So is it any wonder that Lawson, presently emerging from her own personal drugs-related nightmare, invited him to join Team Nigella? Kawakami opted to prepare elegant comfort food: deconstructed bacon fried rice, topped with a fried quail’s egg. The judges each picked a team of four, based on that bite, to go forward to a series full of food-based challenges. The series began on Thursday night with amateur cooks and pro chefs competing to prepare a single bite of food to whet the appetites of Lawson and her fellow mentor-judges – chefs Anthony Bourdain, Ludo Lefebvre and Marcus Samuelsson – in a blind taste test. Lawson is both a co-host and executive producer of The Taste, which, depending on your televisual palate, is either a high-concept fusion of complementary cuisines (The Voice on a bed of mashed MasterChef, drizzled with a Hell’s Kitchen reduction) or an over-seasoned stew of mismatched ingredients. “I’ve been able to prove to myself that I’m a strong person and I can’t be beat down.” “Cooking really helped me pull my life together,” Jeff said, over the sensitive background Muzak. The first contestant to appear on the season premiere of Nigella Lawson’s US food talent show The Taste was Jeff Kawakami, a 32-year-old chef from Los Angeles, who quickly revealed that he had overcome a drugs problem in order to pursue his career in the kitchen.
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