Best movies & TV Shows like $40 a Day

April, an uptight health-chef guru is on the verge of notoriety, but her brand of cooking is failing. Despite her assurances healthy is tasty, those who have tried her recipes disagree. Unwilling to give up on her hard work and career, April vows to reinvent herself and travels to Italy to learn how to incorporate the country’s notoriously rich culture of food into her own recipes. There, she meets Rob, a brilliant chef specializing in Italian cuisine, who helps April find a new joy and freedom in life and in cooking.

Barefoot Contessa is an American cooking show that premiered November 30, 2002 on Food Network. The show is hosted by celebrity chef Ina Garten. Each episode features Garten assembling dishes of varying complexity. Though her specialty is French cuisine, she occasionally prepares American, Asian, British and Italian foods. Her show also gives tips on decorating and entertaining.

Giada De Laurentiis hits the road to experience culinary destinations that are perfect for three-day weekend getaways. From Jackson Hole to Miami, Giada shares insider information on local hot spots and tips for traveling smart.

Kid Nation was an American reality television show hosted by Jonathan Karsh that premiered on the CBS network on September 19, 2007 created by Tom Forman Productions and Endemol USA and aired on Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET . The show, featuring 40 children aged 8 to 15, was filmed on location at the Bonanza Creek Movie Ranch, a privately owned town built on the ruins of Bonanza City, New Mexico, eight miles south of Santa Fe, with production beginning on April 1, 2007. In the show, the children try to create a functioning society in the town, including setting up a government system with minimal adult help and supervision.

Little Bill is a television show for children that is presently on Nick Jr. The stories are based on Bill Cosby's Little Bill book series, set in Philadelphia and feature Bill Jr. learning a lesson or moral. It was developed through research and in consultation with a panel of educational consultants. The show also aired on CBS as part of Nick Jr. on CBS, from September 16, 2000 - September 7, 2002, then as part of Nick on CBS from August 2, 2003 - September 10, 2005. The show returned with the return of Nick Jr. on CBS on September 17, 2005, and seen through September 9, 2006 when the block was replaced with The KOL Secret Slumber Party on CBS. The series went back into production in fall 2006 and a new season of 6 episodes aired on Noggin throughout April and July 2007, ending in the later month. Reruns are played on Nick Jr., on BET, as of January 7, 2008, and on Centric, as of May 1, 2010. Sonia Manzano, best known for playing Maria Rodriguez on Sesame Street, was a frequent writer for the show.

Mystery Diagnosis is a television program that airs on the OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network. Each episode focuses on two or more individuals and their struggles to find out what ailments they suffer from. As the program's title suggests, doctors have a difficult time finding a diagnosis, often due to nonspecific symptoms, the rarity of the condition or disease, or the patient's case being an unusual manifestation of said condition or disease. The series debuted on Discovery Health Channel in 2005, and was continued when the Oprah Winfrey Network replaced Discovery Health on January 1, 2011; the current season premiered January 5, 2011.

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is a television programme featuring British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay. The BAFTA and Emmy Award-winning programme debuted on Channel 4 in 2004. In each episode, Ramsay visits a failing restaurant and acts as a troubleshooter to help improve the establishment in just one week. Ramsay revisits the restaurant a few months later to see how business has fared in his absence. Episodes from series one and two have been re-edited with additional new material as Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares Revisited; they featured Ramsay checking up on restaurants a year or more after he attended to them. In October 2009 Ramsay announced that after his four-year contract expired in 2011 he would not continue with Kitchen Nightmares and would instead work on his other shows.

Soul Train is an American musical variety show that aired in syndication from 1971 to 2006. In its 35-year history, the show primarily featured performances by R&B, soul, and hip hop artists, although funk, jazz, disco, and gospel artists have also appeared. The series was created by Don Cornelius, who also served as its first host and executive producer. Production was suspended following the 2005–06 season, with a rerun package airing for two years after that. As a nod to Soul Train's longevity, the show's opening sequence contained a claim that it was the "longest-running first-run, nationally syndicated program in television history," with over 1,100 episodes produced from the show's debut through the 2005-06 season. Despite the production hiatus, Soul Train will continue to hold this honor until at least 2016, if and when its nearest competitor, Entertainment Tonight, completes its 35th season.

Swamp Thing: The Series, is a science fiction, action/adventure television series based on the DC Comics character Swamp Thing. It debuted on USA Network on July 27, 1990 and lasted three seasons for a total of 72 episodes. It was later shown in reruns on the Sci Fi Channel.

You Bet Your Life is an American quiz show that aired on both radio and television. The original and best-known version was hosted by Groucho Marx of the Marx Brothers, with announcer and assistant George Fenneman. The show debuted on ABC Radio in October 1947, then moved to CBS Radio in September 1949 before making the transition to NBC-TV in October 1950. Because of its simple format, it was possible to broadcast the show simultaneously on the radio and on television. In 1960, the show was renamed The Groucho Show and ran a further year. Most episodes are in the public domain. The play of the game, however, was secondary to the interplay between Groucho, the contestants, and occasionally Fenneman. The program was rerun into the 1970s, and later in syndication as The Best of Groucho. As such, it was the first game show to have its reruns syndicated.

Everyday Italian is a Food Network show hosted by Giada De Laurentiis. In the show, De Laurentiis focuses for her viewers on traditional Italian cuisine with an American flair, such as herb-crusted lamb and chocolate-ricotta pie.

Globe Trekker is an adventure tourism television series produced by Pilot Productions. The British series was inspired by the Lonely Planet travelbooks and began airing in 1994. Globe Trekker is broadcast in over 40 countries across six continents. Each episode features a host, called a traveller, who travels with a camera crew to a country—often, a relatively exotic locale—and experiences the sights, sounds, and culture that the location has to offer. Special episodes feature in-depth city, beach, dive, shopping, history, festival, and food guides. The show often goes far beyond popular tourist destinations in order to give viewers a more authentic look at local culture. Presenters usually participate in different aspects of regional life, such as attending a traditional wedding or visiting a mining community. They address the viewer directly, acting as tourists-turned-tour guides, but are also filmed interacting with locals and discovering interesting locations in unrehearsed sequences. Globe Trekker also sometimes includes brief interviews with backpackers who share tips on independent travel in that particular country.

Two Fat Ladies was a BBC Two television cooking programme starring Clarissa Dickson Wright, and Jennifer Paterson. It originally ran for four series, from 1996 to 1999. The show was produced by the BBC and has also appeared on the Food Network and Cooking Channel in the U.S. and on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Australia.

Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern is a travel and cuisine television show hosted by Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel. The first season debuted on Monday, February 26, 2007 at 9pm ET/PT. Bizarre Foods focuses on regional cuisine from around the world which is typically perceived by Americans as being disgusting, exotic, or bizarre. In each episode, Zimmern focuses on the cuisine of a particular country or region. He typically shows how the food is procured, where it is served, and, usually without hesitation, eats it. Originally a one-hour documentary titled Bizarre Foods of Asia, repeated showings on the Travel Channel drew consistent, considerable audiences. In late 2006, it was decided to turn the documentary into a weekly, one-hour show with the same premise and with Andrew Zimmern as the host. In 2009, Zimmern took a break from Bizarre Foods to work on one season of the spin-off Bizarre World.

Mantracker is a Canadian reality television series created by Ihor Macijiwsky and produced by Bonterra Productions. It premiered in Canada in April 2006 on the Outdoor Life Network. In the United States, the show currently airs on the Science Channel and in the UK on Extreme Sports Channel. The episodes of the first six seasons feature Terry Grant, an expert tracker called the "Mantracker", who pursues two individuals in the remote Canadian or American wilderness. The pursued, referred to as "Prey", must elude capture while attempting to reach a finish line within thirty-six hours. In season 7, Chad Savage Lenz replaces Terry Grant as the Mantracker.

Prehistoric Planet is a re-version of the BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs and Walking with Beasts series, done by Discovery Channel and NBC for the Discovery Kids network. Though the producers kept nearly all of the original animation, David Bock and Peter Sherman wrote new text for a younger target audience, narrated by Ben Stiller and Christian Slater, and interspersed the scenes with occasional quizzes to act as bumpers around the commercial breaks. New music was incorporated as well. Most marketing and advertising for the series focused on the dinosaur episodes. In addition, the final episode, the Prehistoric Planet Top 10 focused solely on the creatures from Walking With Dinosaurs. Some small content edits were done to allow original programs to fit in the 23 minutes of non-commercial time that a normal half-hour program has on network TV. At present, only Season 1 has been released on home video and DVD.

Come Dine With Me Australia is an Australian television programme based on the Come Dine With Me format which premiered on 18 January 2010 on The LifeStyle Channel in Australia. It is narrated by Aimee Reid. In 2009 The Lifestyle Channel bought the rights to the show, commissioning Granada Media Australia to produce a version for the Australian market. The first season consists of 20 episodes. A second season was approved before the first season premiered, and was broadcast in mid-2010. The show is currently in its third series with a fourth, primetime series to be aired in the coming future. The fourth series involves 4 contestants as appose to the regular 5 and will occur as an hour long episode instead of the usual format of 30 minute 5 episodes each week.

Food Tech was a television series on the History Channel, about the making of foods, from the farming to the processing of the food. It was hosted by Bobby Bognar. Each episode focused on the various parts of different types or styles of meals, such as Mexican food, breakfast and hotel buffets.

French Food at Home is a James Beard Foundation Award-winning cooking show presented by Laura Calder. It is filmed in Halifax, Nova Scotia and airs on Food Network Canada, the Asian Food Channel, and the Cooking Channel. French Food at Home is a lifestyle series featuring simple French home cooking which anyone, anywhere, can make. All 78 episodes were shot in a home kitchen in Canada and include scenes of France such as trips to the market and glimpses of everyday French food life. Music for the show was composed by Mike O'Neill.

Ramsay's Best Restaurant is a television programme featuring British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay broadcast on Channel 4. During the series restaurants from all over Britain competed in order to win the "Ramsay's Best Restaurant" title. The initial 16 restaurants were selected by Ramsay from a pool of some 12,000 entries submitted by Channel 4 viewers. In the first stage of the competition, eight pairs of restaurants representing the same type of cuisine were pitted against each other, with winners progressing to semi-finals, and then the final. Although originally announced as a 12-part series, the series had nine episodes aired between September and November 2010. It was announced in the grand final broadcast on 9 November that the competition was won by Casamia, a Michelin-starred Italian restaurant based in Bristol, with Prashad, an Indian Gujarati vegetarian restaurant from Bradford, finishing as runner-up.

Jamie's 30-Minute Meals is a series of 40 episodes aired in 2010 on Channel 4 in which Jamie Oliver cooks a three- to four-dish meal in under 30 minutes.

Eat St. is a Canadian reality television series produced by Paperny Entertainment that airs on Food Network Canada and Cooking Channel. Hosted by Canadian comedian James Cunningham, the show tours North America in search of the most inventive meals served from food trucks. To accompany the series, an Eat St. App was developed that uses GPS to track street fare near the user. The series, which premiered April 6, 2011, has filmed in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, as well as a number of cities in the United States. The show will be airing its fourth season in 2013.

Amazing Eats is an American food reality television series that premiered on January 11, 2012 on the Travel Channel. The program is hosted by actor and food enthusiast Adam Richman. In each episode, Richman tracks down all the best mouth-watering cuisines in the United States. New episodes currently airs every Wednesday at 9pm EST in place of Richman's popular series Man v. Food during its mid-season break. The episodes consist primarily of footage from Man v. Food and Man v. Food Nation re-edited by theme instead of city, and with the eating challenge segments omitted.

Bizarre Foods America is an American television series, and a spin-off of Bizarre Foods, this time focusing on the United States rather than international travel. Andrew Zimmern travels to various cities throughout the country and samples local cuisines and ways of life. The format is similar to Bizarre Foods. The show premiered Monday January 23, 2012 at 9:00 ET on Travel Channel. Much like the popular Bizarre Foods, Andrew heads to some of the most unique food hubs in the country. Once there he meets with locals and local chefs to gain a better understanding of American cuisine and to see how America has developed its reputation as a melting pot of cultures and foods and what sort of unusual foods people in America might have in their own cities and not realize.

Building on the success of Jamie's 30 Minute Meals, this show squeezes the cooking process even further, with each half hour episode featuring two delicious, nutritious, super-fast family meals back-to-back. So even if you're rushed off your feet at work, there's no excuse for not giving these meals a go.

Giada De Laurentiis returns to the land of her birth for an extended stay, spending time with friends and family and revisiting flavors that have inspired her life's work.

Rachael Ray's Tasty Travels is a television show based on cook Rachael Ray and her travels around the world. However, in this show she is not restricted by a budget and showcases food from more upscale eateries. She tries different types of food from each place she visits, and gives a "Hot List of Values", which includes some of her favorite places visited from $40 a Day. The show airs on the Food Network and is her fourth Food Network program. It first aired on August 26, 2005. She provides voiceovers for most of the show and is shown at only one or two places. Her husband, John Cusimano, usually accompanies her at the one or two restaurants she visits per episode. Forty-one episodes were produced during the series' first two years; Ray stated on a September 7, 2007 appearance on Late Show with David Letterman that she had just completed work on twenty additional episodes, which had begun airing the previous week.

Sample the bold new flavors of France with chefs who are pushing the boundaries of fine dining and reinventing a rich culinary tradition.

Mary celebrates the everyday food and ingredients she has always loved as she whips up tasty, family meals that are quick and simple to make.

Giada De Laurentiis and her daughter, Jade, are spending summer on the coast and inviting friends and family to visit. Each weekend, the girls and their guests cook up delicious, casual meals in the kitchen and around the grill.

Italian cuisine is so much more than pizza and pasta – but there’s still lots of tasty pasta in Bonacini’s Italy. Celebrity Chef Michael Bonacini cooks his way through 15 Italian regions, exploring the flavours and ingredients that make these areas unique. Each episode takes us through an entire meal from one region, from antipasto, soup, or salad, to delicious primo, succulent secondo, and even sometimes a decadent dolce. As he cooks, Michael regales viewers with stories of his travels in Italy and tells us interesting facts about each region he focuses on. Set in a warm, contemporary kitchen, Michael inspires viewers to try their hand at making sumptuous Italian fare.

Leading chefs take host Fred Sirieix to experience the restaurants where they genuinely love to eat and explore what goes into making them so special.

In this vibrant docuseries, Latin American chefs tell their stories and bring a taste of tradition and innovation to their delicious offerings.

Stanley Tucci travels across Italy to discover the secrets and delights of the country’s regional cuisines.

Twelve chefs channel their inner food scientists to re-create classic snacks and invent their own original treats for a $50,000 prize.