ANYONE CAN COOK?

I was soon to move on from NJPTV but one of my last assignments was never aired.  A cooking show concept was sent to program director Doug L.  by the two Philadelphia cookbook  authors who were getting a lot of publicity for their new The Italian Cookbook ( Julia Child’s Bon Appetit was currently a big hit and the beginning of a trend in public broadcasting and later commercial TV.  Doug hoped we might produce an EEN network offering that would catch on too).

He set up a meeting and I met two totally opposite women - one, a born extrovert, who looked like she loved food a bit too much and the other a shy soul who could stand a few hearty meals! They showed us a clip of their recent appearance on a Philadelphia TV talk show whipping up a tasty dessert - they were not polished performers but I immediately thought they might have potential.  I had proved to have a knack for helping regular folks become television pros.  We left with a basic agreement that we might produce a show and a feeling that with all cooking shows glutting (excuse pun) the market, we needed a hook, something different.  I urged them to start brainstorming and I would write a “treatment” that would sell the idea before our next meeting.  As I pondered our discussion, one comment by one of the cooks popped up “... the idea for our book is that anyone can cook Italian if they get the right ingredients and recipes!”  This phrase generated an idea not only for a show, but for a series - “Anyone Can Cook…”  

I started to flesh out a treatment and it literally began to write itself.  I proposed that each show would feature a different ethnic cuisine...Italian, Greek...the list was endless.  I gave our cooks a call and they were excited to try out the concept.  I stressed that the formula they had used for their book would work for a show with any cooking style.  Our next meeting was set with Doug joining us and he agreed to fund a pilot show and a series that it might generate.  I began to “produce” the first show that day. 

Like preparing to cook, I had, after a decade of producing, my own standard production recipe:  Step 1 - Finding subject ingredients would be easy - NJ is a prime example of the great American Melting Pot with every major city having “ ethnic sections” with specialty food shops, festivals,  holidays and personal stories.  I researched past articles of festivals and called their leaders.  A couple of times a week for a month “the cooks” as they became known, and I visited official organizations and local chefs (and best of all, restaurants tasting their featured ethnic dishes.  Soon we had a list of subjects and a calendar of the coming year’s parades and celebrations that we could film for the “color” part of our program.  Step 2 - Where would we cook these delicacies?  A normal kitchen would never do and to outfit our studio with culinary tools would cost a fortune.  On one of our research visits I learned that NJ’s Public Service & Gas company had an office building in downtown Trenton which had a fully equipped “demonstration kitchen”.  I called their PR department and found that it was still working even though most of the building was no longer in use - getting permission to use this facility, which had not been used for years, was surprisingly easy with the only caveat from the local area buidling manager - “clean up before you leave”.  The setting was perfect and even included an overhead mirror for the standard TV shots of the mixing of ingredients, etc.

Next, we shot footage and interviews about our favorite dishes (and tried them too!) at an annual Hungarian Festival in New Brunswick that was the first event on our calendar.  The calendar turned out to be the major factor in what subject would be featured in each show.  Russian Easter which celebrated the end of lenten fasting with a midnight feast was coming up next in a perfect location - a Russian Orthadox church with the traditional onion-shaped gold dome.  Our line up was taking shape from a Polish kielbasa factory to an Italian Feast of Lights.  It would take almost an entire year to produce 13 show series.  The cooks decided that they would make  a traditional goulash for their first show - and so “Anyone Can Cook...Hungarian” shoot was scheduled.   I booked the kitchen and remote truck and rolled tape on a bright spring morning.  After a half dozen false starts,  it was obvious that we weren’t going to get a show in the can - our cooks needed some TV practice. I chalked a long day up as an expensive “dress rehearsal”   

The next day was even worse!  We ended the shoot early and I went back to the drawing board. I propose adding a professional host to narrate as the cooks cooked but this too was a disaster.  The goulash just wasn’t coming together.  We tried again and I added a segment so the cooking would less show and more tell.  I  invited my friend Bob Lipinski, an internationally known wine expert and professional “taster” to produce a segment for the show.   This test could have been called “Anyone Can Drink like an Hungarian” as the cooks were even more rattled by his professional “wine-tasting” performance.  And so,  after spending a lot of time (and money) the show was cancelled.  Canned to use the foodie phrase.  I had presided over one of the few major bumps in my  TV journey’s road. This failure was hard to swallow (excuse pun #2).  In the past I had always been able to  pull a performance from the “talent” and salvage at least something worth broadcasting.  This show was buried and the miles of tape erased.

But I learned a great lesson - Never judge a cook by their cookbook cover -  even two great cooks can sometimes spoil the sauce!