Nadia G’s Bitchin Kitchen: A Requiem For Not Taking Food TV Too Seriously

Screen Grab of title card of Bitchin Kitchen

Thank God for the internet, where old shows that never got their due like Bitchin Kitchen live forever. At least, once you go on a treasure hunt to figure out which streaming service had the rights to whatever show you want to watch. Fortunately, I’ve once again tracked down one of my favorite, if short lived, food shows in Nadia G’s Bitchin Kitchen .

The thing about being a food junkie is, like all addictions, it takes you to some very interesting places when you go in search of your fix. Fortunately, we live in the dispensation of time where food programming is at our finger tips, scared around the interwebs and streaming platforms like manna from the culinary gods. Want to be a food writer? Blog away. Want to be a food critic? Yelp your little heart out. Want to be the host of your own cooking show? A tripod for your camera and a YouTube channel and you’re well on your way to becoming the next Justin Wilson, Julia Child, or Emeril.

At least that’s what folks think. The truth is, almost none of those internet shows that are web only ever make it onto a TV network. It’s not just the quality — that’s easily upgraded with a little bit of that sweet, sweet network money — but with thousands upon thousands of food bloggers, writers, cooks, and wannabe celebrity chefs, the odds of you toiling in obscurity are great and the chance of you becoming the next Pioneer Woman or Guy Fieri are somewhere between nil and nada.

But it does occasionally happen. Or at least did.

Back in 2007, a web series started that propelled Nadia G — Nadia Giosia to her family and friends in Montreal — into a personality before Food Network Canada and the US based Cooking Channel picked up the show in 2010. The plan was to have it continue the successful formula from the web series but with a bit more polish and production, plus a larger audience. “I could create cool aprons, I could dish out recipes, I could do the comedy, music videos, so we’ve always had a lot of freedom in Bitchin’ Kitchen and that has continued,” she told interviewers.

With a charismatic Nadia G hosting, usually wearing loud outfits as she lorded over an even louder kitchen set, this definitely wasn’t Jacques Pépin. Add in a trio of sidekicks and a whole lot of comedy to go with the serious business going on in the ovens and on the stovetop, and everyone involved had a hit on their hands. The show embraced social media, so much so that a staff was tasked with managing it all full time. And the audience needed managing, because they came a running in droves:

When we started, we thought (the audience demographic) was 25-to-35-year-olds. It’s a lot more varied — even kids and families. The children like the Pee-wee Herman-esque look of the show. Just recently, Fox Sports Radio had a call-in question: What was must-see TV? Bitchin’ Kitchen was the most suggested name. We never expected that demographic. Now we have one of the most interactive groups. We entertain them on Facebook and Twitter all day, every day…We take that very seriously. We have a staff of three dedicated to it. Strategically, social is a conversation. People say that all the time but don’t practice what they preach. If you create an awesome video you’ll have 30 comments. If you ask them what their favorite video is, you’ll have 200 comments. People like to talk about themselves.

Taking a formatting cue from The Daily Show, The show itself featured the cooking and comedy of Nadia G, reinforced with cut scenes from the “correspondents”: Panos who dished out butchering duties when not being the punchline to relationship jokes with his on-screen “wife”, Yeheskel Mizrahi the highly-suspect Spice Agent, and the serially shirtless Hans. Food was cooked. Laughs where had. Fourth walls were broken for kicks and giggles. And leading the charge on all of it was Nadia G, who seemed to inherently know exactly where the line between keeping the audience in on the joke without becoming one herself was, and proceed to stomp all over it in her stilettos for the twenty odd minutes that Bitchin Kitchen ran. Above all else one maxim reigned supreme: “It’s a comedy cooking show. We choose a topic — breakup brunches, rehab recipes — do standup and do a meal…It’s not rocket surgery. People take food way too seriously.”

So…what happened? How could such innovating awesomeness like Bitchin Kitchen only last 43 episodes? Well, let us let Nadia G explain that one herself:

Yes, it seems our humble and mostly dressed food correspondents and their punk rock kitchen goddess was just too much for Big TV Food. Rather than buckle under, Nadia G shuttered up and moved on. She would bring the old gang back for the short lived Bite This with Nadia G which was like a road trip version of Bitchin Kitchen for 14 episodes, but that was the end of the line for our Scooby Gang of Shkoff. The big business of TV food wasn’t quite ready to let the self-trained, innovative, and ridiculously entertaining do things her own way while preaching lighthearted culinary with deadpan jokes about relationships, politics, and anything else that Nadia G. thought was funny. Which was the magic of the show. Like most good comedy, it came from her and the cast of characters in such a natural way that the over-the-topness of it all landed as endearing. A self-taught Canadian-Italian cranking her personality to 11 to become a North American food celebrity should have been a defining moment for Food TV and the exploding foodie culture both online and in merchandizing.

But alas, It was not to be. Nadia G has plenty of other irons in the fire, from her punk rock band, to web series “creeps-shaming” and pushing back against harassment, to various other things. But I do miss having her romp through TV food shows with reckless abandon, a wink, and a grin, always making sure all of us where in on the joke of how ridiculous it all would be if we weren’t having so much darn fun.

Thank God for the internet, where old shows live forever. And Nadia G’s Bitchin Kitchen forever shall rock on, but with a wink and a smile that we shouldn’t take any of this too seriously.