by Allen Salkin
If Joe did not like the idea of hiring someone to take control of programming away from him, he liked it even less when Eileen was actually there. What had been calculated avoidance and simmering frustration with the network head Erica Gruen turned into the outright silent treatment of her new hire Eileen Opatut, who was canceling shows Joe had helped create.
When Eileen would try to ask him who certain members of the staff were, how the infrastructure of the network worked, and how the production of a certain show was done, he would look past her and walk away. At staff meetings, he overtly read magazines when she spoke and refused to address her.
Since Joe was the head of production, his icy silence made Eileen’s job difficult, and she was not privy to the reason for it. She knew little about his history at the network. It was frustrating, but early in her tenure, she had other problems to deal with. Behind the scenes at Emeril Live, a mutiny was brewing. In the rush to get the show into production in the fall of 1996, Joe quickly hired Darlene Hayes as head producer. She had worked on Donahue, the groundbreaking free-form talk show, and on Montel Williams. When Joe interviewed her, she had explained her vision for Emeril Live. “You need to look at it like it’s a party, like Emeril is throwing a private party in his restaurant and you’re invited.” She wanted Emeril to wear a stylish outfit, a dark blazer and nice jeans. But Emeril always, always, always, saw himself as a chef, and he wanted to wear his chef’s coat from start to finish.
“It looks much too formal when there’s a band and an audience and he comes out in a chef’s coat,” Darlene groused. “It ruins the whole mood.”
She and Joe came up with a compromise. Emeril would greet the crowd in a blazer to the side of the kitchen set, and explain what was coming up with a brief monologue. Then, as he moved toward the kitchen island, an assistant would take the blazer from him and help him slip into his chef’s coat, ready for business.
Emeril accepted the compromise, but he never felt warmly toward Darlene and her showbiz approach. Nor did he like the way Live was being run as a food operation. Emeril ran tight ships at his restaurants. On the show, the backstage kitchen staff was constantly running out to buy ingredients at the last minute. Delays were regular. Emeril was not given advance time to hone his recipes. Bills were not being paid. At one point, Leonard “Doc” Gibbs, the percussionist in the band, called a production assistant saying he was owed money. The assistant began sending Gibbs’s calls to voicemail. The messages turned increasingly angry: “This ain’t how we roll in Philly!” Doc barked on one message. “I am gonna come up there and we’re gonna get it on!” Emeril knew that if the show were a restaurant, this kind of carelessness would put it out of business.
It was obvious that they had to make the show work. From the first day Eileen went to see a taping, the audiences were not the moms and grandmoms she had expected. Men of all ages were in the crowd, some wearing jackets emblazoned with the New York Giants logo. When Emeril dropped garlic onto roasting meat, they whooped like they were watching a sporting event, and shouted with glee when he yelled “Bam!” and chucked more spices down. Oh, my God, Eileen thought. These guys want to cook a standing rib roast, too.
New categories for advertisers do not come around the television universe often. Emeril had opened food to an entirely new demographic, men who cared about good food.
The most obvious way to stem the production chaos was to let Darlene go, which Eileen did after the first season. She then called a television producer she had known for years, Karen Katz, the former director of original programming at Lifetime. Karen’s dream was to produce quality documentaries, like the ones she had overseen at Lifetime on AIDS and child labor abuses. When Eileen explained the potential job, Karen was reticent. She had never heard of Emeril, never produced a food show, and was not particularly interested in doing so, but she agreed to a meeting.
Eileen and Emeril, with his assistant, Felicia Willett, met Karen for breakfast at the Mark Hotel, Emeril’s regular Manhattan residence. Eileen and Felicia peppered Karen with questions. Emeril burrowed his face down into his chest, listened intently but made no eye contact, and didn’t join the conversation. He did not even bother to recommend the thick, smoky bacon, one of the reasons he always stayed at the Mark.
While Emeril sat, silently, Felicia asked Karen, “Do you see this as a cooking show with entertainment or is it an entertainment show with cooking?”
Karen knew they had interviewed other producers. Her competitiveness kicked in. Emeril carried himself like someone important. She suddenly wanted this job. What was the right answer? Well, this guy is supposed to be some great chef. . . . “It’s a cooking show with entertainment,” Karen answered.
Emeril looked up. This was not the answer Darlene would have given. He finally spoke. “Do you like food?” he asked. No matter what kind of carnival the Food Network intended to build around him, making food was going to be the center of what he did. If you didn’t like food, what good were you?
Karen looked directly at him. “Have you seen my hips?” she asked. Emeril smiled. She got the job as executive producer, and the team fell into place.
Karen immediately promoted Rochelle Brown, who had moved to Emeril Live, to producer. Her assignment was Emeril: prepping him before the show, tending to him during it, making sure he was happy. Susan Stockton ran the kitchen. Karen insisted that episode themes be scheduled far in advance to allow plenty of time for Emeril’s team to plan recipes and for Susan to do the necessary shopping.
The changes increased efficiencies, but the schedule that was established to maximize Emeril’s limited time in New York was brutal. They were regularly shooting three hourlong episodes a day. That’s a lot of television, and things sometimes got loopy, especially with a roster of celebrity guests that seemed so random it had the air of stunt-casting: the Broadway actor Harvey Fierstein one afternoon, the morning news host Deborah Norville another. His audiences were increasingly rowdy. People showed up in T-shirts that said “BAM!” They went wild when Emeril said, “Hey, now!” One night Emeril held an arm-wrestling contest with some Giants fans in the crowd.
A steady diet of crowd adulation and espresso sometimes drove Emeril to the edge. One example came to be known as the Bologna Incident. The show started innocently enough, with a big uncut roll of bologna on the counter. But when Emeril began to work with it, he stood the pinkish roll on its end to peel the casing from the tip.
“After you pull back the skin on your bologna . . .” Emeril began, hearing the audience laughter building. He picked up the meaty cylinder and held it at waist level and looked down at a baking dish on the counter. “See, this bologna is so big, it won’t even fit in this pan. What you want to do . . .” His smile grew and he glanced up at the audience. “Ladies, watch out over there,” he warned. He peeled the casing off, and coated the meat with oil, using his palms, set it in the pan, and walked back toward the oven. “After you’ve got it rubbed up nice,” he said, pulling down the door, “you put it in there. If it will fit in there.” The thick, long bologna, flopping over the sides of the pan, would not fit in the oven. He tried to cram it in.
Off camera, Susan Stockton and Felicia yelled into their headsets, “Emeril, get away from the bologna. Get away from the bologna!” He could not hear them, and Karen let him run with it. Just before the commercial break, he stood in front of the oven door, which still would not close around the bologna.
“Sometimes,” he said. “You just gotta say, ‘Hey, don’t mess with my bologna.’ You know what I mean?”
Karen had learned something. Emeril had a showman’s instincts. He could play with a moment, take it to the edge, but not push it over. He’d been a bad boy and gotten away with it—and the audience had stayed with him the whole way. The Bologna Incident showed her he could be trusted. Emeril learned something, too: that Karen would let him have some slack to improvise. He would not get the hook when he took chances.
The two of them could relax.
“I thought a cooking show was the kiss of death for my career.”
—KAREN KATZ
As far as most viewers were concerned, Emeril could do no wrong. Every time he declared, “Time to kick it up a notch!” the audience roared. Erica and Eileen began moving Emeril’s show later in prime time, hoping viewers would tune in to other Food shows as they waited for Emeril Live to start.
As the show became more prominent, it became a target for critics who felt the original mission of Food Network was being betrayed. The assumption was that the original mission was to spread a refined gospel of fine dining. Of course, it had not been. The original mission had been to take advantage of changes in the cable television industry by finding a new idea for a network that promised to make a lot of money. When that idea had turned out to be food, the people available to be put on the air at first were generally those passionate about the subject. The original talent had an interest in spreading the news of fine cuisine—as did Emeril, in fact, with his own panache—but those who financed the network would have been just as devoted to a pet channel if that had turned out to be a winning business idea. There was no foundational principle to betray other than “Let’s make money without putting porn on the air.” And yet, not four years into its existence, Food stood accused of selling out.
In a July 1997 Christian Science Monitor article exploring the issue, a “former Food Network executive” griped that the channel “lacks food credibility.” Another noted that the network’s quest for ratings had made recipes incidental.
Countering these criticisms, Erica responded in the piece, “We’re not trying to be the Gourmet magazine of the airwaves. Our shows are chock-full of recipes but reinterpreted in television terms for our audience, which is young, urban, and more interested in food as part of their lifestyle. It’s up to us to be bold.”
Julia Child came to Emeril’s defense, emphasizing that Food Network was a for-profit business. “Unfortunately, it’s entertainment programs that bring in the money,” she told the reporter. The French Chef was not so different. “You have to make teaching an entertaining thing to watch,” she said. “It has to be lively and fascinating.”
—
Erica hired some new talent to promote the network’s big story. She tapped another of Gerry Laybourne’s former lieutenants, Heidi Diamond, the former head of marketing at Nickelodeon. Impeccably turned out with expensively cut blond hair and sharp Armani suits in gray, navy, and black, Heidi was known for her sharp wit and bawdy personality. She often quoted a piece of business advice she had once heard: “Whoever says ‘fuck’ first at a meeting controls the meeting.”
She was not interested in food or cooking. When she bought a new apartment, she had the kitchen torn out to make more space for a clothing closet. Prada shoes and cashmere sweaters were more important to her than eggs. But she was a TV person; what the network was about did not matter. She had no children and had promoted Nickelodeon. She could adapt to food.
As she told Brandweek magazine when her hiring was announced, “I can’t wait to get dunked in the sauce. What an incredible opportunity to build the brand, and have people see, smell, touch, and taste the Television Food Network, on air and off.”
A pro, Heidi quickly set about building morale in the office. After a group came to visit the network from a cable provider in Pennsylvania and Heidi showed them around, they sent a thank-you gift. It was a giant bologna—yes, another one. Working late when it arrived, Heidi instructed a young staffer to take the sandwich meat to the nearest deli on Sixth Avenue and trade it for as much beer as possible. When the staffer returned, de-bolognaed and carrying armfuls of cold beer, a late-night office party ensued.
Heidi oversaw the rebranding of the network and there was serious work to be done. Aside from sprucing up the logo and tightening the name from TVFN to Food Network, almost nothing had been done to establish the brand. Interesting things were happening on-screen but they needed to be gussied up and sold to the world. By June 1997, she produced an internal document, the “Current Situation” at Food:
Current positioning murky
Alienating to some, as well as skewing older (both look/feel and words)
Tons of work still to be done in honing in on a solid brand position for network
Tons of new “stuff” to launch
Need to begin to move audience to younger, more contemporary view of Food Network
Resources scarce—limited funds left
What the network needed, she said, was a “Big Idea,” that
Unifies and ties all elements together
Works on air as well as off
Communicates a benefit to viewer/consumer
Visually and audibly captures attention
Is evocative . . . leaves the consumer feeling something—is fulfilling a need/want/desire
Heidi’s presentation concluded with a list of words associated with “Full of Flavor” that the network’s marketers and programmers should try to include in every advertisement, promotion, and show. They included fresh, zesty, smoky, juicy, succulent, aromatic, luscious, chewy, chilly, saucy, nutty, fruity, spicy, crunchy, gooey, tart, creamy, oaky, sweet, smooth, meaty.
The words could have been used to describe Heidi.
Like the other start-up types who thrived in the early days of Food Network, she was willing to do what it took to get the job done.
Shep had sought to tie chefs to rock musicians. Heidi wanted to go even bigger. The key at Food was to get the stars of the shows everywhere.
Without receiving or paying for permission from the National Football League, Heidi managed to attach the network and its star to the biggest pop-culture and advertising event of the year. Emeril’s Bam! Bam! Tailgate Jam was a sweepstakes promoted on-air in which the grand-prize winner received a trip to the Super Bowl in San Diego complete with a pre-game tailgate party prepared by Emeril himself.
The Food Network could not actually use the words Super Bowl. The winner would receive “tickets to the big game.” Local cable providers could attach themselves to the glory of the sweepstakes by advertising it across all their channels. On the open market, Heidi bought the tickets for the game on January 25, 1998, airplane seats, and a hotel room for the winner. The tailgate party was held in a parking lot of Qualcomm Stadium in an area not covered by NFL broadcast rights. Media circling around looking for things to cover mentioned the Food Network tailgate party in their coverage, and the party was filmed for use in later promotions. Total cost for the Super Bowl promotion: less than $30,000, including the zero dollars the network paid the NFL.
It worked out well for all involved. At the game itself, Terrell Davis of the Denver Broncos scored repeatedly, leading his team to victory. The night before the game, Emeril and fellow chef Todd English, a rising culinary star from Boston, found themselves at a restaurant in nearby La Jolla with a group that included a young marketing woman from the NFL and her friend, a technology consultant. Emeril sat next to the dirty-blond tech consultant, instructing her on the proper wine to have with each course. She had not heard of him before the evening, but the staff of the restaurant had. They paid the increasingly boisterous chef lavish attention. When he said, “Don’t you think you could kick it up a notch?” with each bottle of wine he ordered, the tech consultant was horrified, thinking he was insulting the restaurant staff. She was mystified when they laughed heartily and patted him on the back.
It is good to be king. The evening continued later at a quiet bar on the top of a hotel, just the two chefs and the two young ladies.
—
The process of turning chefs into stars was well under way. From the music business came yet another component, putting television chefs on tour like rock stars.
Rich Gore and Joe Allegro were partners in a company that paired sponsors with rock concert promoters.
They had, for example, brought stereo-maker Pioneer Electronics to Ron Delsener for a Rolling Stones tour in the 1990s. But they wanted to be more than middlemen. They could not break into the concert promoting business themselves; veterans like Bill Graham on the West Coast and John Scher and Delsener on the East had it sewn up.
Rich was channel-surfing one Saturday morning when he noticed how many cooking shows there were. People might pay to see these chefs in person, he thought. Here were stars no one was doing much with. Rich and Joe booked conference rooms at the New Brunswick, New Jersey, Hilton and hired three PBS chefs, Nick Stellino, Nathalie Dupree, and Caprial Pence, along with David Rosengarten from Food Network, to do cooking demonstrations. They found sponsors: Land O’Lakes butter, Kikkoman soy sauce, Progresso soup, Food Network, Comcast cable, and The Home News newspaper. The sponsors covered the cost of producing The Great Chefs of TV Festival.
It sold out—1,000 tickets at $45 each. Easy math: $45,000 profit for their first event. Shep thought the Miami Feast on the Beach was another Woodstock. Rich and Joe envisioned new events as versions of the traveling pop-music festivals of the times: Lollapalooza and Lilith Fair. After each twenty-minute demo, audience members could have books signed and take photos with chefs or mingle in an area where sponsors’ products were displayed.
Erica, a former concert promoter herself, was so impressed by Jeff and Rich’s enterprise that she suggested the network buy it. The deal worth more than a million dollars brought Joe and Rich aboard Food Network to head an events department. Jack Clifford, who negotiated the deal and who controlled enough seats on the board to outvote Reese, was especially enthusiastic because he planned to run chili cook-offs at some of the events.
The name was changed to Cooking Across America. Sissy Biggers, who had replaced Robin Young as the host of Ready . . . Set . . . Cook!, would preside over local versions of the competition when she was not taping the original in New York. Sissy had become a popular figure among male viewers of every stripe, from teens to more nefarious sorts. She received a lot of fan mail and read every piece. Apparently prison wardens approved of Food Network’s family-friendly content and allowed inmates to watch the shows. Even on the profanity-free, sex-free network, men behind bars managed to find objects to fetishize, among them Sissy’s shapely legs. She would often linger over fan mail from prisoners praising her gams.