Edward Allen (born May 20, 1965) is an American author and television personality. He was the food and wine connoisseur on the Bravo network\'s television program Queer Eye, and has been the host of the TV cooking competition series Chopped since its launch in 2009, as well as Chopped Junior, which began in mid-2015. In April 13, 2014, he became the host of another Food Network show, originally called America\'s Best Cook; a retooled version of that show, retitled All-Star Academy, which debuted on March 1, 2015. In early 2015, he also hosted a four-part special, Best. Ever., which scoured America for its best burgers, pizza, breakfast, and barbecue. He is a longtime contributing writer to Esquire magazine, the author of two cookbooks, and regularly appears on the Food Network show The Best Thing I Ever Ate and other television cooking shows.\n', '

Allen graduated from Carmel High School in Carmel, Indiana, in 1983, and was inducted into the school\'s Alumni Hall of Fame in 2011. He received a degree in psychology from Purdue University in 1987. Subsequently, he enrolled in Purdue’s Krannert Graduate School of Management, but left to accept a job as a copy editor at the Lafayette, Indiana, Journal & Courier.\n', '

He later returned to graduate school, gaining an M.A. in journalism from the Science and Environmental Reporting Program at New York University. He then moved to Chicago, where he worked as a reporter for Lerner Newspapers, a chain of community weekly newspapers. He got his start in restaurant criticism there as one quarter of a bi-weekly group-review team called "The Famished Four", along with Barry Rice, then the chain\'s entertainment editor (and today Allen\'s husband), who initiated the concept with Lerner food editor Leah A. Zeldes.\n', '

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