TED: Isn't that terrible. Naturally, I'm kind of wistful about that. On both Top Chef and Iron Chef I appeared at least once in every season of their first four seasons. The very first episodes of Iron Chef America were shot in L.A. with people like Wolfgang Puck in a gigantic sound stage and that's where I got to do my first guest judging. It was wonderful. I was really kind of fortunate being allowed to appear on these two competing networks. They usually don't let you get away with that. It was also fortunate for me when Queer Eye finished I had a presence both on Bravo and Food Network. It kind of kept me visible on both those networks while I went shopping around trying to find a show of my own. One thing I've realized is shows take a long time to percolate and are harder to sell than magazine stories, which is what I used to sell. So it gave me the ability to sit back and wait for the right thing to come along. But when it did (from the Food Network) I knew all along that I wouldn't be able to keep working on both networks. So was I going to be a judge on half of somebody else's show or host two of my own shows? I found that to be a pretty easy call.
Were there any particular guest judges you were excited to meet? And is there anybody you would like to see judge in the future?
TED: I was really excited about all of them. I've met most of them before on one or another of these shows. You never can tell how good people are going to be at this judging business. Food Network knows a lot about picking people that ARE good at it because they had to find judges for Iron Chef and find them for so many years that they've learned. It's not hard to find people who know food. But to talk about food and be funny once and while or charming or staggeringly good looking, such as myself...that was a joke, obviously...is actually difficult to find people that can do those things.
I have to give it up to Alex Guarnaschelli. In addition to being staggeringly beautiful and really knowledgeable about food, she's hilarious. I've never heard anybody who could mix metaphors the way Alex does. She'll say something like...Well chef, you kind of put the key into the ignition and pulled out of the driveway but then you put it into reverse. I don't know, it was like you were trying to pat me on the head but you messed up my hairdo. She really talks that way.
