don’t see Katie Lee Biegel on competition shows, but she’s busy raising her daughter.

I know Food Network is there to make money, and I know they will invest in the programs that get the highest ratings. Perhaps it’s futile, but I can still hope for more straight cooking shows.