Sneak Peak: Emeril Live! on Fine Living Network

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Maybe you haven't watched Emeril Live! for a few years. Now that the show that put Emeril Lagasse on the celebrity map way back in 1997, has moved to the Fine Living Network (FLN), Super Chef decided to take another look thanks to a sneak peak DVD of the premier show. Emeril Live! launches with new shows airing from July 7-11 at 7pm. After the launch, there will be new shows only on Mondays at 7pm ET, with re-runs Tuesday through Saturday. The Emeril machine has plenty of energy left, and not just because of the "Bam!" and "Oh, yeah baby" lines. Emeril is a master of pacing. The show moves quickly and covers tons of ground – if you can't follow the actual recipes, and if some of the cooking happens during commercial breaks, at least there is no down time to savor the successful dish. It is there, and then he moves on to the next dish – while the luckier audience members get to taste. He still has Doc Gibbs and the Emeril Live Band playing light jazz and providing patter in mock Late Show with Johnny Carson style chatting with Doc Severinsen. He still has stacks of prepared ingredients to dump into a blender, food processor, or frying pan – but he does stop to taste, thicken, and actually cook, if sometimes that only means adding copious amounts of salt, oil, and garlic. The episode featuring dishes from Emeril's New Orleans Fish House in the MGM Grand Hotel Casino in Las Vegas,including interviews with the managers and the chefs who run the restaurant for him. His talented Chef de Cuisine Jean Paul Labadie, a Puerto Rican by birth - someone who knows fish and seafood well, almost upstages Emeril. And it is Jean Paul who rides into the show on a motorcycle, answering the question posed by everyone else: "Who is crazy enough to open a fish restaurant in the middle of the desert?" Shouldn't we being seeing Emeril in his own restaurant – or is the point that he isn't there, but here on TV cooking for us? A snippet of Jean Paul shows him preparing Kalamata Roasted Branzino with Heirloom Tomatoes and Arugula Panzanella. He is serious, interesting, and the dish looks good – if not tastier and more sophisticated – then anything Emeril makes later on in the show. Will the Food Network snap this guy up? If not FN, then Bravo or Fine Living should snatch this guy. Since this new episode of Emeril Live! was filmed, Jean Paul has moved on the Emeril's newest las Vegas restaurant, Table 10 at the Palazzo. Back on the show, Emeril makes a series of seafood dishes, ostensibly secrets from the Fish House. He starts with a Crab Cake with Avocado dusted in Panko crumbs and served with a mango-papaya cabbage slaw. It is a colorful dish with plenty of heat from the hot peppers added to the slaw dressing. Next he makes three seafood salads – lobster with mayonnaise, chopped egg and tarragon; crab meat with mayonnaise, chives and wasabi; and finally shrimp in a remoulade sauce, very much New Orleans style. He piles each salad on small rolls to create sliders and serves them to the hungry crowd with potato chips. It's fun bar food and Emeril shows that the salads aren't hard to make. Next Emeril starts on fish fillets. He tackles branzino, the European sea bass – a fish that is under intense pressure from commercial over-fishing – perhaps it would have been wiser to choose a more environmentally safe fish? To go with the fish, Emeril actually makes a challenging risotto with baby arugula – challenging because he make a sauce and fries the fish all the while stirring. Maybe it's worth slowing down here – not making quite so much, and focusing in on that risotto. He makes the point that the audience shouldn't be afraid of risotto, but it all feels hurried and unappreciated. And he keeps going and going, with the audience running to catch up with all the ingredients he mentions and pours out of little glass dishes. At one point someone from Emeril's New Orleans Fish House says, "Chef Emeril brings them in, we bring them back." There is something about the fast pace, the audience participation and the general level of energy that makes Emeril Live! worth a second look - and for Emeril Live! fans, a second life on FLN. Previous articles: Emeril on the Fine Living Network Martha Stewart Buys Emeril Lagasse Emeril Live! No More Emeril Goes Gulf Coast Emeril Leads Space Race? Emerils Re-Opens in New Orleans Halloween: Emeril's Delmonico Cookbook Emeril Lagasse: Wine Spectator Award Hey, Katrina: WHERE IS EMERIL? Emeril Lagasse: iPod ReciPods Emeril Lagasse: Carnivale du Vin All-Stars Emeril Lagasse Lays Apple iPod Emeril! - The Magazine>? Motley Fool Mulls Over "Frankenfish" (or Emeril's Notches on B&G Foods) Just a Spoonful of Aerosmith Makes the Emeril Go Down? Chef Branding: B&G Foods Exposes Emeril? Hello Kitty, Meet Emeril Lagasse Food Television - complete] [Chefs & Branding - complete] [Food Television - complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging --> back to Super Chef