Ready for Prime Time?

Ready for their closeup: Chefs Jeremy Anderson and Eric Hellner.

Back in Emeril's pre-Katrina heyday, chefs and serious foodies used to dismiss it as the Bam! network. Now it's disdained as All-Rachael, All-The-Time. You know, the Food Network, not about cooking so much as lifestyle (travel, glitz), weaponry (knife-wielding, cake-frosting) and tours of candy factories. Deliberate programming choices, made to draw viewers too sedate for Housewives and too chicken for Survivor.

But step-by-step instructions on how to boil water can only fill so many half-hours, and gonzo chef Tony Bourdain's already under contract to the Travel Channel, so the search is on, yet again, for The Next Big Cook.

So here are my candidates, buddies who could be brothers, both executive chefs in the Consolidated Restaurants organization. Jeremy Anderson heads up Elliott's Oyster House, Eric Hellner is his counterpart at Union Square Grill. We've written about their prowess more than once, since Jeremy's a whiz with local salmon and Eric certainly knows his meat. They auditioned separately but really ought to be onscreen together, a Mutt & Jeff tag-team of frat-boy look-alikes who really do know what they're doing.

The competition will be fierce, though: celebrities like Dan Thiessen (0/8 Seafood Grill) and Gabriel Claycamp (Culinary Communion) also turning up in the lobby of the Andra, figurative toques on head, literal 9-page applications in hand.

(Equal Opportunity Employment note: application begins with "Describe your family & living situation ... boyfriend/girlfriend" among many, many forbidden questions, not to mention the mandatory Release & Waiver, whether selected or not, waiving privacy rights. It's a jungle out there, folks, ya gotta be ruthless.)

Actually, Seattle is one of five locations for open auditions, fodder for Food Network's fourth season of slice-em-up, grind-em-down boot camp. From Stars of Tomorrow to Simon-Randy-Paula, the talent contest is even more American than apple pie. Mmm...pie.

Call-backs today and tomorrow. Don't call us; we'll let you know. Don't call.