Who wants to be the next TV celebrity chef?

Starting this fall, I will have my very own cooking show on Parkland's TV station. This is not something that I had ever expected to do. The first cooking show that I remember watching is Yan Can Cook on PBS. I was maybe six or seven. It must have been during the summer, because that was back when cooking shows only came on in the afternoon, competing with talk shows and soap operas for housewifely attention. I enjoyed the show. Martin Yan wore shirts that read "Wok with Yan" or "Wok and Roll" and made dishes like "Ba-na-na-nana Rolls"-much more fun than most grown-up programs. I looked forward to watching his show when I could, but I didn't start daydreaming about being the next Martin Yan. The deliberate pursuit of a career as a TV chef is a very recent phenomenon. Somehow, cooking shows have gone from low-budget educational programming for home cooks, to the substance of an entire network that has become a showcase for glamorous celebrity chefs. In our national perception, cooking and the chef have been elevated from a household chore and a low-status job to an esteemed art and a highly-skilled professional. Do not misunderstand my perception of cooking; I am a huge fan of the home-cooked meal. I come from the South, where "tastes like homemade" is much higher praise than "restaurant quality". My only cooking-related aspirations have been to have the skills to put a meal in front of anybody that shows up for dinner and to feed them something good enough to tempt everyone into a second helping. So, why am I making a cooking show?

I have never had any desire to be on TV, but I do love giving cooking demonstrations. When I am up in Chicago for culinary classes, I get to volunteer with an organization called Operation Frontline (OFL). OFL is part of Share Our Strength, a national organization dedicated to eradicating childhood hunger (http://www.strength.org/). I conduct cooking demonstrations as part of their nutrition-education program that teaches individuals, parents, and children how to prepare healthy, tasty meals on a limited budget. Currently, we do not have an OFL program here in Champaign, but we do have a TV station (PCTV). I saw an opportunity to create a TV series that would allow me to share similar ideas for healthy and inexpensive meals. With the involvement of Jane Valentine, Dietetic Technician Program Director, and the staff at PCTV, that opportunity has developed into a series of TV shows called What's in Your Pantry? The series illustrates ideas and techniques for creating meals out of simple and inexpensive pantry staples.

As a nation, we have been spending a lot of time getting excited about watching other people cook, but we aren't putting much effort into following their example. According to the Department of Energy, the number of meals cooked at home dropped dramatically during the last decade. With the rise of convenience foods and fast food restaurants, many people have gotten out of the habit of cooking at home, and many others have never even learned how. We may consider cooking high art, but we don't think of ourselves as artists. Since the economy has taken such a sharp downturn, however, popular interest in home cooking has increased. I hope to support that interest by providing novice cooks with some of the basic tools they need to feel confident about feeding themselves and their families at home. I have no objection to celebrity chefs and food as entertainment, but I am much more interested in home cooks and food as dinner.

Jane Valentine and the students in the Dietetic Tech Program are featuring local chefs and home cooks in another series called Look Who's Cooking that they are producing for PCTV this fall. If you have a favorite recipe that you want to share or if you just want to be a TV chef for a day, contact Ms. Valentine at jvalentine@parkland.edu or 217-351-5293. Look for all of these programs on PCTV (channel 9-Comcast; channel 10-Mediacom) later this fall.