The first sea­son of Food Network’s “Next Food Net­work Star” had me at hello and, for the next few sea­sons, I would watch it with­out fail. Sure, I know the fans thought that some of the Food Net­work Celeb Chefs were being “harsh” in their crit­i­cisms but tv is a harsh busi­ness (hell, enter­tain­ment is hard – PERIOD!) I liked the con­cept, would roll my eyes appro­pri­ately at the “drama” that was edited for max­i­mum dra­matic impact and, all in all, enjoyed the show. There were a cou­ple win­ners that had me a bit baf­fled, but I sup­ported their efforts. There are some I actively rooted for (Chef Aaron for one), some that had some seri­ously good fash­ion sense that mer­its a nod of the stiletto (Ser­ena Palumbo, Lisa Garza) and some that were SO pas­sion­ate about their love for food and cook­ing that they also got their own shows even if they didn’t win (i.e. Kelsey Nixon, Jef­frey Saad, etc.)

The long and the short of it is – I enjoyed Next Food Net­work Star – until now.

On the night of the pre­miere, I was under dead­line and set the DVR. Well, thanks to that lovely Pandora’s Box of Dis­trac­tion – Twit­ter – I noticed that my time­line was even more active than usual about the newly branded “Food Net­work Star” aka #STAR. Hmmmm… what has every­one in a tizzy, I won­dered. Appar­ently there was WAY more drama this sea­son and peo­ple were loos­ing their minds over a few of the Cheftes­tants… so I resigned to put my writ­ing to the side and see what the fuss was all about…

As expected, they go through the usual Cheftes­tant intros which, IMO, had even more ego fluff­ing than usual – some I was fully aware of and have noticed around the var­i­ous chal­lenges, etc and some had that des­per­ate “Look at me! Pick Me!” type of look that could make a viewer wince in embar­rass­ment. I went back to writ­ing while keep­ing one eye on the screen and that’s when I saw it – a Cheftes­tant, Penny, decided that she was going to have a show “STILETTOS IN THE KITCHEN” – I about lost my dag­gone my mind and imme­di­ately deleted the show from the DVR. (Side­note: I have had more than enough drama deal­ing with Cook­ing In Stilet­tos copy­cats and vari­a­tions for some time now and have the headache to prove it. Do peo­ple NOT do their research??). One thing that really both­ered me was that there already is a fab Stilet­tos In The Kitchen and you can even find her book, Stilet­tos in the Kitchen (The Mod­ern Girl’s Guide to Being Domes­tic God­dess), on Ama­zon. What the hell were the Food Net­work Pro­duc­ers think­ing by not even researching?

After hear­ing quite a few com­ments the next day, some­one for­warded me Penny’s Face­book Page and, lo and behold – no more Stilet­tos in The Kitchen – her Face­book page was called “CHEF IN STILETTOS.” Well, there already is a Stiletto Chef - Top Chef’s Can­dice Kumai (who can cook cir­cles around Penny, be gra­cious, rock a KILLER stiletto and is far from snarky – thanky­ou­very­much!). All in all, the lack of orig­i­nal­ity on a culi­nary point of view just really pushed my buttons.

So, with all that I have heard from this sea­son from mus­ings from fans and friends alike, clearly, I am not miss­ing much. 3 shows in and Penny is play­ing the role of vil­lain to the hilt – (and c’mon – she can’t blame all of that on edit­ing. It’s well known that the cam­era takes what you give, includ­ing your con­fes­sional dia­tribes. View­ers are not fooled). Lis­ten – I’m fully aware that shows are edited for that dra­matic fac­tor (Real House­wives any­one?) but I also know that as more of these “shows” are put together, the con­cept of “real­ity” can be lost in trans­la­tion. There are shows that are faux scripted, there are shows that have pro­duc­ers manip­u­lat­ing the out­come, and, yes, there are shows that have jumped the shark and lost all con­cept of real­ity. I can think of a plethora of other chefs that would have been great on Food Net­work Star, i.e. Bren of Flan­boy­antEats, Alex Lopez – the Food Diva, Jaden of Steamy Kitchen – way too many to mention!

So, for this sea­son, I’m going to have to take a pass. I’ll get my recaps over at Food Net­work Humor and, per­haps, maybe the pro­duc­ers will think before they cast next sea­son and look for more peo­ple that are “authen­tic” instead of drama queens.

What are your thoughts on this season’s Food Net­work Star?  Are you watching?

(Photo cour­tesy of Food Network)