Top Chef

Gail Simmons has a pretty full plate right now: in addition to being in charge of special projects at Food & Wine magazine, she's also got some pretty steady gigs as a judge on Top Chef and the host of Top Chef: Just Desserts. But on top of that, her first book, Talking With My Mouth Full, was just released yesterday.

Over the phone, we caught up with Gail, who despite being at the top of her game, offered plenty of her time to share candid thoughts on everything from the health hazards of celebrity chefdom to her plans 15 years from now.

Find out her thoughts on current food issues, her plans for now (and later), and the one question she'd be happy to never hear again, when you keep reading.

• Find out about Emma Watson's next film with director David Yates — NextMovie
• The 20 best post-Super Bowl TV episodes — BuddyTV
• Daniel Radcliffe picks his five favorite movies! — Rotten Tomatoes
• Check out the Western set of Quentin Tarantino's latest film — Moviefone
• See which Bravo show just got renewed for a 10th season — HuffPost TV
• Is Simon Cowell trying to woo Beyoncé for The X Factor? — Zap2It
• Here's the villainous role you can see Gary Oldman in next — The Hollywood Reporter
• The 10 funniest Super Bowl food commercials — YumSugar

Bravo's just released the list of contestants for season nine of Top Chef, which premieres Nov. 2, and the network's switching things up a bit. Instead of one series location, this season will be shot between three cities, Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio, and there's a list of 29 hopefuls, which will be whittled down to 16 real cheftestants.

Charlize Theron, Pee-wee Herman, Patti LaBelle, Cat Cora, John Besh, and Tim Love will make appearances — and let's not forget new judges Emeril Lagasse and Hugh Acheson. Keep reading to see all the hopefuls competing on Top Chef: Texas.

The Top Chef empire just keeps on multiplying. The latest addition to the franchise? The ConAgra-backed Top Chef Healthy Showdown, a weekly, cobranded web series filled with quickfires and elimination challenges using only healthy ingredients.

On the so-called show, four contestants — Sara Nguyen of season three, season four's Ryan Scott, and Casey Thompson and Tre Wilcox of season 3 and Top Chef All-Stars — compete for a $25,000 prize (and, in promotion-heavy Bravo land, the opportunity to launch a Top Chef line of Healthy Choice entrées).

The first episode is riddled with plenty of clichéd phrases like "the competition is stiff, food is skinny, and the stakes are high" ("This is redemption for me," Scott declares in one particularly dramatic moment). Still, with only wholesome ingredients, creative use of kitchen techniques will be more important than ever. I'm curious to watch for that reason alone, and it makes me wonder why they don't have an entire season of Top Chef dedicated to healthy cooking. Will you tune in?

We've been wondering for some time: how will Bravo top last season's Top Chef All-Stars? The answer, we're assuming, lies in the location. After more than a month of speculation in the blogosphere, the folks at Bravo have finally confirmed that Top Chef is headed to Texas.

According to the announcement, the season will take place in "not one, but three cities — Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio." Houston is glaringly missing. In addition, the show will feature not only the regular cast of characters (Padma Lakshmi, Tom Colicchio, and Gail Simmons), but also Emeril Lagasse and and former Top Chef Masters contestant Hugh Acheson.

As a native of the Bayou City, I'm undeniably biased, but it's hard to believe that Houston — the largest city in the state, the fourth-largest in America, and home to Bryan Caswell, Chris Shepherd, and some of the country's biggest rising stars — has officially been snubbed. We should pray that this season won't get caught up in Texas stereotypes, but the announcement — which is already full of cheesy references like "everything's bigger" and "we hope the cheftestants' cowboy boots are made for walking" — almost certainly foreshadows campy challenges and hokey one-liners. I'm already predicting a kill-your-own challenge on a ranch, a guest appearance (or five) from Dallas star chef Tim Love, and a trip to Smitty's, Salt Lick, Kreuz, or another famous Austin-area barbecue joint. Will you tune in?

• 7 showstopping recipes for paella. — KitchenDaily
• Photographic evidence that Top Chef 9 is in Texas. — Eater
• A week with Alinea's serviceware designer. — Huffington Post Food
• Why legalizing food trucks will only make things worse. — New York Times
• The future of famous French spot Le Bec-Fin doesn't look so hot. — Grub Street Philly
• What you should know before going vegan. — The Daily Meal
• Most common food product substitutes. — TLC
• Scotch lovers: try drinking Japanese whisky. — Food Republic

• Make a French dip in honor of Bastille Day. — Food Republic
• Tips for hosting a Harry Potter screening party. — The Daily Meal
• Top Chef asked Texas tourism boards to pay for filming in Texas. — Eater
• From nachos to pizza, creative ways to make s'mores. — KitchenDaily
• See which chain restaurants are pushing healthier menu items for kids. — Grub Street SF
• Expand your cooking repertoire by using farro. — The FN Dish
• Yelp will go public sometime in the next year. — PC Mag
• Spam: not such a mystery meat after all. — TLC

Source: Flickr User stu_spivack

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced its 2011 nominations for Primetime Emmy Awards this morning, and, as usual, a number of food programs were included.

On the exhaustive list of Emmy nominees were Top Chef for Outstanding Reality Competition (among other nominations); and Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations for Outstanding Nonfiction Series, with a number of additional nods for the series's post-earthquake Haiti episode.

Top Chef and No Reservations were in good company: McDonald's, also a nominee, has been acknowledged in the Outstanding Commercial category. If you were in charge of the awards, which TV shows would you nominate?

Photos courtesy of Bravo