Who doesn’t these days, right?

Well, Silicon Valley’s KTEH-TV is looking for its next TV chef to star in its “Cooks with Garlic” live show. You have until Sept. 15 to apply. Send a note explaining why you should be cooking on TV, and an original recipe you want to prepare on the show.

Email Garlicrecipe@KTEH.org or send to: Garlic Recipe, KTEH, 1585 Schallenberger Road, San Jose, CA 95108.

For complete contest rules, go to http://www.kteh.org/tv/productions/cooks/garlic.jsp.

It’s hard to believe that it will be a decade this Labor Day weekend that Chef Ron Siegel made history, becoming the first and only American to ever beat an “Iron Chef” on the original Japanese-version of that wildly popular culinary TV show. 

Siegel, now the celebrated chef of the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco, walked into Kitchen Stadium, having never really followed the show, and not fully realizing the magnitude of what was to come. The Japanese also underestimated their American challenger. Siegel had quite the credentials already, having cooked at Aqua in San Francisco and Daniel in New York. The former opening sous chef for the French Laundry in Yountville, Siegel was then the chef of the well-regarded Charles Nob Hill in San Francisco. Even so, the producers of the show feared he wouldn’t even complete any dishes. 

But when “Battle Lobster” ended, Siegel had not only crafted five dishes, but food so spectacular that he emerged victorious over Iron Chef Hiroyuki Sakai. His life, and his cooking, was forever changed. 

Even today, diners still come up to shake his hand and congratulate him. And the video on YouTube of the epic battle has attracted more than 4,800 viewers. 

You might expect Siegel to be an avid fan of today’s crop of reality-TV cooking shows, but you’d be wrong. Still, he came this close to being on the first season of “Top Chef” _ not as a competitor, but as a judge. In the end, though, the producers went instead with Fleur de Lys in San Francisco as the setting for the first challenge. 

Fame, apparently, has not gone to his head. The Dining Room’s pastry chef, Alexander Espiritu, who has worked with Siegel for four years, says, “I’ve never worked with any other chef whom I got along with so well. The most important thing I’ve learned from him is to relax. As Ron always says, ‘Don’t worry, it’ll happen.’ ”

I caught up with the 42-year-old, father-of-four last week when he was the guest chef at a special heirloom tomato dinner at the Cliff House in San Francisco. Siegel had me in stitches, chatting about Iron Chef, his years at Palo Alto High School, and of course, tomatoes. 

Q: Would it be fair to say that if you had never done “Iron Chef” that your style of cooking might be quite different today? 

A: Yes. I think I probably would have matured enough to let other influences in. But I never would have gone to Japan five times like I did, and learned so much about the food and culture there. The passion the Japanese have for food is just incredible. 

Q: What do you think when you look back at your Iron Chef battle? 

A: I would go back and do that show again in Japan. I wouldn’t do the American version, though. I don’t think it’s as good. That’s what happens when Americans remake things. “La Femme Nikita” is a prime example of that. I just hope they never remake “Babette’s Feast.” 

Q: If the Japanese “Iron Chef” show was still around, who would you choose the next time around to battle? 

A: Sakai again. He’s amazing. I remember when I first met him. I was in a suit, and he comes in, wearing this warm-up jacket. I don’t know how old he was then, but the guy was ripped. He looked like Rocky Balboa. And he was just so polite. 

Q: So you’re not a fan of the newest cooking competition shows? 

A: I saw “Hell’s Kitchen” a few times. Can they not pick someone who can cook on that show? I have seen “Top Chef,” but I don’t really watch it. Actually, I like the History Channel. And “The Shield.” It has nothing to do with cooking, but it was a good show! It was so violent and intense. 

Q: You were recently on the Discovery Channel’s “MythBusters” show? 

A: For all of 10 seconds. Or maybe 20 seconds. I was tasting steak. They wanted me to test whether if you blow up steak, it’ll taste more tender. 

Q: Uh, OK. And does it? 

A: Well, they were such small pieces, it wasn’t always easy to tell. 

Q: So what do you think about chefs being the new celebrities? 

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“Top Chef” fans lucky enough to be living in New York or visiting there soon will be happy to know some of their favorite contestants will be teaching demonstration classes at the Culinary Institute of America at Astor Center in Manhattan’s East Village.

Marcel Vigneron, whom fans loved to jeer and nickname “Wolverine” because of his ‘do, will be teaching Aug. 4. He’s followed by Tre Wilcox on Aug. 18; Dale Talde on Aug. 25; Stephanie Izard, this season’s winner, on Sept. 8; and Richard Blais on Sept. 15.

Each class is limited to 36 participants. Price is $195 per person.

At first thought, the Food Network’s wacky wizard of food, Alton Brown, might seem an unlikely choice to be a host at this past weekend’s “Cooking For Solutions” event at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

But Brown, an avid scuba diver and father of an 8-year-old daughter, knows full well the challenges we face now and in the future in sustaining the ecosystems of our oceans. At the “Cooking For Solutions” event, which gathered chefs, scientists, and food producers to examine ways to preserve the health of the planet, Brown summed up his philosophy as only he can.

When it comes to seafood, he said, “My motto comes from the side of the old Los Angeles police cars: Serve and Protect.”

I chatted with the energetic, surprisingly frank 46-year-old megastar, whose “Good Eats” show, which he directs and writes most of the scripts for, debuted on the Food Network in 1999. A graduate of both the University of Georgia and the New England Culinary Institute, he now lives in Marietta, Ga. with his wife, DeAnna, and daughter, Zoey. Brown also is the commentator for “Iron Chef America,” host of the “Next Iron Chef,” and star of “Feasting on Asphalt.”  Additionally, he has his own production company, Be Square Production.

He wasn’t always a natural at science. Nor was he always a foodie. In fact, previously he was a cinematographer and video director. You can see his work in R.E.M.’s “The One I Love” video.

Q: So science wasn’t something you were always passionate about?

A: No, not at all. I flunked chemistry twice in high school, mostly because it didn’t matter. It was all numbers and formulas, and ‘let’s cut up a rat.’

Q: So how did you come up with the concept for “Good Eats,” which is all about explaining the science of cooking?

A: I wanted to give people a practicality they could build on. In culinary school, I realized I wasn’t a very good cook. To figure out how to do it better, I realized science was the answer.

Q: When did sustainability become so important to you?

A: When I became a father. I began to relive my life through my daughter when I was that same age of 8 years old. I became so aware that so much had changed. We no longer place much value on our food; we value cheapness.

My Mom grew up very poor. They grew their own food, they had their own chickens. We’ve made it now so that poor people can’t grow food so easily, and they can’t keep chickens. There are all these regulations. We’ve made it so that with poverty in America, there’s no self-respect.

Q: How else did becoming a father change your viewpoints?

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Well, so much for having four home-grown San Francisco contestants on this season’s “Top Chef” competition. All four of them have been booted. Erik Hopfinger of Circa restaurant; chef-restaurant consultant, Zoi Antonitsas; her partner, Jennifer Biesty of Coco500; and Michael “Ryan” Scott, formerly of Cafe Myth. One by one, they all had to pack their knives.

Biesty also has decided to depart from Coco500, where she’s headed the kitchen for three years. That report from this week’s Tablehopper.

I don’t know about you, but I had to chuckle at last week’s challenge to cook a dinner for four. Armed with only $10 each, the chefs were sent to Whole Foods to gather their provisions. $10?? At Whole Foods??? Are they serious????

 If you’re a fan who can’t get enough of “Top Chef,” soon there will be a whole lot more to get. Of course, there’s already the Top Chef: The Cookbook that’s reportedly sold 65,000 copies since it was published two months ago.

On top of that, you’ll soon be able to take a “Top Chef” cooking class at the Culinary Institute of America, and travel on a “Top Chef” cruise through the Mediterranean in May 2009. You can read all about it on “Broadcasting & Cable”.

Meantime, keep tuning in to see who will be Season 4’s top “Top Chef.” I’m still not sure whom I’m rooting for yet. But my money just might be on either Richard, or Dale of New York’s Buddakan restaurant. Both seem like pretty smart cooks with talent to be reckoned with.