COOKING UNDER FIRE from PBS: April 27 premiere

[Gifted Gourmet]

PBS new show

Cooking Under Fire is a national cooking competition to discover the next great American chef, someone who has the SOUL, TALENT and STAMINA to cook "under fire."  Bringing together culinary school grads, everyday gourmands, short-order cooks, and seasoned restaurant talent.....If you think you have the skills, desire and ambition to be a true chef, then this is your opportunity to make your dream come true! We’re looking coast-to-coast for wanna-be-chefs who are willing to put everything on the line for a shot at the ultimate prize — a position as a chef in one of famed Chef and Restaurateur Todd English’s restaurants in New York City.

The Judges:

Todd English, Chef and restaurateur

Ming Tsai, Chef and host of Simply Ming on Public Television

Michael Ruhlman, Author (The Making of a Chef and The Soul of a Chef)

Does anyone know of this contest (besides Michael Ruhlman)?

[Mayhaw Man]

Maybe this is Rocco's big chance to make a comeback.

[MsMelkor]

I got an e-mail about it today from COPIA (wine/food museum in Napa).

[Rebel Rose]

Will there be speculation as to whether Mr. Ruhlman (whom I greatly admire) is trying to steal tatooed, body-pierced loyal line cooks from the fringes of society from someone else (whom I greatly admire)?

I hope so. That would make it really fun.

[Gifted Gourmet]

I hope so. That would make it really fun. 

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It is, after all, PBS ...

[Michael Ruhlman]

Ha! It's the perfect opportunity for Rocco to make his kitchen comeback.

Same goes for Tony!

And if it did bring some tatooed central american wretch with a passion for food and extraordinary stamina on the run from the INS, and launched him or her into the dangerous realm of American celebrity and a visible spot in American restaurant cooking--that would most truly show what this business is all about. The business of cooking food for money has been one of the great avenues of opportunity for the huddled masses. It levels the playing field.

Auditions begin next Monday in Chicago, followed by auditions in new Orleans and Seattle. Auditions via video tape are also being accepted via the "Cooking Under Fire" site. The cooking will take place in LA, Vegas, Miami and New York with one of twelve finalists being sent home from the show each week, leaving a final cookoff between two in New York City.

The producers of this show are looking for cooks with passion and a real desire to succeed in this industry--that's the only criteria. They want the audience to know what means to cook professionally. I love that and I'm really hopeful they, we, can pull it off.

[Jinmyo]

Michael, we'll depend on you to make something real out of this.

[Chris Amirault]

Michael, can you say a bit about what you, as a judge and thus as part of the on-air talent, hope this program will do and be? As an admirer of your writing both in books and here on eGullet, I'd like to know what you make about all of this at this stage.

Like many eGullet folks, I've watched and enjoyed a lot of PBS shows on cooking, and their forays into reality TV have been, well, interesting. I hope for your sake that, like your writing, the show turns out to have some panache and authenticity as it lets us in on the world of chefly stardom. Of course, it could also turn out to be an embarrassment to all involved along the lines of the US Iron Chef or Rocco's Restaurant. I can't imagine you'd be involved if you thought it was going to be the latter, but I also can imagine it becoming something other than what any one person might hope.

So, then, I think that your take on the show before it starts and as it progresses would be enlightening. Thanks in advance! It could be a fascnating process to watch unfold.

[Gifted Gourmet]

The producers of this show are looking for cooks with passion and a real desire to succeed in this industry--that's the only criteria.  They want the audience to know what means to cook professionally.  I love that and I'm really hopeful they, we, can pull it off.

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Many thanks for joining this thread with your considerable knowledge and culinary expertise, Michael!

[Jinmyo]

Well, as to MR's powers of discernment, one mustn't forget the willingness to enable bourdain in truly monstrous activities. So there's some very real danger here that this project will end in tragedy.

[chefreit]

PBS new show

Cooking Under Fire is a national cooking competition to discover the next great American chef, someone who has the SOUL, TALENT and STAMINA to cook "under fire."  Bringing together culinary school grads, everyday gourmands, short-order cooks, and seasoned restaurant talent.....If you think you have the skills, desire and ambition to be a true chef, then this is your opportunity to make your dream come true! We’re looking coast-to-coast for wanna-be-chefs who are willing to put everything on the line for a shot at the ultimate prize — a position as a chef in one of famed Chef and Restaurateur Todd English’s restaurants in New York City.

The Judges:

Todd English, Chef and restaurateur

Ming Tsai, Chef and host of Simply Ming on Public Television

Michael Ruhlman, Author (The Making of a Chef and The Soul of a Chef)

Does anyone know of this contest (besides Michael Ruhlman)?

←

Was actually asked to show-up to the casting call by my company.

I Harry

What do you think? Are you up for it?

DD

-----Original Message-----

From: SDX Communications

Sent: Fri 1/21/2005 1:45 PM

To: DL.NA.HC.All Health Care

Cc:

Subject: Casting Call for Culinary Reality Show - Auditions Start on Monday!

Casting Call for Culinary Reality Show!!!

PBS is looking to discover the “next great American chef” with a new reality show called “Cooking Under Fire.”

“Cooking Under Fire” is your chance to be discovered as America’s next rising star chef. The producers at PBS have just contacted Sodexho to help them in recruiting top-notch talent for this national competition, with challenges that will test culinary acumen, business skills, artistic sensibility, purchasing prowess, and endurance, and judged by expert celebrity judges like Todd English, Ming Tsai, and Michael Ruhlman.

So if you have chef’s-coat-will-travel, PBS is looking for you!

PBS is accepting applications to be chosen as one of the 12 lucky contestants for this competition scheduled to air this spring.

Local auditions are being held across the country in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, New Orleans, and Seattle starting Monday, January 24, 2005.

If you are interested, or know someone who may be interested you must contact public relations: Stacy Bowman-Hade at 1.800.SODEXHO, ext. 44352 or Sarah Cody at . 1.800.SODEXHO, ext. 44413

[Gifted Gourmet]

So, chefreit, are you game for this huge undertaking?

Do update us here on all the particulars as they emerge!

[chefreit]

So, chefreit, are you game for this huge undertaking?

Do update us here on all the particulars as they emerge!

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GG,

I'm ready to ham it-up. Chef coat is pressed an-red to-go!

[Michael Ruhlman]

Chris,

I hope that the show is entertaining, that's number one. It's tv after all. It's what I try foremost to do in any book i write. if no one watches or reads who care how good it is? Beyond its being entertaining though, my main hope is that it really explores the work of cooking, professional cooking--gets the whole range of humanity that surfaces in a working kitchen, the potential for abject failure and humiliation and immortal glory, from knuckleheaded vulgarity to grace. And I'd hope it would teach people what a good cook was (as far as the ability to organize your space and your time, the ability, while you're working four pans at the range, to sense when the walnuts you're toasting on the other side of the kitchen are done), and to teach something about the food itself. I'd personally like people to know what a good veal stock is and how to use it instead of being taught by certain august publications that it's not really important.

The guy who contacted me about it wanted these same things, so I trusted him. And I daresay asking me as opposed to, say, Danny Bonaduce, suggests a certain highmindedness of intent. I after all am midwestern earnestness personified with a certain amount of ktichen experience to bring to bear on the situation. (I can see Bourdain sticking his finger down his throat when I get like this. Did they ask him--I don't know, could have. But he's cultivated his own persona that brings along with it specifice expectations. And Jinmyo, judge not my discernment lest yours be judged ok--we all mistakes.) The producers seem to combine a good mix of entertainment savvy and pbs didacticism.

Yes, it absolutely could be the nadir of food tv, an abysmal embarrassment, but I suppose that's part of the fun as well.

[chefzadi]

I enjoy competitions like this. I doubt that PBS would churn out something that is the nadir of foodtv. There's enough "drama" in the premise for it to be interesting. Also it seems to me that PBS is quite good at making personal stories interesting without exploiting the story teller. The audience base too is so different from foodtv. The expectations are different.

With that said, I'm game for the competition. But I already have years of Executive Chef experience, I'm not American (resident status though) and I don't want the "Ultimate Prize." Does that automatically take me out of the running? I'm not joking.

[chefzadi]

RE: I'd personally like people to know what a good veal stock is and how to use it instead of being taught by certain august publications that it's not really important.

________________________________________________________________

Veal Stock not important? Wow, that's actually a trend now? Serve a good veal reduction sauce in a restaurant, if the customer's don't lick the plates clean the bussers finish the job for them. It's terribly sad that in the name of food trends, sometimes just plain good stuff that people love to eat gets thrown out.

[Jinmyo]

Michael, that's encouraging.

And it is for PBS rather than the FuhdNetwork.

Still, if the winner is bouncey and peppy and blonde we'll know who to come after.

edit:

By the way, do you have any book projects upcoming?

Edited January 24, 2005 by Jinmyo (log)

[Michael Ruhlman]

chefzadi,

anyone can audition for this but i suspect it wouldn't be right for you. For a young cook or a culinary student to leap into a nyc sous chef position, that plus the attention of a national audience could really jumpstart a culinary career. that same cook would likely have to work three to five years to reach the same position. so its aim would be to attract people for whom that goal was desirable.

re: the veal stock: I was referring to the nytimes magazine food column yesterday--perhaps there's a discussion already going on about it. if i knew how to make a link here I'd do it.

Jinmyo,

Always appreciate your comments and the tone with which they're uttered. Next book is HOUSE: A MEMOIR about rehabilitating an old house in the cleveland burbs, a love song to this city, to the importance of that structure in one's life, the importance of staying in one place in our vagabond culture.

In the fall, a book on charcuterie, pates, sausages, cured things, confit, with my friend Brian Polcyn, more or less an extended ode to salt, animal fat and the glories of the pig.

[Jinmyo]

Michael, I'll probably buy this old book on a house but only because I'd like to have something decent to read until the book on chacuterie, which of course, always cures things.

I'm encouraged further by your comments to dear chefzadi. This show could be good as well as entertaining.

[FoodMan]

In the fall, a book on charcuterie, pates, sausages, cured things, confit, with my friend Brian Polcyn, more or less an extended ode to salt, animal fat and the glories of the pig.

Looking forward to that, the return of Brian...oh and the PBS show sounds interesting too.

Elie

[bourdain]

What Ruhlman has neglected to mention is that he--and all the other judges, will be dressed in cerulean blue (yet presumably fire retardent) judge's robes--complete with Rehnquist-style shoulder stripes. Contestants will wear electro-shock dog collars with dimmer switches, so that--should Ruhlman or his peers become displeased during the course of events-- they can make their unhappiness known in painful increments. I have no doubt that brutalizing aspiring culinarians in this way will only provoke the famously sadistic former dungeon master of Cleveland to even worse extremes. Suckled on the rigorous ThunderDome-like CMC exam , Japanese dental porn and the worst of the German rubber and latex-related filmmakers' oevre, he'll take to this job like Charlie Manson in an abbatoir.. I hope the producers stock plenty of lithium and thorazine--and keep their fingers close to the "beep" button. When Ruhlman's foul mouth gets going he makes Gordon Ramsay sound like Aunt Bea.

"That's BEEPing NOT what "Mr. E" would do--is it, you despicable little goldfish dropping!?! Would "Mr. E" make BEEP! like this? Well? WOULD HE?!! You gonna cry, now, BEEPface? Gonna cry? And your croutons are burning..C'mon BEEPferbrains, MOVE!! MOVE YOUR FAT BEEPING BEEP YOU RAT-BEEP BEFORE I YANK OUT YOUR EYES AND SKULL--BEEP YOU" Would be an example of Michael in a good mood.

This slaughterfest sounds like a dream come true for Cleveland's cruelest.

God help the contestants. And God help us all.

[Jinmyo]

Well, that's just to be expected though. It's TV.

The point is, if the winner is just some hotty for the Hausfrau Helper Networkish crowd we'll know MR has betrayed everything that means* anything.

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* Depending upon what "meaning" means.

[Bux]

For a young cook or a culinary student to leap into a nyc sous chef position, that plus the attention of a national audience could really jumpstart a culinary career.  that same cook would likely have to work three to five years to reach the same position.  so its aim would be to attract people for whom that goal was desirable

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To attract them and expose their weaknesses for our entertainment. PBS has a good track record in cooking, but as Jinmyo says, it's TV. I hope this is real, and not "reality" fame on the line. If I'm supsicious of anything, it's jump starting culinary careers with a bit of quick public fame. If I've been critical of American chefs and restaurants, it's that sense that a degree from a culinary school, not a pot of good veal stock, that makes one a chef. Good luck. I'm not questioning your motives, Tony's already assured us you have them.

[Bux]

Still, if the winner is bouncey and peppy and blonde we'll know who to come after.

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I take it you're convinced that'll beat talent elsewhere on tv. I'm not betting against you.

[Timh]

The grand prize is to work for someone else???? You should throw in a used car, and a bar tab. I mean really, a competion for lead cook? Can you name the chefs of English's other resaurants? Who really wins here?

Edited January 25, 2005 by Timh (log)