Look out Jamie Oliver. Leeds-born television personality Debbie King is becoming something of a celebrity chef.
Ms King — perhaps best known for hosting ITV1’s cult entertainment game show Quizmania — is the presenter of new online cookery series Studentcooking.tv, which last week won the Best Contribution in New Media 2008 category at the Yorkshire Television Society awards.
The programme is a weekly podcast showing university students how to cook five-star, healthy meals on a two-star budget. It is currently seen only at Loughborough University — which sponsored the project — but will soon be available to all universities across the UK.
She tells People: “This is definitely one of the most exciting projects I have worked on. Online is the way things are going at the moment. Everything is going on the internet.”
Ms King, 30, lives in South London with her partner, former G4 singer Jonathan Ansell. She says: “I had limited culinary skills at university but Jonathan has taught me about cooking. We are a bit obsessed with cooking shows.” She adds: “We often have my dad round for Friday-night dinner. I taught Jonathan to make chicken soup, although it’s not as good as my grandma’s.”
Studentcooking.tv consists of 10 weekly 10-minute episodes, in which Ms King visits students and teaches them to cook. Her favourite recipe? “A healthy dessert consisting of crumbled biscuit, low-fat Greek yoghurt, topped with fruit and honey. ”
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