Celebrity chef Silvena Rowe has made headlines in the United Kingdom for her spirited personality, exceptional cuisine, and best selling cookbooks. Now, she’s ready for her American debut with the ABC series Time Machine Chefs, a show that has been described as a cross between Dr. Who and Top Chef. Silvena was kind enough to speak with TheCelebrityCafe.com’s Alec Campagna about her new show, Eastern Mediterranean cooking, and her upcoming endeavors.
TheCelebrityCafe.com: Your American television debut took place on August 16 with the exciting new ABC series Time Machine Chefs, which is unlike any other culinary show on TV. What can viewers expect?
Silvena Rowe: Well, I see that they [ABC] are teasing people very nicely, listing little bits and pieces. Basically, it’s a very fantastical, voyeuristic, magical, dreamy kind of show. It’s unlike any other fall show on TV because we have fallen prisoners to all of those formats with competitions, where people compete against each other and the judges always use this vitriolic language to be insulting in one way or another.
This is an ABC show, it’s a show for the family. If you’re 8 or 80 it doesn’t matter, anybody between 8 and 80 are going to enjoy every little bit of this show. It has a competitive nature of course but also it’s about history, it’s about fantastical journeys. It’s just like Dr. Who. We traveled back in time and our chefs are cooking with the exact conditions and utensils, if any, at the time we are visiting, whatever era we are visiting. It is an extremely fantastical show and it’s fabulous for your imagination. It will really fire you up in more than one way.
TheCelebrityCafe.com: What was your favorite culinary challenge on the show or what was your favorite era?
Silvena Rowe: I was very privileged to be a judge and to work with a couple of other amazing, amazing chefs. Well, one is a chef, the other one is more like the scientific angle of chefs, David Arnold, and Nancy Silverton, of course from Los Angeles. The most exciting part for me was to work with people like Al Smith and Chris Cosentino. To be working with them closely and to be able to judge them and to be able to describe their food in certain ways and I will not say what [exactly]. Let’s just say that Al Smith is now saying that the way I described his cooking has traumatized him for life. If there were kings and queens, this is who he is going to be cooking for. I know that he cooks for presidents and for A-list celebrities and for me. To be describing the food I was describing was apparently very traumatizing for him. So, this has to have been the highlight for me, meeting those amazing chefs.
TheCelebrityCafe.com: You are no stranger to television, having already appeared in numerous shows in the U.K. Can you tell us about that experience?
Silvena Rowe: I do appear on the most respectable and most watched show in the U.K., which is called Saturday Kitchen and it’s actually the crème de la crème of cookery shows. It really commands a lot of respect because you see the top chefs and me. There aren’t any women there. If there are any women, there’s just me and one other and I can’t think of which one this other one is. I’m a regular guest there and it’s a tough show because we are scrutinized by the public.
But I also have done a number of other shows, again mainly for the BBC. For me, it’s very important to do shows that command respect. I have been offered many shows that, how can I say, have been more dismissive and it provokes unpleasant feelings, and I don’t think I need to bring cooking in that kind of disrepute in any way. I really like shows that have a historical angle or some angle that you learn something out of them.
And right now, I’m in the middle of filming a brand new show for the BBC called Keep Cooking and Carry On. It is fantastical because we are put to test in local food shows. Local food shows here [in the U.K.] are extremely competitive. You have the Women’s Institute for example. We are entering categories with them and it’s completely anonymous, nobody knows these celebrity chefs. And if you do not win, it’s embarrassing, but you have so much respect for the women who have done it for years and years. But of course we all try to win. So, yes, things are good here, but my American debut excites me so much more because Americans are all about big personalities and confidence. They really nurture, they make you grow, and I love North America very much.
TheCelebrityCafe.com: Your 2011 cookbook Purple Citrus and Sweet Perfume was inspired by your desire to connect with your heritage. Aside from the recipes that resulted, what did you learn during your trips to Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan?
Silvena Rowe: What I wanted to do was to create a book that speaks for itself. I didn’t want a book that was connected to my name. I wanted to create a beautiful book that is about stories and people. I wanted to tell a story of me wandering in a small monastery about 40 minutes away from Damascus. I saw the water of a monastery and there was this amazing smell from somewhere and instead of going to where I was supposed to go, I’m wandering by myself into a kitchen where a man is cooking the most incredible stew. And I spent hours and then the night because they had a room for me. This is the story I want to tell people about the world. Or going to a small place in Lebanon where a man was cooking for an entire home. This man asks me, “Do you know how to tell if chickpeas are cooked?” And I answer, “Sure, they look mushy.” And he goes, “No, no, no. The way you know chickpeas are ready,” and then he took a spoon of chickpeas and chucked them against the wall. He said, “If they slide down, then they are not ready. But if they stick to the wall, then they are mushy enough.” So how can I not put a story like that into my book? I wanted to create a book that contained these amazing stories that nobody could even make up.
I had this illusion that I would go to these countries and I thought maybe I could pay somebody to tell me the stories. Nobody knows these stories, stories are just told over a glass of chai. I wanted to create a book that you take at night and read like 1001 Culinary Nights but during the day you take it into the kitchen and cook. And I hope I have achieved that. I’ll tell you something about Purple Citrus and Sweet Perfume, I did the book with my American market [in mind] because I always knew about the fascination Americans have with this neck of the woods, with this kind of region. I was proven right because when I travelled around those countries, predominately Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, I saw 70 to 80 percent of Americans, not many tourists, but most of them were Americans and many of them were there for archaeological reasons, historical reasons, etc.
TheCelebrityCafe.com: What is one dish of yours that every person should learn how to make?
Silvena Rowe: I think it has to be my avocado hummus because avocado is delicious and hummus is delicious as well. I have this recipe for avocado hummus, it’s great, it’s healthy, it’s easy-going and it’s very different from hummus as we know it. It’s silky, it’s luscious, it’s voluptuous, it’s luxurious, it’s something else because with hummus we now think of it as something common, like a cereal but the avocado hummus is just a wonderful twist, so I’d say probably that [is the dish every person should learn]. It’s very easy to make.
TheCelebrityCafe.com: Your personality has often been compared to Simon Cowell. How do you feel about that comparison?
Silvena Rowe: I feel very honored because I happen to adore Simon Cowell. People are under the miscomprehension that he is nasty—he’s not nasty, he’s an expert in his own field and I’m an expert in my own field. I daresay that I know my stuff really well, my food, my cooking, my references are always correct. There is very little I don’t know and there is nothing I don’t eat. I’m not shy of anything. For example yesterday, was the first day of the glorious grouse season. Grouse is something the British like to eat, the season is very short. There’s one day of the year in August that’s called the Glorious Grouse. Restaurants in London pay thousands of pounds to have people pick up live birds and bring them to their restaurants for the 12th of August. I happened to be cooking. I had to pluck the bird; I haven’t plucked since I was child. I used to do a lot of plucking growing up because that’s what we did [laughs]. I needed the liver and the heart, so I’m putting my hand into the bird but I managed to get what I wanted to get from the bird. All I’m saying is, it’s not just personality, but you do have to have guts when you work with food in every aspect.
TheCelebrityCafe.com: Your signature recipes are of foods from the Eastern Mediterranean, a region whose foods many people know little about. What should people know about this type of cuisine?
Silvena Rowe: I’ll say this is the more exciting of Mediterranean cooking for the simple reason that we have worn to death the Western Mediterranean. We have visited Italy, France, Portugal, Spain—we’ve done that. Now, I’m not saying anything [bad]—the food is stunning and beautiful. But the food of the Eastern Mediterranean has an allure, has magic, has hidden elements. It hasn’t been discovered, it hasn’t been presented. It’s more Arabic and a lot of Middle Eastern influences, a lot of spices, a lot of sumac and cumin and turmeric. It’s just very, very different. Not very unfamiliar; it can be familiar. What I’m trying to do is make it easy to translate to our Western palate. And this is exactly what I’m doing with my restaurant in London and my book, so I’ll say that it is a cuisine that is waiting to be discovered, that more and more chefs are looking in that region.
For that reason, last year the Culinary Institute of America invited me (and I was massively honored, for me it was a moment I think I will treasure [forever]). I remember I was in service at my restaurant when I got an email at 11:00 at night from the director of the Culinary Institute of America saying that we know about your work and we’d like you to come. I immediately called the number and he said to me, “This is late for you” and I said, “Yes, I’m in service, but I had to say ‘yes, yes, yes.’” I didn’t even think, I just wanted to do it. And now this year again I’m invited there and they want me to be the leading moderator. When you consider that I’m appearing and taking over stages for people like Paula Wolfert and Joyce Goldstein, that means something. Those are the two queens of Eastern Mediterranean cooking. And for me to have the main place on the stage was such an honor. So, I’d say that it’s time that this cuisine was revived.
TheCelebrityCafe.com: You have a cookbook, TV show, restaurant, and have even appeared in GQ. What’s next?
Silvena Rowe: Well my next big intention is that I have an idea for American TV but it’s colossal, it’s global, so that’s why I have my eye very much on the American market now because as a woman I feel that you have so much more respect to female chefs in America and there are so many more female chefs. As a female chef, it’s extremely hard in Britain and I have achieved quite a lot, so my next step really is to spread my word. I’d like to open a restaurant of Eastern Mediterranean cuisine and my cuisine in the States, perhaps New York or L.A., definitely one or the other. Although New York is very saturated with food, there’s nothing like my food there, nothing, and I’m there a lot, and I’ve studied it. Most places have a very traditional take on either Lebanese or Turkish but [it’s very limited]. So, this is definitely my big next step.