TVSquad

Recently, I was channel surfing and I stopped on a show called Just Cook This! With Sam the Cooking Guy. The fact that it was on FitTV nearly made me move on (to me a healthy cooking show is oxymoronic!), but this guy Sam, the cooking guy, kept me tuned in. Well, I can now say without equivocation, Just Cook This! is my new favorite food show and I'm in love with Sam.

Sam is actually not a formally trained chef or a caterer turned cook or a restaurateur or any of the other types that have made their way to TV. I looked him up and Sam Zein was a regular Joe, working for a pharmaceutical company, who dumped it all to make a TV show about travel, which turned into a food program instead. FitTV, which is part of Discovery, probably bought the show because they liked Sam. And that's the beauty of the show.

Sam's this regular person, working in his own kitchen -- not a set -- making good food. (Really, that's his house in San Diego.) He talks about real food, opens the fridge to find stuff, pulls out the items from the pantry, retrieves plates and platters from the dining room because they don't fit in the kitchen cabinets, and occasionally trips on his two dogs who have a tendency to get underfoot because they're looking for a scraps. See, this is a real reality. On one show, his oldest son snuck in to share the finished Chinese stir fry because he was hungry.

The show also makes great use of graphics, interjecting commentary to the cooking or explaining something along the way. And when Sam messes up, he tells you about it.

The bottom line is that Sam's food looks really good, but really easy for anyone to make. He's fun and engaging and, if you give him a watch, you'll see that if he were ever in The Next Food Network Star, he'd be a cinch to win. But why bother, he's already a food TV star. Even if it is on FitTV! So, trust me -- just watch him!