'Pro at Cooking' Pwns Your Kitchen

If you’re not quite tuned into the gaming world, you might be missing out on one of the best-kept secrets of web TV. Move over, Rachael Ray: Pure Pwnage fans know that the world’s supreme celebrity chef is Dawei “Dave” Lee.

Pro at Cooking follows a very simple format: Dave cooks a different dish in each episode with the help of an attractive young female sous chef (different one each episode), who is invariably fired for running afoul of Dave’s irascible temper. So far, the episodes have covered recipes like “Dave’s Ass Kickin’ Alfredo Pasta”, “Dave’s Pimpin’ Pizza”, and, most recently, “Dave’s Succulent Sushi.” What’s more, the recipes are readily available on the website so you can watch the show for the entertainment without having to constantly rewind to double-check the recipe.

Personally, I think it’s a crime that this show hasn’t been picked up by the Food Network yet.

If watching through the show’s seven episodes wasn’t enough to satisfy your appetite, co-producer Davin Lengyel was on hand to answer a couple questions about the inner workings of Pro at Cooking.

Tubefilter: What was the inspiration behind Pro at Cooking?

Davin Lengyel: When it comes to the Pure Pwnage universe, the “characters” are actually not that different from their real life personas in some ways.  Jarett is a major gamer.  Geoff is working on a film career.  And Dave… well, Dave makes awesome food!  The reason why we see him cooking in PP is because he would cook for us in RL (Real Life) all the time.  Just like myself, a lot of the PP fans are big Dave fans and wanted to see more of him on the net – so it seemed like a natural thing to spin off a cooking show featuring Dave.  Geoff filmed a cooking segment with Dave for the end of a PP

episode, and it turned out great.  From there, Dave and I took over.

Tubefilter: Does the audience mostly consist of Pure Pwnage fans, or are you seeing the show build a separate fanbase?

Lengyel: That’s actually pretty hard to track.  Of course, most of our audience are PP fans, and that’s who we had in mind when we made the show, but we do see people tuning in when a new episode comes out before we post about the episode on the PP homepage.  Looks like there’s an audience for the show out there somewhere 🙂

It has this strange vibe about it.  It’s a show for the PP crowd, but it’s not about gaming.  It’s a cooking show, but it’s not really about cooking either.  I think a lot of people are just fans of Dave, and it doesn’t matter if he’s got a game controller or a spatula in his hand – he’s still hilarious.

Tubefilter: How long does it usually take to make an episode?

Lengyel: Dave will take two or three runs at the recipe to perfect it.  Filming is basically a one-day affair.  We actually cook everything during the shoot, so if we are baking cookies that day, we basically have the time it takes to bake the cookies to shoot all of the cooking stuff.  Editing always takes a bit longer, but I won’t bore you with those details.  Usually, the show hits the net about 10 days after we actually cook the food; so a pretty quick turn-around.