There is no doubt that television viewers have a big appetite for cooking shows. From celebrity chefs to culinary competitions to travel programs that focus on regional cuisine, there are dozens of options. It’s why finding a food-related show with a different take can be a challenge. Homemade Live! with host Joel Gamoran is just that show.
A Seattle native and graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Gamoran grew his following as head chef at Sur la Table. Part of his role was to establish their cooking school in New York City, and he soon grew a fan base for his teaching style and approach. Those in-person classes set the stage for what Homemade Live! would become.
He imagined a cooking show with a live studio audience where literally anything could happen. “Sometimes when you watch a cooking show, it feels staged. It’s a perfectly clean kitchen and everything goes great and the food looks amazing. I thought that it would be cool to have a cooking show that’s the opposite of that — where we break things, where we’re laughing, where I mess up and things get burned,” quips Gamoran.
This commitment to being real with all its imperfections helps Gamoran establish a sense that cooking is truly approachable. Having viewers see celebrities in the kitchen trying to learn something new while occasionally making mistakes can result in these skills feeling more attainable for everyone. “I wanted to bring people we all know and love — celebrities, athletes, musicians — who might love cooking, but it’s not their core strength,” he says. “Denise Richards, for example, is this amazing actress, but we’ve never seen her make a Caesar salad before. It’s a reminder that these people are human.”
When developing the concept for this program, having a live audience was critical for Gamoran. He does admit that some of his team was nervous about it. What if they couldn’t fill the chairs? What if the audience wasn’t engaged? What if they didn’t have fun? He knew having people in front of him would add the personality and energy the show needed. Gamoran credits GBH’s Executive Producer for National Lifestyle Planning Laurie Donnelly with helping to make the show work. “She was so smart in helping us see how we could think about the audience as a character in the show and how to prepare them before each shoot.” Fortunately, Gamoran says the audiences have been excellent, fully supportive of him and the show. Once he even brought someone out of the audience to prepare salmon for the first time. Gamoran jokes that they were all holding their breath to see how that turned out.
For her part, Donnelly wasn’t worried about the format. “Audiences love Joel,” she says. “He’s a wonderful combination of being a great chef and a funny and self-deprecating teacher who fosters the love of cooking. He’s also completely disarming and puts his star-powered guests immediately at ease. As such, they open up to Joel and our audience, offering up some fun, and sometimes surprising or little-known, stories.”
Now entering its third season, Homemade Live! has brought viewers through an evolution. Season One had a playful and light energy with guests that included television host Kathie Lee Gifford and former NFL player Sidney Rice. Part of the goal was to encourage viewers to find the fun in cooking. In the subsequent seasons, which include guests like comedian Tom Papa, fitness expert and Brooklyn Nets host Ally Love, and culinary legend Lidia Bastianich, there have been two notable shifts. The first is that Gamoran gave himself permission to go deeper with his guests, asking them more about their lives and who they are as people. Season Three’s episode with Lidia Bastianich is a perfect example of this as he and his guest wove cooking instruction with stories of her family’s escape from Communism, her immigration to the United States, and her early job at Christopher Walken’s family bakery.
The second change reflects a personal challenge for Gamoran — refocusing on his relationship with food and health. When Gamoran was approaching age 40, with two small children at home, his doctor encouraged him to think about what his next 40 years might look like. In a profession that focuses so much on eating, it can be a challenge to find moderation and balance. He has lost weight but is also thinking hard about what they cook on the show and how they talk about it. “It’s about finding a healthy relationship with food. We do not want it to feel clinical or like a doctor talking to you. If a guest wants to come on the show and make fried chicken, that’s awesome, but then we also try to show an air-fried version as well,” says Gamoran. “Even with my kids at home we now talk about what foods make you strong and what foods give you energy.”
Gamoran acknowledges that the unplanned moments on live television can bring fun surprises, they can also be the ones you wish you could rewind. One such moment for Gamoran was when he was invited on the Today Show for a four-minute segment where he was to teach Hoda Kotb how to chop. “They asked me to do it three times and all three times she cut herself on national TV. That plays on a nice loop and has some rent-free space in my brain,” he admits.
Gamoran sees the opportunity to host this show on public television as an important part of the story. “Everyone in the world deserves to learn how to cook,” he says. “People who cook lead happy lives. The closer you get to cooking, the closer you are to what you put in your body and to the people around you. Public television allows us to democratize cooking. It allows us to reach so many more people in a bigger way than we could do otherwise.”
Five Quick Questions
1. You walk into a bakery or pastry shop. What do you order?
JG: Maybe an egg dish because I’m watching that stuff. But my favorite is a classic double-baked croissant.
2. In my house, you can choose your favorite meal for your birthday dinner. What would you pick?
JG: Pancakes. Next!
3. What is your favorite hobby that isn’t cooking?
JG: Walking meditation — no podcast, no nothing. Just walking.
4. You go to a farmers’ market. What’s the thing you’re most excited to see?
JG: Really seasonal things like ramps, pluots, cloudberries, green garlic. It’s like seeing an old friend really quickly and then you don’t see them again until next year.
5. Who’s your dream guest for your show?
JG: Jamie Oliver. He’s my hero.
Season Three of Homemade Live! premieres on Sun (7/20) at 12pm on GBH 2 and on the PBS app.
Watch Joel and Lidia Bastianich on Homemade Live! here.
Find the recipe for Turkey Cacciatore here.
