Trend Thursday: Celebrity Chefs

Forget the celebrity singer, celebrity planner, and even the celebrity designer! Couples are clamoring for the Celebrity Chef! With the popularity of shows like Top Chef, Iron Chef, and the myriad of other cooking shows, on such networks as Food Network, brides and grooms are looking to have these icons of taste cater their wedding.

One hit show, Top Chef, has been enticing brides and grooms to call on these rising stars. Most likely because to most people, these individuals are more accessible than say Cat Cora, Mario Bartali, Jamie Oliver, and Wolfgang Puck. However, if you have the dough...even you can get the best of the best to cook for your guests.

So if your budget is more shiitake mushroom then white truffle, you might want to consider such reality show chefs as Fabio Viviani from the current season of Top Chef or Lisa Garza from The Next Food Network Star, before they soar to super nova chef status. Individuals like this are known because of their TV appearance and loved because of their personality...plus their food looks so yummy on the boob-tube. Additionally, their pricing is probably more competitive than say Chef Tom Colicchio when it comes to catering your wedding feast.

The great thing about this trend is couples are FINALLY putting focus on the foods that they are serving to their guests. Like my guest blogger Paul Bott stated last week, this trend of foodies and treating a wedding dinner as a wedding feast is really rising in popularity. But the trend of hiring the celebrity chef is the newest "wow" factor that people are doing, because now everyone at the celebration can taste a piece of this superstar!

Have fun thinking of who should cook your feast. Remember, it never hurts to inquire about their services...you might just be surprised what they comeback with. Now I'm hungry!

-Percy

P.S. Talking about Top Chef...If you are a fan of the show please don't forget to vote for your favorite chef (Fabio for me), at http://www.bravotv.com/Top_Chef/season/5/vote/index2.php. You can vote up to 20 times a week for the next two weeks. Maybe you will be the lucky winner of the trip to NYC plus $10,000!

Top Chef Logo from Bravo TV's Top Chef