Tune in
Spokane chef Aaron Crumbaugh will appear on the 12th season of “Food Network Star.”
In the first episode, contestants on the culinary reality show shoot 30-second screen tests, which are then shown during a private event in Los Angeles. Celebrity chefs Bobby Flay and Giada de Laurentiis serve as mentors and judges. And “Comeback Kitchen” hosts Valerie Bertinelli and Tyler Florence help them decide who will be first to go home.
Crumbaugh, 37, can’t say how long he lasts.
Originally from Michigan, Crumbaugh moved to Spokane from Chicago, where he had a food truck and catering company, to be closer to his wife’s family. She’s from Chewelah.
He’s no stranger to TV or Food Network. Crumbaugh proposed to his wife on-air during the season finale of the sixth season of the CBS reality competition show “The Amazing Race.” (They wed in Spokane two years later.) He’s also appeared twice on Food Network’s “Cutthroat Kitchen.”
He’s worked as a chef at the Peninsula Hotel in Chicago and at Thompson River Ranch in northwest Montana. These days, he’s partnering with chef Jeremy Hansen on the newly formed Tumbled Spruce Events company. Together, they recently organized the first Chefs Week PNW, a four-day food festival held in the old Washington Cracker Co. building, the site of Hansen’s new Inland Pacific Catering. Crumbaugh will also be heading up the kitchen at IPC.
During the upcoming season of “Food Network Star,” finalists encounter challenges that test their culinary skills as well as on-camera presence, such as delivering food reports for “Entertainment Tonight” co-hosts Nancy O'Dell and Kevin Frazier.
The season premiere airs at 9 p.m. May 22.
