NBC's new 'Undercovers': J.J. Abrams could get a spot on the Food Network

Foodie spies, your show is coming. NBC's Undercovers stars a gorgeous pair of ex-CIA'ers who have gone into the catering business. Then they get tapped to spy again.

It's from J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias), and others -- notably food stylist Nancy Goodman Iland, who buys, prepares and, most importantly, arranges all the chow on the show,. And chow, even though it doesn't rhyme with show but should, plays a big part.

Iland began taking courses in three-dimensional art, but started using food as a medium after she landed a college job in a catering kitchen. She's worked on shows from Golden Girls to Murder She Wrote and cooked up a bunch of chicken-fried steaks for the pilot of True Blood. She demonstrated how to make strawberries flambe for TV critics bused Tuesday to the Warner Bros. lot, and Stage 20, where Undercovers is shot, following in the hallowed footsteps of such TV shows as The Waltons and feature films as The Big Sleep and the greatest movie ever made, The Perfect Storm. (Or at least the greatest title ever made.)

Berries, butter, brown sugar. Saute for a little while, pour on some rum so they'll flame up real good, and light 'em up. Oh, you want to eat them? Then use cognanc.

Eating is less important than seeing in Iland's food world, yet she still seeks to buy local, sustainable ingredients from various special L.A. purveyors, when she's not using Costco stuff, whose Kirkland label gets a lot of product placement and helps pay for the big-budget series, along with Le Creuset, which makes those gorgeous porcelain-covered cast-iron pans.

Stars Boris Kodjoe and Gugu Mbatha-Raw race all around the world after evil-doers and must stop for a bit to eat sometime. So in addition to working out of their fictional company's kitchen, just like yours at home: about 2,000 square feet with 40-foot cielings and two ranges totaling 14 burners, Iland has to go international. In the current episode they're shooting, it's barbecue in Korea and Swiss food (whatever that is) at Geneva's Hotel Les Armures. (I wonder if it paid a placement fee.)

The main characters get to eat the food; the extras only get to hold it. Iland tries to go easy on the carbs (Kodjoe eats light) and the meat. Mbatha-Raw's a vegetarian, but she'll eat a bite or two of hamburger, Iland says.

It's called acting.