Tag Archives: Christine Ha

Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Four Senses expands its world in Season 4

Four seasons in, Four Senses‘ mantra continues to be “Touch it. Taste it. Hear it. Smell it.” But the cooking show—returning Thursday, Jan. 5, to AMI-tv—designed for viewers who are blind or partially sighted has expanded its scope with cross-country adventures and high-profile celebrity guests.

Co-hosts Carl Heinrich and Christine Ha (he won Top Chef Canada and she took the MasterChef title) are back and more confident than ever in their surroundings and each other. Now sure-footed as chefs and hosts and describing how they’re preparing dishes as second nature, they’re able to joke and verbally jab one another, adding to the charisma factor. Their on-screen comfort means they can give more attention to their guests.

Thursday’s return features radio and television veteran Steve Anthony, who pops in to help create crab-stuffed avocado halves, Brussels sprouts slaw and homemade salsa and chips. Anthony has spent decades interviewing folks, so it’s no surprise he turns the tables on Ha and Heinrich, asking their opinion of specialty salts or opining as to why kids don’t like Brussels sprouts, but they give it right back, enquiring as to his kitchen habits. Yes, Four Senses is a cooking show but it’s also about sharing and telling stories, and Anthony, Ha and Heinrich do plenty of that before digging into their creations. (Upcoming guests include interior design gurus Colin and Justin, fashion icon Jeanne Beker and comedian and television star Luba Goy.)

The series has also upped the air miles in Season 4 as the co-hosts swap the kitchen for trips around Ontario and Nova Scotia, highlighting Canada’s diverse culinary landscape and the chefs, farmers and purveyors who bring them to our tables.

Four Senses airs Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. ET on AMI-tv.

Image courtesy of AMI.

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Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

AMI’s Four Senses to return for fourth season

From a media release:

Accessible Media Inc. (AMI) announced today that its cooking show with an accessibility twist, Four Senses, is returning for a fourth season and will begin production this fall.

Four Senses is a unique cooking show produced for AMI-tv by Varner Productions Limited that unites blind and sighted chefs in the kitchen. Hosts Christine Ha and Carl Heinrich are back for season four to share new recipes and experiences with a fresh group of celebrity guests. Each 30-minute show will also include nutrition guidelines for optimal eye health and accessibility tips and tools for independence in the kitchen.

Special guests this year include celebrities from the culinary world and beyond such as interior design gurus Colin and Justin, fashion icon Jeanne Beker, comedian and television star Luba Goy, and many more.  Each guest will share one of their favourite recipes with Christine and Carl, help the hosts prepare two additional dishes and share what inspires their own love of cooking.

Again this season Christine and Carl will be on the road shooting in field segments that highlight Canada’s diverse culinary landscape. Christine will explore Ontario, visiting a cranberry farm in Bala, learning about sustainable trout in Collingwood, and paying a visit to Lake Joe – the CNIB’s camp for individuals living with vision loss. Carl will be on a Nova Scotia road trip visiting Lunenburg, Wolfville, Digby, and Dartmouth. Along the way he’ll check out the Digby Days Scallop Festival, visit the oldest farmers market in Nova Scotia and learn more about the province’s growing wine and craft beer scene.

In keeping with AMI’s mandate of making accessible media for all Canadians, Four Senses features integrated description, where hosts and guests describe their surroundings and actions for audience members who are blind or partially sighted, as well as closed captioning for those with hearing loss.

Season four of Four Senses will air on AMI-tv in January, 2017.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Four Senses nails winning recipe in Season 3

Carl Heinrich and Christine Ha are cooking up good stuff on Four Senses. Heinrich, the Season 2 winner of Top Chef Canada, and Ha, who took the Season 3 title in MasterChef, are back for Season 3 of AMI-tv’s culinary series sharing recipes with each other and celebrities while traipsing the country meeting with the folks that put food on our tables.

The two chefs—and the Four Senses crew—have hit a real groove in Season 3, returning Thursday at 7:30 p.m. ET. The most obvious thing I noticed during a set visit last fall was the confidence the two have in the TV process. Gone are the jitters I saw in the first season, replaced with an understanding of what Four Senses is, and their roles in it. Yes, the program features embedded description for those who are blind or partially sighted and closed captioning for those with hearing loss, but at its heart Four Senses is a cooking show—and a darned entertaining one.

“Christine has had a lot of experience with very big productions,” says executive producer Anne Marie Varner. “This is a little more relaxed and she gets to hone her skills in terms of describing what she’s doing in the kitchen. She’s been very good at being able to point out to our guests and Carl what the challenges are when you’re blind or visually impaired in the kitchen. Carl has really grown in his confidence working in TV and it shows in his performance. You’re seeing a completely different person.”

Celebrity guests in the kitchen include Thursday’s visitor, Chef Corbin Tomaszeski, followed in the coming weeks by CHFI’s Erin Davis, French Chef at Home‘s Laura Calder, Chatelaine‘s Claire Tansey and BreakfastTelevision Toronto’s Frank Ferragine. As for the locations Heinrich and Ha will be visiting, Prince Edward Island, rural Ontario and Kelowna, B.C., beckon for features on lobsters and oysters, butter tarts and goat milk. Varner notes Four Senses is a national program, and she wanted their location segments to reflect that. A Season 3 addition that helped elevate Four Senses is new director Arlene Hazzan Green; the Emmy and Genie award winner is pushing the cooking process to the back burner in favour of stirring the pot through conversation about cooking and accessibility.

“We needed more conversation. ‘Who are you and why are you interested in this?'” Varner says. “She’s really focusing on the performance and learning about the twist that makes Four Senses unique.”

Four Senses airs Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. ET on AMI-tv.

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Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Season 3 of AMI’s Four Senses to premiere on Jan. 14

From a media release:

Accessible Media Inc. (AMI) announced today that its cooking show with an accessibility twist, Four Senses, will kick off season three on Thursday, January 14 at 7:30 p.m. on AMI-tv. For the first time, fans are invited to visit AMI’s Facebook page during the broadcast to stream the episode andparticipate in a live question and answer session hosted by Four Senses’ very own celebrity Christine Ha.

Four Senses is a unique cooking show produced by AMI in partnership with Varner Productions Limited that unites blind and sighted chefs in the kitchen. Chef Carl Heinrich is back alongside Christine to share new recipes and experiences with a fresh group of celebrity guests. Each 30-minute episode will also include nutrition guidelines for optimal eye health and accessibility tips and tools for independence in the kitchen.

Season three begins with Chef Corbin Tomaszeski from Restaurant Makeover joining Carl and Christine in the Four Senses kitchen. Additional chef and celebrity guests this season include: CHFI morning show host, Erin Davis, Laura Calder of French Chef at Home, Claire Tansey of Chatelaine and the return of Frank Ferragine (aka Frankie Flowers).

The show also highlights culinary wonders across the country with stops in Prince Edward Island, rural Ontario and Kelowna, British Columbia. Along the way, Christine and Carl will have the opportunity to catch lobsters and harvest oyster beds in PEI, visit with renowned Canadian Chef Michael Smith at the Inn at Bay Fortune, travel the Butter Tart Trail in Wellington North, and visit an accessible goat milk farm in the Okanagan.

In keeping with AMI’s mandate of making accessible media for all Canadians, Four Senses features embedded description, where hosts and guests describe their surroundings and actions for audience members who are blind or partially sighted, as well as closed captioning for those with hearing loss.

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