ABOUT OUR TELEVISION SHOW
America’s Test Kitchen, currently in its 13th season, is the most-watched cooking show on public television—up to 2 million viewers tune in each week.
The test kitchen chefs cook America’s favorite recipes with host Christopher Kimball and deconstruct each recipe to reveal the test kitchen secrets to foolproof cooking at home. Jack Bishop heads up the Tasting Lab and challenges host Christopher Kimball to taste test supermarket staples. Adam Ried, the test kitchen’s equipment expert, takes host Christopher Kimball through his top equipment recommendations for the home cook. Testing guru Lisa McManus reviews her favorite gadgets and reveals which ones are worth the cost—or not. In addition to the popular segments that viewers have come to love and trust, the 13th season will feature even more content and numerous visits with well-loved chefs!
America’s Test Kitchen is shot just outside of Boston. The test cooks are dedicated to finding the best methods for preparing foolproof home-cooked meals. The 2,500-square-foot test kitchen in which America’s Test Kitchen is shot is the same kitchen where three dozen full-time test cooks work, testing and retesting recipes 20, 30, and sometimes 50 times, until they find the recipe that they are confident will work every time.
Interested in attending a taping of the show? Click here for more information.
CAST BIOGRAPHIES
Christopher Kimball
Christopher Kimball founded
Cook’s Magazine, a national magazine for cooking hobbyists, in 1980, and served as publisher and editorial director through 1989. In 1984, Mr. Kimball founded the Who’s Who of Cooking in America, which was initiated to honor the leading American chefs, restaurateurs, vintners, food writers, and food producers. In 1993, Mr. Kimball relaunched
Cook’s Magazine as
Cook’s Illustrated; recently, he founded
Cook’s Country magazine. Mr. Kimball serves as publisher and editor of both magazines. Mr. Kimball is also the host of
America’s Test Kitchen, a public television cooking show now in its 13th season, and host and executive producer of
Cook’s Country from America’s Test Kitchen, which debuted in September 2008. Mr. Kimball is a regular contributor to
The CBS Early Show and has been featured in many publications, including
The New Yorker, the
Wall Street Journal, the
New York Times,
People magazine, the
New York Times Book Review, the
Washington Post, and the
Los Angeles Times. He was inducted into the Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America in 1996. He is also the author of
The Cook’s Bible,
The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook,
Dear Charlie (Christopher Award Winner),
The Dessert Bible,
The Kitchen Detective, and
Fannie’s Last Supper.
Bridget Lancaster
Bridget Lancaster, deputy editor of
Cook's Country magazine, joined the
Cook's team in 1998 and is responsible for all recipe testing and development in
Cook's Country. She has worked on many of the company's cookbook projects and is also an on-screen test cook for
America's Test Kitchen. She is also a cast member of the new TV show,
Cook's Country, which aired with its first season in September 2008. Her career led her to work in various kitchens in the South and Northeast, concentrating on pastry, and she has also taught culinary classes and given live cooking demonstrations. Bridget's husband, Stephen, is a professional chef, and along with their two sons, they enjoy working on their favorite hobby—barbecue.
Julia Collin Davison
Julia Collin Davison is Executive Food Editor for the book division of
America’s Test Kitchen and is an on-screen test cook for
America’s Test Kitchen and
Cook’s Country from America’s Test Kitchen. She began working as a test cook for
Cook’s Illustrated in 1999 and is responsible for the food and recipe development for all
America’s Test Kitchen cookbooks. She holds an A.O.S. degree from the Culinary Institute of America and a B.A. in psychology and philosophy from SUNY Albany. Before coming to
America’s Test Kitchen, she worked in Albany, the Berkshires, San Francisco, and the Napa Valley at several restaurants, catering companies, schools, and wineries. Julia resides in Natick, Mass., where she enjoys cooking with her husband, Ian, and her daughter, Marta.
Rebecca (Becky) Hays
Rebecca (Becky) Hays joined
Cook’s Illustrated in 2000 and has worked on various magazine, book, and website projects. She is the managing editor of
Cook’s Illustrated and on-screen test cook for
America’s Test Kitchen. A graduate of the Natural Gourmet Institute for Food and Health in Manhattan, Rebecca has worked in several professional kitchens and taught cooking classes to adults. Prior to her work in the food industry, Rebecca spent several years working on a securities trading floor. She holds degrees in economics and French from Fairfield University in Connecticut. She lives in Bedford, Mass., with her husband, Chris, and her son, Nate.
Bryan Roof
Bryan Roof is a senior editor for
Cook’s Country and is an on-screen test cook for
America’s Test Kitchen. He began working as a test cook for
Cook’s Illustrated in 2006 and has worked on various magazine, book, and website projects. He holds an A.A.S. degree from Johnson and Wales University and a B.S. in food and nutrition from Framingham State University, and is a registered dietitian. Bryan’s culinary career took him into the kitchens of some of the East Coast’s best restaurants before landing in Boston in 2001. He lives in Arlington, Mass., with his wife, Cristina, and budding foodies Nolan, Layla, and Tanner.
Dan Souza
Dan Souza is a senior editor of
Cook’s Illustrated and an on-screen test cook for America’s Test Kitchen. In addition to his work on
Cook’s Illustrated, Dan has contributed content to a dozen America’s Test Kitchen cookbooks, most recently executing and editing the test kitchen experiments for
The Science of Good Cooking (October 2012). Dan cut his culinary teeth as an apprentice in Hungary before graduating first in his class from the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). After cooking in restaurants in New York City and Boston, however, he found his true calling: applying good science to create great recipes for the home cook.
Jack Bishop
Jack Bishop is the editorial director of
America’s Test Kitchen. He joined the staff of
Cook’s Magazine in 1988 and helped with the launch of
Cook’s Illustrated in 1993. He established the tasting protocols used in
America’s Test Kitchen and has authored dozens of articles for the magazine. Jack directed the launch of
Cook’s Country magazine and oversees editorial operations at both magazines. He is the tasting lab expert on
America’s Test Kitchen, the top-rated public television cooking show, now in its 13th season, and
Cook’s Country from America’s Test Kitchen. Jack edited
The Best Recipe (1999) and established the book division at
America’s Test Kitchen. He is the author of several cookbooks, including
A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen,
Vegetables Every Day,
The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook,
Pasta e Verdura, and
Lasagna. Jack’s wife, Lauren Chattman, is a cookbook author and former pastry chef. They have two daughters.
Adam Ried
Adam Reid is the keeper of the Equipment Corner on
America’s Test Kitchen and
Cook’s Country from America’s Test Kitchen. During his 10-year tenure as an editor for
Cook’s Illustrated, Adam developed and edited recipes, wrote feature stories, and contributed to many other sections of the magazine, including the popular Quick Tips. Adam bore primary responsibility for
Cook’s Illustrated’s highly respected kitchen-equipment testing and ingredient-tasting features. Now a contributor to
Cook’s Country magazine and the cooking columnist for the Sunday
Boston Globe Magazine, Adam has taught cooking and food writing, written for local, national, and international publications; and consulted for restaurants, kitchen-equipment manufacturers, and other food-related businesses. He is a graduate of Macalester College and the culinary certificate program at Boston University.
John “Doc” Willoughby
John "Doc" Willoughby was the original executive editor of
Cook’s Illustrated when the magazine was founded in 1993. In 2001, he moved to New York to take the job of executive editor at
Gourmet magazine, a position that he held until the fall of 2009. In February 2010, he returned to
America’s Test Kitchen to assume the job of executive editor for magazines. John is also the coauthor, with chef Chris Schlesinger, of nine cookbooks, including the award-winning
The Thrill of the Grill and
How to Cook Meat. He has taught graduate-level courses in food writing at both Boston University and the Radcliffe Seminars at Harvard College, as well as at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone. John has written about food and travel for a wide range of national magazines; presently writes the “Power Ingredients” column for the
New York Times Dining section, and has lectured widely on food, politics, and culture.
Lisa McManus
Lisa McManus is a senior editor in charge of equipment testing and ingredient tasting at
Cook’s Illustrated and
Cook’s Country magazines. She researches and writes about kitchen gear and food, and she’s the on-screen gadget guru for
America’s Test Kitchen. She joined
America’s Test Kitchen in 2006, after working as a newspaper food editor and a magazine and newspaper journalist in Boston, New York, and Palo Alto, California. She is a graduate of Brown University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Lisa is married to a rocket scientist, who is pretty nice about answering questions about thermal conductivity and other science topics 24 hours a day. They have two sons.
Guy Crosby
Guy Crosby is the science adviser for
America’s Test Kitchen. He began working for
Cook’s Illustrated as a consulting editor in early 2005. While living in California during the 1970s, Guy developed an interest in the chemistry of food, which soon became the focus of his long professional career. He worked as a scientist and research director in the agricultural-products and food-ingredients businesses for more than 30 years. Guy earned a B.S. in chemistry from the University of New Hampshire and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Brown University, and he has been a postdoctoral research associate and part-time instructor of chemistry at Stanford University. Guy is a full-time associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Food Science at Framingham State University and serves as an adjunct associate professor of nutrition with the Harvard School of Public Health. Guy also serves as an external adviser for the new, first-of-its-kind EcoGastronomy program at the University of New Hampshire. Since launching his second career in education in 2003, he has taught food science to more than 300 students. He has been married to Christine for more than 43 years, has two grown children, Kristin and Justin, and has a charming granddaughter named Grace. Guy is a professional member of the Institute of Food Technologists and a popular local speaker on the science of cooking.