**1) **Food Network will begin filming of the 4th season of ICA in october. The season will air beginning in February 2007. Chef’s include:
Chris Cosentino, David Myers, Graham Elliott Bowles, Jose Andres, Tony Liu, Michael Carlson, Ben Ford, Andrew Carmellini, Tim Love, Robert Gadsby, Peter Kelly, Todd Richards, Marc Murphy, Mary Dumont, Lynn Crawford, Kurt Boucher, Alexandra Guarnaschelli, Charles Clark, Mark Tarbell, Fortunato Nicotra and Linton Hopkins.
I don’t initially recognize any of those chefs however.
**2) **On October 8th, a new battle Flay Vs Bull premiers. If i remember correctly, this is the battle where Chris Cognac is one of the judges. If you have been watching FN alot, he’s the “Hungry Detective” who’s new show premiers in october.
**3) **On October 29th, a new battle, Faulkner Vs. Cora, premiers. Faulkner will be the second pasty chef to enter Kitchen Stadium, and this may be the first time they will do an all-out dessert battle. Lets hope so, because the last pasty chef was forced to make savory dishes and such…
**4) **There are still several battles from the 3rd season that I have been anticipating ever since the season started airing back in the beginning of this year. The tag-team battle of Batali-Ray versus Flay-DeLaurentis is still slated for Thanksgiving. And lets not forget Homaru Cantu Versus Morimoto, where Cantu actually brings a Class IV laser to the battle, and uses a headset to communicate with his sous chefs faster.
I’ve been waiting for Battle Beets with Cantu since forever it seems. Grrrr. I wonder if they are delaying it because Morimoto got spanked too soundly:)
Thanks for the update. I’ve been wondering when I’d get to see Giada flounce around on Iron Chef, I heard the battle was in the can but was afraid I missed it.
But I think they need to ditch the Iron Chefs and get some new ones. Batali and Flay in particular have just gotten too good at working in Kitchen Stadium, they only seem to lose when they feel like trying something dumb, or they’re visibly ill.
Isn’t that pretty much how the original went as well? I can’t seem to find Morimoto’s record at the moment, but IIRC it’s like 2x as many wins as losses.
Flay is only like 8-5-2, so his record isn’t really all that great.
On the original ICJ, the Iron Chefs had like 80-90% winning percents at the conclusion of the show. Certainly higher than what the American Iron Chefs are at now.
Morimoto’s record on the American version is around 50-60% winning, actually. Depends on if you count the Battle of the Masters or not. See this.
Keep Alton Brown doing the play-by-play, I cannot imagine a better commentator. But for God’s sake get William Shatner to play the Chairman! He was great in the cheesy Iron Chef USA specials. The guy playing the Chairman on ICA is totally lame. What exactly does he bring to the table? He’s Japanese?
Dude, he was in a Wing Commander game. And…he knows capoeria, or whatever that’s called. But Shatner would rock because he’s gotten pretty porky. They could starve him before each taping and then turn him loose to wrestle with the chefs for ingredients.
I saw those Iron Chef USA specials a few months ago (thanks to Netflix), and Shatner was great. He totally sold the role and looked like he was having a great time. Wandered around in a velvet cape, rambled about cuisine and philosophy…he was a perfect equivalent of Chairman Kaga from Iron Chef Japan. The ICA chairman is a cipher, the role adds absolutely nothing to the show. He’s not…weird…enough.
I think the problem with Iron Chef USA (and why it was cancelled after two shows) was that it didn’t focus on the food enough, and did too TOO much of the drama/show elements. I think the Food Network purposely picked a chairman that would more or less stay in the background, so they could focus on the food. After all, it is the food network…
I do find it funny how everytime the Chairman seems to do something during the battle, Alton just makes fun of him.