These days celebrity chefs always come off as accessible, but now they truly are, courtesy of FNK. Bobby Flay talks about why to break eggs into a glass first. Marc Murphy shrugs off that he, too, burns pignoli nuts. Both statements reveal what happens in kitchens; eggshells flutter into batters, and you generally need twice as many pignolis as expected because they are quick to burn.
The 26-year-old Food Network, which already has a vibrant online presence with FoodNetwork.com, recently launched this genuinely interactive app. (The term “interactive” is often over-used, but not this time.) Each week, about 40 live classes are featured,and there’s a back library of more than 1,000 on-demand classes and episodes of the network’s shows. How-to videos offer tips on knife skills and the bane of home cooks: how to best chop onions. Some 80 chefs are featured, and the app even has a link for grocery ordering and delivery. While watching the live classes, home cooks can text in questions and chefs can answer -- in real time.
“It is an interesting evolution of the Food Network brand,” noted Vikki Neil, executive vice president and general manager, Discovery’s Digital Studios Group. “People really want more help, and they want to get to some of the chefs and talent we have on the air. We started to hear that people wanted to be able to further explore cooking. What we are doing is helping them to be more confident in the kitchen. [The fact that] we can bring more joy back to the kitchen is a rallying point.
“I feel so much better as a mom if I just put dinner on the table two more nights this week than last week,” Neil added. “Our goal is to become the only app that people need when they talk about cooking. When they want a partner in the kitchen with them, we are that partner.”
Murphy, the celebrated chef from Food Network’s Chopped, understands. Consider his recent live class on cooking lamb chops. Even if you have cooked them for years and think you know what you’re doing, give this class a watch. When he’s seasoning, Murphy acknowledges he has a heavy hand with the salt. “A lot will fall off, and you can’t do it after,” he says during the class. “The most important thing with lamb is getting the sear on the outside. To me, the fat flavor on lamb is so delicious.”
What’s great about these live classes is that we see the pros experiencing the same moments most of us deal with in our own kitchens. Little lessons abound. Murphy touches raw meat and stops to wash his hands. When you’re concerned if a pan is too hot, he reminds, “It’simportant to remember whenever you put something in a pan, you can start with the pan a little hotter than you may want to because the product is coming from the refrigerator.”