Tag Archives: Mary Berg

All-new original competition series Cross Country Cake Off decorates CTV’s schedule beginning December 4

From a media release:

It’s cake time! CTV announced today that its all-new cake competition series, CROSS COUNTRY CAKE OFF, is set to make its debut December 4 with four holiday-themed episodes. Hosted by cookbook author and multiple Canadian Screen Award-winner Mary Berg and introducing celebrated pastry chef Andrew Han, the CTV Original series airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app, and features the country’s best cake makers as they bake to claim the $50,000 prize, and the title of CROSS COUNTRY CAKE OFF Champion.

Throughout four holiday-themed episodes, hosts Berg and Han judge the homemade cakes of 24 bakers from across Canada. During three regional qualifying rounds, eight bakers in each of the host cities – Vancouver, Toronto, and Halifax – present their creations to the judges. Four cake makers from each qualifier then move forward to compete in the CROSS COUNTRY CAKE OFF kitchen in a festive cake challenge. The Top 2 bakers representing each region move on to compete in the finale.

In a special two-night event beginning Sunday, Dec. 18 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app, the third and final qualifying round concludes leaving six cake makers to face off in two holiday challenges. The winner takes home the top prize of $50,000 and the title of CROSS COUNTRY CAKE OFF Champion during the finale on Monday, Dec. 19 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app.

Following the four-episode holiday season, CROSS COUNTRY CAKE OFF returns to CTV in spring 2023 with six all-new episodes featuring a new crop of 40 Canadian bakers vying for the top prize.

Viewers can stream new episodes of CROSS COUNTRY CAKE OFF on CTV.ca and the CTV app, which is also home to bonus content including exclusive video content and behind-the-scenes extras. In addition, viewers can follow @CTV’s social channels all season long for highlights, bonus content, and more.

About Mary Berg
Mary Berg is a three-time Canadian Screen Award-winner for Best Host, Lifestyle for her shows MARY MAKES IT EASY (2022) and MARY’S KITCHEN CRUSH (2020-21). MARY MAKES IT EASY was also named Best Lifestyle Program or Series at this year’s Canadian Screen Awards, following back-to-back wins for MARY’S KITCHEN CRUSH in 2020 and 2021. Berg is the Season 3 winner of CTV’s MASTERCHEF CANADA, as well as a cooking expert on CTV YOUR MORNING, THE SOCIAL, and THE MARILYN DENIS SHOW. Berg is the best-selling author of Kitchen Party: Effortless Recipes for Every Occasion, and Berg’s newest book Well Seasoned: A Year’s Worth of Delicious Recipes.

About Andrew Han
Chef Andrew Han is the owner and executive chef of the award-winning Kouign Café, located in the heart of Vancouver’s historic Chinatown. Chef Han discovered a love of cooking early on in life and received training in classical French and Italian culinary and pastry arts at the Northwest Culinary Academy of Vancouver. He began his career as executive pastry chef at several notable Vancouver restaurants and bakeries, merging his Korean-Vietnamese-Canadian upbringing with his passion for food to then create his whimsical and other-worldly creations at Kouign Café. While Chef Han is known for his masterful execution of combining sweet and savoury ingredients and his special selection of Kouign Amann, his most well-known menu item is the White Rabbit Cookie. This cookie went viral when he participated in a one-time Chinatown pop-up, drawing daily lineups of hungry foodies craving culinary nostalgia.

With just the right amount of authenticity, innovation, and imagination, Chef Han elevates the humble foods of his Chinatown upbringing and takes his guests to a magical place where he shares his childhood and heritage through unique and delectable bites.

CROSS COUNTRY CAKE OFF is developed and produced by Boat Rocker’s Proper Television, in association with Bell Media. Cathie James and Lesia Capone are Executive Producers and David Donohue and Meredith Veats are Series Producers.

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Preview: Mary Berg gifts us treats in holiday-themed Mary Makes it Easy

Now that the world has returned to some sort of order—at least, as much as it can—many of us will face that all too familiar dread surrounding the holidays: the Christmas meal.

A too-dry turkey, gluey mashed potatoes (of which I have been guilty) and watery pumpkin pie are just three of many mishaps that can occur when folks congregate during the holidays.

But Mary Berg has got your (and my) back this year.

Debuting Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern on CTV Life Channel with a special episode of Mary Makes it Easy called “Mary Makes it Merry,” the MasterChef Canada winner, cookbook author, celebrity chef and culinary coach aptly guides you through an easy as pie (see what I did there) bunch of recipes designed to keep you organized when family descends.

“It breaks my heart to hear that the worst part of the holidays for a lot of people is making the holiday meal. By the time you shop for the food and make the standard feast you’ve spent so long prepping, it’s no wonder you’re overwhelmed,” Mary says in a media release promoting the instalment. “With my shortcuts and time-saving strategies, I’m going to make the holidays so easy.”

It all kicks off with perhaps the easiest bread dish I’ve ever seen. I’ve struggled with making cinnamon buns in the past, eventually giving up and buying them from bakers. No more, thanks to Mary’s Cinnamon Roll Bread, which looks so simple even I could master it. The same goes for the Stuffed Turkey Roulade she tackles as the main dish. Once Mary completes a couple of sides, including dead easy cranberry sauce, I was convinced. I can, and will, do all of that for my family and more, over the holidays.

Mary Makes it Easy, “Mary Makes it Merry,” airs Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern on CTV Life Channel.

Image courtesy of Bell Media.

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Award-winner Mary Berg is back on TV with Mary Makes it Easy

There’s a reason Mary Berg has resonated with audiences and judges, first on MasterChef Canada and then with Mary’s Kitchen Crush. What you see is what you get with Berg, and you can’t help but cheer her on.

The two-time Canadian Screen award winner is back with her latest series for Bell Media, helming Mary Makes it Easy. Debuting Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern on CTV Life Channel, Berg brings viewers into her real-life kitchen for easy-to-make (and equally easy to tweak) recipes, delivered with her trademark smile and humour.

We spoke to Mary Berg about Mary Makes it Easy, what viewers can expect from Season 1 and what it’s like to be an award winner.

How did Mary Makes it Easy come about? Is this something that you pitched to Bell or was this a collaboration?
Mary Berg: I think it was a bit of both, to be honest. We definitely pitched it to Bell. It’s no secret that I’m a sucker for a straight-ahead cooking show, in the kitchen, showing you how to make something, walking you through it, cooking show. And we definitely did that in Mary’s Kitchen Crush. With Kitchen Crush, it was about the end result. It was about the people coming over and making dishes inspired by people who you’re going to meet at the end, that was the payoff. In Mary Makes it Easy I think we did a good job at conveying this is it’s all about you and me in the kitchen together, because that is the biggest hurdle for most people. 

It’s not necessarily having someone over. It’s how do you make something for friends, or even just your family that you live with or even just yourself? It is a hard thing to do when there are so many other options. This is about you and me, the person who doesn’t want to be pulling their hair out at the end of it when their guests arrive. It is just about prepping and making delicious food and making it as confident-filled and comfortable as possible for everybody.

You’ve always made it very accessible with your ingredients. Has that always been something that’s been important to you? Just keeping it easy for the home cook? 
MB: Totally. When I write recipes, I want someone who’s experienced in the kitchen to not think, ‘Oh, this is an easy recipe,’ but I want someone who isn’t also to feel like I’m there with them walking them through. With ingredients, especially over the last year and a half, my cooking style changed kind of completely. I don’t go to the grocery store every day anymore. I go once every two weeks, pretty much still like I’m still on that kind of schedule and it’s totally changed the way I cook. This show has a lot more options for substitutions. There are a lot more suggestions for if you don’t have this or you don’t like it, that’s fine. It’s not going to ruin the recipe. Make it yours because it’s about you.

How do you develop recipes?
I love recipe development and I love food science. Basically, I have this Nancy Drew-style notebook, a composition book that I write my ideas in. I write what I think is going to work. I write estimated measurements and I just think about flavours that I think would go well together. It’s summertime right now, so obviously, everything I do has peaches and tomatoes in it because both of those things go so well together. So taking cues from what’s at the market, what’s at the grocery store, even what’s on sale, and then trying to figure out ways to do it in exciting but accessible and accomplishable ways.

You film Mary Makes it Easy in your actual kitchen. Was that always the plan?
MB: This show was always going to be in my kitchen. I think I wanted to have people in my house [because] there’s a comfort level there that I think you can’t convey in a set in the same way. So having that and giving this whole show more of a comfortable, tight-knit, cozy, homey vibe, it feels a little more like you’re just hanging out at my, at my breakfast bar pretty much the whole time. 

I enjoyed the bloopers at the end of the first episode.
MB: Thanks, man! I wanted, throughout the show and throughout the episodes, to keep flubs in too. We kept things in where something goes wrong because that’s how it works. No one is perfect. In my world, in the kitchen, there’s no failing. You’re just like trying something and it might not work, but that means you learned how to make it not work. Sometimes things go wrong and you just roll with the punches and keep going.

Can you give me a hint about some of the upcoming episodes? The first is chicken.
MB: We’ve got 25 episodes, and it was really fun coming up with the ideas for each episode because we wanted to think of common issues in the kitchen. For instance, chicken. It’s a great staple, so we wanted to do one that with 100 percent all on chicken. The next episode is date night. The thing with date night is no, you shouldn’t make like a souffle. That is an insane thing to do when you’re trying to impress someone because it’s going to go wrong. You need to do things that are quick, really impressive, but also still look like you aren’t sweaty and you just had a crying fit on the floor before your date arrived. There’s get ahead recipes, there’s one-pot there are lunches, there’s baking, baking recipes for like real beginners. Like if you want to make bread, I’ve got the bread for you as a beginner and you want to make a cheesecake, I got the cheesecake for you.

You recently won a second Canadian Screen Award. How does that feel? 
MB: It’s one thing to put something out there and think that you really like it and that the folks at Bell Media really like it, but it’s another when people vote and you find out that the Academy really likes you too. So how does that feel? Um, mindboggling. Oatmeal brain is what I call it. The fact that the show also won is so huge because so many people worked so hard on it. I know everyone says this, but I truly did not expect it either time.

I was a participation ribbon kid. I was the kid who you’re playing soccer and I’d be like, ‘No, I’m going to sit down and find a four leaf clover.’ It is really exciting and thrilling to work so hard on something and have that peer and Academy-based recognition.

Mary Makes it Easy airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CTV Life Channel.

Images courtesy of Bell Media.

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New original culinary series Mary Makes it Easy premieres Sept. 6 on CTV Life Channel

From a media release:

Full of recipes guaranteed to impress without the stress, CTV Life Channel announced today that its new original culinary series MARY MAKES IT EASY premieres Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT, beginning Sept. 6. Hosted by Mary Berg, Canada’s culinary sweetheart and two-time Canadian Screen Award-winner for Best Host, Lifestyle for CTV Original series MARY’S KITCHEN CRUSH, the first batch of MARY MAKES IT EASY consists of 12 half-hour episodes.

Filmed on location in Toronto at her very own home kitchen, MARY MAKES IT EASY features Berg as she shares step-by-step recipes, tips, and tricks that leave viewers with a newfound confidence to overcome their own culinary challenges.

From ideas on what to make with a fridge full of leftovers, to lackluster chicken emergencies, Berg eliminates kitchen worries by offering up plenty of helpful takeaways as she guides viewers through each recipe. Filled with charm and wit, in the premiere episode of MARY MAKES IT EASY, “What Are Ya, Chicken?,” airing Monday, Sept. 6 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CTV Life Channel, Berg offers four exciting and delightful ways to expand viewers’ chicken repertoire so it will never be boring or dry again!

Viewers can get a second helping of MARY MAKES IT EASY with exclusive content available on CTV.ca, including fun behind-the-scenes video extras, a kitchen tour, interviews, a recipe hub outlining all the delicious details behind Berg’s dishes, plus exclusive recipes not featured in the series. Recipes featured on the series will also be available in French on noovomoi.ca.

MARY MAKES IT EASY is available for streaming on CTV.ca, and the CTV app, with episodes encoring Saturdays at 12 p.m. ET/PT on CTV and Saturdays at 7 p.m. ET/PT on CTV2 beginning Sept. 11. Leading up to the premiere, Berg’s hit CTV series and two-time Canadian Screen Award-winner MARY’s KITCHEN CRUSH is available now for streaming on CTV.ca and the CTV app with no subscription or sign-in required.

Joining MARY MAKES IT EASY as series partner is Stonemill Bakehouse, who will produce custom content around the show featuring Mary Berg. Stonemill Bakehouse breads will be included in several recipes throughout the season. The recipes will be shared across CTV Life Channel’s social and digital platforms, and will also include targeted social promotion. In addition, Stonemill Bakehouse will receive curated media placement on broadcast and digital.

For the second consecutive year, Berg is the Canadian Screen Award-winner for Best Host, Lifestyle for MARY’S KITCHEN CRUSH, a CTV Original series. MARY’S KITCHEN CRUSH is a two-time Canadian Screen Award-winner for Best Lifestyle Program or Series, and the series is currently sold in more than 100 countries. Berg is the Season 3 winner of CTV’s MASTERCHEF CANADA, as well as a cooking expert on YOUR MORNING, THE SOCIAL, and THE MARILYN DENIS SHOW on CTV. Best-selling author of Kitchen Party: Effortless Recipes for Every Occasion, Berg’s new book Well Seasoned: A Year’s Worth of Delicious Recipes is set to be released in October 2021.

MARY MAKES IT EASY is produced by Boat Rocker’s Proper Television. Cathie James, Lesia Capone, and Allison Grace are Executive Producers, Mary Berg is Co-Executive Producer, and David Donohue is Series Producer.

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Mary’s Kitchen Crush, Canada’s Drag Race and Lisa LaFlamme win during Night 1 of the 2021 Canadian Screen Awards

Mary’s Kitchen Crush and its star, Mary Berg, along with Canada’s Drag Race and its hosts and CTV National News with Lisa Laflamme were among the individuals and programs to win during Night 1 of 2021 Canadian Screen Awards Virtual Presentations.

The first portion of the stripped-down celebration focused on News and Documentary, narrated by journalist Ginella Massa, followed by Lifestyle and Reality categories narrated by Canada’s Drag Race Season 1 winner Priyanka.

Here are the winners in Monday’s key categories:

Best News or Information Series
CBC News: The Fifth Estate

Best News Anchor, Local
Dwight Drummond, CBC News Toronto at 6

Best Local Newscast
CityNews at 6

Best News Anchor, National
Lisa LaFlamme, CTV National News with Lisa LaFlamme

Best National Newscast
CTV National News with Lisa LaFlamme

Best Biography or Arts Documentary Program or Series
Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: A Schitt’s Creek Farewell

Best History Documentary Program or Series
Enslaved: The Lost History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Best Factual Series
You Can’t Ask That

Best Documentary Program
Hockey Mom

Best Talk Program or Series
CBC News: Power & Politics

Best Performing Arts Program
We’re Funny That Way: The Virtual Pride Special

Best Morning Show
Breakfast Television

Best Host, Lifestyle
Mary Berg, Mary’s Kitchen Crush

Best Host or Presenter, Factual or Reality/Competition
Brooke Lynn Hytes, Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, Stacey McKenzie, Canada’s Drag Race

Best Lifestyle Program or Series
Mary’s Kitchen Crush

Best Reality/Competition Program or Series
Canada’s Drag Race

For the complete list of winners, visit the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television website.

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