Albuqurque Journal, September 2004
Chef Makes Sure Bikers Eat Well
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Director and producer Christopher Coppola — yes, one of those Coppolas — loads up Biker Cat as tap ing for "Biker Chef," a p ilot television series, began Monday at El P into Restaurant In the North Valley |
Member of Hollywood's famed Coppola family is putting together a TV cooking show.
It may not have been the biggest biker rally ever.
But the group of bikers that gathered at El Pinto restaurant in Albuquerque's North Valley on Monday sure did eat well.
The Harleys (and one Honda) in the dirt lot at El Pinto were dressing for the pilot of a new TV show being filmed in town called "Biker Chef 351."
If people watch cooking shows, and they watch biker shows, why not combine them? Well that's Christopher Coppola's plan.
Coppola - who is a member of the famous Coppola clan - is also a filmmaker, actor, biker and chef. He decided to combine all of his loves into one TV show.
Mix equal parts Julia Child and Jesse James, then throw in some fights, crude jokes, a cowboy cookout or two, and plenty of bike riding and you get the idea.
"When I was a kid, all my friends called me 'Papa,'" Coppola said. "They called me that because I was the one, whenever we'd have a party, that would cook. I'd run the barbecue. I'd experiment with the food like I'm doing for the show."
New Mexico, because of its great motorcycling highways and diverse cuisine, became the location for the pilot, he said.
For the last week Coppola, as Biker Chef, and his buddy Gregory Thompson, as Sous Chef, have been tooling 'around the state on big black bikes visiting everything from goat cheese factories to chile farms, collecting the best ingredients they can find.
The show isn't just some guys cooking baked potatoes on tailpipes in the desert.
Once Biker Chef has collected his goodies from across the state, he combines them for one giant gourmet feast. For Monday's feast, Coppola used the kitchen at El Pinto to mix cuisines into a meal that has never been done before. The three-course biker smorgasbord started off with a tequila posole, then blue-corn calzones, and roasted pheasant, duck and rabbit with three salsa mixes.
"I didn't ever consider myself a chef," Thompson, an actor, said. "But it's interesting because I get to learn about foods." The toughest parts of the gig, he said, was learning to ride a motorcycle - the rest has been "nothing but fun."
It's quite a project, especially considering that no network has agreed to air the series yet. The project started under the Discovery Travel channel, but that deal fell through after neither side could agree on a contract.
"If we don't find a network, we'll do it ourselves," Coppola said,
His production company can sell DVDs online or through retail outlets to pay for the production, he said.
But, he said, he'd prefer to find a network to host the show.
"I'd like" a women's network, like Oxygen or Lifetime to show it," Coppola said.
But, will anybody watch the show?
"Yeah," said Willie Stell, a biker who rode his custom Harley to the final feast Monday, "If we're in it."
