The economy is mired in a meltdown! The world is ending! Bosses must take extreme action! The fear-mongering opening segment of W Network’s Undercover Boss Canada certainly isn’t subtle, but it almost makes the show’s absurd premise—CEOs saving their companies by disguising themselves as everyday working schleps and manning the front line for a week—seem both logical and necessary (we said almost, okay?).

In the inaugural episode, the first bigwig to try his hand at hard labour is John Tracogna, CEO of the Toronto Zoo, who announces his plans to a boardroom of lesser execs in a meeting that has clearly been staged for the cameras (everyone nods enthusiastically and one guy actually says, in wooden tones, “I think it’s a great idea”). Transformed into a beatnik-biker hybrid, Tracogna scoops a lot of poop, buddies up with a gorilla and quickly reveals that he’s never cleaned a toilet before. He also does some superficial bonding with a few employees, whom he showers with gifts, Oprah-style, after he reveals himself as the big boss-man. See whether Tracogna was an Everyday Hero or an Everyday Zero (and whether we’d hire him) after the jump.

Wherein we note where the CEOs embrace life as a plebe (everyday heroes, represented by Amy Poehler’s Leslie Knope), and where they out themselves as fat-cat fakes (everyday zeroes, represented by Ricky Gervais’s David Brent)

He sports a temporary neck tattoo (!) and a soul patch (!!), and he completely owns both, only stopping to wonder what he’d say if he got pulled over by a cop looking nothing like his driver’s license. Law abiding to the core!

His feeble attempts to scrub the penguin habitat give him away as an office type. Isn’t it standard for a CEO’s compensation to include a gym membership these days?

He makes sure to work with popular animals like the penguins and gorillas—an obvious ploy to use the show to increase attendance. Hey John, raccoons and stick insects need love, too.

He recognizes that he’s a weakling, saying he’d give himself a C for strength.

He’s amazed at “how much detail goes into cleaning toilets.” It’s not rocket science—it’s all about elbow grease. Just pick up the toilet brush and get to work.

He really seems to care about janitor Judy, who is grieving her daughter’s death, tearing up as he shares his own sadness about his father’s passing. Oh John, we just can’t stay mad at you.

What kind of world is it where a little amateur pornography can ruin your chances of dancing in a Willow Smith video? Spurned by society for her appearance in Ricky Lloyd’s sex tape (all we heard was smooching), aspiring dancer/part-time stripper/full-time crazy-eyes Alicia takes a meeting with an adult film company, despite Nick’s reservations. (“It’s just sex,” she says.) More from LaLa land after the jump.

In relationship news, everyone’s pairing off: after a week of awkwardly living together, Abby and Nick finally make out after he teaches her how to fish. (The lesson is useless—that girl’s way too high-maintenance for dock work.) Raquel has birthday sex with Connor on the kitchen table. And, in one of the truly gayest scenes ever committed to prime time, covert lovers Kaldrick King and Tariq sojourn to a romantic bed-and-breakfast where they learn to love each other.

One welcome storyline this week comes from Connor’s encounter with a UCLA acting teacher who shows him how to ditch his imposter syndrome. Understandably, he gets freaked out when Connor starts to get too clingy. Connor’s story is a welcome glimpse into the constant paradox of audition insecurity—even if you do book the job, how do you know that you deserve it? He’s blossoming into a great character: the neurotic actor who seeks approval from almost everyone, usually with his penis. (Trust, we’ve dated this guy at least three times.) It’s a damn shame that our stay at The L.A. Complex is almost up. With only two episodes to go, we hope the series gets picked up so it can dive into these characters’ back stories while still retaining its high-octane plot development. When will someone have sex in the pool already?!

The L.A. Complex is a veritable Frankensoap, mining the backlogs of other primetime dramas for inspiration. Here, our weekly look at what they stole and from whom:

• She complains endlessly and uses him for cool points; he thinks she has pretty hair. Abby and Nick are the 2012 incarnation of The O.C.’s Seth and Summer, living in Hollywood sin.

• A new development this episode was a Lost-style flashback showing a young Connor being abandoned by his mother. Is everyone going to get one? We hope Nick does, because god knows, nobody wants to be a comedian without some serious psychological damage.

• For the gift of a pearl necklace on her birthday from her sugar daddy and ensuing hate sex with Connor, Raquel could be Samantha Jones, minus the dirty puns and drag queen mannerisms.

• With all those feather earrings, Abby is clearly channelling the fashion crimes of jailbait bobblehead Aria Montgomery on Pretty Little Liars.

• No wonder this episode was so after-school-special-y about Alicia’s foray into the porn industry: it was directed by Degrassi royalty Stefan Brogren, a.k.a. Principal Archie “Snake” Simpson.

Your favourite competitive cooking show—no, not that one—is back for a second season, according to the folks at Food Network Canada. Recipe to Riches, which pits home cooks against each other for what the press release calls “a once-in-a-lifetime shot at having their recipe developed into a President’s Choice® product,” begins a national casting call today. As regular Dish readers will do doubt remember, recipes featured on the show’s first season included bannock hazelnut pie and pulled pork, with Lunenberg, Nova Scotia’s Glo McNeill taking the win for her lemon pudding cakes. Like last season, the show features $25,000 prizes each episode, as well as a $250,000 grand prize for the overall winner of the season—a much heftier payout than certain other Canadian game shows. While the entire judging roster—Laura Calder, Tony Chapman, Dana McCauley and Galen Weston—will be returning, the fate of former Bachelor Jesse Palmer is still up in the air. A spokesperson for Food Network Canada writes, “as for the host, more details will be confirmed and revealed in the coming months.” Recipes can be submitted in one of the seven categories (they’re a little different from last year) on the show’s website.

In Hollywood, you gotta fake it till you make it. In this episode we learn that the now-agentless Raquel likes to network at AA meetings (she doesn’t have a drinking problem, she says as she chugs a bottle of vodka in the afternoon) so she can pick up moneyed dentists for production funds. Abby grins and bears it when her guest star role as a prostitute is downgraded to the silent part of a corpse—body bag zipped all the way up. (“Breathe shallow, dead hooker.”) And, in the most painful scene of The L.A. Complex yet, there’s a sex tape made with the ex-child star character. Find out who gets naked with a has-been in our TV brief after the jump.

Stripper-with-a-heart-of-gold Alicia tries to keep her dignity intact when the man of her dreams (ex–child star Ricky Lloyd) offers her a part…in a sex tape. A lesser show would never have allowed Alicia to participate for fear of undoing her morality. The L.A. Complex has her reassure her co-star that she’s comfortable as she wincingly undoes her bra.

As for Nick, he chokes (for once not onstage). He goes home with a drunk fellow comedian, who first begs him to throttle her and then comfortably passes out. He finally has the epiphany that fact is sometimes funnier than fiction and ditches his midget jokes (he’s had it up to here with them) for a real life retelling of the incident that actually gains him applause. Abby seems to love it, though maybe she is just trying to get over Connor, whom she walks in on while he’s having sex in his trailer. Finally revealed to be shitty at both acting and relationships, Connor is forced to do the old “menthol stick in the eyes” trick for a dramatic scene that made him look like he’s being water-boarded. And when none of his casual hookups return his sexts, The L.A. Complex turns into a creepy Polanski film, with Connor pouring boiling hot water on his forearms just for something to feel. (Knowing actors, it is probably a sense memory exercise.)

Perhaps the episode’s theme can be encapsulated in a line from Ricky Lloyd’s impassioned sex tape pitch: “Working hard’s not working and being good’s not good enough.” Desperate to try anything that might lead to success, the wannabes of The L.A. Complex accept a certain amount of degradation into their lives as currency. We can’t help but be excited to see how they’ll be humiliated next week.

The L.A. Complex is a veritable Frankensoap, mining the backlogs of other primetime dramas for inspiration. Here, our weekly look at what they stole and from whom:

• After hooking up with his co-star and wardrobe assistant in the span of a few hours, we’ve realized that poor Connor is a philandering Vinnie Chase without an Entourage. Can’t the show get him an Australian posse?

• Alicia’s stripper with a heart of gold is too much of a Hollywood cliché to be for real. Did The L.A. Complex simply copy and paste Elizabeth Berkley’s character from Showgirls into a Pretty Woman plot generator?

By Nathan Whitlock | Photography by Jessica Milan

Quick: name a Canadian Idol winner. Unless you’re one of those people who fell for Kalan Porter’s curls or Ryan Malcolm’s glasses, chances are you can’t. Over its six-year run, Idol produced a lot of tears, drama and vocal histrionics, but no bona fide stars. Former contestant Sebastian Pigott may be the exception that proves the rule, having become a hot property despite never making it to the winner’s circle.Pigott’s biggest boost has come from CBC’s tweer-than-twee comedy Being Erica, on which the 28-year-old actor and singer plays Kai, the time-travelling barista with a penchant for writing power ballads. His blend of guileless sweetheart and brooding hunk has made him a fan favourite. (Kai was originally intended as a one-off, but he has since become a featured character and part of the series’ central lust triangle.) Pigott’s rocker persona gets a jazz reboot in Bomb Girls, a six-part miniseries about a group of young women working at a Canadian munitions factory during World War II—a kind of League of Their Own with bombs instead of baseballs. Pigott, decked out in fedoras and high-waisted suits, plays James, a straitlaced businessman who can’t accept his factory-working fiancée’s newfound sense of independence. James isn’t a complete stick-in-the-mud: Pigott, with his mile-wide smile, plays him less as chauvinistic villain than as amiable jerk, the product of his times. There’s no singing in the show, though Pigott does get the chance to show off some big-band dance moves. If lindy hopping had been part of the competition, Idol history might’ve turned out different.

TV
Bomb Girls
Premieres Jan. 4
Global Television

Being Erica
Monday nights
CBC TV

Let’s just say that Kaldrick isn’t looking at his fries (Image: MuchMusic)

Let’s face it, guys: episode two of The L.A. Complex is all about prostitution. In a city of whores and actors, everyone has their price. For Abby, that translates to no sex in the champagne room (Chris Rock was right!) and an audition for a guest spot as an actual prostitute. (Her go-see outfit of fishnets, a bra and an unzipped American Apparel hoodie as outerwear was a nice touch.) For Raquel, it means getting her booty call rejected by Connor and losing the part to Abby. (Jewel Staite’s delivery of the line “But I’m dressed like a hooker!” is perfect, desperate deadpan.) And for Tariq—well, let’s just say we’re not in La Belle Province anymore.

The serious WTF twist in tonight’s episode came when Tariq, the struggling hip hop producer, was offered the chance to produce a track for Kaldrick King, a menacing ex-con rapper. Kaldrick whiplashes between curiosity about Tariq’s Quebecois upbringing (“You gotta teach me more of this French!”) and punching out fans who just want to Instagram him eating a taquito, and he and Tariq seemed to have a genuine connection based on a mutual understanding of soul LPs and distant fathers. The episode eventually amps up to the most climactic, weirdly hot guy-on-guy make out we’ve seen—at least on MuchMusic. The scene was played with such intense antagonism that neither we, nor anyone on Twitter, ever saw it coming. Could it be a watershed moment for the new series?

For all its soapy fluff, The L.A. Complex gets dark fast, particularly whenever Raquel glowers like a black cloud of aging actress metastasis. We’ll take our hope where we can find it: from the surprisingly sweet PG-13 romance between Alicia and Corey Feldman–esque former teen star Ricky Lloyd, who meet at the strip club and actually seem like kindred spirits. Maybe you can’t have sex in the champagne room, but you can find love.

The L.A. Complex is a veritable Frankensoap, mining the backlogs of other primetime dramas for inspiration. Here, our weekly look at what they stole and from whom:

• We’re reaching here, but you couldn’t have Kaldrick King’s black gay gangster without The Wire’s Omar Little.

• Connor’s show-within-a-show turns out to be an over-earnest medical drama about exhausted interns who just want to bone between CT scans. Add a Tegan and Sara song and you’ve got Grey’s Anatomy.

• Raquel and Abby’s rivalry has so many layers that it’s hard to keep track. Here’s what we’ve decided so far: Abby is obviously Raquel’s black swan, whose over-eager ingénue act is only going to crush her career in the end (All About Eve).

• Aspiring music producer Tariq is 90210’s David Silver for the 21st century, although sadly without the silver chains, hoop earrings and geometric-print blouses.

You Gotta Eat Here host John Catucci takes his comfort food seriously (Image: Food Network Canada)

It looks like Food Network Canada is betting that comfort food, the culinary trend that refuses to die, has yet more staying power left. Tomorrow the network will launch You Gotta Eat Here!, a new show that will see host John Catucci heading to diners and greasy spoons across Canada to sample the food, talk to the owners and learn some tricks in the kitchen. The premise sounds like a Canadian take on the tremendously popular Diners, Drive-ins and Dives (we’re hoping, though, that Catucci will steer way clear of some of Guy Fieri’s frat-boy phraseology).

Catucci, an actor, singer and comedian, is a Toronto native, so it’s no surprise that he visits two local spots in the first season. Oddly enough, both segments will apparently feature modified bennies: Hadley’s will serve up its signature deep-fried “poached” eggs with homemade hollandaise, and Uncle Betty’s Diner at Yonge and Eglinton will show off a benny served on fresh doughnuts. While it doesn’t exactly cover the breadth of comfort options in the city (we’d have liked to see some shawarma or a little fried chicken, say), we’re sure the bennies will provide great food porn at least.

You Gotta Eat Here! premieres January 6 at 9 p.m. on Food Network Canada.

Less than two weeks after the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan announced it was taking its majority share of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment off the market, the fund has turned around and sold its long-time cash cow for $1.32 billion. (For those following along, OTTP bought it 17 years ago for $180 million.) The buyers should sound horrifyingly familiar to any Toronto sports fan: Rogers and Bell.

The numbers, via BNN:

Rogers Communications and BCE, parent of Bell Canada, will evenly divide a 75 per cent stake in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE), the companies announced on Friday.

As part of the deal, Larry Tanenbaum and his firm Kilmer Sports Inc., which already owns the remaining 20.5 per cent, will raise their MLSE stake to 25 per cent.

Rogers has been entertaining the buy for years now, but a joint purchase with rival Bell seems counterintuitive. However, the partnership will allow each company to pay less for control while keeping the full property out of their competitors’ hands. Pending regulatory and league approval, the deal will close in mid-2012 with Tanenbaum staying on as MLSE chair.

The Toronto Star’s Damien Cox called the deal (prospective at the time) “like none other in pro sports. It’s outlandish. Utterly sensational.” He, along with the Globe and Mail’s James Christie, expressed concerns about how insane the sports landscape in Toronto could become. For the record, Rogers already owns the Toronto Blue Jays, the Rogers Centre and Sportsnet, while Bell owns the sports networks TSN and French-language RDS, as well as a minority stake in the Montreal Canadiens—to this, the two companies add the Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Marlies, Toronto Raptors, Toronto FC, the Air Canada Centre, Leafs TV, NBA TV Canada and GOL TV Canada.

Even more than before, sports fans will be watching a Rogers team play in a Rogers venue on a Rogers channel and hearing about it the next day on Rogers media. With the twin telecommunication giants as loathed as they are, we predict a serious ratings boost for Toronto Argos coverage on The Score.

• Rogers, Bell complete deal of MLSE stake [Sportsnet]
• BCE and Rogers team up to buy 75 percent of MLSE [TSN]
• Bell and Rogers team up to buy 75 per cent stake in Toronto Maple Leafs owner [Canadian Business]

It’s almost time. After seven weeks of batch-up challenge near disasters, product rebrandings both savvy and dubious and the requisite reality TV tears, faithful viewers of Recipe to Riches will finally be able to vote for their favourite winning dish on the show’s website starting tomorrow. The grand prize winner will walk away with a cool quarter million dollars, and their dish will join that “prestigious President’s Choice line of products” that host Jesse Palmer is always talking about. But before the official tally gets under way, we thought we’d seek the counsel of our trusty tasting panel, which has been dutifully testing each dish week after week, and let our esteemed readers weigh in as well.

In the end, our tasting panel was split, with Rosy Soobrattee’s Kulfi Karma from episode six (which got high marks for originality) edging out John Grass’s Chicken Grenades from episode three (which were lauded for actually living up to the promise on the box). Sonya Walos’s Smart Cookie, from episode five, was a distant third (it’s also ineligible for the grand prize). Before casting your own vote in the poll below, you might want to jog your memory by perusing our recaps and reviews: Episode 1, Luscious Lemon Pudding Cakes; Episode 2, Rock n’ Peach Bliss Cheesecake; Episode 3, Chicken Grenades; Episode 4, Bannock Hazelnut Pie; Episode 5, The Smart Cookie; Episode 6, Kulfi Karma; Episode 7, Slow and Low Pulled Pork.

*Sure, Walos isn’t eligible for the grand prize, but we thought that’s all the more reason to let the gluten-averse show their support for her Smart Cookie here.

This week’s episode of Recipe to Riches featured a show first that also happens to be a show last: a Toronto contestant. It also featured a little sparring between marketing judge Tony Chapman on the one side and Laura Calder and product developer Dana McCauley on the other over the appropriate brow-level for the products: the latter two wanted to see food they might serve at a dinner party, leading Chapman to declare, “Neither one of you is the mass market!” As with any reality show, it’s always more fun when things get heated between the judges. After the jump, our recap of the savoury pies episode and the results from our tasting panel.

Mini-Recap

Burnaby’s Melaney Gleeson-Lyall took the win this week for her hazelnut bannock pie, a part of our heritage that has zeitgeist written all over it at the moment (Oliver and Bonacini recently opened a restaurant named after the Scottish-cum–First Nations flatbread). But the climb to the top for this mild-mannered charity administrator wasn’t easy. First she had to vanquish Toronto’s Tikka Smiley, a bubbly kiddie entertainer (she arrived at the tryouts wearing balloons) who brought her recipe for a vegan pot pie. Sadly, she was eliminated in the batch-up challenge after she replaced her biscuit crust with a dry-as-a-bone whole wheat version “for the esthetic value.” Gleeson-Lyall’s other opponent, Brampton’s Wayne Reid, seemed like he was invented for TV. The good-natured reggae singer bounced around the screen dropping phrases like “I a rub-a-dub it in” to explain the cooking process for his moon-shaped salt fish and ackee pie. After the marketing challenge (whose relevance to the eventual outcome is starting to feel questionable), the judges found themselves faced with a choice between two visions of Canadiana: Aboriginal and multi-culti. Galen Weston Jr. noted in his trademark adorably stiff way that the native heritage of the bannock pie had “an enormous amount of romantic appeal,” but Chapman was clearly in love with the grab-and-go potential of Reid’s pie for the 99 per cent who eat most of their meals on the go. In the end, the win went to the dinner party set (who, in McCauley’s words, “might not be confident enough to make a First Nations recipe” from scratch).

Tasting Panel

This week’s winning recipe took a lot more effort to put together than any of the previous winners on the show, necessitating an off-site, out-of-office tasting. First, the frozen bannock-less pie filling spends half an hour in the oven during which time you combine a pouch of dry ingredients with water to create the bannock dough. Then you place a flattened ball of dough on top of the half-cooked stew-like filling and put it back in the oven for another half hour. The results of all that labour and time were mixed. Most of the panel found the bannock component much more interesting than the filling. One taster compared it favourably to a “slightly sweet scone,” while another pointed out that it was the only component to elevate the dish beyond so many frozen veggie pot pies (sadly, it doesn’t get cooked in a pan like real bannock). Everyone agreed that the root vegetables and squash filling, while better than the usual pot pie goop, needed a lot more salt. The verdict? Worth a try if the novelty appeals to you. See how we put the dish together in our box-to-plate gallery »

Next week on Recipe to Riches: sweet and savoury snacks, with Whistler’s Sonya Walos, Natasha Langevin of Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Quebec, and Calgary transplant Donna Feir.

(Images: Melaney Gleeson-Lyall and homemade pie, Food Network Canada; tasting photos, Andrew D’Cruz)

(Image: Shaw Media)

Montreal chef and tattooed, all-around heartthrob Chuck Hughes could be the next primetime celeb chef, according to New York magazine’s Grub Street. The blog offers a slew of reasons why the easygoing host of Chuck’s Day Off is about to take off: he’s gotten plenty of exposure through the Cooking Channel (Canadians have watched Hughes on Food Network Canada for even longer); the cuisine at his Montreal restaurant Garde-Manger fits in with the current mini-trend of interest in French-Canadian food; he crushed Bobby Flay on Iron Chef America (with lobster poutine, no less); and he’s got a slot on the upcoming Next Iron Chef.

The star’s newfound popularity has meant that Hughes has been turning away far more customers than he’s comfortable with. “I never wanted to be elitist, I never wanted to be special—we just wanted to have a good vibe with good food,” he told CTV Montreal. “It just so happened that we were so small that people keep on calling and they can’t get in.” While Hughes opened a second Montreal restaurant, Le Bremner, to ease the demand, he’s already considering expanding his reach westward to Toronto. Of course, we’re pretty sure it’ll be just as hard to get reservations if he opens up over here.

• The Feeding Tube: Who Will Be the Next Big Celebrity Chef? [Grub Street]
• Montreal celeb chef Chuck Hughes mulling plan to open Toronto restaurant [CTV Montreal]

By Stéphanie Verge | Photography by Matt Barnes

The impish comedy men Don McKellar and Bob Martin can’t get enough of the crazy—or of each other. Twitch City, the cult sitcom about an agoraphobic television addict? McKellar starred and shared the writing with Martin. Slings and Arrows, the behind-the-scenes satire about a theatre festival headed by an artistic director perpetually on the verge of a nervous breakdown? Martin wrote, McKellar co-starred. The Drowsy Chaperone, the wedding present–turned–Fringe hit–turned–Broadway show about a musical-obsessed shut-in? Martin starred, Martin and McKellar wrote, and they both won Tonys.

The long-time friends—who’ve been working together since forming a children’s theatre company at Lawrence Park Collegiate—are back at it with a 12-episode TV series that gives full rein to their love of loonies. Michael: Tuesdays and Thursdays is a giddy ode to the panicky, the anxious, the low-functioning. Michael (played by Matt Watts, the real-life inspiration for the show) is a government worker who has been seeing his cognitive behavioural therapist, David (played by Martin), twice a week for 15 years. He’s slowly getting better, as David drags him out of the office and onto the streets of Ottawa to conquer his catalogue of fears (women, buses, asking strangers for the time). Meanwhile, David is the one who’s truly stuck, paralyzed by his broken marriage, drinking problem and control issues. He sees Michael as his way out—writing a book about his favourite patient will provide the ultimate distraction: Oliver Sacksian fame and fortune.

The show has a simple allure: Michael and David, like Twitch City’s Curtis and Drowsy’s Man in Chair, make the viewer feel sane by comparison. McKellar and Martin enlisted a cohort of old comrades to work on the series, including Patricia Rozema, who shares directing duties with McKellar, and Mark McKinney, who has a hand in the writing. With their help, the pair will be dishing out whip-smart and deeply odd comedy as hilarious as it is depressing. Long live codependency.

TV
Michael: Tuesdays and Thursdays
Premieres Sept. 14
CBC TV

#1 MEZZO IDOL #2 THE CHAMELEON #3 A TALENT FOR SCANDAL #4 HER SERENE HIGHNESS #5 DAINTY DANCING #6 MAGICAL THINKING #7 EMOTIONAL RESCUE #8 AN EARFUL #9 BETTER THAN SEX #10 LAUGH ADDICTS

Recipe to Riches’s four GTA contestants: Tikka Smiley, Diana Petrini, Wayne Reid and Rosy Soobrattee (Images: Food Network Canada)

It seems there’s an insatiable appetite for competitive food shows (we certainly can’t get enough). The latest offering is Recipe to Riches, a new Food Network Canada series hosted by The Bachelor’s Jesse Palmer that highlights ordinary Canadians with ostensibly exceptional recipes. Contestants compete in several categories, each with a $25,000 purse, before battling for the grand prize of $250,000. Not a bad pay out if you ask us (it also happens to be the biggest prize in Canadian TV history). The winning dish will also be transformed into a President’s Choice product. Yesterday, the show announced its full line up of judges and 21 contestants, including four home cooks for the GTA.

Judging the recipes will be French Food at Home host Laura Calder (whom we recently featured), Tony Chapman, founder of advertising agency Capital C and Dana McCauley, the culinary director of Janes Family Foods (with special appearances by Loblaw chairman/pitchman Galen G. Weston). The only Torontonian to make the contestant pool is Tikka Smiley, who will be competing in the savoury pies category with her vegan pot pie. Smiley, a children’s entertainer, has been a vegetarian for more than 20 years and actively works to promote a meat-free diet. Joining her are several other GTAers: Diana Petrini, a matchmaker from Woodbridge, competing in the appetizers category with her recipe for stuffed olives; Wayne Reid, a truck driver and reggae musician from Brampton, up against Smiley in the savoury pies group with his recipe for salt fish and ackee pie; and Rosy Soobrattee, a childcare professional from Milton, in the frozen treats category with a creamy kulfi recipe we’d like to steal. Check out recipetoriches.ca for the full contestant list.

Recipe to Riches premieres October 19, at 9 p.m. on Food Network Canada

Check out our recap of episode 1 »

Top Chef Canada junkies experiencing withdrawal during the inter-season hiatus have been able to get their fix of season one host Thea Andrews all over the dial of late, with the former sportscaster and Entertainment Tonight correspondent popping up on scripted shows (which we expect to see more of, since the show is slated to get a new host next season). A couple weeks ago, she appeared on an episode of the Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood: Miracle Day as one of the show’s many cable anchors:

Thea Andrews with that trademark TV anchor stare (image: still from Torchwood episode “Dead of Night“)

And just on Sunday, she had a plausible turn on True Blood as a local TV host named yes, Thea Andrews, who gets glamoured (i.e., vampire-hypnotized) by everyone’s favourite blood-sucking southern gentleman, vampire Bill Compton:

Andrews succumbing to Bill Compton’s vamp charms (image: still from True Blood episode “Spellbound”

We guess once you’ve been a real TV host, it’s pretty easy to play one on TV.

Nicholson at this year’s Toronto Taste (Image: Renée Suen)

First it was Rob Rossi. Then Steve Gonzalez. Now a third Toronto Top Chef Canada contestant has announced they’re leaving their current gig to follow their culinary muse. This morning, Andrea Nicholson of Great Cooks on Eight announced via Twitter that this would be her last week at the restaurant. Nicholson plans to travel, focus on her company, Killer Condiments, and then pursue her “long-awaited dream” (mentioned back in episode 10) of opening her own restaurant. We’ll be watching closely.