Your shot at being a Food Network star

Courtesy Food Network
The Food Network is casting for the next season of "Guy's Grocery Games," open to both professionals and non-pro cooks.

Local firefighters are known for their kitchen as well as fire-fighting skills, and are among the specialty cooks being sought for the next season of Guy Fieri's "Guy's Grocery Games."

The Food Network is searching nationwide for outgoing, skilled chefs and professional cooks from all backgrounds to compete for the $20,000 prize. If you think you have the chops, or know someone who does, applications are being taken at beonguysgrocerygames.com.

All applicants must be 18 or older, and residents of the United States.

Producers are casting the following specialty episodes:

Burgers: Open to pro chefs and cooks with unique skills and perspective on burgers.
Bacon: Seeking pro chefs and cooks with unique skills and perspective on bacon.
Cheese: Pro chefs and cooks with unique skills and perspective on cheese.
All in the family: Seeking four family members who are or have been professional chefs/cooks, who will compete against each other.
Mothers Day/Father's Day: Looking for parent and son or daughter, and parent or adult child with some pro cooking experience.
Carnival games: For pro chefs and cooks with unique skills and perspective on carnival eats.
Superfans: Cooks/chefs who are epic fans of the show.
Firefighters: Amateur cooks with skills.
Police officers: Amateur cooks with skills.
Veterans: (Amateur Armed Forces cooks with skills.
Food truck chefs
Station chefs, Chef de Parties, line cooks: Representing from every part of a pro kitchen.

The deadline is Oct. 1 for the following episodes:

Burgers, Bacon, Cheese, Carnival Eats, Father's Day (Chef Father and his daughter or son, 18 or older), Superfan, Firefighters, Police, Veterans

Casting will continue through December for additional episodes that haven't been themed yet.

Pass on the word to anyone qualified.

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Nadine Kam is Style Editor and staff restaurant critic at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser; her food coverage is in print in Wednesday's Crave section. Contact her via email at nkam@staradvertiser.com and follow her on Twitter, Instagram and Rebel Mouse.

'Chef Hunter' focuses on Merriman's tonight

Food Network photos
Carrie McCully brings restaurateurs and executive chef candidates together on The Food Network's "Chef Hunter."

Attaining executive chef status is a grueling process in itself, made even tougher when cameras are involved. That's the challenge of Food Network's new series "Chef Hunter," which shows what happens when out-of-work chefs head to Kauai, intent on landing an executive chef job with Peter Merriman.

The episode will air at 11 p.m. today, with chefs put to the ultimate test of culinary skill, business acumen and tenacity required to be an executive chef. Beyond the basics of creating a couple of dishes for Merriman to sample, the chefs are given full run of the restaurant for one night and tasked with creating their own menu and serving a packed house of the restaurant’s best customers.

It's not just made-for-television stuff because of the show's real-life implications, according to Carrie McCully, a New York- and L.A.-based professional culinary recruiter, who takes her work very seriously.

In a phone interview earlier today, she said, job seeking on the show "is absolutely harder because they have cameras all around and they're under a tremendous amount of stress. They're literally going in and creating a menu, sourcing all the products, working with a team they never met before, and serving local patrons of the restaurant. It's much harder than the average interview.

"I've never had one chef who didn't say that it was the toughest interview they'd had in their life, and it's been a career changer. Once they experience it, everything else always seems like a piece of cake."

It marks a big commitment to the hosting restaurant as well, who entrusts the chefs with the premises, all its equipment, and its clientele. Though throughout the process, McCully said she and Merriman, one of the architects of the Hawaii Regional Cuisine movement, were right there to observe the chefs' working methods.

"It's important for him to create the right team because he's often on the road, and has to know this person is capable, so he's watching every movement the chefs are making," McCully said, while adding, "Peter is such a professional. He's had so much experience and has a terrific sense of humor, so it's really hard to ruffle his feathers. There were a lot of laughs (over the chef's blunders), like that's happened before."