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In Production, Local Cooking Show Expands to Season Two

“Five, four, three….” With a slap of the clapperboard, season two production of “Show-Me Chefs” is underway from a studio in downtown Springfield.

Daan Jansen, one of the student producers of the show, aims to make season two of the cooking show more akin to the local community.

“We even redesigned our graphics to make it more local, more to Missouri, the Ozarks like Springfield,” Jansen said. “I’m really expecting for people to watch it, not just watching another cooking show, but to watch something and they are familiar with the people we are using, with the chefs. I want the audience to be more interactive.”

Show-Me Chefs is a cooking show that promotes locally grown foods and its producers. The show features chefs from local restaurants in cooking competitions. Students in the Media, Journalism and Film department at Missouri State University produce the show.

The success of season one helped spur season two. People are now contacting Jansen wanting to get involved.

“They want to be a part of it; they want to give us something; they want to feature in the show,” said Jansen.  

He continued, “We learned a lot from season one. The sets are bigger. We have more fun things that we are adding in. We realized we can make it a little bit more fast pace and exciting by adding a few things in.”

“We’ve expanded the show through preliminary rounds for casting purposes, upgraded the set, created themed rounds, and added some new food sponsors and prize underwriters,” Deb Larson, the executive producer of Show-Me Chefs and associate professor of MJF, said. “We have a terrific batch of new chefs to compete this year and the community is really getting behind the show.”

The main goal for Jansen is to showcase the Ozarks and what the region has to offer.

“As you going to the real world, it’s so important to have a healthy community and to be involved in a community,” Jansen said.  “This is a really good way for the MJF department to show how much the community means to us and show the community what we are doing. We want to engage people,” said Jansen.

Season two chefs include: Kyle Houston - Fire and Ice, DeJay Ball - Nonna's, Zach White - The Order at The Vandivort, Trini Pena - The Fremont Memory Care, Kong Chui - Amazin' Asian, Michael Old - The Tower Club, Brandon Dinger - Pappo's Pizzeria, and Kevin Blankenship - OTC Culinary student.

Local food providers include: Circle B Ranch,  Ozark Natural Foods,  Express Seafood, Willow Mountain Mushrooms, Neighborhood Mill,  Hew Horizon Hydroponic Lettuce; Red Top Over, The Grove Salsa Company, Wild Bunch Pork, Leong's Asian Diner, Landers Poultry, Krispy Kreme,  Askinosie Chocolate, among others.

The production will last till April 13. Season two is scheduled to air in October on KOZL-TV. Find more information at www.showmechefs.net.