‘The Great American Recipe’ Host Reveals How Al Roker’s Appearance Was Kept Secret From Contestants

A new ingredient spices up the fourth season of this feel-good cooking competition. “For the first time, we brought in guest judges,” reveals The Great American Recipe host Alejandra Ramos, who serves things sunny side up with her positivity, empathy, and signature fun dresses.

The first visitor is TV personality and national treasure Al Roker. He meets American home cooks with styles ranging from Bangladeshi to Belizean, Puerto Rican to Southern, Cajun to Afghan, and Filipino to Thai.

“Al is an amazing home cook, and he was so generous and encouraging with his advice…and jokes,” says Ramos, who first worked with Roker on The Today Show, for which she’s been doing cooking segments since 2015. Both contributed recipes to the recently released Today Loves Food cookbook. To keep his appearance secret from contestants until the last minute, his call sheet code name was “Billy Blessing” the celebrity chef/amateur detective in Roker’s Morning Show Mystery novel series and Hallmark movies.

“It was such a joy to have him on set. I know it meant so much to the home cooks to have him there tasting their food and rooting for them. There was an extra buzz of excitement the whole time,” Ramos says.

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Roker joined the regular judges, award-winning chefs and restaurateurs Tiffany Derry and Timothy Hollingsworth and Splendid Table host Francis Lam (above, middle right, with Hollingsworth, Derry and Ramos). Each week, they choose a winner; the top three square off in the finale.

“As many twists and challenges as I may throw out at the home cooks, they always deliver even more than we can ever dream up,” says Ramos, who makes a point to say that her dream of being on TV “wouldn’t have been possible without PBS, [the one place] which regularly featured the Puerto Rican and Latino characters I never saw anywhere else.”

The new batch of cooks includes a Texas US Army sergeant from Puerto Rico who makes a mean chicken stew with white rice; a Montana teacher and coach whose specialty oxtail with rice and peas draws from her Belizean and Jamaican heritage; and a Bangladesh-raised project manager from Manhattan who wows with her comfort food, prawns and coconut milk.

Every contestant has a personal story to share about a dish, and sometimes it gets emotional. As Ramos tells a Cajun cook and firefighter later this season, “The tears: just a little extra seasoning.”

But most of the time the show is more mouthwatering than eye-watering. Ramos says, “There was one dessert I loved so much I brought extras back to my dressing room!”

The Great American Recipe, eason 4 Premiere, Friday, July 11, 8/7c, PBS (check local listings at pbs.org)