Today's Entertainment

Tim Kurkjian of "Baseball Tonight" on ESPN "I really haven't watched a show regularly since 'Get Smart' and 'All in the Family' went off the air. Those were the two greatest sitcoms of all time. Those are my two favorite shows of all time. And just with my crazy schedule, if there's a baseball game on TV, I'm going to watch it instead of a television show." Kelly Clarkson, recently seen on The 61st Annual Grammy Awards on CBS and "The Voice" on NBC "The news. I've never watched the news more than I've watched it in the last year, because I've sort of been in a state of panic. My husband and I are always like, 'What's going on?' It's like there's something completely insane happening every day, and I don't like living like that." Ryan Kwanten of "The Oath" on Sony Crackle "I'm a little bit of an anomaly there. I don't have a television. If I need to watch something, I'll grab my girlfriend's laptop and research that way. But the last thing I saw that I enjoyed in terms of television, I really love true crime, so the last thing I saw was that 'Murder Mountain,' the Netflix doc." Family, it is said, can be a blessing or a curse. In the case of the contestants on "Family Food Showdown," it's probably a little of both. Premiering Sunday, March 3, on Food Network, the hourlong series pits two family teams of three against each other in three rounds of challenges designed to test their skills, recipes and family dynamics. Evaluating the final products is a rotating panel of judges including Kardea Brown, Clinton Kelly, Antonia Lofaso, Daphne Oz, Jake and Jazz Smollet, Tori Spelling, Jet Tila, Bryan and Michael Voltaggio and Molly Yeh. The winning clan in each of the 13 episodes takes home a $10,000 grand prize. The competition here is pretty stiff as many of the contestants work in the food industry as chefs, restaurateurs and caterers, so the dishes that got to the judges were professional quality. Valerie Bertinelli, the series' host, was impressed. "Oh gosh, some of these dishes are amazing what they're putting out," the actress and host of Food's "Valerie's Home Cooking" says. "And it's also fun to watch the family dynamic, to watch how they treat each other. It's very different when you're watching a chef work on his own with the pressure of time and all that stuff. But to watch these guys, the way they help each other, the way they sometimes don't help each other – the family dynamics are very fascinating." Also fascinating for Bertinelli was watching the teams establish their pecking order. "It was really interesting to see then who sort of took over in the kitchen and became the one leading everybody," she says. "It's really fascinating to watch that happen because you assume one person's going to really take the lead and it ends up being somebody else but you don't know why. And then you hear from them why and it's always interesting." And of course, there is the communication, which is critical in any kitchen, but factor in the family dynamic and sometimes the communication might be a little too good, Bertinelli says. "Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes just because someone knows how to finish your sentence, it doesn't mean they should," she says with a laugh. "We saw all kinds of stuff," she continues. "There's tensions flaring, there's tears, there's laughter. It kind of hits everything that we feel when we're with our families from Thanksgiving dinner to some things that are not as traumatic. Sometimes Thanksgiving dinner can be super easy and sometimes not. So we kind of got a little bit of everything in this show." Valerie Bertinelli BY GEORGE DICKIE Clans team up, for better and worse, on Food Network's 'Family Food Showdown' Page 8 March 4 - 10, 2019 I FOUND IT! Whether you are looking for the latest garage sale bargain, a reliable car, a home or a new job. You are sure to find what you want in the classified section of … Nobody Covers Your Hometown Better!

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