From Scratch: Inside the Food Network

By Allen Salkin

Book Overview

An Entertainment Weekly Best Tell-All of 2013! "Allen Salkin shows how the sausage really gets made at the Food Network in From Scratch , a behind-the-scenes history liberally spiced with gossip and unsavory tidbits."- Entertainment Weekly "A detailed look at the network from start-up phase to the present, with a generous lump of juicy stories about the network's most polarizing figures-Guy Fieri, Bobby Flay, Anthony Bourdain and, of course, Paula Deen y'all-heaped on top."- The Atlantic Wire Big personalities, high drama-the extraordinary behind-the-scenes story of the Food Network, now about to celebrate its twentieth anniversary: the business, media, and cultural juggernaut that changed the way America thinks about food. In October 1993, a tiny start-up called the Food Network debuted to little notice. Twenty years later, it is in 100 million homes, approaches a billion dollars a year in revenue, and features a galaxy of stars whose faces and names are as familiar to us as our own family's. But what we don't know about them, and the people behind them, could fill a book. Based upon extensive inside access, documents, and interviews with hundreds of executives, stars, and employees all up and down the ladder, Allen Salkin's book is an exhilarating roller-coaster ride from chaos to conquest (and sometimes back). As Salkin takes us inside the conference rooms, studios, homes, restaurants, and after-hours meetings, we see a salty Julia Child lording it over the early network performers; a fragile Emeril Lagasse staggering from the sudden public shock of cancellation; a very green Rachael Ray nearly burning down the set on her first day; a torn Tyler Florence accepting the Applebee's job he knows he can't refuse, but with a chill running down his spi? a determined Bobby Flay reinventing himself once again to survive. Paula Deen, Tom Colicchio, Anthony Bourdain, Mario Batali, Jamie Oliver, Martha Stewart, Guy Fieri, Cat Cora: Salkin illuminates the people we thought we knew, and the ones we never knew about, in this irresistible story of the intersection between business, television, pop culture, food-and us.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0399159320
• ISBN13: 9780399159329
• Release Date: October 2013
• Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.4" x 6.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher