Taking in the heat of celeb kitchens
Wednesday, December 2, 2009 | 09:06 AM ET
By Jessica Wong, CBCNews.ca
In today's celebrity-obsessed world, it's not surprising that top tier chefs have become TV stars. You start with incredibly passionate, highly skilled and often-explosive personalities. Mix in the requisite unpredictable, heated situations. Incorporate a quirky crew of side-characters. Voilà: you've got must-see TV.
My own foodie TV-watching tendencies run the gamut from home-cooking shows — say, watching Michael Smith prepare dinner for his family while I'm cooking for mine — to bombastic competition-style programs (Japan's original Iron Chef is a particular favourite).
In recent years, the annual Canadian Culinary Championship fundraiser has joined my list. The most recent edition ended in Vancouver last weekend, with Montreal chef Matthieu Cloutier triumphant in the national final, part of the overall Gold Medal Plates initiative that raises thousands of dollars for Canada's Olympic and Paralympic athletes.
I got my first taste of Gold Medal Plates a few years ago when Toronto chef-mogul Mark McEwan — a perennial regional competitor — featured it on an episode of his reality series The Heat. I'm also lucky to be acquainted with Toronto food writer and the contest's national culinary advisor and head judge James Chatto, who invited me to a regional fundraising event one year and shared some details of this year's final with me upon his return home this week.
Though I'd been loosely following the regional competition through occasional newspaper reports, nothing beats watching this kind of professional kitchen action itself on TV (though live, of course, would be the ultimate experience).
Imagine my delight when I came across the seven-part, one-hour per episode documentary series that documented the 2008 edition — and that the series could be watched online.
What kind of food-related TV programming do you enjoy? How does watching these shows affect your culinary habits?
« Previous Post | Main | Next Post »
This discussion is now Open. Submit your Comment.
« Previous Post | Main | Next Post »
Post a Comment
Food Bytes »
About the blog
From trends and culture to politics and nutrition, Food Bytes serves up tasty tidbits about food and the issues surrounding it that flavour our everyday lives.
About the writers
Amber Hildebrandt writes for CBCNews.ca in Toronto. Growing up on a farm in Manitoba, she acquired an insatiable appetite, but it was during a stint in Japan that she developed her discerning tastebuds and "foodie" ways.
Andrea Chiu is an associate producer at CBC Radio Digital. Though she loves to eat, cook and discuss food,
don't ask her to bake. It never turns out well. She tweets as @TOfoodie on Twitter and organizes food and wine events in Toronto called FoodieMeet.
Tara Kimura is the consumer life reporter for CBCNews.ca, covering a wide range of issues that range from rising food costs and the growing organic movement, to new trends in the marketplace.
Andree Lau is a CBC web reporter in Calgary. Her journalism career includes seven years as a CBC-TV reporter. Her own blog called "are you gonna eat that?" chronicles her eating adventures (including sampling snake and camel hoof tendon).
Jessica Wong is a CBCNews.ca writer who loves to eat and cook, as well as discuss, read and watch programming about food, sometimes all at once.
Kevin Yarr, CBCNews.ca's writer in Prince Edward Island, wrote about food and beer for national and regional magazines before joining the CBC. He acquired a desire for new tastes on his first trip to Europe, and an appreciation of eating locally and in season when he finally settled down on P.E.I.
Elizabeth Bridge is a writer with the CBC Digital Archives in Toronto. She first ventured into the kitchen as a child to indulge a sweet tooth by baking cookies and making fudge. A student budget compelled her to be a vegetarian (for a while) and instilled in her an ongoing curiosity about food and cooking.
Related
Recent Posts
- Food smackdown: Latke vs. Hamantash
- Tuesday, December 15, 2009
- Taking in the heat of celeb kitchens
- Wednesday, December 2, 2009
- Melon heads
- Friday, November 27, 2009
- Labneh and generosity in the Middle East
- Friday, November 20, 2009
- Experiments with slow cooking
- Thursday, November 19, 2009
- Subscribe to Food Bytes
Archives
- December 2009 (2)
- November 2009 (6)
- October 2009 (7)
- September 2009 (4)
- August 2009 (7)
- July 2009 (7)
- June 2009 (8)
- May 2009 (13)
- April 2009 (12)
- March 2009 (10)
- February 2009 (9)
- January 2009 (9)
- December 2008 (16)
- November 2008 (13)
- October 2008 (12)
- September 2008 (11)
- August 2008 (9)
- July 2008 (12)
- June 2008 (10)
- May 2008 (16)
Categories
- Agriculture (13)
- Amber Hildebrandt (28)
- Amuse-bouche (45)
- Andree Lau (35)
- Culture (57)
- Elizabeth Bridge (15)
- Health (15)
- Industry (34)
- Jessica Wong (37)
- Kevin Yarr (25)
- Leigh Felesky (3)
- Politics (12)
- Tara Kimura (38)
- Trends (40)
Comments
Jen
Ottawa
I love watching all sorts of food shows with my family - for entertainment, inspiration and in some cases vicarious enjoyment of things so expensive or decadent I just can't/don't 'go there' !!
My kids love competitions like Iron Chef America, Glutton for Punishment and the Food Network Challenges.
I really enjoy a few others as much for the personality of the chef as for the show - but mostly the food coincides with my own tastes so that works out well too - Michael Smith's Chef at Home is great - anything with Nigella Lawson or Jamie Oliver for my Brit. fix and another favourite is Alton Brown's Good Eats.
Posted December 2, 2009 11:03 AM
Terry
Toronto
I love Ina Gartner (Barefoot Contessa) I like Nigella and I'm getting hooked on the new show called 'Chopped'. I've tried recipes that I've seen on some of the shows I watch and they inspire me to try different foods and preparations. I've actually learned how to use my knife properly from one show I watched a few years ago and can cut a carrot into tiny bits in seconds flat.
Posted December 3, 2009 08:41 AM