Working in a television station can sometimes surprise you even if you think you’ve seen it all.

After spending nearly two years working in the newsroom, I was hired as an associate producer for a daily talk show that aired everyday from 12:30 to 1:30. The format was similar to NBC’s Today Show. There was always a segment with a celebrity promoting a book or upcoming television show or movie, a human-interest segment dealing with the latest concerns of Boston residents and, of course, a cooking segment. We worked with a host that most colleagues felt was difficult at best. She was very demanding and treated the staff like bad children.

Very often Julia Childs would be our guest in the cooking segment. Most other cooks who appeared would bring two completed dishes of the recipe they would complete during their time period, as well as the ingredients for the dish so they could add them to the bowl as they described how it was put together. Not Julia. She would call me the day before her appearance; tell me what was needed and show up for the blocking an hour before the show.
One day when she was scheduled to appear, I had all the ingredients on the table that our host would walk through with Julia and just one completed dish in the clear glass casserole dish so the viewers could see the results. It was a one-pot casserole with meat layered on the bottom, with vegetables and mashed potatoes layered above.

During the commercial we would move the table on wheels into the cooking segment area. That day, as we rolled the table over the television cables, the glass casserole dish slid off the table and smashed into a million pieces of glass mixed with the ingredients on the cement floor of the studio. Because we were LIVE I had only the commercial time to recover before we would be back on the air.

I ran into the station cafeteria and scooped three hamburgers being prepared for some reporters into a new glass dish I pulled from our program’s cupboard. Luckily they were serving sliced carrots with the daily special, which I quickly scooped on top. There were no mashed potatoes to be found, so I ran back into the studio and scraped the ones on the studio floor, glass and all, onto the top of the dish and tried to make sure no glass could be seen by the viewers.

The lights came back on and we were LIVE. After our host showed the viewers the dish we would make that day and she and Julia moved to the space to begin cooking, I walked behind the camera, took the dish and moved it to the end of the table so they could show the finished meal. After completing this sneak, I went into the control room to watch the rest of the segment.
When they got to the end of the table the host not only showed the viewers the completed dish, but stuck in her fork and placed a large bite of the finished meal into her mouth, glass and all. The production team in the control room was heard yelling, “Eat it Bitch.”

I was shocked. For the next week, I waited to be fired.