After upgrading the server to Mac OS X last night (it's so much zippier!), I was browsing through referrers, and noticed several people had visited the old blog wanting to know why Food Network's new Iron Chef America series, premiering on January 16, replaces Wolfgang Puck (from the Iron Chef America: Battle of the Masters mini-series) with Masaharu Morimoto, the current-final Iron Chef Japanese on the original Iron Chef.

As a hint, when you can't find anything on Google, try searching Google News or Groups. I didn't find a definitive answer, but one piece of evidence makes a lot of sense: production for the ten-episode series moved to New York, where Food Network is headquartered and most of its other studio shows are produced. Wolfgang Puck's restaurant is in Los Angeles, as is production of his Food Network show and the original Iron Chef America specials. The three current Iron Chefs - Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, and Morimoto - all have restaurants in New York or nearby.

Of course, in TV, it's never that simple, but until someone provides more evidence that Food Network ditched Puck for other reasons, I say this one is the most logical.

The specials got criticized for not being as much fun as Iron Chef, and I agree. I'll sign up to watch anything Alton Brown does, but as the sole commentator for the battles, he was seriously overtaxed. It needs a two-person announcing team. On Iron Chef, Fukui-san does the play-by-play, and when he got the gig, he was a noted Japanese baseball play-by-play announcer for Fuji TV. A good play-by-play guy would leave AB free to point out the culinary megatrends as, I believe, only he or Shirley Corriher could do. And Shirley talks slowly. :-)

By the way, according to Wikipedia, there really is a family connection. Mark Dacascos, the "chairman" of Iron Chef America, is supposed to be the nephew of Takeshi Kaga of Iron Chef. It turns out that's true - Dacascos's mother is Kaga's sister. He really is Chairman Kaga's nephew. That's very cool, and a nice touch.