FROM ‘WORST’ TO BEST
CHEF TYLER FLORENCE RETURNS TO CULINARY BOOT CAMP
There’s an old jokey saying, which I’m sure everyone has heard, about how someone is so bad at cooking that they couldn’t boil water. Well, for 16 Americans in particular, that cliché isn’t so much a joke as it is an everyday reality.
In what’s become a tradition to kick off the new year, “Worst Cooks in America” returns with a new batch of recruits on Sunday, Jan. 7, on Food Network. Just like in past seasons, chef Anne Burrell and another celebrity chef welcome 16 cooking dunces into the kitchen and put them through an intense culinary boot camp.
This season, chef Tyler Florence returns to take on Burrell for a third time. See, this isn’t just about turning some kitchen disasters into culinary masters: it’s also a competition between the two chefs. In this week’s premiere, the chefs task the fresh-eyed recruits with making their own signature dishes — and the results are less than appetizing, to say the least.
The last two times Florence and Burrell faced off in boot camp, Burrell went home with the bragging rights, and he’s determined to not let that happen again. After seeing what the recruits can do on their own, the mentors decide to get a feel for how well they can listen and follow simple instructions. They demonstrate how to prepare a straightforward breakfast dish, and then they observe as the recruits try — with varying degrees of success — to make their own versions of the day’s most important meal.
After tasting the dishes, the chefs divide the 16 recruits into teams of seven, sending home the two who prepared the worst breakfasts. It’s always sad to see any of the eagerto-learn recruits go, but “Worst Cooks in America” is a cutthroat kind of game. With Burrell and Florence each mentoring their own teams, the stakes are high. Every week, they each send their worstperforming or worst-improved recruit home, until they each have only a single recruit left for the finale.
The finalists, under the guidance of their mentors, will then have to plan, prepare and execute a threecourse, restaurant-quality meal for a panel of culinary experts. Whoever cooks the winning meal gets
$25,000 and earns bragging rights for his or her mentor.
Can chef Tyler Florence finally knock chef Anne Burrell off her culinary throne? “Worst Cooks in America” returns on Sunday, Jan.
7, on Food Network.