Hot on the heels of the controversy surrounding the Thai Prime Minister’s appearance on a cooking show, tomorrow Michelle Obama will appear on Food Network’s Paula’s Party. Not to be outdone, John McCain himself (along with his wife, Cindy) will appear on the Rachael Ray Show. Seriously? Does anyone really care about how the President (or the President’s spouse) cooks? And since when did a candidate appearing on a non-political show ever help their campaign?

Here’s a new feature for Eat to Blog — we’ll be recapping the best of the food programming on television each week.

Iron Chef America 3/2 — Cat Cora took on Arizona’s own Lee Hillson in Battle Ham. Cora emerged victorious by a margin of one point, despite the fact that Hillson won more points on the taste of his food — she was just too original for him. (Food Network, Sunday at 11pm)

No Reservations 3/3 — Tony visited Hawaii and bought a $3000 shirt. He also ate a lot of ethnically diverse food, declaring Hawaii “an American Singapore.” He also softened a bit when confronted with the overtly tourist-friendly luau, keeping his snarky comments to himself. (Travel Channel, Monday at 10pm)

Bizarre Foods 3/4 — In this second season debut, Andrew Zimmern crunched on a seahorse on a stick and got the Chinese medicine treatment in Beijing. He also visited a restaurant which specializes in penis dishes, and debated the merits of snake penis versus yak penis, much to the horror of his Chinese guide. (Travel Channel, Tuesday at 10pm)

Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares 3/6 — Gordon re-visited La Parra de Burriana on the Spanish coast. They were still open (surprising) and still producing terrible food (not so surprising). Gordon attempted to convince them to serve Spanish-influenced food by challenging them to a cook-off. Gordon won with what he (and the other Brits) kept referring to as “pie-ella.” (BBC America, Thursday at 8pm)

Posted by Howard

On tonight’s episode of Iron Chef America I was pleasantly surprised to glimpse Tre from the last season of Top Chef! Tre was an early favorite to win, but ended up not even making the finals. I was happy to see him back on television, if only in brief glimpses — he was there as sous chef for the Rathbun Brothers during the elk battle.

Posted by Howard