letusprocrastinate

During the recap show there was a commercial for the renovation episode which is coming up and if you watched carefully they gave away the big winner. I won't say which one it is, but I'm not surprised.

I'm sure that @LittleIggy and I weren't the only grown adults who saw the pirate ship and thought, "I'll take it!"

I'm starting to watch this show and therefore started with Episode #3. Just in case anyone hasn't watched it yet, I won't give away the winner, but that being said: House #1, the visual direction-giver in me (ie. turn left at the first intersection after you see X) would be using it as a landmark. House #2, I want to be a kid again just for the backyard. I also hope the owners get on good terms with the local FD. House #3, that one part of the kitchen was pretty neat.

Just a theory: Maybe FN wants to air the rest of the new episodes of Beat Bobby Flay by the end of the year, so rearrange the schedule a bit so the usual Thanksgiving primetime programming is holiday competition-related and keep running those episodes on Thursday primetime through the end of the year since, conveniently, Christmas Eve and New Years Eve are also on Thursdays. Then burn BBF episodes on a night that usually doesn't feature him except when he's made appearances on Chopped, which is especially handy if there aren't any Chopped episodes in the can and he can't complain they aren't in weekday primetime. After all, there could be worse time slots to air those BBF shows, as can be testified by people involved with shows that get dropped and the remaining episodes get sent to the scheduling equivalent of Siberia.

Multiple media outlets are reporting that Bobby Flay is leaving the Food Network after 27 years.

His name is Eduardo Garcia. http://www.chefeduardo.com/

Another Cox Cable customer here who just learned something...

And now it's the episode with Dan and the CO2 tank. @Mondrianyone, sorry. Since the cold brew coffee episode was being shown again, and I remember watching it when it was first aired and thought it was way too much work for such a limited result, that I made sure to watch it again. Still have that impression.

I don't drink coffee but I've made it for others and the amount of beans caused me to raise an eyebrow. Made me wonder if Erin prefers her coffee really strong.

That episode (S21, Ep5, also included fried eggs and yeasted waffles) was just broadcast on one of the PBS stations I get. Medium roast coffee beans (7 oz if you weigh, 2 1/2 cups if you don't have a scale), 12-72 hours of steeping (she did 24), and then several more hours of going through a filter to make a concentrate that can keep in the fridge for up to a week. But it definitely was an involved process to make 2, maybe 3 cups of cold-brew coffee.

I haven't seen the Aperol Spritz segment, and I've never had said beverage, but "First, go get a tank of Carbon Dioxide" is not exactly warming me up to try whatever recipe is being suggested.

I guess that also means three more years of Hunter Fieri?

Streaming, people cutting the cable cord, people getting outside more, stale programming, and most attempts to launch something new fail so therefore sticking with the stale programming. If I was an FN exec I'd be a bit concerned.

Looking at the reviews on QVC's website for previous cookbooks the earliest they go back is the summer of 2016, when Chris was already gone (the infamous lawsuit over Milk Street was filed in October 2016). So while I cannot say it definitively, I'd say it is very much likely ATK hooked up with QVC after Chris went bye-bye. That being said, when an ATK cookbook shows up on QVC Julia is going to be the rep and they're always going to put her on the channel's most watched show, In the Kitchen With David, which is on Sundays.

Julia was just on QVC selling a cookbook devoted to salads; she shows up several times a year selling cookbooks, now via Skype but previously she'd make the trip to West Chester, PA to be there in person. Can't blame ATK for partnering with QVC; at the end of the 10 minute presentation they had sold close to 3000 cookbooks. More than once I've seen an entire allotment of 5000 ATK cookbooks sell out during that same timeframe.

Watching an episode right now, I'd bet Bridget is one of the presenters not using her own kitchen, and may be the one using the rental (she's making Tuscan white bean and escarole soup, S21, Ep9).

I wonder if it has something to do with what @xaxat mentioned above about how certain game shows like Jeopardy don't pay expenses. Although with Jeopardy in particular, think of the fun they'd have since they don't know how long someone is going to be sticking around. At least with a show like Wheel of Fortune, you're done in a day, but even then think of how many episodes they tape each season. With a show like Chopped, how do you do it if you've got a contestant coming in from across the country and another from 10 miles away? One's expenses are going to be a lot more than the other's. Establish a top dollar limit with a sliding scale based on distance? Offer everyone a stay in the hotel of the network's choice but limit the number of days and guests they'll cover? Give everyone, regardless of where they're from, a per Diem for a set amount of days? They'd definitely have to include a means for a contestant to waive any expense coverage. Increase the prize money and maybe make sure every contestant walks out of there with at least something, a la Jeopardy?

Around last May or June (sorry, can't remember exactly when), one night in the wee hours of the AM, WETA ran a pledge show featuring INXS at Wembley. It's back to normal programming for the DC/Baltimore stations next weekend, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Probably more than one FN viewer: Robert Irvine's coming back! Yay! Oh, I have to pay for a streaming service to watch him? Well, I don't need to watch him that badly.

I wonder if they do that so just in case something goes haywire with a chef's Plan A, they have something available for a possible fast Plan B depending on how much time is left.

Also, what is the lead time on filming? It may have been done when states, especially east coast ones, were slapping travel restrictions on other states, as in you show up here, we want you to quarantine. Or maybe (probably likely) cheftestants were required to provide a negative test prior to arrival. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I doubt Food Network would cover either of those costs, and from what I understand they don't pay for travel and lodging anyway. So $10,000 before taxes doesn't seem like much of an incentive anymore for the hassle, even if gets your name out there, unless you have the ability to bankroll your trip.

They made up the character of Uncle Max to replace Father Wasner, the family priest who became the manager when the family started singing publicly and also went with them when they left Austria. They started singing to make money after Georg invested a whole lot of it in order to shore up an Austrian bank which ended up failing and left the family pretty much broke. They even took in boarders to help pay the bills. So whatever backstory you want to make up for Max, go for it. Elsa is a variation on someone named Princess Yvonne, whom he was was courting but he ended it mainly over the fact that she wanted to put the kids in boarding school and have them spend their time on the Vienna social scene. After the relationship ended, she spread gossip that he was having an affair with Maria, who had been living in the house for a year at that point, first as a teacher and then as the housekeeper. They weren't, but the damage was done. He was fond of her, and although she was reluctant they got married.

You can find the West German movies on YouTube.

Not arguing with you on that. What got put on screen is a lot different than what really happened. I think part of it is that the stage musical had a lot more political context added into it and they intentionally didn't include it in the film.

Another TSOM story: When they were filming in Austria, the real Maria was there (she's actually in the movie; as Julie Andrews is leaving the convent she can be seen walking in the courtyard in the background, from left to right, with one of her grandchildren). When she met Christopher Plummer, she shocked him by kissing him on the lips and telling him he was better-looking than her husband.