Food Network's The Kitchen

One of 2025's worst television casualties happened when Food Network/WB Discovery unceremoniously pulled the plug on weekend comfort-watch The Kitchen. New episodes aired on the station mid-morning Saturday and made a dependable feature of the post-workweek comedown. What made this live cooking demonstration program special was the convivial tone struck between co-hosts Geoffrey "GZ" Zakarian, Sunny Anderson, Katie Lee and Jeff Mauro as they exchanged praise, banter, friendly digs and little mementos from life outside the TV studio regarding family and travel while making food, stepping in as sous-chef or just admiring the culinary artistry from the side before getting served a plate to sample. Marcela Valladolid and Alex Guarnaschelli were also part of the cast during the show's earliest and later seasons, respectively. As the best cooking shows are, The Kitchen is equally enjoyable to view for learning a featured recipe or just watching people make food even in cases when you know you'd never actually make that dish yourself.

My most-made recipe from the show almost definitely has to be Zakarian's Celery Salt-Roasted Chicken w/ lemony arugula potatoes on the side. A real crowd pleaser and Sunday dinner staple in my own kitchen.

In a just world, the network execs responsible for the wound they made upon good television when they slashed The Kitchen from the production schedule would step out in their tailored suits and polished wingtips to render overdue public apology and seek atonement by reinstating the program; in the world that we actually inhabit, however, they are probably in the process of green-lighting Food Network's newest competition series called 999 Chefs Cook Nonstop for a Month in the Colosseum Showdown Duel Gauntlet-Throwdown Tournament Supreme featuring a toga'd and laurel-wreathed Bobby Flay as host.