It all started with the announcement of a lockdown in March. With the prospect of spending weeks, maybe even months, locked up in our own houses, unable to dine out in restaurants, the chefs in most everyone came out. The braver and more social media savvy even recorded their cooking sprees for the ‘gram.

Preparing meals with an audience in mind is nothing new to Sarsa’s Chef JP Anglo. The Negrense has done his share of cooking shows and online videos. But this time around, the goal is not just to simply teach people to cook—“I wanted to teach them how to think out of the box,” says Chef JP. “I wanted to teach them how to make their everyday, staple dishes special, to play around with it.”

True enough, with people spending more time at home, and with more opportunities to cook, things can get a little repetitive too fast. Chef JP’s inventive approach in the kitchen is just what the moment needs.

Meanwhile, looking to address the current needs and obsessions of the audience, ANCX’s then Executive Editor Ces Drilon thought of asking JP, and his friend and mentor Joseph Binamira, epicure and founder of Zubuchon, if they could share their cooking videos to the website. That was the time when sending a crew to shoot on location was a no-no. Meanwhile, Joel has by that time also started making short but very engaging cooking videos for Instagram. And so, Ces asked the two guys if they could share their videos to ANCX.ph. “Joel was even surprised people would be interested in his amateur videos,” recalls Ces.

“I just asked them, haha! I guess it’s because I was supervising producer of their ‘Show Me The Market’ show on ANC. We also worked with them for the Boys Town mentorship project,” the veteran media personality continues. Late 2019, Joel and JP spearheaded a project that will train kids from Boys Town to be food entrepreneurs. They were taught to create a special turon and lumpia to market and sell.

But back to the cooking tutorials—the two guys agreed to lend their videos to ANCX whose team edited and packaged the raw footage into what will be called “Stay-at-Home Chef.” The series premiered on ANCX seven months ago with Chef JP’s demo on how to make a crispy tofu ‘Spam.’ This was followed by Joel’s Kimchi fried rice with meat loaf and Chef JP’s Baked Bangus with oats congee and sautéed corn.

Seven months into the pandemic, Chef JP has continued to inspire home cooks through Stay-at-Home Chef, with a little help from Golden Fiesta Canola Oil. The people behind the heart-healthy cooking oil collaborated with ANCX and Chef JP to come up with two of the latest episodes of the video series.

The first one has Chef JP preparing a crispy noodles dish with smarter, heart-healthy ingredients—vegetables, chicken chorizo, and Golden Fiesta Canola Oil. The second one is a recipe for a jazzed up adobo—or a Fiesta Adsilog, if we may: cooked chicken adobo with rice cooked in adobo sauce and a crispy fried egg on the side.

After seven months, ANCX continues to take pride in presenting this simple concept to its audience—with much gratitude to the kitchen masters behind it. We’re glad that it continues to provide inspiration, entertainment, and encouragement for home cooks to keep trying out new things, keep spicing things up, and keep being smart about their choices in the kitchen.

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