Twenty Years of Dish from Flay and Fieri to Deen and DeLaurentiis... Includes a New Afterword! “I don’t want this shown. I want the tapes of this whole series destroyed.”—Martha Stewart “In those days, the main requirement to be on the Food Network was being able to get there by subway.”—Bobby Flay “She seems to suggest that you can make good food easily, in minutes, using Cheez Whiz and chopped-up Pringles and packaged chili mix.”—Anthony Bourdain This is the definitive history of The Food Network from its earliest days as a long-shot business gamble to its current status as a cable obsession for millions, home along the way to such icons as Emeril Lagasse, Rachael Ray, Mario Batali, Alton Brown, and countless other celebrity chefs. Using extensive inside access and interviews with hundreds of executives, stars, and employees, From Scratch is a tantalizing, delicious look at the intersection of business, pop culture, and food. INCLUDES PHOTOS “A detailed look at the network from start-up phase to the present…juicy stories about the network’s most polarizing figures—Guy Fieri, Bobby Flay, Anthony Bourdain, and, of course, Paula Deen y’all.”— The Atlantic Wire “Dishy…Hard to resist.”— The New York Times Book Review “One part steamy exposé, one part deep-fried human interest, and one part television history.”— Kirkus Reviews “Details the egos and feuds of the people that made a fledgling upstart a cable TV empire.”— The Daily Beast “For a full account of the network and its evolution, it’s worth reading Allen Salkin’s excellent, informative new tome.”— The Wall Street Journal “Salkin brings a pop journalist’s eye to the development of the network that would provide the ultimate exploitation of food and cooking…There’s plenty of good gossip to be had—the rise and fall of Emeril Lagasse is practically Shakespearean…Salkin seems to have interviewed almost everyone connected with the channel, and he’s good on behind-the-scenes business machinations.”—Los Angeles Times Allen Salkin has been a journalist for such publications as New York , the Village Voice , and Details . As a staff reporter for the New York Times , he wrote nearly two hundred features about food, culture, and media—for one of them, the legendary chefs Ferran Adrià and José Andrés cooked him lunch in his apartment. As an investigative reporter for the New York Post , Salkin wrote hundreds of articles—on corrupt judges, emergency room ethics, and troubled cults, among others. He has also produced video interviews with culinary stars for many food websites. Salkin’s journalism has taken him to more than forty countries, from the Beijing Olympics to the snorkel wakes of “Doom Tourists” in the Galápagos. He lives in New York City. PROLOGUE A Final Toast to Emeril Live I have never met another guy who could walk into a room with, like, two hundred people and somehow find the one person that needed the hug the most,” says a tearful Susie Fogelson as she raises a cham pagne glass to Emeril Lagasse. The head of marketing for Food Network, Susie pauses to avoid choking up in front of thirty executives and staffers gathered in the network’s central kitchen in New York City. “He would be able to find the person, like a magician. ‘Someone told me it’s your birthday. How old are you, twenty-seven?’ And she’s like ninety-two.” Emeril could have used a hug himself. After a ten-year run, Food Network had just killed Emeril Live, his cooking show that had debuted in 1997 with a band and a live audience. It was a genre-bending formula that quickly made Emeril a household name and his kitchen catch phrases “Bam!” and “Let’s kick it up a notch!” a part of pop culture. But now, a few weeks before Christmas 2007, the cameras have been switched off in the sixth-floor studio and the last burner extinguished. The executives are trying to honor his accomplishments, but Emeril’s shock is setting in, his mind wheeling between disjointed thoughts: “Why are they doing this? Budget? Ken’s not here? He didn’t even call me? How can this be real?” Ken Lowe, the chief executive of Scripps, the parent company of Food Network, has been a dinner guest at Emeril’s home. But today Ken has not made the trip to New York from corporate headquarters in Cincinnati. The network president, Brooke Johnson, stands near Susie amid the orange cabinets and cutting boards. Brooke takes a small sip of champagne, and her calm feline eyes betray little. Susie, tall with curly chestnut hair, is having a hard time. By tradition, each on-air talent at Food Network has one executive he or she is closest to, the person they call for inside information. For Emeril it is Susie. When the head of marketing, who’d hired Susie, left three years ago, Emeril had phoned Brooke and insisted that Susie take his place. As she sees the famous chef’s heavy bulldog face, she flashes back to seven years earlier, when she moved to Food Network from Nickel