The Cooking with Class Story

Chef Frank Terranova M.C.F.E.

The Cooking with Class Story

It is my pleasure to share the story on how the cooking segments known as “Cooking with Class” (CWC), seen on NBC 10, came to be. The whole thing started when Barbara Morse came to Johnson & Wales University (JWU) to shoot a little food segment, and I just happened to be at her disposal. The school asked me if I would like to do some tapes for Channel 10. They said it would be about a years worth of work, so I agreed. Well, in June of this year it will be our 14th year. Time flies when you’re having fun! LOL! It has been great so far. First of all, I’d like to clear up something:  I don’t work 2 minutes per day as some of you might think!  At JWU I have 15 courses that I teach during the school year. CWC is an extra responsibility for me outside of the classroom. What people really don’t know is that it’s all student-driven and mostly by culinary students. This is how it works:  first we develop the recipes. Then the student with the most seniority who knows the routine sets up the show’s taping order. Most people think it’s a professionally set up show. All of our equipment such as the pans, china, utensils, ovens, and dishes are owned by Johnson & Wales University. The University is totally behind the fact that we do this, because it gives the students an opportunity to earn student wages and still learn. The most asked question I get that viewers want to know about is what happens to all of the food. Well, the camera guys enjoy a few tastes, but most of it goes back in the kitchen. To a college student, receiving all the extra cooked food is like having an extreme benefit package! We have a list of students wanting to work on CWC, but we can only have six at a time.

Each student usually picks out a recipe they want to prepare. They go over it, discuss it with the supervisor (in this case, Linda, who is a pastry student), understand it and sign off on it. While Linda makes sure all five segments for the week are lined up, the student sets the completed plate to be photographed and is completely responsible for the set up of each segment. Maddy (from our Communications and Public Relations Department) keeps me on a strict time schedule, but I usually don’t listen anyway!  LOL!  We usually tape between 15 and 20 shows in one day.  If there are 15 shows or segments, then there are 30 prepped dishes. One is already prepared (that’s the one I show you at the end of the segment), and one I prepare on camera.

Along with this comes the cleaning of the TV kitchen which is one of the best in New England. We have a gas stove top; grill; steamer; inset fryer; two ovens which can bake, microwave, and dehydrate food; a combination oven which can steam and bake simultaneously; and a pizza oven. The Amphitheater, where we tape, can seat 175 people in auditorium-style levels. It has built-in TV screens and ceiling projectors which are used for visiting chef demonstrations, so it has two valuable purposes. Our recipes on CWC reflect the idea that people enjoy cooking for their families and friends, but without cleaning out their wallets. All the recipes are tested three times prior to the public being able to download them. We on CWC are very proud of what we do, and my students have a tremendous amount of pride in their work.  Many of them have gone on to work for culinary magazine companies, or become executive chefs and dietitians. Two actually did their co-op with the Food Network. As of now we have approximately 4,000 cooking/pastry tapes. We have the best of the best in our faculty who make their presence felt on the show. Everything we have used from day one comes from our own labs, such as the pastry and bread labs. As far as NBC 10, they have been nothing less than wonderful and very complementary to myself and the University. Just for the fun of it we do the NBC 10 Turkey Hotline each Thanksgiving. You have probably seen us on the phones; we handle over 500 calls in the three days we do this fun event. I see many people outside of school in stores while they are shopping and they are all great to chat with. I have figured out in the years that I have been doing the show that usually a loaf of bread equals about an hour of cooking questions! I think we have sent recipes to 75% of Rhode Islanders. I even received an email from a woman from Colombia telling me she downloads our recipes. Well, I just had to explain how our little segment on NBC 10 has impacted the use of our recipes. And that brings me to this last bit: as of January 1, 2009 through April 1 2009, the web hits for recipes hit 80,995. And that’s only in the first four months of this year! Not bad for a little state and a major culinary university. So hopefully I have made heads or tails of our segment and how it works.

As always “That’s Cooking with Class”.