Food Network Launches a 'Showdown' for Culinary Supremacy This February

Food Network Launches a 'Showdown' for Culinary Supremacy This February

New Series 'Ultimate Recipe Showdown' Premieres Sunday, February 17th Hosted by Marc Summers and Guy Fieri

Winners' Recipes To Be Featured Nationwide At T.G.I. Friday's(R) Restaurants

NEW YORK, Jan. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- This February, the best recipes in America battle head-to-head for national glory in the new Food Network series Ultimate Recipe Showdown. Hosted by Marc Summers (Unwrapped) and Guy Fieri (Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives, Guy's Big Bite) the series features everyday folks competing in a Kitchen Stadium-like arena to pit their best dishes against one another. Whether it's the recipe that always gets requested from family and friends, the one that consistently wins the neighborhood competitions or the delicious dish that was passed down from grandma, America will see whose recipe is the best in their class and who walks away with the prize. The action kicks-off on Sunday, February 17th at 9pm ET/PT and will continue for six weeks straight.

"Food Network is constantly striving to find the best of the best in food, so we thought why not challenge our viewers to show us what they've got," said Bob Tuschman, Senior Vice President, Programming and Production. "The results were overwhelming and the creativity, cooking skills and competitiveness of our contestants blew us away."

With thousands of entries, whittled down to 54, the original creations were divided into six categories -- Chicken, Burgers, Comfort Foods, Cake, Pasta and Cookies. Each week, nine finalists will compete under the lights and in front of an enthusiastic crowd to make the most delicious version of their recipe. A panel of judges including Katherine Alford (Director, Food Network Test Kitchen), Kerry Simon (chef and partner at SIMON LA, Simon at Palms Place and CatHouse at the Luxor) and Russ Parsons (Food Columnist, The Los Angeles Times) then score each dish on creativity, appearance, ease of execution and taste.

The winner, in addition to having their recipe crowned as the "ultimate," wins $25,000 and the chance to have his-or-her recipe featured nationwide at T.G.I. Friday's restaurants.

FOOD NETWORK (http://www.foodnetwork.com/) is a unique lifestyle network and Web site that strives to be way more than cooking. The network is committed to exploring new and different ways to approach food -- through pop culture, competition, adventure, and travel -- while also expanding its repertoire of technique-based information. Food Network is distributed to more than 90 million U.S. households and averages more than seven million Web site users monthly. With headquarters in New York City and offices in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and Knoxville, Food Network can be seen internationally in Canada, Australia, Korea, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, Monaco, Andorra, Africa, France, and the French-speaking territories in the Caribbean and Polynesia. The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE:SSP), which also owns and operates HGTV (http://www.hgtv.com/), DIY Network (http://www.diynetwork.com/), Great American Country (http://www.gactv.com/) and FINE LIVING (http://www.fineliving.com/), is the manager and general partner.

Carrollton-Texas based T.G.I. Friday's is owned by Carlson Restaurants Worldwide Inc., a subsidiary of privately held Minneapolis-based Carlson, a world leader in the hospitality, travel and marketing industries. As of December 2007, Carlson Restaurants Worldwide owns, operates, franchises or licenses more than 900 restaurants in 58 countries. For more information on the brands, visit http://www.fridays.com/.

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Source: Food Network

CONTACT: Lisa Del Colle of Food Network, +1-212-401-2430,
ldelcolle@foodnetwork.com; or Gilly Hailparn, +1-551-655-3537,
gdhailparn@verizon.net, or Hillary Rivman, +1-973-872-4652,
hrmarketing@optonline.net, both for Food Network

Web site:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/

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