Meet MasterChef‘s Joe Bastianich: The Simon Cowell of the Food
World  How the consummate back-of-the-house guy became one of
reality TV's best judges    • Share   • Read Later Michael
Lavine / FOX  Joe Bastianich was never supposed to become the
Simon Cowell of the food world. He was never even supposed to be
on television. The son of accomplished restaurateurs, Bastianich
was always the consummate back-of-house guy, the one who counted
receipts after hours and fired servers who stole from the tip
jar. He prospered—he now oversees a 20-restaurant empire on two
continents—but when he was younger, he lived under the shadow of
two culinary giants: his mother Lidia, the matriarch of Italian
food in the U.S., and his friend Mario Batali, the virtuoso
front man for their restaurants.  Now Bastianich, 43, has become
an improbable but compelling TV personality. On Sept. 4, Fox is
set to air the third-season finale of MasterChef, which has
quickly become one of the most popular cooking shows in the
U.S.—and, if you co