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Reminder: Vie's Paul Virant and sous chef Nathan Sears are the latest Chicago entrants to the Iron Chef America fray. They battle Japanese master Masaharu Morimoto on Nov. 1.

Join Virant, Sears and the rest of the Vie family to watch the episode (8 p.m., Food Network) at the Tap House Grill, 6010 S. Cass in Westmont. The chef there is Virant's friend.

And keep an eye on Sears, who we first met back in January. He's "ripe and ready" to head the kitchen at Virant's second restaurant, location t.b.d., Virant says.

Virant was thisclose to signing a lease on Vie Part Deux (our nickname, not his), just south of Grand Avenue, near May Street Market, but things just didn't work out.

"We're still looking," Virant says. "We do want to do something downtown.

"Obviously, it'll harbor the same style of food, the same philosophy of food as far as trying to support a lot of local farms, but it'll be more casual."

The battle is on: Vie chef and canning/preserving champ Paul Virant and his sous chef Nathan Sears will go head to head with Japanese master, Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto, on the Food Network's "Iron Chef America." The episode airs Nov. 1. No word yet on whether pickled, Nichols Farm sugar snap peas will make an appearance, but one can hope.

We're skeptical of those 5-dollar, 3-ingredient approaches to cooking that are all the rage these days in the food mags and on blogs. Mostly because, well, the dishes never sound appealing. Stir together a bag of frozen broccoli florets in "cheese" and a can of Ragu ... Mmm, no thank you.

This is not to say that we don't believe in the less-is-more approach. Start with prime ingredients -- a clutch of greens from the farmers market, say, or a fabulous piece of fish -- and let the food speak for itself. We're all for that.

Enter "Five Ingredient Fix," a new Food Network show hosted by one Claire Robinson. Robinson has a background in TV, food (she's a French Culinary Institute grad) and food TV (she was a "culinary producer" for several food shows, including Michael Chiarello's and the PBS Everday Baking show).

The premise: every dish uses five ingredients or less (not including salt and pepper, but including olive oil). The first episode featured roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, shortbread and gingered carrots -- and it all looked pretty tasty.

We're rooting for Robinson. On the annoying FN personality scale, she ranks pretty low. She may never bump the Barefoot Contessa from her top spot on our very short list of FN people we want to be/break bread with. But Robinson has potential, if she can stay true to her premise -- and to the food.

"Five Ingredient Fix" airs on Saturdays at 8:30 a.m.