The TV Column

Food Network heats up with competition shows

Bobby Deen, Cooking Channel
Bobby Deen, Cooking Channel

Attention, foodies! Your next culinary competition has arrived.

Eight of America's best bakers set out to prove their kitchen skills in a series of challenges when Food Network's Spring Baking Championship debuts at 8 p.m. today.

Full disclosure: I don't get it. Food and cooking shows are on a par with watching fishing shows for me. They make a swell soporific, but other than that, I fail to see the drama.

I do, however, understand others are fully invested in this stuff. To each his own.

I long ago gave up trying to describe a thrilling finish to a golf tournament to my wife. "But it's ... TV golf," she groaned, refusing to see anything remotely exciting about hours of watching people hit a little white ball.

I'm willing to admit that the sight of men in aprons wielding pointy cooking utensils and dueling over who has concocted the best torte or tarte Tatin could prove tense and have dramatic possibilities.

For an overview of what's on the plate, let us turn to the pun-happy publicists for Food Network.

"Bobby Deen hosts this sweet competition, as the contestants attempt to rise to the occasion with their springtime treats and win a sweet spot in the hearts of judges Duff Goldman (Duff Till Dawn, Kids Baking Championship), Nancy Fuller (Farmhouse Rules), and Lorraine Pascale (Lorraine's Fast, Fresh and Easy Food). Only one winner will take home the grand prize of $50,000 and the title of Spring Baking Champion."

See what I mean? They go on. And they're a little heavy on the "sweet."

"After the sweet success of Holiday Baking Championship, viewers craved more delicious desserts and fun baking competition. Now, Spring Baking Championship is the icing on the cake! This competition -- filled with creative baking challenges to celebrate the season -- is sure to satisfy any sweet tooth."

Does that get your blood running like a 30-foot birdie putt at the Master's?

The challenges include Mother's Day brunches, Memorial Day family picnics, birthday parties and weddings. In each of the six hour-long episodes, the bakers are tested in a pre-heat round, where one baker will be granted a special advantage in the main heat.

On tonight's episode, the bakers must create a flower-inspired cupcake. Then, in the main heat they must take on an upside-down cake using fresh fruit. Future episodes feature dessert pops, a layered springtime trifle, and any dessert as long as it is red, white and blue.

In the finale, the three remaining bakers must create a wedding dessert bar before tackling the wedding cake.

If all that makes you salivate, let me describe Jim Furyk's thrilling birdie win on the second sudden death hole at the recent RBC Heritage.

No? Too soon? OK, here's more food stuff.

Chopped All-Stars. Sixteen culinary competitors will face off in a new round of Chopped All-Stars, premiering at 9 p.m. Tuesday on Food Network. The grand prize is $75,000 for the winner's charity.

It's Season 4 for the five-part series hosted by Ted Allen. Each round consists of four chefs going head-to-head over three rounds: appetizer, entree and dessert.

The dishes are judged by a rotating roster of Chopped judges, including Maneet Chauhan, Scott Conant, Amanda Freitag, Alex Guarnaschelli, Marc Murphy, Aaron Sanchez, Chris Santos and Geoffrey Zakarian. They will determine which chefs will advance to the finale.

Tuesday's first episode features competitors Eric Greenspan, Brian Malarkey, Art Smith and former Chopped Grand Champion Madison Cowan.

StarTalk. Attention, science nerds. Or even if you don't think you are. I neglected to mention last week the debut of celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson's new science talk show StarTalk. The second episode, based on Tyson's popular podcast series of the same name, beams down at 10 p.m. Monday on National Geographic Channel. It will feature how director Christopher Nolan translates his love of science to his films.

Fans will know Nolan best from his work on The Dark Knight Trilogy and Interstellar.

At the winter TV critics press tour, Tyson said of his show, "It's a mixture of comedy, science and pop culture fully blended. I'm the host -- the scientist -- yet my guests are hardly ever scientists.

"We orchestrate a conversation around them that constantly detours into science and all the ways [it] has influenced that person's livelihood. And in this way, we bring science to people who didn't know they liked science, or maybe thought that they didn't like science.

"When people see that science is all around you and it's something that affects you every day, not something you can walk around or dig under or step over, then you begin to think about it differently. We're in an era now where I think science has been humanized in a way that is long overdue."

The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.

Email:

mstorey@arkansasonline.com

Style on 04/26/2015

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