In an era craving authentic connection and uncomplicated joy, KLCS’ CreateTV delivers a radiant gem: Homemade Live! with Joel Gamoran. This isn’t just a cooking show; it’s a weekly invitation to culinary levity, streaming like a sunbeam into your home.
Filmed in Seattle, Chef Joel Gamoran—a familiar face from countless visits to The Grove’s former Sur La Table—brings an infectious, electric energy to every episode. But is the chef always this vibrant? KLCS caught-up with Gamoran to uncover the man behind the on-camera spark and trace the origins of this delightful series. Discover how Homemade Live! artfully blends genuine cooking lessons with the warm, unfiltered camaraderie of cooking alongside celebrity guests. It’s a masterclass in feel-good food, designed to be your delicious escape.
Joel, as journalist who has booked and interviewed celebrity guests, I know how difficult that can be, and having also lived in Seattle, when I see you with guest like Reggie Bush and Kathie Lee Gifford, I think, “How did the show do that?”
JG: The premise for the show is different for them. Reggie Bush has never been invited on a cooking show; the key was to find celebrities who always wanted to be on a cooking show, and then invite them to be a part of that. That was number one. The second huge part…during the writers’ strike, there is a producer for (Jimmy) Fallon, that’s a good friend of mine, his name is Brett, and he is the director and Executive Producer (EP) of the show of Homemade Live. I called him up looking for a director and EP, and he’s like, “Right now we’re on a writers’ strike, so I can do it.” So, getting him on board, he had connections and he was able to find an amazing talent booker for us. Thsoe two things combined, gave us a little bit of a leg up.
Talent bookers are not free; I don’t think that’s cheap.
JG: No, we had to pay for it. All this – we pay for, and it was worth it. It’s great.
I also thought, “This is an expensive show to do!”, given the significant production costs—like flying talent to Seattle and providing nice accommodations. Funding is always a topic of conversation when speaking with PBS show hosts/producers. What was the journey like for you to secure the backing to not only launch this series, but also sustain it for public television?
JG: Yeah, it was hard to do, really hard to do, but “Homemade,” my business, what we do for a living, is we create cooking classes that are funded by brands and companies, and people who believe that home cooking should become more attainable. So funders like KitchenAid, funders like the American Lamb Board – these are all people who believe in the mission of homemade, which is everyone deserves to learn to cook for free. And so, we were already kind of in it, and I guess that kind of separates me from a restaurant chef, this is what I do for a living: I work with brands and I bring them forward in cooking. So we were already there, but it still made it difficult.
What was your path to TV?
JG: My path to TV was that I was head chef of Sur La Table. Do you know Sur La Table?
My Sur La Table, at The Grove, closed and I was very upset by that.
I don’t know if you know it.
JG: I’ve been there a million times, yeah.
They had a cooking kitchen; I wish it didn’t close.
JG: So those cooking kitchens, I ran all of them across the country. Living in New York, and I had my own kitchen as well at Sur La Table, and what happened was producers would come in and take cooking classes from me. So two things happened. One is, I really built the skill to talk to home cooks through the cooking classes and many years of doing it; the second thing was I got discovered in these cooking classes. Producers for like New York 1, and then eventually the Today Show and Katie Couric, they would come and watch me and ask me to be on their show, and that kind of lead me to TV.
Why would producers go to Sur La Table, you mean just in general in their own lives, not for work?
JG: Both. We would invite, as a strategy, we would invite producers to come for like a media class, and then someone would come in on like a date night that they had with their friend, and they’re like, “You’re really great!” So it happened both ways.
How did the idea for Homemade Live! then come about?
JG: Homemade Live! came about with this idea of – I love live settings. That’s what Sur La Table was; it’s cooking with people in real-time and teaching them live. I felt like cooking shows are too perfect sometimes, and that they’re not real attainable, like everything’s laid out in a bowl, and everything’s fancy schmancy. I’m like – let’s create a show where we actually show the mistakes, let’s create a show where we can burn things, and mess up, and be kind of real, and let’s do it kind of like in the way of a live talk show. And, let’s interview someone and find out a new side of them; like we all know Reggie Bush the football player, he’s amazing! But do you know that Reggie Bush eats breakfast sandwiches at midnight? Or, we all know Kendall Toole from Peloton, but do you know that she’s obsessed with cottage cheese and she has this really great recipe for bread? So that was the idea – can we show another side of these celebrities by tapping into their food side? And then, can we also show another side of food, of being real, and not so polished.
What was your path to this show, to PBS?
JG: I got introduced to GBH in Boston, and they’re iconic, and particularly to this gal Laurie and she’s amazing, she’s incredible. So I was introduced to her, and she took me into the PBS world, which has been an amazing world to learn about.
I love your energy; that stands out most for me as a viewer. I’m upbeat, but need a lot of down time. Are you always this upbeat in life? How do you carry this energy?
JG: Oh my God, I am so not always this upbeat, but I will say that people say that I’m exactly in real life as I am on the show. That’s what people tell me. But I can tell you at the end of the day, I’m the type of guy that wakes up – cannot wait to wake up, like I’m so excited. I’m not the type of guy that’s sad that the alarm clock goes off, I’m the type of guy that’s so excited. And then what happens is at like 9 o’clock, I need to stare at a wall, like I literally fold. So, my day is just exuding as much energy as possible until I literally I can’t walk. I hit that moment, and I drive my wife and family crazy, so they have to ride that wave. (laughs)
What is your favorite dish to make that is easy and healthy, a go-to dish?
JG: You know what’s so interesting, I’ve been making a lot of a little fritters. And it’s almost like a latke. I like making nothing, into something. Like right now, I’m going on the Today Show, and I just developed this recipe that I’m obsessed with, which is – Can we make latkes out of things besides potatoes? So like little zucchini fritters, carrot fritters. What do I have in the fridge? And it’s just so crispy, they’re so light, and they’re amazing. The healthy side got me when you said that because I’ve made a huge change in my life, to eating more healthy. You can imagine, as a chef, is like asking a bartender to be sober. It’s very hard because this is all I do – is think about food all day. You’ll see in Seasons Two and Three of Homemade Live! that the food changes, and it becomes a lot lighter and more approachable, that’s like a big part of it.
I did that too, I made fritters last winter almost every weekend, it was basically cornmeal…
JG: A little binder, yup.
Or potato starch – I was practicing with whatever I had. And kale, I got to really addicted to it!
JG: That’s what I’m saying, you can put literally anything in it, my kids love it. You can put a little yogurt on top. Yeah, killer, yeah, killer.
I sauté a lot. How do you keep the cupboards next to the stove clean from the caked on grease? I don’t like to clean and don’t do it much.
JG: (laughs) I am obsessed with this question!
Yeah, I don’t like to clean, and I don’t do it much, plus if you have a Viking, over the stove there’s a grate, you have to take it out. So do you not clean? I don’t clean…
JG: Number one – I don’t clean, my wife cleans, I cook, which is like the unsaid deal, although she’s a killer cook. But I will also say, and they’re out of fashion, but they should come back, and I have one in my kitchen to use – it’s a mesh screen, have you ever seen that?
Yeah, they don’t really work.
JG: Yes, they do! They totally work! They don’t block it?
The grease goes to the screen and the screen also gets burned.
JG: Yours gets burned?
Do you find that really blocks out all the sautéing grease?
JG: I think it blocks 90 percent of it. Sometimes, something gets a littler through. The reality is, cooking, personally I believe this – good cooking is messy. So lean in, lean in baby.
I love you Joel! I’ve been doing reconnects with chef interviews and I only just started watching your show and I was like, “I’ve got to get to this show at some point.” And I’m glad I did!
JG: I’m so grateful.
Yeah, I’m grateful too!
I’ve asked every chef I’ve interviewed for this series – do you have a Julia Child story, or did she inspire you? Now I know you’re a little younger, so you might not have grown-up with her on TV, but do you have a story?
JG: First of all, of course I’m inspired by Julia Child, I got to know her nephew really well in New York, and I also taught a lot cooking classes that were Julia Child recipes. And so that’s how I kind of got to know her, and then I started to watch her and what I love about Julia, and what changed my life and I think informed the way that I show up on camera, is – she didn’t show up as a chef, she showed up as Julia. She would drop the chicken on the ground and pick it up, and that is what I wanted to do with Homemade Live! I want to drop the thing on the ground and pick it up, and so Julia has instilled in me this idea of not being a chef when I’m on there, but being human first and that has changed the way I show up on camera and relate to the viewer.
That’s what I thought of when you talked about being messy and dropping things in the kitchen; I thought of Julia.
JG: She made it OK to be messy, yeah, totally.
Is there anything you’d like to add that I haven’t asked?
JG: I think you did a great job, there’s nothing specific I want to add. I loved your questions, I thought they were so out of the box and different. No one has ever asked some of these questions (laughs) so I love them, I love them.
[This interview has been edited for length and clarity; you can read the full version of this interview on our website: www.KLCS.org]
Homemade Live! with Joel Gamoran airs on KLCS’ Create TV – visit KLCS online for a complete schedule.
KLCS Public Media members can stream full seasons of Homemade Live!, anytime, on KLCS|Passport; learn more at: watch.klcs.org/show/homemade-live
Visit the show’s official Create TV website at: createtv.com/host/Joel-Gamoran
You can follow Chef Joel on social media: Instagram (www.instagram.com/joelgamoran/) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joelgamoran/)
