Chef Emeril Lagasse: Emeril's Table

Chef Emeril Lagasse said it plainly: "Martha is Martha and Emeril's Emeril — and Emeril's not trying to be Martha or Martha's not trying to be Emeril. We run …" — and Premier Guide Miami was in the room when it happened.

Chef Emeril Lagasse — food correspondent for ABC's Good Morning America, host of over 2,000 shows on the Food Network, and author of 15 cookbooks including Emeril's New New Orleans Cooking and Sizzling Skillets and Other One-Pot Wonders — premieres his new series Emeril's Table on Hallmark Channel on Monday, September 26 at 11am Eastern. The show is produced by Emeril Primetime Productions in association with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Premier Guide Miami's Daedrian McNaughton and Judith Wallace spoke with Lagasse ahead of the premiere.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: You must be excited about your new project, Emeril's Table.

EMERIL LAGASSE: I'm very excited about Emeril's Table. Basically this half-hour show is really very exciting and very educational for folks.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: Why will Emeril's Table be the hottest reservation on television?

EMERIL LAGASSE: I would say it's the intimacy — part of all this daily entertaining in the half hour, giving the ultimate cooking lessons to a wide range of visitors. There are five seats at the food bar, so that's where it becomes very intimate and very educational for the home viewer as well as for the audience members.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: Emeril's Table is going to be the hottest reservation on TV. Why now?

EMERIL LAGASSE: I started and had 12 seasons of Essence of Emeril back in the '80s and helped launch the Food Network from zero to now 100 million homes. And then I sort of went — after having that run — took a little break, and then I went and did something very fun more in the field called Emeril Green, and really tried to nail down to the average person what this whole green movement was, whether it was growing something organically or making something organically. And then from there this opportunity came. I've done a couple of fun shows to launch the Cooking Channel, but then I really wanted to get back to what I do — and what I do is I'm a cook and I cook every day. I love to cook, love to teach people. There was an opportunity with Emeril's Table on this Hallmark block and I thought it was going to be a perfect match, and I really feel that it is.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: Who is your best dinner guest?

EMERIL LAGASSE: Julia Child. I have a very strong tie — love, almost addiction — to music, and so there have been a lot of music people who have come into my life because of food and some of them have just been really incredible. Billy Joel is an example — a true lover of food, a great cook. Sammy Hagar is another one — a terrific palate, has a garden, cooks most of the meals for his family. And I could go on and on. I've had professional experiences where I've had colleagues and mentors come in and I've cooked for them, so those were always not only a challenge but also quite memorable.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: What will be the mix at your food bar?

EMERIL LAGASSE: The audience members range from newlyweds and busy moms to firefighters and vegetarians — all sorts of folks in life, real people experiencing real food. There is an array of programming so it's not just one direct style of cooking. It's really trying, with my style, to take the intimidation factor out of cooking for folks at home and encouraging them to learn something about food — whether it's shopping, a new ingredient, or a new technique. In essence, that's really the show.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: How important is family time at the table in your home?

EMERIL LAGASSE: The family table in my house is very, very important. As a matter of fact, my kids have a joke that when we get up in the morning I usually ask them what they want for dinner before I even ask them what's for breakfast. We try to have a food plan. We have a well-stocked pantry. We try to buy perishable protein and vegetables on a daily or every-other-day basis. We stay seasonal and fresh as possible. We don't eat fast food, so the family table becomes very important. Tonight — very simple because of the kids' schedules, football, cheerleading — we're having pasta bolognaise with a green vegetable and a very light salad. Last night, coming off of the Labor Day weekend, we had a family table of about 14 with some local shrimp done very simply scampi style with a simple rice pilaf and a great salad and some roasted asparagus. It was perfect.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: Emeril's Table seems more like a family table, and in recent years people have become extremely busy and have very little time to enjoy that kind of setting. How would you encourage more intimate time?

EMERIL LAGASSE: I'm seeing a lot more people trying to really encourage the family table and make it special again. I know personally with writing and producing Emeril's Table, that was sort of the mine of what you just said — the table part of it was really sharing food and memories and different experiences with these five folks. On a personal note, beside the show, I feel the same way about my cooking whether it's at a restaurant, on television, or how I'm writing books these days. It's all about encouraging that family table. I think we have to rethink the food plan so that by the end of the day we're not ending up in some concrete parking lot trying to order from the window.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: How much has the format changed for this new show as opposed to the old shows you have done?

EMERIL LAGASSE: It's much more intimate for me with this show. Emeril's grown up — it's a lot more adult kind of show, meaning that I'm serious but yet a little bit experienced, so I'm not so TV-worried. I'm doing what I love to do and what I do every day, which is cook. I'm crossing boundaries that I normally wouldn't have done when I was younger, particularly with ethnic foods and techniques. It's a mature cooking show — and I don't mean that from being a snob, because I'm not a food snob at all — but it really is very mature, very intellectual, very right-on with cooking. There's humor. There's not a lot of bam-bam, thank you ma'am. It's just real downright cooking and education.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: What is the difference between the shows you have done in the past and this new project?

EMERIL LAGASSE: My experience with Food Network was 16 years ago. I began helping them launch a channel with Essence of Emeril — a half-hour serious food teaching program. Then we had a 10-year run of Emeril Live, which had a huge audience of 200 people and a band. Most of the guests were musician-oriented, partly because of my background and love. This show is really back to serious cooking, but it is fun because with the audience of five people, the ranges of life bring a lot of realism to the show. Some of the content is advance-planned and some is not. I know we're launching the first episode with a pasta show; the second episode is going to be vegetarian. What you'll see is real food cooked in real time.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: What are some of the fears of your guests when it comes to cooking?

EMERIL LAGASSE: Everybody has different strengths and weaknesses in the kitchen, whether it's a beginning cook or one with a little bit more experience. We've had folks that are frightened about going to the grocery store and don't even know where to begin. We have folks that have timing problems — how do I keep the potatoes warm while I'm trying to cook the steak and I'm burning the broccoli? And then of course the area of just technique and doing it right and building a recipe from start to finish. We showcase all of those things just about every show. We're also giving them combinations of how to buy it, how to fabricate it, how to cook it, and a lot of history about where it comes from. I've done a lot of television and I've shot a lot of shows. I got to tell you, I'm super, super proud of Emeril's Table. It's going to be an awesome show.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: When you first started cooking, what was the fear factor?

EMERIL LAGASSE: First of all — how do I get it? How do I shop for it? And then later on becoming a chef, it was now how do I grow it. Then after that it was just okay, what do I want to cook? And what I realized is that I learned how to cook onion soup probably 12 different ways from 12 different chefs. And then all of a sudden a light bulb went off and it was like — now I'm going to cook onion soup my way. I know now I want to use a combination of beef and chicken broth. I want to caramelize my onions to this certain degree. As you begin to do it a little bit more and a little bit more, you begin to get a lot more comfortable with it and you begin to discover a technique of your own.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: What happened to your venture here in Miami?

EMERIL LAGASSE: We miss Miami. Just one of those things that happens. Our lease expired and sometimes in life philosophies change and people's direction changes. The hotel was feeling like they wanted to renovate and go in another direction, and we kind of been there, done that. This far along in my career, time is so valuable, and so we just decided mutually that it was time to move on. Nothing against Miami — I wouldn't say that something in the near future might not come up there — but that's life.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: What was the selection process in getting guests at your table?

EMERIL LAGASSE: We experienced quite a bit of success in the 10 years of Emeril Live, particularly the last 5 or 6 years. We would do a run of shows a week and have roughly 2,000 tickets available, and there were years where we had a half a million requests for those runs. So right off the bat, my co-executive producer Fran at Martha Stewart Living and I decided that rather than try to be as fair as possible, we would hire a professional booker — a professional concierge of television, if you will. We would give her a lineup: next week's shows or next month's shows, and what sorts of folks we'd really like for each show. Then she would go and do her job.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: Will there be kids on Emeril's Table?

EMERIL LAGASSE: Absolutely. We've had children on already in a couple of different age groups. When they're a little younger — 4 or 5 year olds — they have just a little shorter attention span, so you can't be dragging things out for hours. But 8, 9, 10, 14 — we've had those kids on. They're into it. They want to know, they want to learn, they're inquisitive. Most of them have been in the kitchen with a parent. Most of them are really trying to enhance the family table themselves. My philosophy is this: kids are the future. They're tomorrow, they're next week, they're next year. You have to invest in that in order for it to evolve.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: Any Halloween specials?

EMERIL LAGASSE: We're doing something with friendly snacks for Halloween. This would be great if we had kids.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: Will you take the show on the road to other cities?

EMERIL LAGASSE: For the first season we worked in the greater tri-borough New York area just because it was a lot more easier to control. But I'm hoping that it evolves and that we can get a lot more of the country involved.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: What is your advice for hosting a dinner party?

EMERIL LAGASSE: Well, I would certainly know my guests — as far as who's coming and maybe even to the point of likes and dislikes. The worst thing that you want to happen is have 6 people over for a dinner party and 3 of them are allergic to shellfish. So I try to get a little bit of that information first. Secondly, what's in season? Is it September? Is it July? Is it December? Because food and moods change seasonally. My advice is to understand that and try to know those couple of factors. Keep it simple, keep it fresh, and try to have a menu that you can do a lot of advance prep work on so that you can enjoy your guests and enjoy the dinner party as well.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: Describe your relationship and partnership with Martha Stewart.

EMERIL LAGASSE: Martha has been doing what she's been doing for a long time. I joined the organization close to four years, almost five years ago. Martha and I have a very, very healthy relationship personally and work-wise as well. I think the thing that really stands out that makes it a great partnership is that Martha is Martha and Emeril's Emeril — and Emeril's not trying to be Martha or Martha's not trying to be Emeril. We run two very separate entities and have two very different styles. Sometimes they're on the same page and sometimes they vary, but the relationship is healthy. What's going on in the organization right now is extremely positive. We have some very positive changes taking place. I know the Emeril business is really looking up. We're having an awesome 2011 and I think that despite the economy and what's happening in this crazy world, we are running a really great operation and have a healthy future.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: Can you talk a bit about your book, Sizzling Skillets?

EMERIL LAGASSE: It's the day of the debut of the show and the next day is the debut of the book — Sizzling Skillets and Other One-Pot Wonders. As a cook and talking with cooks and being around cooks, I've come up with the six cooking vessels that people love to cook with: a skillet, a casserole, a crockpot, a wok, a pot, et cetera. Basically all of the recipes are in those six categories. Really phenomenal recipes, great photography, really an awesome book. I'm really proud of it.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: How involved are you with the new season of Bravo's Top Chef?

EMERIL LAGASSE: I'm involved with pretty much the entire show.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: What can you share about the upcoming season of Top Chef?

EMERIL LAGASSE: I can't really give you any details yet, but I'm in 10 of the 13 episodes — and the finale. So I've been very involved with Padma and Tom this season. Gail has sort of branched out a little bit for Top Chef Desserts, although she's still involved with the main show. But I was also there as a great support system for all three of them.

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