'America's Test Kitchen' brings on yummy results

By Linda Beaulieu
Associated Press

Christopher Kimball works in one of the best kitchens as host of "America's Test Kitchen," which offers helpful information for home cooks. Associated press

The kitchen is usually busy, too. When it isn't being used by the magazine staff to prepare the perfect pot roast or spaghetti puttanesca in 11 minutes flat, it serves as the set where the magazine's companion TV show, the PBS series "America's Test Kitchen," is taped.

In either case, you will find Christopher Kimball in the middle of it all, up to his elbows in kitchen equipment, slicing, dicing and demonstrating the best way to cook anything and everything.

Kimball is the magazine's publisher and editor, and is host of the TV series.

He's a far cry from his counterparts on other television cooking shows. Sharply intelligent and quick-witted, Kimball focuses on the basics. Julia Child described it well when she said "America's Test Kitchen" is "not a program for fluffies."

"Instead of being pure entertainment, our TV show offers information that home cooks can really use," Kimball explains, on set recently, between tapings.

"Cooking is like music. You have to learn the basics before you can improvise. 'America's Test Kitchen' is about the basics of cooking with an eye toward understanding why things work and why they sometimes fail. This is the culinary equivalent of learning your scales and your basic chord progressions."

On the third floor of a warehouse in Brookline Village, just outside Boston, the dual-purpose test kitchen has plenty of storage for the wide range of kitchen equipment that Kimball and his staff put to good use regularly.

Cook's Illustrated and now "America's Test Kitchen" are both known for doggedly pursuing the best ways of preparing home-cooked foods.

The magazine and the TV program show what works — and what doesn't — in the kitchen. Under Kimball's direction, staff members painstakingly carry out taste tests, try out cookware and perform science experiments.

To develop a recipe for fudgy and moist brownies, the staff baked more than three dozen batches.

"We just want to make American home cooking better, to get people back into the kitchen where they belong," the bespectacled Kimball explains. "If all they do is make a batch of chocolate chip cookies, that's OK with me. It's the act of cooking that's most important."

Good cooking, according to Kimball, is "simple foods simply prepared." He points out there's a huge difference between restaurant and home cooking, one that is often confused by TV cooking shows.

"The very best home cooks I know would rather make a few things very well rather than try to reinvent the culinary wheel at every turn," Kimball says.

Kimball's test kitchen has three massive islands, six wall ovens and an entire wall of glass-doored kitchen cabinets — 20 on top and even more on the bottom.

The counters are packed with cookbooks, clear glass bowls, knives of every size, cruets of olive oil, brand new saucepans, wooden utensils, stainless steel strainers and ingredients that range from the most common to decidedly uncommon.

In the midst of all that, four cameras are aimed at Kimball, who stands behind one of the islands as he tapes an episode for his third year of PBS shows.

The island is visually enticing, with mounds of garlic bulbs, fresh loaves of bread, perfectly ripe tomatoes, yellow onions and green peppers.

An entire year of shows, 26 half-hour episodes, are to be wrapped up in these 3ý weeks of taping, with the crew working from early in the morning into the evening day after day.

Wearing a light blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up and his trademark bow tie, Kimball demonstrates how to make rice — this particular show is all about making foolproof fried rice.

The director yells "cut!" and asks Kimball to do it all again, with more enthusiasm.

"Quiet on the set!" the director orders. Unflustered, Kimball quickly repeats his demonstration with better explanations and more description, making the director nod and smile.

The "America's Test Kitchen" television series is the work of A La Carte Communications, which produces, directs and films the shows that are carried by an impressive 75 percent of the public broadcast stations in the nation.

The show's executive producer is Geoffrey Drummond. He calls "America's Test Kitchen" an intelligent cooking show with intelligent talent, very "how-to" driven, with its step-by-step instructions for the person at home who really wants to cook.

"That's a new format when it comes to TV cooking shows," Drummond says.

It was Julia Child who brought Kimball and Drummond together. After discussing the possibilities, they agreed the show should reflect the no-nonsense personality of Cook's Illustrated.

Kimball brings experts onto his TV show very much like he recruits experts to write about food for his magazine.

"And it really fits the PBS model," he explains. "It's an interesting topic brought to you by interesting people in an interesting way."

Information on "America's Test Kitchen" and local show times: www.americastestkitchen.com