We never thought of The Chew as just a TV show. It was always meant to be a group of friends on TV swapping recipes with a group of friends watching TV.
We have thrived on the idea that our fans know as many delicious dishes as the hosts. We have invited hundreds of viewers to stand bowl-to-bowl with our on-air family to share their prized edible heirlooms with us.
When the show is over each day, the food friendship continues online. The result is a treasure of viewer family recipes that have been tested and loved over lifetimes.
Thechew.com rattles with excitement whenever a new home-cooked hit makes it onto our Web pages. The recipe download numbers clearly inform us about what’s a hit and what’s a yawn. That tells us what you want to taste and treasure and put onto your own family’s dinner table.
So…we asked ourselves one quiet afternoon on the sunny back porch of The Chew Productions this: why not serve up the best of the homemade magic in one book and sprinkle some host-cooked favorites on the side? When we factored in the family traditions behind the meals, we realized it’s been hundreds of years in the making, so who are we to argue?
We hope you’ll give these a shot and tell us what you think. Feel free to join our “little” club of food-loving friends. Send us your own recipes; there is a solid chance you could wind up on-air or in our next book. At the very least, you’re giving a much-loved gift from your well-fed family to ours.
Gordon Elliott, Executive Producer