"TOP CHEF" is the jackhammer of the food world. Even with earplugs, it is impossible to tune out.
The reality show in which cooks compete in various staged challenges is already in its third season on the Bravo channel. But even for someone who might be fortunate enough not to know a remote from a microwave, there is no escape: "Top Chef" is also covered relentlessly -- exhaustively, even -- on blogs and websites and online discussion boards.
Stage-managed competitive cooking shows are nothing new. The world has survived "Iron Chef" and "Hell's Kitchen" relatively quietly, after all, and now the Food Network is banging the stockpots loudly trying to get anyone to notice that its "Next Food Network Star" is going into a fourth season.
But "Top Chef," a spinoff of a fashion bake-off called "Project Runway," is the "Dallas" of its day, continuously riding a whole new wave that is washing up all over television and the Internet and even into the most respectable of outlets, print media.
Now its cooking-as-pro-wrestling-match tentacles are reaching into advertising, as sponsors milk their connections to the programming. All the world's a competitive soundstage.
A new campaign for Glad's microwave steaming bags features a contest to elect a sort of top chef to represent the brand. Web visitors are invited to vote on which of five relatively famous cooks -- Govind Armstrong, Sam Talbot, Dave Lieberman, Aaron Sanchez or G. Garvin -- best exemplifies the company's "steamiest chef."
The poor guys (no girls, of course -- just think who buys the plastic wrap in a given house) have to wink and nod and try to look steamy to the point of sexy in one dimension. If you roll your cursor over their bobbing heads at glad.eprize.net/steamiestchef, though, they almost light on fire in their "choose me" desperation.
In a distantly "Top Chef"-related competition, the Bertolli olive oil and processed food company is running an online contest to choose a co-host for Rocco DiSpirito for its new online programming. Entrants have to create a video demonstrating their credentials and expertise with "Mediterranean style," and visitors to www.whatsyourmedstyle.com will vote.
DiSpirito, of course, is best known as the protagonist in another reality show, "The Restaurant." Both he and his created-for-television restaurant in New York City failed magnificently, and quickly. But "Top Chef" keeps on churning.
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Raising the stakes
