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• Miami Spice Girls: Culinary students vie for national championship

Four-star superstar jumps into the television fray

It's a face easily remembered. The superstar chef's handsome mug has popped up as a guest judge on Top Chef . It has lit up shows hosted by Martha Stewart, David Letterman and Ellen DeGeneres. It has graced the glossy pages of numerous cooking magazines. It's a familiar visage to in-the-know foodies.

But Eric Ripert, whose Le Bernardin is recognized as one of the world's great seafood restaurants, has been the rare top toque without his own television show. Until now.

Ripert's Avec Eric , a lifestyle, travel and cooking show, premiered Sunday nationally on PBS stations. It marks a new chapter for the classically trained French chef who up until now has resisted jumping into the food television fricassee, partly in favor of minding the store at his seafood temple (he's kept Le Bernardin's four-star rating from The New York Times longer than any other chef now cooking in New York).

Across the county wannabe chefs are chopping and dicing with the experts

A t Casa Toscana in Miami, a group of women chopped, diced and mixed together a three-course Italian meal that included stuffed eggplant rolls, fresh pasta, pan-seared corvina puttanesca and a rosemary and lemon zest ricotta tart.

At Two Chefs in South Miami, a group of men and women worked at stations that included making mozzarella cheese to create a feast of cauliflower fritters, green tomato frittata and grilled cheese sandwiches for the group.

And across town at Don Ignacio's cooking school in Doral, a group of novice chefs learned how to cook sticky rice, cut fish and prepare colorful sushi rolls.

Miami Spice Girls: Culinary students vie for national championship

Contrived and cookie-cutter as they were, the Spice Girls managed to inject girl power into the 1990s pop music scene. A decade and half later, the real spice girls of Miami are bringing girl power to the male-dominated culinary world.

On Monday, four women from Johnson and Wales University in North Miami will travel to Orlando to compete in the American Culinary Federation's national Knowledge Bowl championship -- the first time a school team has reached the finals.

''It was one of the highlights of my career,'' chef-instructor and team coach Alan Lazar says of the regional win. ``They're very intelligent young ladies.''

Where's the beef? In land of cowboys, pig thrives

The president of the National Pork Producers Council - the person who represents the people who represent the nation's pigs - appeared recently before Congress to talk about sales in the swine flu era.

He wasn't happy. "Things look bleak going forward," Don Butler told America's lawmakers.

Around the same time, the following events transpired:

Cooking with class: Plain, spicy or sweet

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam -- Is it possible to get a D in spring rolls? I also flunked tomato rose-making.

``No, no,'' said an exasperated Nguyen Thai Binh, executive chef, showing how the knife tip should slide under the outer peel as delicately as a heart surgeon's scalpel.

Luckily, my Nuoc mam cham dipping fish sauce and Canh ca chua trung tomato soup turned out brilliantly, if I do say so myself.