Yes, female chefs are breaking the glass ceiling. Find out how they’re penetrating the culinary world (and find links to some of their award-winning recipes).

Remember Casey Thompson, one of the most promising contestants of Top Chef? Get to know more about her in this interview, done right before the chef showdown. She didn’t win, but we hope that she’ll be one of the female chefs to truly penetrate the male-bastion that is the culinary world.

Chefs aren’t easily impressed, but hands down, many of them agree that Raymond Blanc is one of the best. The man behind Le Manoir Aux Quat’ Saisons has proven his mettle as a restaurateur, hotelier and businessman. He is also one of the key influences in French cuisine and reinvented many of its classic dishes. “I just want to show the beauty of the flavour and texture… even when I peel a carrot, I think how to produce the flavour better,” he says.

His first foray into the kitchen wasn’t automatically successful, though. When he was 17 he tried to impress his mother by making a crêpe suzette. But he used a glass dish instead of a frying man, and ended up blowing up the glass and smearing the kitchen with caramel.

But despite that accident his love for cooking returned when he looked through a restaurant window and saw a chef flambé a sea bass.

From there he climbed up the ladder, starting as a dishwasher, then a waiter, training under chefs and working double time to save for his own restaurant. He opened Les Quat’ Saisons in Oxford when he was 28 years old. He also has his own show, The Restaurant.

Get celebrity chef cooking tips from Rick Bayless and Jose Garces here. The two teamed up to make a mean batch of steaks. One gem of insight: “To get more flavor from dried ancho chilies, toast them briefly in a dry skillet until they crackle.” Blended with broth or tomatoes, the ancho’s flavor is better than using commercial chili powder, he said.

Do you want to be a celebrity chef? Or at least pretend to be one? Have your 30 seconds of fame on Foodtube.net. Here, you can upload (or watch) videos of people who think they can cook… but then again, how much different is it from what Rachael Ray does?

Antonio Carluccio, an Italian chef who runs a successful restaurant chain and has made a number of television appearances, stabbed himself in the chest with a kitchen knife.

According to the accounts no one knows what really happened, or whether it was an accident or a suicide attempt.

Jason Atherton may not have the boyish good looks of Jamie Oliver, but boy does he know how to run a kitchen. He is the one Michelin-starred executive chef at Gordon Ramsay’s Maze restaurant (and anyone who can survive Gordon Ramsay’s scrutiny has got to have both talent and balls).

He was also the first British chef to complete an internship at Spain’s famous El Bulli restaurant, under Ferran Adrià. Though he’s too busy in the kitchen to have a show, he cooked the winning starter and main course in the 2008 series of Great British Menu on BBC Two, representing London and the South-east.

Don’t be blinded by the glamor of being a celebrity chef — as this article points out, it’s a highly overrated career.

Check out this link for one of Emeril’s recipes — a simple dish of creamed spinach that’s received rave reviews from the foodie community.

Yes, he’s one celebrity chef who can actually cook.

It’s good to see celebrity chefs getting together for a good cause — in this case, raising money for the March of Dimes.