Adam Richman, the man who used to get paid to gorge on food while the cameras rolled – his job description has changed a bit lately – has been eating his way through Milwaukee over the past couple days.
Richman stars in Travel Channel's "Man V. Food Nation," a new generation of "Man V. Food." In this incarnation of the show, he coaches teams who participate in food competitions at local eateries, rather than eating his way through them himself. The episodes involve a visit to a specific town, where Richman samples some of the unique (and usually hearty) food.
On Friday night, he had dinner at Downtown's Cubanitas. Luis Garcia, one of the managers at the Cuban restaurant, tells me Richman had lechon -- a roast pork dish that's one of the establishment's most popular entrees, along with rice and beans and a salad.
He wasn't filming on Friday, according to Garcia.
But on Saturday, Richman was filming a variety of shots at the Milwaukee Public Market, according to the public market's facility manager, David Ware.
There are reports that among other things, Richman filmed at West Allis Cheese and got a brat from Rupena's. He also filmed Ware cooking on a wood stove at the Urban Outdoor Market.
There's still no word on what the Milwaukee food challenge was – and who participated.
New episodes of "Man V. Food Nation" air at 8 p.m. Wednesdays. Reruns of his "Man V. Food" air throughout the day on the cable channel.
On TV: NBC's Salt Lake City affiliate says it won't air this fall's "Playboy Club," a drama set in the 1960s. KSL-TV President and CEO Mark Willes says "The Playboy brand is known internationally. Everyone is clear what it stands for. We want to be sure everyone is clear what the KSL brand stands for, which is completely inconsistent with the Playboy brand." The station is looking for ways to make it available to another Salt Lake station.
- In some inside baseball news for the media reporting biz, the Chicago Tribune's Phil Rosenthal is moving on from a media column to a general business column at the paper. It's a loss for media reporting in the huge and fascinating Chicago market.
- And Chicago Sun-Times TV critic Paige Wiser has been axed by the paper after an unfortunate incident where she made up some facts in a review of the "Glee" live show. Wiser has taken full responsibility for what she did, she says she took her kids to the show and her attention wasn't where it should be. I've appeared on Chicago's WGN-AM (720) with Paige, where I found her to be charming and insightful. I hope I get the chance to gently disagree with her about TV in the future. The Tribune, by the way, no longer has a TV critic and there's a good chance Wiser won't be replaced by the Sun-Times.
- Sunday night's sixth game in the NBA Finals pulled in the best ratings in 11 years, with about 21 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research numbers.
- AMC has ordered a 13-episode second season of "The Killing." Season one wraps up Sunday at 9 p.m.
Bratwurst earns Food Network praise: There are 13 finalists left on "Food Network Star" after two were cut in this week's episode.
One who wasn't cut was unabashed Wisconsin native Jyll Everman who used traditional Dairyland bratwurst cooking techniques - you know, start with a simmer in beer – to win praise from the judges and a chance to come back next week.
"You are so grounded in a sense of place," she was told by Bob Tuschman, Food Network's general manager and one of the judges in the competition for a Food Network series.
Here's Everman's bio video:
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
