North Texas high schools prepare for kitchen showdown this week

Today 25 teams from across the area gather in Hurst for the two-day Texas ProStart Invitational, a competition focusing on culinary skills and management, in which students must design a concept, business plan and menu for a restaurant  Today is mostly orientation and educational sessions. The fires get going tomorrow at the Hurst Conference Center, 1601 Campus Drive.Enrollment in culinary arts courses is booming in Texas. In just three years, it grew by 165 percent. Experts and educators call it the "Food Network effect" with popular shows like Iron Chef America and Cupcake Wars giving new prominence to careers in the kitchen.
Last week, I spent some time with the team from Plano East Senior High School as they prepared for this week's competition. Here's a short video of Chef Scott Nakachi, of Roy's Hawaiian fusion restaurant in Plano, giving tips to students on how to cut fish. Nakachi has been mentoring the team in recent months.According to Deadline, Ben and Kate is currently filming episode 15 of its 18-episode order. Despite the fact that Fox has pulled it from the schedule, the series will complete its episode order. Starting Tuesday, January 29, Fox will air back-to-back episodes of Raising Hope, and an hour-long season finale will air on March 28.On March 12, Hell's Kitchen will start airing at 8 pm, followed by New Girl and The Mindy Project.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, when Ben and Kate received an order for six additional episodes to push its total to 18, the reason it hadn't been given a full back nine order was to accommodate creator Dana Fox's maternity leave. The comedy has received mostly positive reviews, but it simply hasn't able  to bring in the same ratings that the other shows in the comedy block received. With Ben and Kate pulled, and Hell's Kitchen airing in its place, Fox is effectively putting an end to that block for the time being.At TCA, Fox Entertainment chair Kevin Reilly said of the disappointing ratings, "Our shows weren't rejected, they were never really sampled." He said that comedy requires a patience that is no longer allowed by the broadcast business, and that there isn't as much urgency to watch a comedy as there is to watch a drama.Fox has pulled its freshman comedy, Ben and Kate, from its Tuesday lineup, at least for the time being.The network hasn't officially said that the series is canceled, but it did say that it has been pulled from the schedule indefinitely.