A home cook from Denver will go up against celeb chef Duff Goldman on the Aug. 12 edition of NBC’s “Food Fighters.” Nick Evans, a Denver blogger and home chef, goes spatula to spatula with Goldman (“Ace of Cakes” pastry chef) on an eggs Benedict challenge with $100,000 at stake. The episode airs Tuesday at 7 p.m. on KUSA.
“It’s hard to tell when you’re watching but it’s really fast-paced,” Evans said. Five signature dishes are cooked and filmed in a row with no down time. The episode included injuries and general craziness. Of course he can’t say how he fared in the end but, “at least I made all my dishes.”
As he writes on his website, or “Cooking with Confidence,” Evans has no formal training and doesn’t aspire to be a pro chef, but simply loves cooking as a hobby. He doesn’t use fancy ingredients and doesn’t make “frou-frou” dishes. “It doesn’t always have to be grand.” For instance, his favorites (on the TV show) include mashed potato pizza, a hold-over from his Yale days, and super-spicy chicken wings with habanero peppers and apricot sauce.
The best part of “Food Fighters,” he says, is it’s not reality TV so much as a game show.
