If I Had My Own TV Food Show....

Oooo fun thread! I would certainly love to watch that show as I have a wonderful pressure cooker that I don't have any idea what to do with. But did you know there's a sitcom show made a few years back with that same name?

There are many types of ethnic cooking that are severely under represented on television such as a multitude of Asian cuisines, African, middle eastern, just to name a few. Every other show on tv focuses on either Italian cooking or american bistro style, or Sandra Lee type of convenience shows. I mean really, who wants to promote fast food these days.

My show would be called "The Rustic Greek" and it would center around the health benefits of the mediterranean diet. It would center around traveling to various parts of Greece to showcase regional greek cooking, and also to Greek American homes to see how immigrants have continued and altered the traditional cuisine. I would want to stress on the show how to choose the right ingredients and produce, and of course I would prepare something by the end of the show. Each show would center around one food (stuffed grape leaves for example) and how they are prepared in different regions by different Greeks.

Yeah, I seriously looked into starting a cooking show. Had a friend who is a professional camera man. My best friend, Pastor Trent, was intending to expand the Church's kitchen facilities, and we entertained the idea of cooking classes, TV show (for the local city cable access channel), special banquets as fund raisers for the church.

Trouble was, the money for the renovation did not materialize, and the elders of the church frowned on me because I'm not a member of the congregation.

Also, loaned the cameraman some money, and never got it back. That tends to break up friendships!

But, the show's name, never got around to thinking about that. But I did come up with a theme.

I wanted to show people the basics of technique and cooking. Such as one show I demonstrate making a nice veal stock. The next show I show how to create a stock reduction sauce, or a mother sauce such as Espagnole.

Then the next show I would create a beautiful demi-glace, and create a wonderful meal showing how to incorporate the demi-glace. Of course, Pastor Trent, who absolutely loves my cooking, would be the "taste-tester" for all my meals. That would be in exchange for letting me use the church kitchen.

Anyway, you get the idea. It would be like a string of "mini-series" on basic topics incorporating techniques not shown much in Food Networks, et al.

Maybe I could call the show "Doc's Delights"? :)

My wife entertained doing a sewing show. She's been sewing for 30+ years, 26 professionally.

I came up with the title "Deanna's Duds", but somehow she didn't like the way that sounded. But you know, in the Midwest, especially out in the farm country, it is not unusual for someone to say, "Hey let's put on our best duds and go out Saturday!".

doc

Dont know what to call it, but the theme would b to teach folk with very small income how they can feed their families healthier.

Our local councils have a half arsed scheme that really doesnt work, but a televised programme the didnt patronise and caught the attention would be a great idea i think

As much as I hate reality TV shows, I'd like to see a show that tells the truth about kitchen life. I'm thinking a short series that follows everyone so in 1 episode, you see the chef from home life, getting to work, dealing with work and all the real stresses, clock out time, then post work. Next episode would follow maybe the matradee (sp?), line cook, dishwasher, patissier, etc. Basically something to show people who are considering a career change into this industry to give them a real perspective on what we all go through on a day to day basis.

I'm not thinking a glamerous cooking show like Barefoot Contessa or a griddy ****'s Kitchen but something in between. Real, enticing to those who are interested, and shocking to those who don't know.

Years ago I wanted to become the first "cartoon" chef and do a cartoon cooking show that actually taught cooking and gave real recipes while still keeping the cartoon mentality. Then a number of years ago I came across "Tako" on the internet and was disappointed by what I saw.

Also while I lived in Atlanta, a friend and I came up with a couple of episodes for a food show we wanted to do. Of course, these were created over a number of beers. The show was going to teach real techniques and recipes with a comedic twist, kind of like Alton Brown, but this was before he was on. One episode had me chasing ducks in one of the city parks' lakes then cutting to an episode on how to prepare duck. Another episode saw me being chased out of the city's botanical gardens for trying to harvest herbs in the formal herb garden for the show on cooking with herbs. The whole idea was to create a fun, light hearted show, different, at the time than the standard forumla that all cooking shows followed. Again, this was before Alton ever appeared on TV.

Years ago I tried to make it as a writer. This lead me to going to many open mic nights and poetry readings. Eventually I started my own reading series. After a short time I found the earnestness of the whole thing tiring. So, one day I showed up at the bar where we did these readings with a couple of hot plates, cutting boards and so on. I converted the stage to a quick and dirty studio kitchen and demoed some sort of kitsch Trader Vic's style sweet and sour fish with pineapple. Flambéed the darn thing too. This was all going on while very serious first year university types were reading their poetry or excepts of their great unfinished "novels."

After that the cooking on stage thing became fairly regular. Once I did a bread making demo and proofed it on my face (note: NOT GOOD for hygene). This sort of stuff eventually lead to the poetry reading become more like a live variety show (we had a house band, even a house artist who painted a mural during the show). Sort of like Mike Douglas for ersatz bohemian hippster types.

--Al

There is a Cypriot-British cook called Tonia Buxton who did a couple of series a few years back called My Greek Kitchen. She visited various islands and areas of mainland Greece and cooked local food in the local manner - and the scenery was amazing, as was her food! I think I saw the series on a cable channel - but here's a little bit about her from Wiki
Tonia Buxton - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Great idea - I'm looking forward to Jamie Oliver's new series which appears to be going to do just that. I think it starts next week on C4.

We're not lucky enough here to receive much of Jamie.

That's a pity - he's one of my favourite cooks.
His new show is going to be called Ministry of Food
Now Jamie Oliver wants Britain on a wartime diet | Life and style | The Guardian

coincidentally i've actually pondered this idea. "SEXY CHEFS" reality show LOL women chefs have a reputation of not quite being very feminine, pretty or sexy and they sometimes get such a bad rap. it would consist of a bunch of "hot" sexy chicks with big boobs by happenstance. but they really have a SERIOUS passion for culinary arts. :bounce: seems shallow and/or superficial but oh well such as life

i also pondered the idea of military chefs in line with the brigaide system

a kids "chef" show would be kind of awesome as well, i've learned that there are some children out there very serious about culinary as well

I know there was a show with Tyler Florence called "Can't Boil Water", but I felt he pushed a bit too much restaurant-style cooking on novice cooks.

I'm a home cook, and so I have no formal culinary training. But I'm a professional teacher. I good at being able to break a process down to small bits so anyone can understand it. When my niece, who's a freshly-minted MBA, wanted to learn how to cook, we talked about it quite a bit. She can put a chicken breast or turkey burger on a George Foreman Grill, but that's just about IT. The more we talked, the more I realized what she doesn't now.

That got me thinking. Even Sandra Lee and Rachael Ray make assumptions about their viewers basic cooking skills. There's really nothing for the person who needs to make food for him/herself for the first time and has no skills.

That's the show I'd like to do. I guess I'd call it "Square One", as a play on the "square meal" idea and also the notion of starting from the very beginning.

I like your show idea Mezzaluna.

Why is it "a pity?" From what I read it sounds like a good idea. Alice Waters has done something similar here, if I'm correctly understanding what Oliver's doing.

Shel i think she meant that it was a pity that you guys dont get so much of jamie


If i was going to do a cooking show
It would be a real mix of things aimed at the home chef
teaching techniques and methods in easy language and each episode would be different doing all kinds of things both sweet and savoury

It's a pity that Jamie Oliver's shows aren't broadcast where Mapiva lives.

What on earth did you THINK I meant?

It really is a pity. I recently wrote a ranting email to the FoodNetwork about taking Jamie at Home off the air and replacing it with "The cooking loft" and they wrote back claiming:

"Hello and thank you for your email.

First, please accept our sincerest apology for the lengthy delay in getting back to you with a response. We've been experiencing intermittent mail server issues of late which have caused a significant delay in getting back to our customers.

Jamie at Home will begin airing again on October 4th at 7:30 a.m. Eastern Time and air each Saturday after that through October. We don't have the November schedule at this time, but you can check for updates at the following URL:

Jamie at Home : Food Network

Scripps Networks
Customer Service"

The shows they will be airing are reruns from last year and I have already watched them the first time they aired, and when they were reruns again.