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IN FOCUS BY JACQUELINE CUTLER Many people work hard at cultivating a down-to-earth TV persona. Alex Guarnaschelli simply is that way. The Manhattan native, of Food Network's "Chopped," "Iron Chef America" and "Alex's Day Off," is devoid of airs. She's making the rounds with her new cookbook, "Old School Comfort Food: The Way I Learned to Cook." At the time of this interview, she had just won "America's Next Iron Chef," and though seemingly preparing for it her whole life, she was stunned and thrilled. Her mother is noted cookbook editor Maria Guarnaschelli, and the TV chef is a devoted cookbook reader. While some chefs pride themselves on creating on the spot, Guarnaschelli talks about studying her well-worn cookbooks. Her notebook on French basics, she acknowledges, is smudged with egg yolk and flour. Guarnaschelli knew she wanted to be a chef since graduating from Barnard College with a degree in art history. "I thought, I really love cooking and cookbooks, and I did a lot of college cooking," she says. "I made a lot of lasagna. That's quite an undertaking, lasagna, and making it for 20 hungry college students. And I saw how excited people were, and people would come over, and I realized, 'Wow! This is serious.' " Her lack of pretension extends to food, and she doesn't pooh-pooh convenience foods. "I have made cakes from boxed mixes," she says. "During the canned challenge on 'Next Iron Chef,' I said I like canned food. I just think there is nobility in a lot of different things. I love a green market vegetable like nobody else, and I grew up eating canned corn and seeing the nobility in a lot of ingredients." Still, there is one food she hates working with – pattypans. "And I am afraid of cardamom because I have seen it from one sprinkle to the next, it goes from delicious to disaster," she says. "And I don't like cooking with pineapple." She does, though, love potatoes. "I never get tired of them," Guarnaschelli says. "I want to cook them all the time. I love sardines and anchovies a lot. And I like dairy, and I like making my own butter and my own ricotta." Already the executive chef at two Manhattan restaurants, Butter and The Darby, Guarnaschelli says she has goals: "to face all that I feel I need to learn and to grow more culinarily." "Subway Fresh Artists Filmmakers Series: Bite Night," www.mydamnchannel. com/subway/bite_night_subway_fresh_artists_2013/bitenightepisode1_10080.aspx This new branded series that comes out of a program in which five teams from NYU and USC were asked to develop scripted, episodic Web series on the theme "Every sandwich tells a story." In this series, a highschool track star falls for a Subway "sandwich artist," who has more bite than she expected. Alex Guarnaschelli Guarnaschelli not ashamed to go by the (cook)book What did you have for dinner last night? "A pork chop cooked with black pepper and brown sugar-roasted black radishes and Brussels sprouts." When was the last vacation you took – where and why? "I drove from Northern to Southern California." What are you currently reading? "I am an avid reader of cookbooks. Recreationally, I am going through the Balthazar cookbooks and a book called 'The End of the Line' by Charles Clover. A topic that interests me is how overfishing is changing the world and what we eat." "Subway Fresh Artists Filmmakers Series: Herman," www.mydamnchannel.com/ subway/herman_subway_ fresh_artists_2013/hermanepisode1_10083.aspx In another of the Subwaybranded series from USC and NYU, the puppet title character heads to Hollywood in search of the "roll" of a lifetime. "Burning Love: Burning Down the House," screen.yahoo.com/burning-love Paramount's Insurge Pictures and Yahoo! Screen present the third season of the reality show spoof of ABC's "Bachelor Pad," that stars Ken Marino, Michael Ian Black, June Diane Raphael, Abigail Spencer and Natasha Leggero. The favorite rejected suitors return to the mansion in hopes of winning the grand prize of $900 amid hookups, backstabbing, romance, champagne and outlandish outfits. SOLUTION ROCK MAU R A A S I H AH AN M I S S DAN AR E A J AR BO S C ENT A L EW I S S OME B I L L OC EAN AR I GUY GE LO R P NE ED E RN TAG WS E N I UTO RO L P O MM E T EXA S OL I N client fill 2 x 2.5" ad 2 x 2.5" ad MAY 5 - 11, 2013 – BRAINERD, MN/DISPATCH – 11

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