Secrets of TV Chefs

Why it isn't really as easy as they make it look...

Have you ever watched a TV chef easily prepare some tasty-looking dish, then experienced disappointment, if not disaster, when you tried to prepare the same dish at home?

If so, there is a good reason. TV chefs make hard things look easy. They have many advantages which may not be available to you. They'll typically have years of experience, often working in the kitchens of the finest gourmet restaurants. They have the best equipment available, from knives to food processors. Their kitchens are organized as efficiently as possible, so that food ingredients and cooking implements are within easy reach. They often assume that their viewers will know how to do basic but important steps. (How do you poach an egg, anyway?) And, chances are, the perfect demonstration of a fancy pastry or prosciutto stuffed wonton ravioli recipe might have gone through a rehearsal or two before being performed before a studio audience.

One of the biggest advantages most TV chefs have, however, is that much of their food preparation work occurs off camera. Generally, you don't get to see all the chopping, grating, peeling, slicing, and washing that must take place to prepare the ingredients of the dish. As if by magic, all the prepared ingredients are already there, in their bowls, ready for the chef to work with. And you don't get to see who performed all this preparation work. It might have been the chef -- or it might have been a group of sous chefs, slicing and dicing off camera.

Wouldn't your cooking job be easy if you had helpers do your grunt work?