I just want to alert you that I'm giving away two cookbooks on the Turning the Scales blog.

"Good Housekeeping Light & Healthy Cooking: 250 Delicious, Satisfying, Guilt-Free Recipes" and "Gordon Ramsay's Healthy Appetite: 125 Super-Fresh Recipes for a High- Energy Life."

You know the drill. To enter, click on the cookbook title above and leave a comment. Good luck!

PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE COMMENTS BELOW THIS POST! You will not be entered. Click on the cookbook titles above to go where  you need to leave a comment.

North Carolina moved a step closer to its second “American Idol” tonight as Scotty McCreery was named one of the Final Four finalists of this, the show’s 10th season.

The Garner High School junior is less than three weeks from the May 25 finale. Scotty has reached the highest spot for a Tar Heel resident since Season Five of “Idol,” when Chris Daughtry made the Final Four. The sole “Idol” winner from North Carolina is Fantasia Barrino of Season Three. (Raleigh’s Clay Aiken was second in Season Two.)

Scotty won praise this week for the variety he showed in his two Wednesday performances – Montgomery Gentry’s “Gone” and Elvis Presley’s “Always On My Mind.” On tonight's show, Scotty joined the other finalists for a version of The Turtles’ “Happy Together” that showcased – in a bad way – how different their five voices are.

Three Wise Women (8pm, Hallmark) - A hospital administrator (Amy Huberman) is visited by her past and future selves at the behest of her guardian angel (Hugh O'Connor). Their visits are designed to help her realize she's about to marry the wrong man.

I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown (8pm, ABC) - Linus and Lucy's little brother, ReRun, tries to avoid the Van Pelt family's holiday nuttiness by hanging with Snoopy and his own sibling, the desert-dwelling Spike. Based on previously published comic strips by Charles S. Schulz.

The Biggest Loser (9pm, NBC) - The winner of the $250,000 prize is determined in the Season 10 finale, and eliminated players return to weigh in for the $100,000 at-home prize.

The Good Wife (10pm, CBS) - Alicia tries to get a stay of execution for a death row inmate as Peter prepares for his first debate in the state's attorney race.

Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Christmas (10pm, BBC America) - At home with this family, Chef Gordon Ramsay prepares roast turkey, pork-apricot-and-pistachio stuffing and cranberry-apple sauce n the premiere of this instructional cooking series.

After greeting the crop of contestants for tonight's new season premiere of "Hell's Kitchen," Chef Gordon Ramsay mutters to himself, "Bloody hell. Here we go again."

I know how exactly he feels.

Watching the first episode of "Hell's Kitchen" each season (that's usually about all I can bare to watch), I can't help but think, "Where did they get these people?" This is no "Top Chef." It's not even "MasterChef." Even though I like cooking competition shows and I also like Ramsay, I don't care for "Hell's Kitchen" because I can't take 98% of the contestants seriously.

"Hell's Kitchen" casting leans heavily toward the weird, the volatile, and the less-than-capable. Maybe that's why it's not so bad watching Ramsay scream at them. They really are pretty bad.

This is the unabridged version of a story that ran today in our print edition.

Darryl Pierce doesn't want to be famous for his hands. He wants to be famous for what his hands can do, and that is make delicious food.

But the North Carolina native knew when he applied to be a contestant on the new Fox reality competition series "MasterChef," airing Tuesday nights at 9pm, that his hands would be the center of attention.

At least in the beginning.

Pierce was born with a rare genetic birth defect called ectrodactyly, which means he only has three fingers on each hand.  "I was hoping that the producers wouldn't make a big deal about my fingers," Pierce said in an interview last week. "Not because I'm uncomfortable or shy about it at all, but because I felt like it would take away from what I felt my biggest asset to the show was: my amazing food."

Today we profiled North Carolina native Darryl Pierce, who is a contestant this season on the new Fox show "MasterChef." If you haven't done so already, take a look at the profile because we think he's a pretty remarkable guy and he should be an interesting addition to "MasterChef's" contestant pool.

Here's a bit more from our interview with Pierce. Find out which roommate he got stuck with during taping and what he really thinks of celebrity judges Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot Bowles, and Joe Bastianich.

The new Fox reality competition show "MasterChef" is equal parts "Hell's Kitchen" and "Top Chef," but this time giving true amateur cooks a chance to compete for the top prize: a quarter million dollars and their own published cookbook.

Already a big hit in Australia and the U.K., "MasterChef" starts out with 100 hopefuls and narrows the pool to 30 for the show. Unlike other cooking shows, we get to see the auditions and feel some investment in those who advance, so I guess we can toss a little "American Idol" into the pedigree.

Andrew Forster, a farmer/chef living in Wake Forest, was a contestant on the current season of "Hell's Kitchen" on Fox. That is, until Andrew got angry and stormed off the show earlier this week.

"Hell's Kitchen" is Chef Gordon Ramsay's reality competition cooking show, and if Ramsay is known for anything, it's screaming and cursing at his charges. Remarkably, Andrew never bothered to watch the show (now in its seventh season) before agreeing to appear, and once he got there, he decided pretty quickly he didn't like being yelled at.

Bravo’s latest entry to its line up of mouth-watering reality shows is “Chef Academy,” which follows Michelin-winning French chef Jean Christophe Novelli, who comes to Venice, California to start a culinary institute.

And when it premieres tonight at 11, among the 9 students he seeks to teach and train is Carissa Loughhead St. Aubin, a Charlotte newlywed who says she’s ‘nauseous with excitement’ to see the first episode.

The show is a little different than “Top Chef” or “Hell’s Kitchen,” or the other do-or-die elimination food shows. On this show, students get three chances to fail before they flunk out of the school. But while Novelli, a prankster who reveals a deep love of the TV character “Columbo,” isn’t the cussing tyrant that is Gordon Ramsay, St. Aubin says he’s not a pushover either.

Hell's Kitchen (8pm, Fox) - "Hell's Kitchen," the cooking competition show for people who wish "Iron Chef" and "Top Chef" just had a little violence and profanity, begins its new season with a 2-hour premiere tonight. Gordon Ramsay is as angry and demanding as ever, and the 16 contestants are a truly staggering mix of whackos. All have huge egos, naturally, but a few border on mental or emotional instability -- all the better to push the tease of some actual physical violence this season. The big prize is a job as top chef at a restaurant in the Canadian resort town of Whistler, B.C. (site of 2010 Winter Olympics), but a few of them would be better served by a year in anger management classes. Or cooking school. Ramsay's attitude? We get that. He knows what he's doing, he has standards in his kitchen, and he's in charge. But coming from bozos who can't devein shrimp, it just feels like "crazy." One thing is for sure -- it's never boring.

Better Off Ted (9pm, ABC) - Veronica learns something that impacts her rivalry with her father, who is the CEO at another big company. Ted tries to impress his father by bragging about a Veridian discovery which could cure baldness.

Miami Social (10pm, Bravo) - Did I mention that I hate this show? Mostly I hate that Ariel person, but honestly, they should have just named this show The Real A-Holes of Miami.

Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel (10pm, HBO) - One segment is with former Oakland Raider Barrett Robbins (right), who went AWOL the night before the 2003 Super Bowl. Also, a profile of boxing trainer Freddie Roach, and a 14-year-old cancer patient adopted by the Northwestern University women's lacrosse team.