`Cooking Thin,' `Emeril,' Williams-Sonoma Taste, Consumer Reports.(Chicago Tribune)

SEASON OPENERS

Among the new crop of fall food shows is "Cooking Thin," a half-hour program on cable's Food Network that made its debut Saturday. The premise: Chef Kathleen Daelemans visits folks with weight problems and tailors a remedy for them _ and, subsequently, the television audience. Her mantra: "Moderate _ don't eliminate."

"I don't believe in fat-free, low-fat, or crazy substitutions," Daelemans says. She speaks of what she knows: The size 8 chef once wore a size 22. Fad diets never worked; what did, she says, are the "baby steps" she will prescribe on the show: "Eat less, move more, leave a truffle-size bite behind (on your plate)."

Says Daelemans: "Eat 48 fewer calories per day _ that's a rice cake you didn't want to eat in the first place _ and over a year you'll lose 5 pounds."

_ Emeril Lagasse made his prime-time debut last Tuesday with the sitcom bearing his name. "Emeril," which airs at 8 p.m. ET Tuesdays on NBC, stars Lagasse as a TV chef on a cable food station. (Who says art doesn't imitate life?) It had netted its share of criticism over the summer, but the show has since been retooled, with more emphasis on the surrounding cast, including Robert Urich as his macho agent.

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