TV • PAGE 21
THE BULLETIN • APRIL 21 - 27, 2022
BY GEORGE DICKIE
tastytv
Stars from the ‘90s get schooled
on ‘Worst Cooks in America’
“Worst Cooks in America” takes on a retro
theme when it brings in a fresh batch of celebs
from ‘90s TV shows to learn and compete in a
new season upcoming on Food Network and
discovery+.
In “Worst Cooks in America Celebrity Edition:
That’s So 90’s,” premiering Sunday, April 24,
stars from three decades ago enter the kitchen to
pick up basic cooking skills and then compete in
teams, under the tutelage of mentors and team
leaders Anne Burrell and Jeff Mauro.
So in the six episodes, actors Matthew Lawrence
(“Boy Meets World”), Tracey Gold (“Growing
Pains”), Jodie Sweetin (“Full House”), Lori Beth
Denberg (“All That”), Elisa Donovan (“Clueless”),
Nicholle Tom (“The Nanny”), Mark Long (“Road
Rules”), Jennie Kwan (“California Dreams”) and
Curtis Williams (“The Parent ‘Hood”) will go to
cooking school and then try to impress judges Ilan
Hall, Nilou Motamed and Ayesha Nurdjaja with
meals they created with their newfound skills.
All had scant few chops in the kitchen coming
in but what Mauro (“The Kitchen”) found was
that many had a sophisticated palate that helped
guide them.
“A lot of these celebrities are very well-traveled,
world-traveled,” he says, “and have been wined
and dined since they were kids, so they know
good food. And it’s a good starting place just to be
able to recognize the combination of flavors and
what qualifies as delicious.”
But as in past seasons, there were rookie
mistakes. The most common, Mauro says, ranged
from poor heat control and knife management
(“Very dangerous,” he says) to not seasoning, not
keeping a clean work station and forgetting to
taste as they go.
Among the celebs he was impressed by, Mauro
says Sweetin came in with probably the most skills
and had an excellent palate (“They must have fed
her well on the set of ‘Full House,’ ” he says) and
Lawrence exhibited the most growth.
And in the end, that’s what left the educator in
Mauro heartened, was to see the celebs pick up
the lessons he and Burrell were teaching and run
with it.
“They’re tasting as they go and then (someone
says), ‘I added a little mustard in my pan sauce
because it was just missing zing,’ ” he says. “And
you hear them say something like that a couple of
weeks into the competition and it’s like ‘Oh, my
baby! They’ve grown up!’ Just fledglings out of the
nest now.”
Jeff Mauro and
Anne Burrell