When original host Christopher Kimball left "Cook's Country," the transition seemed smooth. But behind the scenes a legal battle was secretly being waged – and it's not the only one of the show's secrets that flew under the radar.
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00:00When original host Christopher Kimball left Cook's Country, the transition seemed smooth.
00:05But behind the scenes, a legal battle was secretly being waged.
00:09And it's not the only one of the show's secrets that flew under the radar.
00:13One notable element that set Cook's Country apart right from the start was its setting.
00:18Instead of taking place in the typical big, modern TV kitchen,
00:22Cook's Country was filmed in a real, authentic farmhouse. Yes, for the first nine seasons,
00:26the farmhouse shown in the Cook's Country opening sequence actually served as the show's set.
00:31In fact, original host Christopher Kimball purchased and owned the home,
00:35located in Rupert, Vermont. But when he left the show after nine seasons,
00:39the producers had to think quickly to find a new location. Their solution?
00:44Build a replica of the original. Chef Brian Roof explained to KLCS,
00:49In the transition period after Chris Kimball left, we shot one season.
00:53We rebuilt that set in the soundstage so it wouldn't be too shocking to the viewers
00:56because we had new hosts — Bridget Lancaster and Julia Collin-Davison — so we wanted to
01:02keep the set the same. Nowadays, the original farmhouse is under new ownership and available
01:07to rent on Verbo. Back when Cook's Country filmed in the original farmhouse, they ran
01:12an extremely tight operation. How tight? A full 13-episode season of Cook's Country would wrap
01:18filming in approximately two weeks, meaning they averaged an episode almost every day.
01:24Of course, the total amount of time it would take to complete each season was considerably longer.
01:29Even before tacking on time for post-production, just perfecting the recipes took months of prep
01:35work beforehand at the America's Test Kitchen home base in Boston. Roof told KLCS that the
01:40hectic farmhouse shooting schedule was a vacation in comparison.
01:44We'd had these little parties at night in our rented houses.
01:47It was a great time. Kimball's blog supports this, as he posted some videos from 2010
01:53showing the crew having a grand old time. Including a lemonade stand,
01:57the Cook's Country crew seems to have built just for the sake of a comedy bit.
02:01We lost to Test Cook last year to just over-consumption of lemonade.
02:07Following Season 9, franchise face Christopher Kimball departed from America's Test Kitchen
02:12and Cook's Country in 2015 over a contract disagreement. What complicated things was a
02:18legal dispute that lasted for years afterward. After leaving, Kimball launched his new cooking
02:23brand, Milk Street. America's Test Kitchen filed a lawsuit in 2016 alleging that Kimball breached
02:29his former employer's trust. They allege that Kimball utilized proprietary assets available
02:35to him while still employed by America's Test Kitchen to start up his new company,
02:39in addition to modeling Milk Street directly on the America's Test Kitchen model,
02:44consisting notably of both a TV component and a magazine component from its inception.
02:49In response, Kimball alleged that the lawsuit qualified as defamation against his character.
02:55Finally, in 2019, the two parties reached a resolution. While Kimball was required to
03:00sell shares he retained in the America's Test Kitchen brand back to the company,
03:04he was allowed to persist with Milk Street, which remains active to this day.
03:09After Season 10 took place in a studio replicating the Vermont Farmhouse's kitchen,
03:13Season 11 marked the debut of a brand new set. Premiering in the fall of 2018,
03:18the new Cook's Country set is located in Boston's Innovation and Design Building,
03:22which has been the home of sister show America's Test Kitchen since 2016.
03:27The Innovation and Design Building was first built in 1918 by the U.S. Department of Defense
03:32and remained a military asset through 1983 when it was purchased by the city of Boston.
03:38In 2013, a private company bought and restored the 1.4 million square foot space.
03:44One of the building's preeminent tenants is the Boston Design Center,
03:47responsible for 350,000 square feet of showrooms showcasing a wide variety of luxury home products.
03:54Other tenants with which Cook's Country shares the space include Reebok,
03:58Autodesk, and the Boston Beer Company.
04:01I can't believe I'm in a 19th century farmhouse. It is a real
04:06set where we will be making television for Cook's Country."
04:10A typical episode of Cook's Country showcases a few different chefs,
04:13each with their own recipe, resulting in roughly 25 minutes of footage. But nowadays,
04:19it apparently takes much, much longer to film these segments than it did back in the farmhouse days.
04:24In 2019, the official Cook's Country blog published a first-person account of one particular day
04:30that magazine editor and TV runner Allie Berkey spent on the Cook's Country set.
04:34She revealed that even just a single five-minute recipe segment,
04:38like one about Thin & Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies, can take hours to film, writing,
04:43"'Thin & Crispy' Chocolate Chip Cookies debut time. We work through this recipe scene by scene.
04:48It's much slower than you'd imagine. It takes about 15 to 25 minutes for each scene depending
04:54on how much the recipe entails. The completed segment appears to consist of at least 10
04:59distinct scenes." Based on the article, filming the Thin & Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe
05:04ultimately took just under two hours of filming for about five minutes of footage,
05:08and that's not factoring in any necessary reshoots.
05:12One factor that sets both America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Country apart from some of their
05:17competition is that they intend for the recipes they showcase on-air to be as practical as
05:22possible for non-professional chefs to replicate at home. But even professional chefs like the
05:27recipes. Just ask anyone from Cook's Country. Kimball, for example, told celebrity gossip blog
05:33Oh No They Didn't in 2009 that he frequently prepared Cook's Country recipes at home.
05:38"'I like those recipes. We don't really do a lot of fancy cooking.'"
05:42"'I like good food. I don't feel bad about something that's got fat or salt in it, if I like it.'"
05:49Longtime Test Kitchen cook and on-air personality Julia Collin-Davison
05:53likewise recounted to KLCS how one particular Cook's Country recipe
05:57became a signature dish that her family started expecting her to prepare with regularity.
06:03"'There was this recipe, for Caesar green bean salad. I was thinking,
06:06this is the worst. Then we made it and we ate it. It was one of the best green bean
06:11recipes I've had in years. It is now requested by my family all the time.
06:15I'm now required to make it for all holidays.'"
06:18Davison's professional relationship with Bridget Lancaster is grounded in a genuine
06:23friendship. After Kimball's departure from the America's Test Kitchen brand,
06:27Davison and Lancaster debuted on Season 10 as the new co-hosts of Cook's Country,
06:32having long previously worked as test cooks. As it turns out, though,
06:36their signature working dynamic dates all the way back to the late 1990s,
06:40before the premiere of either TV series. Lancaster joined Cook's Illustrated magazine in 1998
06:46as one of just three chefs in the company's famous test kitchen.
06:50Davison followed in 1999 and was one of the first chefs to appear on the
06:54America's Test Kitchen TV show when its production kicked off in 2000.
06:59Chef Brian Roof ended up becoming one of the major players on the Cook's Country TV series
07:04as it morphed and developed a new identity in the wake of Christopher Kimball's departure.
07:09A typical Roof recipe is not just dedicated to a given dish's preparation,
07:13but its significance to a locale Roof visited while traveling as well.
07:17But in an interview with KLCS, Roof revealed that his work on these travel-based recipe segments
07:23emerged from what was initially a joke. He said,
07:26"...it was kind of a joke that was floating around a meeting. We should get an RV and
07:30travel around the country and find food, eat them firsthand before we start cooking them.
07:34We laughed about it and a few months later we had another editorial meeting and our boss at
07:39the time was like, where are we at with the RV? We're like, oh, you're serious."
07:44Amazingly, this was all before the TV show even existed.
07:47Roof initially traveled for print articles for Cook's Country magazine,
07:51but those trips are what ultimately manifested in his travel segments on the Cook's Country TV show.
07:57When Roof showcases a recipe on Cook's Country, it's something he learned from an authentic
08:02regional chef he met while traveling, rather than his own approach to a regional dish.
08:06Roof told KLCS that while he receives permission to share each of those recipes,
08:11he doesn't ask.
08:12"...I never ask anybody outright for the recipe. Usually people are cool. There's two types of
08:17people, and 95 percent of the people are like, here's my recipe, here's what I do. If you want
08:22to share it with the world, that's great. The other five percent, however, worry that televising
08:27a proprietary recipe will hurt their business."
08:29Of course, all of the subjects of Roof's research are well aware that he's preparing for a TV show.
08:35Still, his approach helps ensure that the recipes he spotlights are not coerced out of his subjects,
08:40but rather shared with enthusiasm.
08:43Alongside Brian Roof, season 10 of Cook's Country — the first without Christopher Kimball — saw
08:48the debut of chef Ashley Moore as an on-camera talent. In a manner similar to Roof's career
08:53trajectory, Moore had worked for Cook's Country for years prior, helping develop some of the
08:58recipes that ended up on air. And she was a natural fit for the TV show's cast, not just
09:03because of her skill in the kitchen, but her background as an actor. Day told her local New
09:08London Connecticut newspaper that when it came time for Moore to attend college, her intent was
09:13to pursue acting. Therefore, she decided to study her chosen craft at the California Institute for
09:19the Arts. Once she graduated, however, she realized her interest in a culinary career.
09:24"'I was aiming for the Food Network. My dream was to be on a cooking show."
09:28Soon, she was interning for iconic TV chef Emeril Lagasse, but she ultimately decided
09:33to back out of food entertainment and work in the non-televised food industry.
09:38Eventually, she split the difference, working for the magazines under the America's Test
09:42Kitchen umbrella for a time. After a few years, she ended up on the brand's YouTube channel,
09:47finally culminating in her work on the Cook's Country TV show,
09:50and bringing things full circle as her dream of starring on a cooking show finally came true.
09:58Christy Morrison debuted as a chef on Cook's Country at the start of season 10 as well,
10:02helping to spearhead the show's transformation in the wake of Kimball's departure.
10:07Like the other new additions, Morrison had worked for the company for some time before
10:11becoming a Cook's Country personality. But what sets her apart from her peers is her background
10:16in education, dating back to a career as an English teacher. She told the America's Test
10:21Kitchen blog,
10:22"'I've taught cooking classes since I graduated culinary school, and I taught high school English
10:27before that, so teaching recipes as part of the Cook's Country TV show seems like a natural fit
10:32for me." While she spent some time editing the Cook's Country magazine before her transition to
10:37TV, she also taught at the Virtual America's Test Kitchen cooking school as well as the Cambridge
10:42School of Culinary Arts. And since the role of every chef on Cook's Country is to educate viewers,
10:47it's hardly surprising a background in education has helped Morrison succeed.
10:52In September of 2020, the America's Test Kitchen brand announced accomplished journalist
10:57Tony Tipton-Martin as the new editor-in-chief of Cook's Country.
11:01While editor-in-chief is a literary position, Tipton-Martin's job extended beyond the magazine
11:06to the Cook's Country TV show as well, on which she became an on-camera personality
11:11starting in Season 14. Just months after she was hired, Tipton-Martin told Chicago PBS station
11:17WTTW that she aimed to introduce an increased focus on storytelling to Cook's Country,
11:23moving beyond the particulars of a recipe to explore where it came from and what it means.
11:28That journalistic ethos extended to her role on Cook's Country TV.
11:32She described her TV segments as people-centric and reflective of the philosophy she brings to
11:37her editing work. Tipton-Martin is helping to reshape both the Cook's Country magazine
11:42and the Cook's Country TV series into a more holistic cooking experience.