Melissa d’Arabian Set to Drop 5 lbs with Good Housekeeping
Cooking Channel Press Release:
NEW YORK, NY – December 7, 2011 – Cooking Channel kick-starts the New Year with two new series designed to help viewers lose weight and change their eating habits. In Not My 
Mama’s Meals, premiering Wednesday, January 4th at 9:00pm ET/6:00pm PT, Bobby Deen takes his mother’s (Paula Deen) recipes and transforms her southern comfort food into lighter, leaner, yet still delicious versions of her dishes, with special guest appearances by Paula Deen, Daphne Oz, among others. Emphasizing small changes that deliver big results, Drop 5 lbs with Good Housekeeping premieres Saturday, January 21st at 11am ET/8am PT. Based on the magazine’s popular weight loss column, the series is hosted by Melissa d’Arabian (Ten Dollar Dinners with Melissa d’Arabian), and also features expert advice from fitness guru Ashley Borden, Good Housekeeping Nutrition Director Samantha Cassetty and Aarti Sequeira (Aarti Party).
“After a season of over-indulging, January is the perfect time to introduce Cooking Channel viewers to Not My Mama’s Meals and Drop 5 lbs,” said Bruce Seidel, Senior Vice President, Programming, Cooking Channel. “Both shows emphasize healthier foods that are still delicious – with expertise from Bobby Deen, who prepares his mother Paula’s world famous dishes with a lighter touch, and tips from Good Housekeeping’s Drop 5 lbs ‘small change, big result’ philosophy.”
Each week on Not My Mama’s Meals Bobby Deen will recreate some of his mother’s famous meals with healthy substitutions that cut down on calories and fat, but still deliver on taste. Bobby begins his culinary quest by putting a unique spin on two of his mom’s dishes, her Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding and Chocolate Mousse Pie, by whipping up a Fresh Fruit Bread Pudding and Frozen Chocolate Pie. The Bag Lady herself (Paula Deen) makes a surprise visit to help Bobby lighten up two dishes that go way back – her Pimento Cheese Sandwiches and Gooey Butter Cake.
Designed to make weight loss easy and manageable, Drop 5 lbs with Good Housekeeping episodes are filled with cooking and shopping tips, workout techniques and dining out do’s and don’ts. From slimmed down versions of indulgent dishes like Fettucini Alfredo and Sesame Shrimp Stir Fry to fat blasting fitness plans and nutritional advice, this series offers a new approach to eating better, getting healthier and getting the most out of life.
Not My Mama’s Meals is produced by Follow Productions.
Drop 5 lbs with Good Housekeeping is produced by Scripps Networks, in partnership with Good Housekeeping.
Panini Pete Does Mobile
Almost six years ago a CIA grad named Pete Blohme opened a casual little sandwich shop in the Fairhope French Quarter. Blohme’s “everything from scratch” approach was a refreshing addition to the Mobile/Baldwin dining scene. His mixture of upscale ingredients and novel flavor pairings were tailor made for the artsy Eastern Shore crowd.
The chef’s panini were so good that people started to take notice. Important people, like the Food Network. A few years ago Panini Pete’s was featured on the hit food/travel show Diners, Drive Ins & Dives. Pete and host Guy Fieri made fast friends and it is a friendship that has open a few doors. Doors I’m sure Pete had never even considered back when he was the Executive Chef at the University of Alabama.
Since being featured on Triple D, Blohme has appeared on numerous TV shows on the Food Network and CMT. He is also a member of Fieri’s culinary caravan called the Traveling Road Show and a member of America’s Chefs, a group performing cooking demos for and feeding our troops.
Pete’s fame these days is enough that he is bringing his act across the bay to the state’s second largest city, Mobile. Occupying the old Loretta’s space in the heart of LoDa. It’s a prime location with a lot of history, the perfect fit for the guy who has reinvented the sandwich.
For the second week in a row downtown Mobile has been treated to an age old tradition that is rarely seen in South Alabama, the soft opening. Last week it was Culinard’s new training restaurant the Kitchen on George this week it was Pete’s place.
The interior is comfortable and trendy while the exterior is pure Mardi Gras, the ivy covering the brick walls is adorned with hundreds of beads from carnivals past. Pete was of course on hand to meet and greet and was kind enough to give me a private tour of the new kitchen. I’m a chef; I geek out on stuff like that. The crowd was happy and full. Notables on hand from the local food scene were Bob and Buffy Donlon (the folks who rescued Wintzell’s Oyster House) and LuLu’s at Homeport owner Lucy Buffett.
For guests there were ample samples of Pete’s culinary genius being distributed like his amazing beignets, inventive burgers (I was blown away by the Eastern Shore – onion confit and herbed goat cheese) and of course his name sake panini. So many panini in fact I didn’t get to try them all. I did make sure to try the famous ones – the Pete’s “Muffaletta” Panino and the House Roasted Turkey (see video below for the 411 on that). Also available for noshing was Pete’s homemade potato chips. See what I mean about everything made from scratch? Oh, for the record Pete makes his own mozzarella cheese, too.
The new Panini Pete’s is a welcome addition to the Port City. This town has earned the right to have fast food that is also good food. The restaurant is located at 19 S. Conception Street and Pete plans on opening to the public Thursday; once open they’ll be serving breakfast and lunch Monday through Friday.
Diary of a Wannabe TV Chef – PT 2
This is the latest installment in a continuing series that documents my personal quest to become the host of my own cooking show. Since this is a relatively new “career” there are no vocational programs or community college courses to prepare me for it. From what I have seen, the two most import elements in securing such a position are passion for food and plain old dumb luck. Born with a passion for food, I set out to make my own luck.
The Cookbook
They say that admitting you have a problem is half the solution. If only that same math could be attached to achieving a goal. The exact date is not known to me but sometime during the year of our Lord, two thousand three I had an epiphany that not only did I want to be a chef, but I wanted to do it in front of a camera.
The problem was I was not working in the food industry. For the past three and a half years I had been working at a 1-800 call center for a rental car company. In fact, I had not cooked professionally since the spring of 1998. In December of ‘98 I moved from Nashville back to my hometown of Mobile, AL. I thought with my experience I would surely be able to get a job in a restaurant. After all I had worked in a dynamic city and had excelled in what was a booming restaurant scene.
The problem was that Mobile’s restaurant scene was fading. My experience was useless as no one was hiring. I tried starting my own Internet business, I worked at a cultural exhibit, played a few music gigs, but still the restaurant jobs eluded me. When the call-center opened a few miles from my home it seemed I was doomed to life in a cubical.
Without a commercial kitchen to vent my culinary artistic whims I did my best in the tiny apartment kitchen at my disposal. This was a challenge as the oven was so small that standard cookie sheets would not even fit in it. Never the less I cooked, honing recipes, learning techniques, doing anything I could to improve my skills.
Through this period I had created several recipes that are best described as Mexican/Creole Fusion. Those recipes included my Creole White Chili that my company had twice prepared in the Mobile Chili Cook-off. The dish was well received. I began compiling these recipes in the hopes of writing a cookbook.
Through my days as a wannabe Internet entrepreneur I had become familiar with a company called 4 Star T-shirts & More! who did print-on-demand T-shirts, hats and other cloth materials. They were adding a new print section to their store. On July 23, 2004 my first cookbook, Amigeauxs – Mexican/Creole Fusion Cuisine went on sale via their web site. It wasn’t professional cooking but it was better than nothing. Most importantly I had taken my first step towards building credibility.
