Chopped

Scott Conant will host the new dessert- and sugar-themed spin-off, which follows last fall’s tournament Chopped: Sweets Showdown.

The original version of Chopped was much different, because Food Network asked the show’s creators to turn it into an insane Fox-like competition. They did.

Those announcements and others from the new Discovery, Inc., which includes all the Discovery networks and now Food Network, HGTV, Travel Channel, and more.

Stephen Colbert’s version of Chopped, with Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone competing to create a dish in just one minute, should become a real competition.

Chopped remains a strong cooking competition, although it’s one I tend to watch only when there are very special episodes. Those include the quasi-spin-off seasons, like the all-star competition currently airing on Sunday nights; themed episodes, which are usually show up around holidays; or episodes that have a certain type of chef, like those who …

Top Chef season one finalist Lee Anne Wong, who later worked on the show for four seasons as a culinary producer, is judging an episode of Food Network’s Chopped today. It’s not clear if she’ll be permanently in the rotation, or when this episode will be broadcast. Lee Anne posted a picture of her with …

Food competitions have multiplied across network and cable channels, and summer seems to be the time when they proliferate. While we wait for the return of Top Chef Just Desserts later this month, I thought I’d look at some new and returning food competition series and give them brief reviews. Let’s start with Hell’s Kitchen …