Mazie Miller has been showing local viewers how to transform everyday food items into delectable dishes for more than two decades.

Miller, the consumer services manager at Grace Kitchens – a subsidiary of GraceKennedy – has hosted the popular television programme for 23 years and talks with Thursday Food about why her foodie formula still works. She shares with us too, her passion for youth and just what makes life before the lens so interesting.

Though the show has been around for much longer – Grace Kitchens is celebrating its 40th anniversary – Miller has become synonymous with the cuisine programme, and indeed a generation can perhaps attest to being introduced to the kitchen through watching Creative Cooking.

Creative Cooking came about when Arnold Foote pitched an idea to Carlton Alexander, the then CEO of GraceKennedy Company Limited. Miller mentions that Alexander immediately saw the possibilities and moved toward making the show a reality.

“The relationship came about because I was employed at Grace Kitchens and based at Dairy Industries, where I worked on developing new and creative ways of using cheese,” Miller said.

Her role at Dairy Industries would see her travelling to various high schools across the island to host lectures/demonstrations on how to incorporate cheese into a number of dishes.

“Cheese month was launched and I was required to do cooking demonstrations on television, that was in 1987,” said Miller, explaining how her association with the programme took shape. She mentions in the early years that her co-hosts Fae Ellington and later Oliver Samuels as well as voice and speech coaches Alma Mock Yen and Erica Allen greatly assisted in building her confidence.

Other confidence-builders no doubt include the fact that Miller is a trained Home Economics practitioner specialising in food preparation and service; she studied agriculture and food systems management and is a certified Chef de Cuisine. She also lauded her team, which she said works very hard to make each episode better than the last.

Speaking to the show’s longevity, Miller outlined that Grace Kitchens nurtures a culture that puts the demands of the consumers first.

“We make the effort to listen to our consumers and customers. there is a thrust toward consumer relationship management,” she shared, noting that the youth are never left out of the Creative Cooking equation.

“We often invite culinary students (from various schools) to demonstrate cooking on the show,” she said.

“One of the reasons for that is because it broadens their horizons.exposes them to the possibilities available in the culinary field.”

She says when students visit the set, they might get ideas of career options not often thought of such as food styling, food chemistry, biology or agriculture.

The programme, Miller said, also gets younger children interested in cooking by presenting dishes in an unconventional way.

“We teach families to use what they have, while at the same time showing them that meals ought to be balanced, attractive and nutritious,” Miller added.

Another part of the sustainable development plan for Creative Cooking includes brand expansion through various social marketing campaigns, “to offset some of today’s challenges”.

“We have just invested in a new kitchen to be opened next month,” Miller said.

Miller’s team member, Angella Grandison Reid, who is the promotions and consumer services manager at Grace Kitchens, echoed similar sentiments adding that, the new thrust will involve “exciting competitions with an aim to get persons 25 years and under more interested in food services and preparation”.

“We have been in the home economics mould, but we want to expand those boundaries and incorporate hospitality.to put a little pizzazz and glamour into what we do,” Grandison-Reid added.

Grace Kitchens produces some 104 Creative Cooking programmes per year and the same number of programmes for its radio equivalent Creative Living. The organisation also conducts lectures with community interest groups across the island and distributes recipes.