PASADENA, Calif. — Popular cable TV chef Emeril Lagasse says he's not worried about TV critics' harsh reception for his Emeril comedy on NBC. In a word, their reaction was BAM!

        “I've got very thick skin, because I've been in the restaurant business for a long time,” says the New Orleans restaurant owner and star of Emeril Live and The Essence of Emeril on the Food Network.

        “I'm just going to do what I'm going to do, and give it my best shot,” he told the Television Critics Association meeting here.

        But chances are he's never served anything to food critics as half-baked as this sitcom about a cable TV cooking expert who seldom sees his wife and kids. Producer Linda Bloodworth (Designing Women) is rewriting the pilot, dropping most of the family scenes at home, and focusing on the workplace comedy.

        “It will be considerably different from what you saw,” cautions Jeff Zucker, the NBC Entertainment president who has scheduled Emeril at 8 p.m. Tuesday this fall — the same time slot in which the Michael Richards Show failed a year ago.

        Emeril, 43, essentially plays himself, the TV superchef on a cable TV show produced by two strong-willed women played by Lisa Ann Walter (Life's Work) and Sherri Shepherd (Robert's police partner on Everybody Loves Raymond). Robert Urich (Vega$, Spenser: For Hire) has been added recently as Emeril's agent.

        “The plan was to put Emeril Lagasse, who is this fabulous personality, in the middle of some very loud, mouthy Designing Women with great food,” Ms. Bloodworth says.

        NBC executives, however, wanted an 8 p.m. family show, and insisted on the home life being added to the recipe — a classic case of too many cooks spoiling the bisque. Ms. Bloodworth has returned to what she originally cooked up.

        “I was very attracted to Emeril as a personality. He has a very blessed, very Jackie Gleason kind of a persona,” she says.

        “I think that Bob Urich and Emeril are going to now get to do for men what I hope the Designing Women did for women. It's kind of one, long male rant about what they're upset about over the last 20 years of men's evolution,” she says.

        One long rant also describes most of the Emeril press conference with TV critics who had seen the pilot.

        “I was kind of surprised by . . . so much negative reaction,” Ms. Bloodworth says, noting that Emeril was “NBC's highest-testing pilot” in audience research. “I was a little bit shocked at the negative response before anyone (viewers) had seen it.”

        Critics grilled Ms. Bloodworth, and her husband, producer Harry Thomason, about why they think Emeril will succeed when popular performers like Bette Midler, John Goodman, Nathan Lane, Geena Davis and Mr. Richards have failed in sitcoms.

        “We think we're going to measure up,” says Ms. Bloodworth, who passed up a chance to produce CBS' Bette

        last season. “We hope ours will be better.”

        Her secret ingredient is Emeril. Although many critics didn't like the show, some reluctantly admitted they were surprimpressed with the chef's charming personality and candor.

        “I love people, I love food, and I think that comes across,” says Emeril, who was a rock band musician before studying the culinary arts.

        For Emeril, a sitcom was never on the menu. The producers had to talk him into trying comedy.

        “I wasn't really convinced in the beginning,” he says. “And the first thing was that I had to feel a sense of team.”

        He also had to rearrange his busy life. He has worked out a plan to tape “a full schedule of shows” for both Emeril Live and Essence this season, says Judy Girard, Food Network president.

        “(Emeril) will be with us a long time,” she says. “He is one of those people that doesn't need a lot of sleep, and can figure out how to do all this.”

        He's also very confident in his abilities, which comes from years of being second-guessed by restaurant critics and failing on television. He was fired from Food TV's How to Boil Water because he was over-qualified. Then came the short-lived Emeril and Friends on the cable network. “It stunk,” he says.

        “And then finally, when they let me be me, the Essence of Emeril began,” he says. The Food Network's signature show led to his Friday appearances on ABC's Good Morning America.

        Having done nearly 1,100 cable cooking shows, though, wasn't enough seasoning for a sitcom.

        “I will tell you this: It'svery, very hard work (and) extremely long days... I'm just going to work hard at it,” he says.

        “I'm real. I'm not trying to be anybody. I'm just me and people feel that,” he says. “I won't be any different than when I started on the Food Network -- other than busier -- and I'm ready for that.”

        To succeed on NBC, Emeril must kick it up a notch -- or the critics will roast him again. BAM!

        E-mail jkiesewetter@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/kiese

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