On Rachel Khoo's "Little Paris Kitchen"

Image courtesy of BBC.com

A few weeks back, while skimming through the Cooking Channel's scheduled programming for Saturday and Sunday morning - a Friday highlight, I can assure you - I noticed a new show was on air. One that actually interested me. To be quite honest, themes revolving around the wondrous healing properties of echinacea or the myriad of ways Pillsbury crescent roll dough can be transformed do not get me excited to record a show. I used to love watching cooking shows, and Ina Garten's "Barefoot Contessa"  is what first pushed me into the kitchen. She made me want to prepare a fennel-stuffed pork loin and cauliflower gratin at 14. But I haven't found many interesting programs lately amidst the let's-pay-hommage-to-middle-American-food and let's-start-cooking-healthy-stuff-now recurrent themes. My DVR is sadly bereft of weekend culinary inspiration.

Then I stumbled upon "The Little Paris Kitchen," a BBC series hosted by a cute British girl with a fringe and bold lips. My eyes boggled at the description. A new show about a young woman cooking French food authentically (meaning, much lighter and simpler than you might expect from the capital of gastronomy) from her tiny flat in the most beautiful city in the world? Series recording confirmed.

Rachel Khoo declares at the start of each show that she wants to take the fear out of French cooking. As such, she draws the viewer in as a friend and explains with humor and lightness just how she likes to prepare classic French dishes, while preserving necessary reverence to the food obviously so dear to her. Her show also provides a glimpse into the Paris scene, from its cheese shops to bakeries to crêpe stands. The guests on such segments obviously feel comfortable enough around Rachel to joke, laugh and giver her a hard time, but also to open their world to the camera and passionately explain just how a miche of bread should sound when you tap it. It often happens that these guests will veer toward speaking French, but Rachel translates and interprets effortlessly to make sure the viewer doesn't miss a bit of the lesson at hand.

The show's cinematography is also really refreshing. Voyeuristic views of Rachel cooking in her tiny kitchen alternate with close-ups of her bright pink lips tasting soup, along with shots of her rummaging through cramped drawers, lighting her double-burner stove with countless matches or struggling to grab a hanging pan. No fancy Viking ranges or marble islands to be seen, just a chipped white mixing bowl used show after show for marinading beef, mixing pastry dough or folding mousse de marrons. Her tiny oven, about as big as an American's toaster oven, also cracks me up.

Ultimately, I think the show is greatly served by the fact that Rachel Khoo is British, and therefore still an outsider to French culture and gastronomy. She is neither snobby nor fussy about cooking proper French food, but rather strives to make it approachable so that many more may taste the same food she fell in love with. But that does not mean she shies away from the more esoteric classics like île flottante or meringue. She just makes them fun, accessible, and really delicious-looking. She is eager, curious and hungry. And I know she will get many more young girls to hit the kitchen, like I did.