Things will be heating up this weekend on your TV with the premier of Kitchen Queens: New Orleans, a new cooking series turning a spotlight on some of our city's finest female chefs. In partnership with with Louisiana Public Broadcasting, WYES-TV has launched this 26-part series to chefs who are making their contribution to the local culinary landscape with innovative and unforgettable dishes. This Saturday, May 16th at 10:00am join both Louisiana PBS member stations, WYES and LPB, to watch the state-wide premiere of Kitchen Queens: New Orleans. Each weekly episode will repeat on Sundays at 1:30pm on WYES. After the sneak-peek on May 16, LPB viewers can watch the entire series beginning Saturday, June 13 at 12:00pm. Viewers can also watch the premiere simultaneously online at wyes.org.
Shot on location
all across the city, the show spotlights the skills and technique of
female chefs in their element from the teaching kitchens at the New
Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute (NOCHI) to the Diva Dawg
Food Truck. Producers Terri Landry and Dawn Smith, a duo all too
familiar with creating national cooking series for WYES, have been
planning a woman-centric series like this for years. "As women in
all walks of life are being acknowledged and celebrated, the timing
was right," says producer-director Landry.
Throughout the
history of humankind, women have been the foragers and cooks, always
tasked with feeding and caring for their families, yet when it comes
to the professional arena, they are woefully misrepresented. "There
was a terrible old saying that 'women make good cooks, but men make
better chefs,' Landry said. "Our Kitchen Queens are reimagining
the restaurant world as chefs and restaurateurs."
Meet the
incredible women whose unique voices and recipes will be highlighted
in Kitchen Queens: New Orleans:
Melissa Araujo -
Saveur Catering, Cara Benson - Tartine/Toast, Meg Bickford -
Commander's Palace, Jana Billiot - Restaurant R'evolution, Haley
Bittermann - Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group, Lenora Chong -
Morrow's, Maribeth Del Castillo - Taceaux Loceaux, Tanya Dubuclet
- Neyow's Creole Café, Megan Forman - Gracious Bakery Café, Tia
Henry -Café Dauphine, Amarys Herndon - Palm & Pine, Christina do
Carmo Honn - Café Cour/Carmo, Ericka Michelle Lassiar - Diva Dawg
Food Truck, Nicole Mackie - Ma Momma's House of Cornbread, Chicken
and Waffles, Melissa Martin - Mosquito Supper Club, Luot Nguyen -
Magasin Café, Christie Plaisance - Bouligny Tavern, Leighann Smith
- Piece of Meat, Susan Spicer - Rosedale/Bayona, Alison Vega-Knoll -
Station 6, Allison Vines-Rushing - NOCHI, Cynthia VuTran - Café
Minh, Becky Wasden - Two Girls One Shuck, Rebecca Wilcomb - Gianna,
Sue Zemanick - Zasu
Kitchen Queens:
New Orleans is dedicated to Leah
Chase, the "Queen of Creole Cooking" and an advocate of both
African-American art and Creole cooking. A culinary pioneer, Chase
was chef and matriarch of the beloved Dooky Chase's Restaurant, one
of the most culturally significant dining restaurants in the city …
if not the United States. In Kitchen Queens: New Orleans, viewers
will enjoy grandson Edgar "Dooky" Chase, IV, and niece Cleo
Robinson prepare three of Leah's signature dishes, while reflecting
upon her life and legacy.
Funding
for Kitchen Queens: New Orleans
was provided by The Melvin S. Cohen Foundation and The L.E. Phillips
Family Foundation. Local funding by Rouses Markets.