The pressure in the kitchen can be overwhelming for the chef and the staff who prepare the food. There have been a lot of reality TV shows and movies where everyone just goes berserk while preparing a dish. DIVA, the leading women’s entertainment destination from NBC Universal International Networks, launched its DIVA Loves Food lineup in an event where they gave media guests a taste of the “heat” behind the kitchen to usher in two new food battle shows.
A tight kitchen area, limited ingredient resource, scarce kitchen utilities and an added time pressure to create special dishes can be a tough challenge to any group of people with little or no experience behind the kitchen. Surprisingly, the experience turned out to be fun, media guests realized how imaginative and competitive they can get during a cook-off challenge. This makes the two new shows from DIVA Loves Food all the more interesting for people.
Sol Vanzi, The Standard’s Tatum Ancheta and Star Sabroso
For the month of May, TV viewers can feast on two kitchen battle series on Diva with My Kitchen Rules that returns on its seventh season and Chef in Your Ear on its premiere season.
My Kitchen Rules
My Kitchen Rules is a popular Australian cooking game show that started airing in 2010. The show chooses pairs with little experience in cooking, mostly home cooks, and these partners can often be friends, relatives, lovers or coworkers whose real life jobs don’t necessary involve the kitchen. The pairs battle off in “instant restaurant rounds,” where they prepare a three-course menu, just like in a real restaurant, for the show’s judges to grade. This season, past MKR contestants are back to join the reality series. To spice things up, renowned English celebrity chef Rachel Khoo also joins as the shows’ newest judge. Eighteen talented teams from different walks of life will battle it out to impress the judges. Imagine miners, police officers, lawyers, and regular blokes working it out in the kitchen and competing in a series of challenges. Catch the show’s seventh season every Monday to Wednesday at 9:25 p.m.
Chef in Your Ear
Do you remember the animated movie Ratatouille in 2007, the movie that made everyone fall in love with this talented rat named Remy who just happened to have the palate of a Michelin star chef? As a rat, Remy couldn’t use his talent in the kitchen, simply because he’s a rat, so he uses a young man named Alfredo Linguini, an ordinary garbage boy, to be his hands in the kitchen while he operates under a chef’s hat, literally hiding on top of Alfredo’s hair. Well, the new show Chef In Your Ear works a little like the relationship between Remy and Alfredo, except that in the show, each episode features a competition between two professional chefs who compete without actually setting foot in the kitchen, remotely guiding two clueless cooks through an ear piece for an hour while they watch through a video monitor. It’s hard enough to be a cook competing behind the kitchen, but directing two clueless cooks through an earpiece to create their masterpiece makes it 10 times harder. But, this makes for a good show! Catch Chef In Your Ear every Wednesday at 8:00 p.m., only on Diva.
Event photos by Star Sabroso