Better Late Than Never Department: Going through a backlog of e-mail that piled up during a busy week, I got to one from a few days ago announcing the cast for The Next Iron Chef: Redemption and spotted a familiar name -- Fort Worth's Tim Love. As the Redemption of the title suggests, this season features chefs who have competed before, but there are also two first-time wild cards: Love and Marcel Vigneron, the werewolf-haired bad boy who has appeared on Top Chef and Top Chef: All Stars.
For the uninitiated, The Next Iron Chef is a contest to find a new member of the rotating team of chefs on Iron Chef America, a group that includes such familiar foodie names as Bobby Flay and Masaharu Morimoto (long-running Iron Chefs Mario Batali and Cat Cora have departed). In Iron Chef America, chefs have 60 minutes to prepare five dishes featuring a "secret ingredient." Love has competed on the show before, defeating Morimoto -in a chile-pepper battle.
The Next Iron Chef: Redemption is scheduled to premiere at 8 p.m. Central Nov. 4 on Food Network.
