Chef Robert Irvine Taping an Episode of Dinner: Impossible in September 2007 at Sheppard Air force Base, TX

For those who may not have heard The original host of Food Network’s Dinner: Impossible? is back. Chef Robert Irvine has made his way back to the show he made famous, of course bringing his sous chefs David and George with him.

The new season airs on Wednesday April 8th and I for one will be happy to see chef Irvine back at the helm in this season. It’s not that I have anything against Chef michael Symon, but he just didn’t bring the frenetic pace and appeal tot he series that chef irvine brings. (…Or the cool factor that comes along with chef Irvine’s bulging muscles and cultured accent. Let’s be honest, both men and women can appreciate Robert Irvine. Chef Symon isn’t really gonna bring in the ladies to watch the show in his garage-inspired chef’s coat.)

The episode lineup fits the bill of seasons past and includes the following titles:

ROBERT IRVINE RETURNS WITH NEW SEASON OF
DINNER: IMPOSSIBLE
New Season Premieres on Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 at 10:00pmET/PT

NEW YORK – March 11, 2009 – A marvel in the kitchen, Robert Irvine overcomes culinary obstacles in Food Network’s popular series, Dinner: Impossible. Robert returns with six new hour-long episodes premiering Wednesday, April 8th at 10pm ET/PT, accepting missions like an extreme dinner for 200 Winter X Games athletes, preparing odd but tasty combinations of food for 450 Yahoo! employees and taking a gamble on a mission at the renowned casino at Mohegan Sun.

Upcoming episodes include:

Premieres: Wednesday, April 8th at 10:00pm ET/PT – SEASON PREMIERE!
“X Eats at the X Games”
In the season premiere of Dinner: Impossible, Robert heads to Aspen, Colo. to cook for 200 action sports athletes at the Winter X Games. Robert works in severe outdoor conditions, and has just seven hours to make his most extreme menu ever. Can he overcome spills, hills and chills, or will this be Dinner: Impossible?

Premieres: Wednesday, April 15th at 10:00pm ET/PT
“The Yahoo! Search Scramble”
Robert visits Yahoo! headquarters in the heart of Silicon Valley to celebrate the anniversary of Yahoo! Search. His mission: make the top 15 most-searched dishes, with a catch – each dish must be made with a randomly assigned top-searched ingredient! Can Robert overcome the strange pairings and successfully feed 450 Yahoo! employees in just eight hours, or will this be Dinner: Impossible?

Premieres: Wednesday, April 22nd at 10:00pm ET/PT
“Casino Craziness”
Robert takes on a real gamble at Mohegan Sun. In a special casino, Robert spins the roulette wheel to see how many people he will serve, rolls the dice at the craps table to see how many hours he will have to prepare and plays three games of blackjack in hopes of winning three crucial ingredients: oil, sugar and salt. Will Robert make a jackpot meal, or will this be Dinner: Impossible?

Premieres: Wednesday, April 29th at 10:00 pm ET/PT
“NBA All Star Stress”
Robert attends the NBA All-Star Weekend Cares and Cooks fundraising event, where he has just 10 hours to create nearly 30 different NBA-inspired dishes for 2,000 fans! Robert creates a menu inspired by five teams from the Western Conference and five from the Eastern Conference. Can he beat the buzzer on his All-Star mission, or will this be Dinner: Impossible?

ABOUT ROBERT IRVINE:
Born in England, Robert Irvine began cooking at the age of 15, when he joined the Royal Navy. As part of his service, he worked on board the Royal Yacht Britannia where the Royal Family and their entourages regularly dined. In addition, Robert participated in a guest chef program, allowing him to cook at the White House. In his 25 year-long career, he had the opportunity to serve 6,000 servicemen and women on a US aircraft carrier and plan the menu at a spectacular celebrity-studded after-party at the Academy Awards. Robert also wrote a cookbook entitled “Mission: Cook!” (Harper Collins, 2007). He currently owns his own multi-faceted company.

[From The Official Chef Robert Irvine Blog]

Welcome back, chef robert. you have been missed and your fans have been heard by the execs at Food Network.

For those of you who would be interested in the real story behind Robert’s resume mix-ups and the allegations that were tossed around upon his departure from Dinner: Impossible, check out his official blog using the link above. It’s a good and inspiring read.

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When the weather turns chill and you’re looking for something to warm you from the inside out, a good braised dish is the perfect choice.  Today was that day.  We woke this morning with snow on the ground and a bitter chill in the air that really didn’t get a whole lot beter as the day went on, though it was hard to notice the cold weather with the aroma of this dish permeating the house all day.

I decided to braise beef in tomatoes early on in the day.  I had originally thought of serving the dish with pasta or plain old white rice, but a quick trip to the pantry convinced me otherwise.  Sitting forlorn and lonely at the back of the shelf that holds both my rice and “enriched macaroni products” I found a small bag of brown rice and an even smaller bag of pearled barley. The combination sounded so perfect that I immediately shifted gears in that direction and I couldn’t be happier that I did.

The result was a warm and completely satisfying meal that did not leave room for dessert, but did leave more than enough leftovers for beef and barley soup tomorrow and most likely some other concoction the day after.  There really isn’t much that makes me happier than a meal that does double or triple duty and this one fits the bill perfectly.

This recipe is a keeper.  I hope that at least one of you gives it a try and then lets us all know what you think of it in the comments.  I can’t tell you how strongly I feel that this dish should be made in every home in America when the weather is horrid.  It’s just that good.

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If there’s one thing that makes this particular venue stand apart from all the others like it, it’s that I have always pushed the idea that food should be fun. Honestly, what’s the point in slaving over a hot stove in a hot kitchen if you aren’t having any fun doing it?  Just once this week, this month or this year, walk into the kitchen and make something that’s just FUN!  It doesn’t have to be good for you, it doesn’t have to be worthy of a setting on the table of a fine dining restaurant, but it should make you smile. That’s what this particular “recipe” is all about.

At moments like these inspiration can, and should, come from anything that puts a smile on your face.  In my case, it was a few minutes wasted on YouTube watching the iconic antics of John Cleese,  Graham Chapman and the rest of the cast of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.  In particular, the SPAM skit:

In the end, I settled on using SPAM Egg Sausage and SPAM, because it’s “…Not got much SPAM in it.” (Certainly not as much SPAM as SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM eggs and SPAM.)  Initially I was going to simply serve it up as a breakfast plate, but I had a strong desire for some good rye bread, so the Full Monty Python Sandwich became the result of the evening.

Not healthy.  Not terribly gourmet. possibly enough to make my cardiologist have a few nightmares, but it was fun to make, fun to eat and just the thought of it still has me smiling.

Go ahead.  Have some fun in the kitchen. Even if the results are awful, you’ll be laughing about it and that’s what the entire adventure is about.

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If you’ve been thinking about making a more permanent commitment to that significant someone in your life, then you’ve probably been thinking about getting the perfect ring.  You may have looked at a variety of diamond rings at your local jeweler and even made trips out of town in hopes of finding just the right one.

If you’ve found it, great! If not, why not consider purchasing online, where you can design a custom ring in just a few minutes. And why not skip the gold and go with platinum?  It’s distinctive, and platinum engagement rings and wedding bands are far less likely to get damaged over time, which protects the investment you’ve made, both in erms of the cost of the ring, but the happiness of your partner. (Trust me, it’s devastating when a ring gets damaged.  I’ve had it happen.)

If it’s something you’d consider, try Blue Nile.  They’re known for their customer service, superior quality and attention to detail.  When you’re buying something like this, you want to be sure you’re dealing with someone you can trust, so trust the best.

And congratulations…  I hope that on that very special day,  they say yes! (you were going to get down on one knee, weren’t you?)

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You may not know it, but my wife and I just started looking for a home of our own.  As a Military Family, this is an exciting time in our lives.  Even though we’re still waiting on pre approval for the loan, I’m already thinking in terms of “worst case” scenarios.

What would happen if for some reason our property was stolen? The house broken into? What if there was a fire or a flood?  Would we be covered?  Would our insurance pay enough to cover the damages?

All of these things are possible.  Even as renters we’ve always carried insurance, and as home owners we’ll carry it as well. but in the case of the unthinkable, I’d proably still check with a Public Adjuster to make sure that we were being compensated fairly if for some reason I felt that the amount offered by my insurance provider was less than it should be.

Have you though of these things?  Have you ever worried about your home?  It’s kind of new to me and I think it will take some getting used to.

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If you’re looking for an alternative to a nice hot bowl of chili on a cool evening (or better yet, a hot summer’s evening) you might want to consider using something other than beef as the main ingredient.  In this case, I chose the American bison, or Buffalo, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. I’ve actually been dying to try it since I found that I could purchase bison at the base commissary.

While this is just a riff on my normal chili recipe, there are several ingredients that I omitted, both to be true to the bison itself and because I wasn’t sure that those additions would do any justice to the slightly gamy flavor of the meat.  In my opinion, I made the right choices.

We tried to keep the ingredients to something that native Americans might have had on hand if they had decided to make this dish.  since the primary crops of many tribes were beans, corn and squash, I used these things as the secondary cast in this production, with stellar results.

The end product is most definitely chili, but with an ever so slightly gamy back note and a deep, rich flavor that I doubt could ever be achieved using beef. It is, in my humble opinion, everything that chili should be, and If you can find buffalo or bison locally I urge you to try it, you won’t be disappointed.

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Egon Ronay suggests that Gordon Ramsay should behave more like Escoffier, the celebrated chef who penned Le Guide Culinaire. Unfortunately, there seems to be some areas he forgot o address:

In a letter today to the Guardian Egon Ronay compares Gordon Ramsay unfavourably to César Ritz (1850-1918), the best-known inn-keeper in history and Auguste Escoffier (1849-1935), the most celebrated chef who ever lived.

Escoffier codified the food served in establishments such as his own Savoy Hotel restaurant. From his “Le Guide Culinaire” any chef could learn the correct basic preparation and garnish of the hundreds of dishes that constituted classic haute cuisine. He is a hero to today’s chefs, because he preached the maxim that became today’s kitchen mantra, “faites simple”, and actually put it into practice, rediscovering the fumets and reductions of ancient French cookery that are the basis for today’s lighter sauces.

So Escoffier appears to be a good candidate for the chef as champion. The only difficulty is that he and Ritz were crooks. Escoffier himself was chiefly guilty of taking bribes and kickbacks from suppliers (then a common practice, as it may still be in some big institutions). But there were huge sums involved – not much short of £1m in today’s money. Mr Ronay neglects to mention that Escoffier and Ritz were sacked by their employers at the Savoy on 28 February, 1898.

[From Should Gordon Ramsay really behave more like Escoffier? | Life and style | guardian.co.uk]

Before you go bashing me for bashing Escoffier, I’m not arguing his talents as a chef in the slightest. without Le Guide Culinaire the world would be a much sadder place in terms of our culinary habits and experiences. I do however, agree with the author of he article in that Ramsay’s business practices are, in comparison, exemplary.

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There are certain recipes you know you just have to try the very first time you hear of them.  You know the ones, don’t you?  It’s that certain something that sticks in your memory once you’ve seen or heard of it.  It won’t leave you alone until you can recreate it or find somewhere that sells it so that you can see what all the hype was about.  You do have those days, don’t you? Don’t You?

For me, Spam Musubi was one of those recipes. Ever since I saw it on some TV show I was watching, I’ve longed to try it for myself, but have put it off.  Then I saw Anthony Bourdain sing it’s praises on an episode of No Reservations and I wanted it even more, but I resisted.  It was my next-door neighbor’s Hawaiian best friend that finally talked me into tying it, and I’ve never been more glad that I set out to make something in my life.

Most American’s regard Spam with the same sort of distaste that is reserved for things such as offal, but the Hawaiians not only love the stuff, they’ve elevated it to a new level.  Spam Musubi has all the subtle flavor combinations you would expect from an Asian dish, but uses the most humble ingredients.  In one bite you’ve go sweet, sour, savory, salty and starchy, all in different intensities with each bite.

You gotta try this!

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Think you have to avoid fast food restaurants if you’re trying to lose weight? Adam Clatsoff would disagree with you, he lost 100 pounds eating at fast food chains.

“I dieted myself to about 400 pounds. You know, you lose, you gain, and I suddenly realized I had to have a life change,” explained Adam Clatsoff.

The life change for Clatsoff was turning to fast food for most of his meals.

“I realized you can walk into a fast food restaurant and you do not have to order a 1600 calorie meal,” he said.

Clatsoff says over a two year period, he lost more than 100 pounds.

[From Author loses 100 lbs on fast food diet : News : WEYI NBC25]

And you thought they were off limits!

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