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BEHIND THE SCENES

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MAKING GOOD TV IN THE TEST KITCHEN

The process of creating our show begins several months before filming starts, in all-day script meetings. A group of six editors argues the merits of each recipe developed in the test kitchen for Cook’s Illustrated magazine during the past year, choosing only the very best recipes to present on television. We’re looking for recipes that not only taste great (obviously) but are also visually and editorially interesting. Passions run high, and coming to an agreement isn’t always so easy or smooth. One year, for a show on drive-in specials, some editors rooted for pairing frothy chocolate milk shakes with hamburgers. Sounds good, but in the end, the process of making the milk shakes—dump ingredients into a blender and press a button—turned out to be as interesting as watching paint dry. The result? Goodbye milk shakes, hello oven-fried onion rings.

Once the recipe lineup is settled, we then spend several months hammering out scripts. Instead of mapping out dialogue, these scripts detail what the camera is going to see—for example: “Julia chops onions and then sautés them in a 12-inch skillet with pinch of salt until golden, about 5 minutes.” So why do we write our scripts this way? Cooking is the heart of the show and it’s why, we hope, you tune in. And frankly, Chris, Julia, Bridget, and Becky don’t need scripts to banter (or argue) with each other. They’ve had plenty of practice at script meetings.