James Oseland

James Oseland (born February 9, 1963 in Mountain View, California) is an American food writer and magazine editor who lives part-time in Manhattan and part-time in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Rodale's Organic Life. Previously he was the Editor-in-Chief of Saveur. Before Saveur, Oseland wrote for Food & Wine, Gourmet, and Time Out New York. He has also worked as an editor at Vogue, Organic Style, L.A. Weekly, TV Guide, Vibe, Sassy, American Theatre, The Village Voice and Mademoiselle.

Oseland has written a book, Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, that was influenced by his experiences in Southeast Asia and is currently writing Jimmy Neurosis, a memoir of his punk rock youth in the 1970s, for Ecco Press, a Harper Collins imprint.

History

After dropping out of high school, Oseland earned a BFA and an MFA in photography and film studies from the San Francisco Art Institute. He considered work in Hollywood before deciding "the idea of growing old in the business just didn't sit all that well". He went on to become an editor at Vogue, Organic Style, L.A. Weekly, TV Guide, Vibe, Sassy, American American Theatre, The Village Voice and Mademoiselle before becoming editor-in-chief of Saveur and later Rodale's Organic Life.

Gael Greene

Gael Greene (born December 22, 1933) is an American restaurant critic, author and novelist. She became New York magazine's restaurant critic in fall 1968, at a time when most New Yorkers were unsophisticated about food and there were few chefs anyone knew by name, and for four decades both documented and inspired the city's and America's growing obsession with food. She was a pioneering "foodie".

Greene was born in Detroit, where her father owned a clothing store, and graduated from Central High School in 1951, then from the University of Michigan. She has said that her passion for food was awakened by a year abroad in Paris while she was an undergraduate. She worked as an investigative reporter for UPI then the New York Post, for example pretending to be single and pregnant for an investigation of baby trafficking, and was made a food writer after her editor liked an article she wrote about chef Henri Soule. She became food reporter at New York soon after its launch, in fall 1968.

Kelly Choi

Kelly Choi (born February 7, 1976) is the former host of Bravo TV's Top Chef spin-off, Top Chef Masters, which premiered on June 10, 2009. Choi is also an Emmy-award winning Korean-American television personality on NYC TV, one of the broadcast stations of NYC Media Group, the television and media network owned by the City of New York.

Born in Seoul, she was a pre-schooler when she moved to the United States with her family. Before her graduate studies, Choi, who stands at 5 ft 10 in. tall, was a model with Elite Models and also worked as a VJ for MTV Korea.

Choi co-produced the first season and hosted all eighteen episodes of the documentary series Secrets of New York, most of which were nationally distributed by PBS. Choi also created and produces Eat Out NY, another NYC TV program in which she stars as the host and guide to the city's restaurants. She has also appeared in numerous other specials and programs at NYC TV such as hosting the James Beard Award, as well as various other food and fashion-driven programs.

Jay Rayner

Jay Rayner (born 14 September 1966) is a British journalist, writer, broadcaster and food critic.

Life and career

Rayner is the younger son of journalist Claire Rayner and Desmond Rayner. His family is Jewish. He was brought up in the Sudbury Hill area of Harrow and attended the independent The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School. He joined The Observer newspaper after graduating from Leeds University in 1988, where he was editor of the student newspaper. As of 2014 he is restaurant critic of The Observer. He has written for a wide range of British newspapers and magazines, including GQ, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, the New Statesman and Granta. In 1992 he was named Young Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards.

His first novel, The Marble Kiss, published in 1994, was shortlisted for the Author's Club First Novel Award and his second, Day of Atonement (1998), was shortlisted for the Jewish Quarterly Prize for Fiction. His first non-fiction book, Stardust Falling, was published in 2002 and was followed by his third novel, The Apologist, published in the US as Eating Crow, in 2004.

Top Chef Masters

Top Chef Masters is an American reality competition series that airs on the cable television network Bravo, and premiered June 10, 2009. It is a spinoff of Bravo's hit show Top Chef. In the series, world-renowned chefs compete against each other in weekly challenges. This show is a contrast from Top Chef, which typically features younger professional cooks who are still rising in the food service industry.

Seasons

References

External links

Top Chef Masters (season 5)

The fifth season of Top Chef Masters was announced on May 16, 2013.Gail Simmons appeared as the new head critic for the competition. In addition, Lesley Suter, the food and dining editor for Los Angeles Magazine, joined the judging panel alongside James Oseland, Ruth Reichl, and Francis Lam. The season premiered on July 24, 2013, with 13 award-winning chefs competing in weekly challenges to win the grand prize of $100,000 (USD) for their charity and the title of "Top Chef Master".

Each Top Chef Masters contestant had their sous-chef compete in a series of separate challenges called the "Battle of the Sous Chefs". Hosted by regular Top Chef judge Hugh Acheson, the results of each webisode directly impacted the competitors of the main competition. The winner of each round rewarded their respective head chef with immunity from elimination, while the sous-chefs with the lowest performances earned them a disadvantage, such as less time to prep or shop for ingredients.

Top Chef Masters (season 2)

The second season of the American reality competition show Top Chef Masters was announced on October 22, 2009. In addition, it was announced that Gail Simmons would be added as a critic. The season premiered on April 7, 2010 with 22 world-renowned chefs competing against each other in weekly challenges. In the season finale that premiered on June 9, 2010, Marcus Samuelsson was crowned Top Chef Master.

Critics

Master Contestants

22 chefs competed in Top Chef Masters. In elimination order the contestants were:

Preliminary Rounds

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3