"RD's Cabin"
Well, that’s the working title anyway… the working title of my proposed cooking show that we taped a pilot for back in July. We’re almost ready to pitch it to Food Network. And, if they think I suck and don’t want it, we’ll go shopping for a home somewhere else. We’ll find one, somewhere!
The show was taped on July 21, 09 at the Italian Cultural Centre in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The studio set looked like a real log home… Thanks to Garden Lake Timber, we brought in log slabs, built a barn style door… the set was 32 x 8 and it looked really rugged! Come to think of it, it looked like my house! It took us two days to build the SOB… thankfully, I have some cool friends who helped out. I also brought some of my antiques and taxidermy mounts in from home. Talk about a rugged looking studio set! In the pilot, I cooked all wild fish and game that was local to our area.
Want to just view the pilot for the show already? We have put it on this site in 4 segments:
Segment One
Segment Two
Segment Three
Segment Four
The theme of this pilot show is local, fresh, sustainable harvest. All food was locally produced. I even personally picked the potatoes, vegetables and herbs from local producers, like Breukleman Potato Farms and Debruin's Greenhouses. All of the cheeses we used came from the Thunder Oak Cheese Farm and wow... if you want to talk about local and self-sustaining! The only ingredient that I used that wasn’t locally grown or harvested, were the avocados that I needed for one of the dishes. Other than that, all food was from this region of Ontario.
My side-kick, or as I call her, my "Vanna White" was Nicole Boucher. I've known Nicole for about eight years now and she did a kick ass job as the show's announcer and she really came through with the funny parts that we wrote for her. Nicole rocked!
There were four student chefs from the Culinary Arts Program at Confederation College cooking with me, one at a time, including Max Santerre, Nancy Cummings, Katie Ellam and Giordano Roberto. Kristen Benedet was in charge of the kitchen and all the behind the scenes equipment and food preparations. It worked really well having them there with me as it gave me the freedom to suddenly go off and do something with the audience or whatever and not have to worry about something burning or not getting completed on time. All of them were great on camera too, as well as relaxed and competent.
We cooked salmon cakes made from Chinook salmon that I caught in Lake Superior. We made some venison from 
a deer that I harvested last hunting season. Of course, we just had to cook up some fresh walleye that I caught on a fishing trip back in June. We don’t have any wild turkeys right around home, but a friend of mine shot a turkey near Sault. Ste. Marie, Ontario. So, I cooked up the breast from it. And, finally, we made some spicy moose roll up type things, similar to a spring roll. We also made some blueberry bannock, a staple of northern Canadian campfire cooking. Very rugged stuff!
The show was taped in front of a live audience of around 110 people or so… and they were awesome! To my amazement, people flew in from Colorado, Minneapolis and Wisconsin for the taping. These were people who had been fans of my fishing and hunting show, "Officially Rugged with RD" that has been on the air all across the United States since 2002. Holy shit - Now, that’s what you call loyal fans! I actually felt a little bit like David Letterman for a bit there…
Dougall Media provided the production crew, cameras, lighting and audio. Edward Maki was the Director of Photography and Blair Wright was shooting on camera one, out front. Nathan Allard, one of the producers also was behind the lens that day, taking various shots of the audience as the day rolled along. The show was directed by Ryan La Via and we had a ton of great help with everything from floor and studio directors, production assistants, carpenters, electricians… on and on and on. Everyone did such a fantastic job and the whole day went down without any problems at all. Jessica Graham is the editor and she did a fantastic job! There were 29 people in total that helped out with this huge production. Special thanks goes to the Italian Cultural Centre in Thunder Bay for hosting us.
I am so grateful for the local support we had from Thunder Bay businesses too. I couldn't believe it - I still can't! Paul Pepe, manager for Tourism Thunder Bay was even in the audience cheering us on. Thanks, Paul! Even Ling Lee made an appearance... holy shit!
So wish me luck… pitching a TV pilot is never easy, but I think we have a good chance. Check out some of these pictures from that day back in July. We’ll have some video clips up soon as well.
