Hawaii people and places win spots on food shows

When you see Hawaii represented on national TV, you feel proud, eh?

This will be a bursting-with-pride summer for local Food Network and Cooking Channel viewers, as Hawaii, our food, our people and our chefs will be featured on several cable network shows.

Starting Sunday, Amy Pottinger of Hickam Air Force Base will take a shot at being the next “Food Network Star.”

Pottinger has a passion for food and art, and has a blog called “Caviar and Crayons,” she told TheBuzz.

For military families, home is where the service sends you, and Pottinger has gone from Seattle, where she grew up, to Flori­da, Alaska and now Hawaii, where she lives with her husband, an F22 pilot, and their children.

She always worked in restaurants, not usually as a cook, but as a server or bartender. Now a stay-at-home mom, she finds cooking to be an outlet.

Pottinger applied on a whim, was accepted and got to learn from celebrity chefs and show hosts Bobby Flay and Giada De Laurentiis.

“This wound up being a real confidence- booster, it was an incredible experience,” she said.

She cannot reveal how she did when the shows were taped, but did say that it was a trial. “I cook at home with kids running around, and chaos is a part of my life, but (hosting while cooking) is significantly more difficult than it looks … and I consider myself pretty good at multitasking.”

Pottinger has no professional culinary training, but that will change in the fall, when she starts classes at the Gros Bonnet Culinary Academy.

“I belong in the culinary world. I know what I’m doing and that I can cook,” she said. Being on the show “reaffirmed for me that that is something I want to do, that is something that I am going to throw myself into.”

Also starting Sunday on the Food Network is the new season of “Ayesha’s Home Kitchen,” hosted by Ayesha Curry, who just opened her first restaurant, International Smoke, at The Street in the International Market Place.

Earlier this month a Food Network crew was in Waikiki taping segments featuring Curry. The air date is pending.

Celebrity chef, restaurateur, larger-than-life TV personality and general Hawaii-lover Guy Fieri plans two Hawaii episodes of his “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” this season.

On June 9 Fieri visits Fleetwood’s on Front Street, a restaurant established by rocker Mick Fleetwood. The episode will showcase a favorite chicken dish of Fleetwood’s mother, as well as another dish favored by rocker, restaurateur and spirits distiller Sammy Hagar. A food truck serving stuffed chicken wings and fried ribs also gets some shine in the show.

Less is known about a June 16 Hawaii episode, beyond that it will feature a lobster grilled cheese and tropical shave ice.

The Cooking Channel, the Food Network’s sister network, already has debuted a show with Hawaii episodes in the offing.

This season of “Man Fire Food” with Roger Mooking debuted Tuesday, and segments shot in Hawaii will air during the season, on dates not yet set.

On “Beach Bites With Katie Lee,” the cookbook author and TV personality visits Oahu and Maui during the season that starts Thursday.

In the June 15 episode Lee will visit venues on the North Shore but also will hang out in Kaimuki with chef Lee Anne Wong for her Koko Moco, served at Koko Head Cafe.

Stay tuned to TheBuzz for more as Hawaii is pegged for further attention on cable and broadcast networks, not just over the summer, but anytime a network’s travel budget will allow.

Send restaurant news and notes to erika@staradvertiser.com or call 529-4303. Follow Erika Engle on Twitter @eriKaengle.