A day in the life of a home economist
In the fourth of our monthly series we meet home economist Karen Taylor, who helps TV chefs make cooking on air look so effortless.
Karen Taylor (pictured above backstage at the Ideal Home Show) has worked on practically every Food TV show going: Masterchef, The Great British Menu, Lorraine, Iron Chef, Britain's Best Dish, The Alan Titchmarsh show, and Ready Steady Cook, to name but a few. Here she describes her average day.
Wakey wakey!
The day starts the night before. Shopping lists have to be compiled from recipes provided and orders phoned through for delivery to the location early in the morning. Having laid out my clothes for the morning, I tend to not only set my mobile phone alarm but also the radio and sometimes if I’m feeling especially worried about getting up on time, the home phone alarm as well!!! With that lot I don’t think I’ve ever been late or overslept. I live in the country a fair distance out of London so I need to allow for traffic, motorways being closed, and bad weather to make sure I get in on time.
Lights, camera, action!
I spend most of my days working on television programmes, both live and recorded, either in studio or on location at outside events. In addition, I also do a lot of book styling, running and organising cookery theatres at The Ideal Home and other food shows. This can involve a lot of travelling both throughout the UK and sometimes much further afield.
My time working on shows involves sourcing all ingredients, preparing everything for the chefs to cook on TV, sorting out all the equipment, liaising with producers, cooking the “Here’s one I prepared earlier”, organising assistants and clearing up at the end of the day.
Live on air
Live TV can be very demanding and I really enjoy the adrenalin rush when I’m doing a live show. I tend to check and recheck to make sure I’ve not forgotten anything. There is a constant fear of forgetting an ingredient, although the beauty of live TV is that when it’s done, there’s no going back!
I really enjoy styling cookery books, which again requires sourcing ingredients, cooking the finished recipes (sometimes that involves making amendments so that they work), and plating them up for the photographer to shoot. I enjoy the creative side of books with a positive result that can be seen in print. Cookery theatres are also very challenging, involving the usual ingredient sourcing, cooking, and the inevitable clearing up. I like having a break from the pressure involved in TV shows.
Best laid plans
On the whole things run smoothly, but on occasion things have gone wrong... recipes not being received in good time to source ingredients; product requests that are out of season, not sustainable or simply unavailable locally; equipment failing; recipes not working; ingredients not turning up; and occasionally chefs not turning up!
After all that, it’s time to go home, sometimes quite late, and start preparations for the next day.
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