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Highlands Today

Cooking Show Host Has Full Plate

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By BILL ROGERS

Highlands Today

Published: August 17, 2008

LAKE PLACID - Emeril Lagasse would probably never approve, and it wouldn't surprise anyone if Gordon Ramsay uttered an expletive while viewing it. Even Rachael Ray might shake her head if she saw "My Italian Kitchen."

To Lou DeAngelis, the host of the cable TV cooking show, it is more about substance than style.

"One of things Lou demanded from me is he said 'I don't want it to look too slick.' I want people that watch it to identify with what's going on,'" said Rick Shorrock, the owner of Big Byte Video Productions who filmed the shows at DeAngelis' home in Lake Placid. Mike Ritter also worked on the production of the show.

DeAngelis recalled one time when one of his cats walked through during the taping. "Rick would just take a picture 'there goes one of the cats running through the house,'" DeAngelis said.

Shorrock noted another time when DeAngelis was cooking with Bermuda onions and dogs were barking in the background, prompting the host to say "There go the dogs again."

"My Italian Kitchen" is moving to a new location. It has been on a break, as the construction of DeAngelis' large, two-story house located just south of State Road 70 is being completed.

Taping will begin in January in his new kitchen.

The show, which aired for one season on WHRT in Sebring, will be broadcast for a second year on WMCN in Atlantic City, N.J. The station's programming is seen in the Philadelphia area and points beyond - a potential audience of millions of people.

A New Jersey native, DeAngelis arrived in South Florida the day after he graduated from college in 1975. His parents would come to Lake Placid on weekends, and they eventually bought a house in Sun 'n Lakes.

The 55-year-old DeAngelis was in the wholesale car business for many years. He got out of it after suffering a heart attack nine years ago.

While at home, DeAngelis said he thought that he had always cooked and decided "to get a little serious with this."

He contacted Chef Peter Perdikis, who owned a pasta company. DeAngelis said he had given Perdikis some recipes on a whim.

DeAngelis said he was too old to go to culinary school, so he asked Perdikis to teach him "the right way" to cook. And he did.

The idea for his own show came while watching other shows on the Food Channel.

"I'm saying 'nobody can cook what they are cooking,' " DeAngelis said. "You can't afford to go buy chops this thick and this herb that only grows in the cracks of the sidewalks of Rome."

DeAngelis said he contacted Chris Roberts, who lived in California and had done several food shows on PBS.

DeAngelis told Roberts that he would love to write a food show "for the common person."

Roberts responded to DeAngelis and mentioned there are a lot of independent channels around. Roberts said there was one nearby in Sebring. That's how "My Italian Kitchen" got its start.

DeAngelis also has other projects he is working on.

A small pond is located in front of his new home. A five-foot alligator made its home in the pond until it had to be removed.

That got DeAngelis to thinking about different ways of looking at alligator meat. He came up with several recipes using the meat.

He recently made a presentation to the Florida Alligator Marketing and Education Advisory Committee, and is working on a one-hour video to be used to market alligator meat.

A new venture DeAngelis is involved in is called the Daily Dinner Bell. It involves short, five-minute videos of recipes that may go on a grocery store's Web site. He noted that the chamber of commerce in Atlantic City is interested.

"A text recipe just doesn't give you any justice," he added. "When you can see it, it makes a difference."

DeAngelis would also like to do a talk radio show about food.

"I'll guarantee that you can have some fun with it; it's a guy thing right now," he said. "Not taking anything away from the ladies, it's a male type of thing - a bonding thing.

"I walk in a grocery store, two, three guys come up to me every time. 'Hey, I saw your show. What would you do with this kind of a roast?'"

DeAngelis likes to have fun with them.

"I would put laces on it and wear it like a sneaker," he said. "That's what I would do. You don't want that, you want this one."

Bill Rogers may be reached at 386-5825.

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