MasterChef winner Christine Ha's TV show features P.E.I. food
Laura Chapin | CBC News | Posted: January 14, 2016 11:00 AM | Last Updated: January 14, 2016
New show Four Senses showcases Chef Michael Smith, plus Island lobsters and oysters
Prince Edward Island food is being showcased on five episodes of MasterChef winner Christine Ha's new cooking show Four Senses, which launches its third season Thursday night.
Ha's co-host and cooking partner on Four Senses, Top Chef Canada 2012 winner Carl Heinrich, spent a week filming on P.E.I. in late August.
Thursday's launch features Heinrich catching lobster with Island fisherman Mark Jenkins and then holding a backyard barbecue with a local family.
Five episodes of the show will feature Island stops, including finding out how Cows ice cream is made, grass-fed chickens at the Dunn Creek Farm, dogs herding sheep at Pembroke Farms, and sorting Colville Bay oysters with Johnny Flynn.
The episode that will air March 24 includes a visit with Chef Michael Smith at the Inn of Bay Fortune. Heinrich and Smith pick fresh ingredients from the Inn's garden and then make veggie soup.
Ha, who beat the odds by winning the 2012 season of MasterChef USA despite being legally blind, describes Four Senses as a cooking show geared toward the visually impaired in her blog The Blind Cook. She says the show contains a lot of description about what's going on in the kitchen.
"What we're doing, how things feel or smell or sound," Ha wrote. "I have to say, I am very thankful something like this exists, because as you can imagine, it's difficult for someone with very little vision like me to watch TV."
The show is created by Accessible Media Inc., a Canadian cable network designed to make TV accessible to everyone, including the vision and hearing impaired.
Four Senses airs Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. ET on AMI-tv, which is carried by all cable providers in Canada.