Cooking Show

There was a time when cooking shows actually pretended to teach us how to cook. These days, most hosts of cooking shows just want to entertain us. "Isn't this fun?" they ask over and over. "Are you having a good time?" Almost always implied is the eternal question: "Do you like me?" Or, more specifically, "Don't hate me because I dropped the fish. " When you consider that a good portion of the cooking- show audience has no intention of cooking the dishes presented on TV - and that many cooking-show addicts hardly ever cook at all - it makes sense that cooking shows have gotten goofier over the years, often intentionally.

He's the man who makes the music for pork fat to rule by. But Leonard "Doc" Gibbs, the Philadelphia-born percussionist and music director for the Food Network's top-rated series, Emeril Live, hasn't touched a pork product in more than 30 years. Doesn't eat red meat. Said sayonara to poultry a long time ago. In his East Oak Lane kitchen, soy bacon and soy sausage rule, along with an abundance of fresh fish, fruits, vegetables, cheeses and breads from South Philadelphia's Ninth Street market.

Gene Crane is unique: He is the only announcer who has worked at WCAU-TV (Channel 10) throughout its entire 40 years on the little screen, and he is one of only a handful of people anywhere who have been on the television airwaves that long. He goes all the way back to the days when they were literally trying to figure out how to do it. Crane, 68, had been an announcer for WCAU radio for two years when TV began at the station on May 23, 1948. He remembers one of the days when the staff first fully understood that TV was different from radio.

If Penelope Cruz's deep, soulful eyes don't get to you, or her Sophia Loren lips, or the way her long, brown hair brushes against her neck in the breeze, then listen as she gives a chile pepper-appreciation course to her cooking class: "Hold them in your hands," she coos, demonstrating to her students. "Notice the colors. Now sneef. " Yes, sneef. The Spanish screen siren, playing a "shy but dazzling" Brazilian chef who wins the hearts and palates of all San Francisco in Woman on Top, may still be shaky with her English, but she knows, with absolute certainty, how to capture the camera.

Platypus man - a short-legged night-feeder who lives alone and tries to mate frequently, with limited success. A/k/a comic Richard Jeni, a/k/a a sitcom starring the New York City native Monday nights at 9 p.m. on the new United Paramount Network. The show airs locally on Channel 57. "There are now three or four shows in the top 10 that star standup comics, so everyone wants the next (standup star)," says the glib, fast-talking comedian, explaining why he has gone the sitcom route.

Watching a chicken be deboned in 21 seconds by the star of a cooking show is not your typical college class. But when Martin Yan, the comedic host of the PBS show, "Yan Can Cook," visited Widener University, students in the School of Hotel and Restaurant Management had an hour break from the classroom routine. Yan, who passing through the area Friday as a participant in The Cook and The Book Fair, performed a short course on Chinese and Pacific Rim cuisine. He shared stories not only of Chinese cooking but of Chinese culture.

What's cookin'? The story Wednesday about the prime minister of Thailand being forced to step down because he accepted payments for doing a television cooking show called Tasting and Complaining (definitely something lost in translation there) got me thinking. How does a government leader have time to do a weekly cooking show and run a country? More important, what dishes did he make? Can you imagine an American president doing a cooking show? And, what would he - or she - make?

Make that two Philly-area guys from the recent Next Food Network Star to get their own series. Winner Aaron McCargo Jr. of Camden premiered Big Daddy's House yesterday. South Philly's Adam Gertler, one of two runners-up, is in L.A. shooting Will Work for Food. Gertler's half-hour Food Network show combines his comedy with a sense of adventure and premieres at 9:30 p.m. Sept. 30. It's not a cooking show, per se. Gertler will show how people in the food business do their jobs.

Mopping his brow with a clean, white dishcloth, Guy Mitchell stared into the television camera, fixing a jolly grin onto his face. "And we're back!" he shouted, with a sweeping gesture at the counter full of partly prepared steak and vegetables in front of him yesterday. Mitchell swung around to face the four bemused students standing beside him in the ersatz kitchen of the home economics room at Neshaminy Middle School, and staggered back with mock surprise. "What are you doing here?"

Julia Child established the cooking show on television. She wasn't the first, but she was the best: Chatty, funny and smart, she made you think you could be a great cook - a fine fantasy for most of us. Lots of video chefs have come along since Child, but Pierre Franey's Cuisine Rapide (Channel 12, 2:30 p.m. Saturdays) is the first to try to convince you that not only can you be a great cook, but you can do it really fast. Franey came to prominence as the New York Times' "60-Minute Gourmet" columnist, but on Cuisine Rapide, this beefy Frenchman ups the stakes considerably: Each week, he cooks two dishes and takes you on a visit to a famous restaurant's kitchen, all in just half an hour.

Performance artist Robert Karimi, in character as chef Mero Cocinero Karimi, makes a claim as big as a half-pound bacon cheeseburger: He can teach people to improve their diets without ever uttering such unappetizing words as healthy or nutritious. During a cooking demonstration at Reading Terminal Market on Tuesday, he proved his point by persuading two 11-year-olds, waffle cones in hand, to put a dollop of his radish-greens, mint, onion, and lime dip on top of their ice cream. Sometimes, success lasts only as long as ice cream on the tongue.

Black garlic? Yes, indeed. It is nothing more than garden-variety garlic, Allium sativum, that is fermented with heat for 30 days and packaged to sell for twice the price, but the taste is entirely different. You can eat it raw or cooked without experiencing heartburn or garlic breath. And while black garlic is not entirely new, it is most likely new to you. First imported from South Korea by a California-based company, BlackGarlic.com, in 2008, black garlic appeared in dishes at Bix in San Francisco and Le Bernardin in Manhattan.

Ed McMahon, 86, who began his half-century television career in Philadelphia before becoming Johnny Carson's sidekick on The Tonight Show, where his booming announcement "Heeere's Johnny!" became his trademark, died yesterday. Publicist Howard Bragman told the Associated Press that Mr. McMahon died at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, surrounded by his family. Bragman did not give a cause of death, saying only that Mr. McMahon had had a "multitude of health problems the last few months.

What's cookin'? The story Wednesday about the prime minister of Thailand being forced to step down because he accepted payments for doing a television cooking show called Tasting and Complaining (definitely something lost in translation there) got me thinking. How does a government leader have time to do a weekly cooking show and run a country? More important, what dishes did he make? Can you imagine an American president doing a cooking show? And, what would he - or she - make?

Paul Louis Norton, 79, a venerable WPVI-TV Channel 6 (ABC) broadcaster for nearly 40 years, died Thursday of a stroke at Christiana Hospital. He had retired to Lewes, Del., in 1997. Mr. Norton came to Philadelphia in 1959 as a disc jockey and producer for WFIL-AM radio. The next year he was hired by Channel 6, where he worked in entertainment, news, public affairs and as station announcer. Mr. Norton reported on-the-air news, sports, and weather and hosted the game shows, The Money Movie, The Morning Movie, and Racing Time.

Make that two Philly-area guys from the recent Next Food Network Star to get their own series. Winner Aaron McCargo Jr. of Camden premiered Big Daddy's House yesterday. South Philly's Adam Gertler, one of two runners-up, is in L.A. shooting Will Work for Food. Gertler's half-hour Food Network show combines his comedy with a sense of adventure and premieres at 9:30 p.m. Sept. 30. It's not a cooking show, per se. Gertler will show how people in the food business do their jobs.

Florence P. Hanford, 99, of Glen Mills, Philadelphia's - and possibly the country's - first television cook, died Tuesday at Rose Tree Place, an assisted-living residence in Media. For 20 years, Mrs. Hanford prepared entire meals on her half-hour weekly program, Television Kitchen. The show aired live in the afternoon on Channel 3 from 1949 to 1965 and then for four years on Channel 6. Mrs. Hanford completed two rehearsals to check the timing and appearance of recipes prepared on an electric range; the Philadelphia Electric Co. sponsored the broadcast.

Clutching coffee and bottled water, foodies anxiously crowded around the swanky bar of 707 Restaurant yesterday morning in hopes of becoming the Food Network's next Rachael Ray or Emeril Lagasse . The Food Network chose 707, located at 707 Chestnut St., for an open casting call to view potential contestants for "The Next Star of the Food Network. " Embarking on its fourth season, the show looks for chefs with skill, personality and the ability to make it all seem easy. The winner gets a six-episode cooking show, with the possibility of subsequent seasons.

Public-access channels are the regulatory stepchildren of the cable world - required by law, but used mostly for tedious announcements about fish fries and garage sales. But a Mount Laurel company, TelVue Corp., is trying to squire this Cinderella to the ball, with flashier graphics, corporate sponsorship, and even a new cooking show. The company also boasts a prominent backer in H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest, the cable magnate and philanthropist who is TelVue's biggest shareholder, and who last month agreed to lend it up to $10 million.

If there's a recipe for a cooking show host, Sally Serata has the right ingredients. She knows how to puree and poach, can distinguish between chayote and chorizo, and is graced with an engaging smile, a petite figure, and lustrous black hair. She can mix with people as well as with pots and pans. And she can mince, whip, chat and smile, all at the same time. Last spring, Serata, 35, a self-described foodie from Cherry Hill, answered a blind Web-site ad for someone who liked traveling and food.