If you like to cook and/or watch melt-downs–culinary and emotional–you’ll likely become addicted to “Cooking Under Fire,” public television’s 12-part foray into reality programming.
The show follows a dozen chefs (mostly young, mostly photogenic) asked to perform various tasks–preparing a duck entree, for instance–in competition with each other. Celeb chefs Ming Tsai and Todd English, along with author Michael Ruhlman, are the taskmasters who eliminate one chef at the end of each 30-minute episode. The coveted prize: a job at one of English’s New York restaurants.
Two preview episodes proved highly entertaining. Home cooks will find themselves competing alongside the contestants, concocting their own dishes in their heads while waiting to see what the 12 hopefuls (who include Russell Moore, 37, of Flossmoor and Jennifer McDermott, 24, of Chicago) will come up with. They’re a varied but quick-to-know bunch; some you root for while a few possess all the charm of an undercooked prawn.
Best of all, the judges are brisk, no-non-sense and, when needed, brutally honest–making you really glad it’s somebody else’s duck that’s getting cooked.
“Cooking Under Fire” debuts from 8 to 9 p.m. Wednesday on WTTW-Ch. 11; it will then air at 8 p.m. Wednesdays through July 27.