Become a Tester for America's Test Kitchen
Thursday, January 25, 2007 | posted by Mike
Well, to be more precise, you can become a tester for Cooks Illustrated, the people behind America's Test Kitchen.
TV Food Fan reader Elaine from New Jersey wrote in to point us to a neat feature on the Cooks Illustrated website where you can sign up to become part of their army of testers. The program is called "Friends of Cook's" and it gives members an opportunity to try out new recipes and give feedback on what worked and what didn't, which helps the folks at the magazine get closer to that "perfect" recipe for which they always strive.
Before any recipe is published, we send it out to Friends of Cook's, who test it at home and answer a simple online questionnaire. Our "Friends" are not paid--they buy their own ingredients and cook the food on their own time--but they get to sample our recipes before they're published in the magazine and they help us make sure our recipes really do work.
This is not a marketing gimmick or promotional message. We really do want to know how our recipes fare in your home with your cookware, your oven, and ingredients from your local market. All we ask is that you tell us what you really think of our recipes. If you would like to become a Friend of Cook's, e-mail us at friendofcooks@bcpress.com.
I haven't signed up for it yet, but I'll probably give it a shot since it seems to be a fairly low-pressure club and I can always use an idea for what to make for dinner.
From the magazine's (and show's) standpoint, this is a great idea. Everyone is always talking about the "wisdom of crowds
No word on whether Chris Kimball will show up at your house to tell you your Chicken Pot Pie stinks, though.
Labels: Christopher Kimball
Chris Kimball Gets Feisty
Thursday, October 12, 2006 | posted by Mike
Yes, that’s right…two Chris Kimball posts in a week.The host of America’s Test Kitchen and hero to food geeks everywhere sat down with the Washington Post for a Q&A while in town for a book-signing event. Anyone who has seen Kimball on the show knows that he can get a bit opinionated, especially when the time comes to head to the tasting lab. In fact, the episode from this weekend (which I had already seen) included a raspberry preserves tasting which concluded with Kimball saying, more or less, “The Smucker’s won the tasting, but don’t be cheap – try the expensive stuff I liked.” OK...maybe that was a bit of a harsh characterization, but that kind of strong opinion is present often enough to know there is something there.
Anyway, the reporter asked Kimball how much the recipes in the book allow for “creativity and interpretation.” His response:
None. Make the damn recipe my way. [He laughs.] I had someone write in a long time ago and say, "Lidia [Bastianich] cooks with her heart." And I wrote back and said, "Well, yeah, that's the wrong organ. You should use your brain." Until you know that recipe inside out and you really get it and you can make it without looking at the recipe, don't play with it. It's sort of like saying: "I'm going to play a Bach sonata. But I'm going to change the key." No. You play it the way he wrote it.Interesting, especially when you consider that the dishes are not Kimball’s in that he did not dream them up or even work out the recipes himself. I think it shows that he is a strong believer in the methodology that his show and magazine employ to “perfect” the recipe, which includes testing it repeatedly until they feel that it is both right and repeatable.
Of course, this all gets back to the Rachael Ray vs. Mario Batali schools of thought on food TV. You have the “how to make this dish in your home” shows and the “inspiring you through my fantastic creations” shows. Both groups can turn off a portion of the audience (those who think the lessons being taught are overly pedantic or needlessly complicated, respectively), but I’m a big believer in the necessity of both sorts of shows. Food TV needs to inspire people to get in the kitchen, but it can’t leave them in a lurch when it comes to actually preparing the dishes.
From a practical standpoint, I know that substitutions are sometimes necessary because of the availability of ingredients, but how much liberty do you take with the recipes themselves? I’m talking about the amounts and the techniques, rather than using canned beans instead of dried beans or something like that. And are there any recipes from TV chefs that you feel familiar enough to try without the safety net of the recipe in front of you?
Thoughts are, as always, welcome in the comments below or at tvfoodfan@gmail.com.
Labels: Christopher Kimball
A U.S. Lunch Crusade: Christopher Kimball
Thursday, October 05, 2006 | posted by Mike
You’ve heard us go on (and on and on) about Jamie Oliver’s crusade against unhealthy school lunches over in the United Kingdom, documenting the various political, educational and cultural forces at play in the story. For every person who thinks Jaime is contributing to the health and wellbeing of the country, there is another who just wants him to butt out and let the kids eat their bangers and mash or kidney pie or whatever stereotypical British dish they might be serving. (TVFF.com’s knowledge of food in the U.K. is quite limited.)But, what has been a fun little side-story for us in the United States looks like it could become something bigger thanks to the actions of another food personality. Granted, he doesn’t have Jamie Oliver’s notoriety or boyish good looks, but America’s Test Kitchen star and Cook’s Illustrated editor Christopher Kimball is working toward making American school lunches healthier.
According to an online article from USNews, Kimball started locally (in the Boston area) and founded an advocacy group called Parents Against Junk Food. From there, he wanted to take his cause to a national level, but that’s where things got complicated:
Christopher Kimball thought it would be so easy: Point out that school lunches are unhealthful, and taste awful, too, and the Tater Tots would disappear from the menu. But with legislation he backed to reform the federal school-lunch program sidelined in Congress's rush to adjourn this week and hit the campaign trail, Kimball feels it's time to move the battle to the home front. "This is not going to be an easy thing to solve," he says.Kimball clearly recognizes the challenges he faces, but he makes an excellent point when it comes to why changing the system in schools is important. For much of the country, children are essentially a “captive audience” when it comes to the school lunches. Due to cost or time constraints on parents, they’re reliant upon the food sold in the cafeterias and vending machines in the school. So Kimball has called for stricter rules and regulations on the types of food available to students.
Of course, the unhealthy lifestyle is also being reinforced in the home:
"Parents are feeding kids the same things at home," Kimball says of nuggets-n-Tater Tots cuisine. "This is their regular diet."In the end, Kimball realizes that it’s more about changing attitudes and behaviors, and draws upon his experience with the magazine and show to point out that, if adults can start cooking at home, kids can also learn how to eat a more nutritious diet.
"You see people who didn't cook before," he says. "They try it, they like it, and they realize what they've been missing."
Labels: Christopher Kimball
The Best Show You May Not Be Watching
Tuesday, August 08, 2006 | posted by Mike
Ever since I started TVFoodFan.com, the site has been coming up pretty often in conversations with friends, family and coworkers. (Hey – I have to drum up traffic somehow) And, when it does come up, the discussion invariably turns to favorite shows and personalities. As you would imagine, many of the same names (Giada De Laurentiis, Rachael Ray, Mario Batali) come up time and again.But I always make sure I mention another show. And it often catches them off guard, because it’s not one of the “glamour” shows of the Food Network.
For the serious foodie, PBS’s America’s Test Kitchen is a must-watch.
There are a lot of things that ATK is not. It’s not flashy, it’s not peopled with looks-first chefs and it’s not full of innovative or original recipes. It is a show that features good chefs showing you how to be a better cook.
ATK’s episodes center on a common theme, and the main segments feature the “perfect” recipe for a dish – one that has been tried and tested and deemed to be the best by the test chefs behind Cook’s Illustrated magazine. The chefs do a great job of explaining the decisions they made about ingredients and techniques, and no show on television spends as much time actually showing the cooking process. There are very few “through the magic of television” swap-outs.
And, speaking as someone who has tried a number of their recipes, their dishes translate well to the home kitchen. You won’t find a groundbreaking new concoction, but you will find a way to keep your chicken and dumplings from turning into a gloppy mess.
The non-cooking segments on the show are just as interesting and helpful to the home cook. The show (and the magazine) is funded entirely by underwriters and subscriptions, just like Consumer Reports, and they provide evaluations of kitchen equipment and ingredients. They often provide a “money is no object” winner along with a “best buy” recommendation. I’m buying the Muir Glen Organic canned tomatoes thanks to ATK.
The show is hosted by Christopher Kimball, the founder of Cook’s Illustrated. In the show, he serves as an “everyman,” working with a number of chefs and acting as a stand-in for the home viewer. He’s not afraid to make the dumb mistakes and ask the dumb questions, because he knows that the corrections and answers are useful to you and me.Now, if I’m making this sound like a chore to watch, it’s not. Kimball is very likeable…the slightly goofy smart kid in class who found a topic he loves and somehow got to host a TV show about it. There are also a number of running “gags” on the show, including Kimball’s terrible record of accurately choosing the tasters’ preferred ingredients in the tasting kitchen. Just like ATK’s PBS cousin Sesame Street does, it teaches you while entertaining. Unlike Sesame Street, the large bird usually ends up perfectly roasted with a nice pan sauce.
America’s Test Kitchen certainly isn’t the most glamorous TV food show, and it’s probably doesn’t have the most dynamic cuisine, but it’s probably the most useful half hour a foodie can spend in front of the television.
Labels: Christopher Kimball
