A Sticky Proposition:
Chef Jeff Uses The Food Network To Do Good, But Will It Cook?
2008-10-15
By Ronda Racha Penrice

Look what G. Garvin started. These days, you can’t look around without seeing a Black chef on television. While it’s true that Marvin Woods whipped up some interest with "Home Plate," his show at the now defunct Turner South, and B. Smith regularly got foodie on her longtime syndicated show, "B. Smith with Style," G. Garvin changed the game. His TV One show, "Turn Up the Heat with G. Garvin," has helped put him on the national hot list. You might recall his 2006 appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno or perhaps you caught his October 2 appearance on Good Morning America. Somebody at the Food Network is taking notice because it’s certainly raining Black chefs these days.
 
Before the summer, we had "Down Home with The Neelys," perhaps television’s first husband-and-wife food show, as well as "Cooking for Real with Sunny Anderson," who is almost like a female version of G. Garvin. If that weren’t enough, before summer ended, "Big Daddy’s House" with Aaron McCargo Jr., who scored his show by winning The Next Food Network Star. Now, it’s Jeff Henderson’s turn and he’s flipping the pancake a little differently for his show, "The Chef Jeff Project."
 
You may have heard of Chef Jeff, as he’s known. He’s the former drug dealer who went to prison and, behind bars, dedicated himself to cooking. When he got out, he humbled himself by washing dishes and performing other entry level tasks, eventually working his way all the way up to the executive chef position at Café Bellagio in Las Vegas. His story got him a book deal, Cooked: From the Streets to the Stove, From Cocaine to Foie Gras, published last year. He’s been on Oprah and Will Smith has optioned his story. With all his successes, Chef Jeff has never forgotten where he’s come from and has reached back every step of the way, actively introducing at-risk youth, much like he once was, to the culinary arts trade. So "The Chef Jeff Project" isn’t the result of network brainstorming; it stems from Chef Jeff’s own commitment to youth and he refused to compromise that, even for superstar chef status.
 
“Me working with young people, I’ve been doing this for 20 years,” he explains. “This is nothing new for me. When I was in prison, I started a teenage awareness program called TAPS. I’ve been working with nonprofit organizations and working with young people, hiring them and giving them second chances. The show is an offshoot of what I actually do in Los Angeles. This is nothing that was made up for TV. It’s something that I’m very passionate about.”
 
For that reason, Henderson refused to script the show as well as eliminate or pit the show’s young people against each other. The larger goal has always been transformation. “You can’t play with young people’s lives,” he says. “[The Chef Jeff Project is] about building these kids up and self-esteem and motivating them and inspiring them, to get them to believe that they can become successful at whatever they decide they want to do in life.” The motley crew of Chef Jeff’s protégés who signed up for the life makeover includes Shante, a Black mother of four scraping by in South Central; Maria, a Latina whose mom left her when she was three; Adam, a Latino who was once homeless; Alonzo, a young brother actively trying to beat the streets; and Katherine (Kathy) and Brett, two white kids who once abused drugs.
 
It’s a very different approach to a reality show these days and very daring for a cooking show. How do you measure success? In television, ratings are the barometer but, again, this is really people’s lives. Still does that make it compelling television? Will the audience care about some of the students learning how important it is to be punctual or Shante’s desire to learn a trade to feed her kids the right way? While viewers may applaud Chef Jeff’s desire to transform lives, will they keep tabs on the process? "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" builds houses for people. They essentially fill us in on the hard-luck stories of the families they feature, gather kindhearted folks to build a dream home and then put smiles on the families’ faces with the results, all within an hour, and it’s been one of ABC’s consistent ratings winners. But doing good isn’t an automatic ratings draw. Just watch the news.
 
Earlier this year, Oprah and ABC learned firsthand that doing good isn’t always a ratings winner. When Oprah gathered 10 folks from all over the nation to devise ways to give people in need money for "Oprah’s Big Give," it failed to catch on. Given Oprah’s Queen of All Media standing, its failure was unexpected. The good news is that Chef Jeff’s Posh Urban Cuisine, his L.A.-based catering business, won’t stop helping young people, even if his show fails. The better news would be for "The Chef Jeff Project" to hit as big as all the other cooking shows helmed by Black chefs because, unlike other shows, Chef Jeff isn’t banking on making himself a star. It’s quite possible that, within "The Chef Jeff Project" is the next chef who will keep the flame burning for others to follow.

Isn’t that the ultimate goal for any life project?
 
Veteran freelance writer and self-diagnosed television junkie Ronda Racha Penrice is the author of African American History For Dummies, which includes a chapter on film and television.