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Getting 'Chopped' in Competition by Food Network Host Ted Allen
by Troy Rogers
Most TV cooking aficionados know Ted Allen as the former food and wine expert from the popular Queer Eye series. After a stint on Bravo as a judge on the third and forth seasons of Top Chef and a summer hosting gig on the Food Network's mythbusting series Food Detectives, Allen is playing host all over again on the new series Chopped, which makes its Food Network debut on January 13 at 10pm. Unlike other competitions, Chopped will feature four weekly budding chefs as they compete to make three-course masterpieces out of everyday ingredients, with one eliminated after each course until the winner of Chopped is crowned and given a $10,000 prize.
 A day prior to the Chopped premiere, our own resident culinary Deadbolt, Troy Rogers, grabbed his apron and picked up the phone for a quick conference call chat with host Ted Allen to get the goods on the new Food Network series, the details of the competition, how Queer Eye helped him for the show, and what types of food Allen is into at this very moment.
THE DEADBOLT: I’ve read quite a few reviews online have said that Chopped is like Top Chef. Can you explain how it’s different?
TED ALLEN: Why did I know that people were going to do that? And the really funny thing is that there are a lot of bloggers out there with extrasensory perception, evidently, because I should point out the show has never been broadcast yet. I was alluding to this before, there are a shockingly large number of cooking contest shows out there now, and it isn’t even just on cable. Obviously Hell’s Kitchen is on Fox, which is sort of a network, not counting the news part. And there’s a new one coming out, I think it’s in D.C. with Marco Pierre White, who is the great three star Michelin chef who trained Mario Vitelli, who has an ego the size of, you know, Texas. Bad example. I should’ve said something European.
Our show is different from all of those shows. Well, first of all, I think all of those shows have their own character and I think Chopped very definitely has its own vibe. It’s mainly different in that all of our episodes are self contained. So we have four chefs in each episode, one person wins, takes $10,000 and goes home. It’s also different in a sense that it’s strictly a cooking contest, there’s really no reality component to it. So they don’t live together and we don’t take away their phone. They’re just there for one day to cook three courses and leave, if they’re lucky. Some only get to cook one course and then they have to leave.
But I guess I should acknowledge that Magical Elf, who are the people who have made Runway and Top Chef, and several other shows, that they definitely are influential on all kinds of television, because they’re so good at what they do. I don’t know, but I’ll let you guys judge for yourselves. When you watch Chopped, I think you’ll see it’s got its own thing going on.
THE DEADBOLT: What are the details and criteria for the three course meals the contestants have to prepare?
 ALLEN: The rules are pretty simple. You can do whatever you want, but for each course there is a basket of mystery ingredients. That can range anywhere from three to five things and you have to use all of them in your dish. You can use a little bit, you can use a lot. It’s not like on Iron Chef where you have to make one of them the focal point. But I have to say it’s really difficult to cook with when you have to use all five things or all three things. They might not necessarily seem to go together in an obvious way. We’re not going to give you like Soba noodles, salmon, ginger, and soy sauce. It’s never going to be that simple, and then you only have thirty minutes to think of the dish, execute the dish and place the dish. It’s actually really hard.
THE DEADBOLT: How much did Queer Eye help prepare you for this show?
ALLEN: Well, quite a lot, I guess, because I was doing a lot of cooking and a fair amount of food writing in restaurant criticism before I got to Queer Eye. But we made 99 episodes of that show and every episode I had to come up with, or at least sign off on, another culinary segment. What I loved about that job from a food point of view, it was just completely limitless. You could do anything. You could talk about the different styles of champagne, from sweet Demi Sec to Padres to Rosé . We could talk about Indian food, we could talk about burritos, we could talk about a single new spice. It’s just such a limitless topic that I always felt bad for, say, Kyan Douglas, because his topic was grooming and there’s only so many things you can groom. I mean, you know you can wax somebody’s back. You can give them a hair cut. You can shave or not shave. It’s kind of much more focused than the food world, which is just enormous. I think my category was a lot easier.
THE DEADBOLT: What type of food are you into right now?
 ALLEN: [laughs] If you want to know what kind of food I’m into right now, go to my website and there’s a blog entry that’s called "An Exclusive Tour of Our New Kitchen," which shows what is our current, temporary kitchen, because we’re renovating the house. And right now what I’m into is food that I can cook on a hot plate or in a microwave oven. But I’ve actually been doing really well. I have a microwave that’s also a convection oven. So you can cook real stuff in it, and I’ve been roasting chickens. I’ve been making baked ziti. And on my little cook-top I’ve been doing risotto. Last night I did like a chicken, broccoli, cauliflower and carrots with pasta in a broth, that I reduced down. I guess what it boils down to is that you really don’t need a fancy kitchen to cook well, it just makes it a lot more fun and a lot easier.
THE DEADBOLT: More room, I guess.
ALLEN: Yeah, because I’m cooking in my laundry room and my counter space consists of nothing but a portable dish washer on wheels. So my counter space is like two and a half feet by two and a half feet, and that sucks.
THE DEADBOLT: Sounds like you’re in a FEMA trailer.
ALLEN: [laughs] Yeah, it’s very much like that. It’s kind of like camping. It’s kind of fun. I’ve been doing okay and, as that blog entry will show you, I have a really good roast chicken recipe if you want to roast a chicken tonight.
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