The award-winning author, culinary figure, and Top Chef alum will join forces with Kraft Heinz to launch What’s Cooking, a new food inspiration platform.
Kraft Heinz has announced that acclaimed culinary personality, Chef Edward Lee, will be joining them as Creative Director in the launch of a new, food-centered digital platform, What’s Cooking.
Formerly a well-known print publication, What’s Cooking is relaunching as a reimagined digital platform for food creators to manage content, engage and grow their audience, and collaborate with other creatives, to better serve and connect more closely with home cooks.
“Food publications today are so geared towards what’s trending and what’s cutting edge,” says Chef Lee.
“A whole wave of people are being left out — our everyday home cooks who just want to make dinner a little more exciting. At What’s Cooking, we don’t want to teach you to cook, we want to make your current cooking routine more enjoyable. We want to cook alongside you and learn from our culinary community.”
Billing himself as equal parts “Southern soul, Asian spice, and New York attitude,” Chef Edward Lee is a Brooklyn-born, Louisville-based, Korean-American Chef. He is the author of Buttermilk Graffiti and Smoke & Pickles— the former winning him a James Beard Award for culinary writing. Chef Lee has appeared on TV screens on Food Network’s “Iron Chef America”, “Top Chef: Texas, Season 9”, an Alumni judge on “Top Chef: Portland, Season 18”, and in the pages of Esquire, Bon Appetit, GQ, and Gourmet.
“As a result of the pandemic, we’ve seen a huge number of people discovering, or re-discovering, their passion and ability to cook at home,” says Diana Frost, Chief Growth and Sustainability Officer at Kraft Heinz Canada.
“We’re excited to engage, inspire and have some fun with consumers on this home cooking journey with our new What’s Cooking platform.”
In addition to a partnership with Chef Lee, What’s Cooking will showcase a variety of culinary voices, allowing food creators, chefs, and home cooks to use the platform to learn new techniques, interact with a variety of new and familiar ingredients and cuisines, and seamlessly manage food content, videos, and imagery.
What’s Cooking will release its initial beta phase in July 2021 as part of a larger multi-phase launch that will help creators supercharge their audiences, commercialize their content, and leverage superior technology. The platform will be promoting content exclusively from Chef Edward Lee in the beta phase while they actively source other culinary creators. Food creatives on What’s Cooking will have the opportunity to work with brands like Kraft Heinz, but also showcase food content that is unique to their style, heritage, and audience.
“One of the most exciting parts of this project is that I get to work with other food creatives. I’m fascinated by what the new guard of food creators has to say and show and how they view food,” says Chef Lee, who says one of his goals with What’s Cooking is to help select culinary creatives from across North America to get early access to the platform.
“Cooking doesn’t always have to be fancy!” he says. “We want to help you make delicious meals with what’s already in your pantry and fridge, and maybe introduce you to some new flavors and ingredients along the way. What’s Cooking is about making mistakes — we’re going to burn things, but we’re going to have a lot of fun in the kitchen!”
Visit What’s Cooking at www.whatscooking.com
