2 l June
7 - 13, 2020
Northeast Oregon TV Weekly
BY GEORGE DICKIE
Analiese Gregory appears in the
Season 2 premiere of “Gordon
Ramsay: Uncharted” Sunday on
National Geographic.
The chef and adventurer goes
even wilder in Season 2 of
‘Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted’
541-786-8984
Alliance Self Storage
2105 E L Ave., La Grande • allianceselfstorage123@gmail.com
Many know Gordon Ramsay as the foul-mouthed
taskmaster who delivers the unvarnished truth to
chefs and restaurateurs on shows such as “Hell’s
Kitchen” and “24 Hours to Hell and Back.” But a
different Ramsay emerged to showrunner Jon Kroll
during a stop in Guyana while filming Season 2 of
“Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted.”
“In Guyana, we had really, really limited satellite
internet that was available to us,” Kroll explains.
“And Gordon runs an empire, he’s a very busy guy.
And I woke up at six o’clock in the morning to the
sound of howler monkeys chanting. I look out and
Gordon was sitting with a cup of coffee at the edge
of the Rewa River.”
“Because no one could reach him, no one could
find him,” he continues. “He truly was uncharted
and he looked really blissful, and I’ve never seen
that look on his face before. He was just that kind
of blissed out. And I think he really dug being not
reachable for a while.”
In the new season, which kicks off Sunday, June
7, on National Geographic, Ramsay goes further
off-grid for more adventures, culinary and otherwise,
in places like Guyana, to hunt bare-handed for cai-
man and fish for piranha; Indonesia, to search for
giant prawns in a bat-infested cave; South Africa, to
harvest mussels from rocks in the treacherous Indian
Ocean; and in the season opener, Tasmania off the
south coast of Australia, to fly-fish for trout, forage
for herbs and vegetables, and dive in shark-infested
waters for giant rock lobsters.
That episode culminated in a cook-off with chef
and local expert Analiese Gregory, with the menu
consisting of the aforementioned lobster, wallaby
(whose overpopulation downunder rivals that of deer
in parts of North America) glazed in pricey locally
distilled whiskey and indigenous vegetables.
“I had a really good time cooking with him ...,”
Gregory says. “It kind of reminded me of being back
in the kitchen in London, like his skills are amazing.
He’s really fast, he’s really good. I was pretty prepared
and they were like, ‘Oh, he likes a bit of trash talk.’
So I just spent the whole time like trash-talking him.
... He took it very well. He gives as good as he gets
and it was a really enjoyable cook-off.”
As for the food, Kroll was blown away by the lob-
ster and surprised at how lean yet tender the wallaby
was.
“I think venison is the best comparison,” he says.
“It doesn’t taste gamey. It really has kind of a mild
flavor to it. And I think that both he and Analiese
... were focusing on not masking the flavor or over-
seasoning it because the natural flavor of it is quite
tasty and not like a strong pungent flavor like you
get from some wild game even though they are wild
game.
“I mean, they have access to this incredible land-
scape of forest to feed on and wild herbs and stuff
like that, and that all comes through in the meat. So
it’s a very delectable venison-type flavor.”