Cooking for the Deranged

Back in the ’90s, there was a cooking show the Orange County PBS station (now the entire Southern California PBS affiliate) KOCE called “At Home on the Range”. The cook was RV impresario John Crean and self-professed “reformed slut” Barbara Venezia. John was the chef and Barbara was the stirrer. She had many tools besides the spoons and spatulas she used to stir things. There are the fry glasses for when the oil spattered real bad. There are the rubber gloves for when things got too hot (rubber for your protection!) The food is suspect, and the recipes are questionable at best. But what is undeniable is that they put together an entertaining show. Thanks to the wonders of the interweb the shows are online. Well, some of them anyways. Okay. It’s a bit cheesy at times, the production values aren’t the best, but for an 11:30 p.m. cooking show it was highly entertaining for my teenage self. The show was in production until 1998 and lived on in reruns for years. The show also aired in Britain, Australia and New Zealand giving them fans internationally. John passed in 2007 and his wife Donna passed in 2012. Barbara now is a columnist for OC Register.