Scott Conant and Anne Burrell Release Cookbooks Today; Not Paula Deen

There were a few Food Network related cookbooks that were released today, with one being from Scott Conant (The Scarpetta Cookbook) and one by Anne Burrell (Own Your Kitchen: Recipes To Inspire & Empower).

Scott Conant plans to do several events to celebrate his book signing.  The first event is at Scarpetta Los Angeles on October 22nd that is a $110 4-course menu inspired by the cookbook and includes dinner and an autographed book.  The second event is at Scarpetta Las Vegas on October 24th that is a $150 for a private cocktail party that includes an autographed book.

Anne Burrell is doing the standard book tour and has dates on both the East and West coasts.  The dates and times for her book tour are below.  You can also flip through her book on Amazon with the link above with the "Look Inside" feature.

In other cookbook news, the Paula Deen cookbook that was cancelled earlier this year was supposed to come out today.  I guess the 609,000 Paula Deen supporters on Facebook will not be able to support her financially just yet.

Food Network News - Shows, Castings, Etc.

Here is some recent news involving some of the Food Network shows:

• The Food Network recently ordered 26 more episodes of Mystery Diners (Hollywood Reporter). The show averages over a million viewers per episode, so I guess someone is watching it.  Just not me or most of the people who don't like where the network is going.
• For the next season of Worst Cooks In America, it looks like it will be Anne Burrell going against Bobby Flay again as Anne posted a photo of both of them at a recent casting (Twitter).
• Food Court Wars is coming back for another season and is currently casting (more info below).

 
Here are some upcoming shows that are casting if you are interested on being on the Food Network.  Just know that we will probably complain about you or the show you are on.

Robert Irvine's eat! Abruptly Closes

Robert Irvine's eat! in Hilton Head, South Carolina closed abruptly earlier this week for "emergency repairs."  There is a message on the restaurant website that states:

"We regret to inform our customers and the local community that we are currently closed for emergency repairs to the restaurant. The timeline for repairs is still not currently known to us and we apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause. On a separate note, earlier this week the landlord listed our building for sale. Our lease expires in January and because of the pending sale and repairs necessary to operate we've debated renewing. Our focus right now is on completing the repairs that are keeping our doors closed. Once those repairs are complete we will decide with our staff how we want to proceed. We will keep everyone updated as we receive further information.

'The Scoop' - Food Network's New Talk Show

Photo - Instagram

Back in August, 18 Label Studios posted pictures (pictured right) on their Twitter and Instagram accounts that showed a filming of a show with Geoffrey Zakarian, Jeff Mauro, Sunny Anderson, Katie Lee, and Marcela Valladolid.  It wasn't clear what the show was, but after doing a little research (with help from a loyal reader), it seems like the show was a pilot they were testing out.

It now appears that they are going to go forward and produce the show, and that it will be called The Scoop.  The show will be a talk show about food related topics that should premiere in early 2014 on the Food Network.

The Paula Deen E! True Hollywood Story

There will be an E! True Hollywood Story about Paula Deen that will air this Monday, October 14th on E! at 10:00 PM/ET.  The story will detail her story of coming from nothing to soon having a multi-million dollar empire.  It will then take a look at how her empire crumbled after the national scandal that was ignited by a lawsuit.

Many people weigh in on her success as well as the lawsuit that took her down including Gordon Elliot (producer), Jamie and Bobby Deen, Allen Salkin (author), as well as legal and PR experts. 

Press release with more details and some quotes from people appearing on the show is below:

Rodney Henry's Piestyle Tour Is A Real Thing

Rodney Henry, who was a finalist on the latest season of Food Network Star, is starting a tour called the "Let's Get Piestyle Tour 2013."  Rodney's POV on the Food Network Star was 'Pie Style,' but it was never actually clear what 'Pie Style' was to anyone except Rodney.

The description of his tour, which is set to begin October 9th in Detroit, doesn't reveal too much more about 'Pie Style' in typical Rodney fashion.  It will be his band playing with random people, and there will be pie, and you can bring your own pie to the show too.  If this somehow interests you, or even the thought of there actually being a 'Pie Style Tour' entertains you, the description and tour dates are below:

ULive.com - Free Food Network Episodes and Clips

Scripps Interactive, which runs Food Network, Cooking Channel, Travel Channel, DIY, and HGTV, launched a website that allows you to view many of their shows online for free.  Obviously as it is free, you will have to watch ads to view the videos.

The website is Ulive.com and right now has 75 different Food Network shows available for viewing.  Some of the shows have full episodes plus shorter clips available, while other shows just have short clips.  The 75 shows are a mix of both current shows like Barefoot Contessa, Restaurant Impossible, etc, and shows that have been on in the past.  However, many of the past shows have a single clip and not full episodes.

Also available are Cooking Channel shows, Travel Channel shows and Original Series.  So if you don't currently have the Cooking Channel as part of your current cable package, you can take a look at the 51 shows available there, or watch Travel Channel shows like Rachael Ray's $40 a Day.

Scripps seems to now be embracing the digital world with the launch of this website, and their earlier agreement with Amazon to have episodes of many shows on Amazon's site.

Rachael Ray Show Renewed for Two More Seasons

Deadline reported today that Rachael Ray's Emmy-Award winning daytime talk show Rachael Ray was renewed for an additional two seasons and will run through the 2015-2016 season.  That season will be the 10th season of the show.  Rachael Ray was renewed in 90% of the country including on ABC Owned Television Stations in New York, Philadelphia and Raleigh, N.C; and stations from the CBS Television Stations, Hearst, Post-Newsweek and Sinclair.

In other Rachael Ray news, a new season of her show Rachael Ray's Week In A Day premieres this Sunday at 9am ET/PT on the Food Network.

Trisha's Southern Kitchen - Season 4 Celebrity Guests

Photo - Food Network

Season 4 of Trisha Yearwood's Trisha's Southern Kitchen will begin on Saturday, November 9th at 10:30am ET/PT on the Food Network.  Looking at the episode descriptions of this season, it looks like Trisha will be bringing in her usual friends and family as well as some celebrities to cook with her.

The celebrities include: Kelly Clarkson, Wendy Williams, Chef Art Smith, Olympic Gold Medalists Nadia Comaneci and Bart Conner, and NFL quarterback Kurt Warner and his wife Brenda.

The descriptions of those episodes is below:

From Scratch: Inside The Food Network

There was a book released today called From Scratch: Inside the Food Network, which was written by Allen Salkin and details many behind the scenes details of the Food Network and reveals some previously unknown stories about Food Network personalities.

I received an advanced copy of the book and haven't been able to read through much of it, but I did scan though a lot of it.

The beginning of the book details the early days of the Food Network, and how it got started.  The book also details a lot of the biggest Food Network stars, how they got started, the controversies they were involved in, and some random facts about them.

Author Allen Salkin has tumblr page that is counting down "50 things you didn't know about the Food Network," which will give you an idea the type of things that are in the book.  This book may be of interest to a lot of the people who visit this site.