A Bite to Eat with Alice (series premiere)
★★★½
ABC, weeknights (from Mon Oct 28), 6pm and iview

Even before the effervescent Alice Zaslavsky simmers the Sicilian meatballs on her new cooking show, there’s a fair bit of heat surrounding her new TV kitchen. In a welcoming studio decked out in soft green tones and enlivened by pops of colour, A Bite to Eat With Alice is the long-awaited arrival in a timeslot that’s been contentious for almost a year, since the ABC controversially axed current-affairs discussion program The Drum.

Those lamenting The Drum’s demise will see its replacement with a cooking show as a clear sign that their fears for the trajectory of the national broadcaster are well founded and that it’s pursuing light entertainment at the expense of more serious issues.

Others might think it’s quite handy to have a weeknight cooking show packed with tips on preparing dishes that are economical in terms of time and money, a production akin to The Cook Up With Adam Liaw (SBS On Demand).

Beyond a wider consideration of the ABC’s decisions and direction, the new weeknight series arrives with a burst of zesty spirit. Zaslavsky, aka Alice in Frames, is a popular cookbook author (In Praise of Veg, Salad For Days, The Joy of Better Cooking), Melbourne ABC Radio host and culinary correspondent for the ABC’s News Breakfast. She’s also a TV natural who bubbles with enthusiasm. She radiates a can-do energy and persuades guests and viewers that what she’s proposing is easy, desirable and happily rewarding. As she neatly puts it, her approach offers “inspiration without the perspiration”.

Each half-hour episode features a guest and, before they arrive, she prepares a dish that she thinks they might appreciate. For the ABC’s Melbourne Breakfast radio host, Sammy J, it’s bircher muesli to kick-start his day; actress Pia Miranda gets anchovy butter to elevate her afternoon snacks; singer Anthony Callea scores a jazzed-up baked camembert to serve as a supper snack or a gooey treat when he entertains.

The guests arrive bearing something they’ve selected as special: Sammy J has an avocado; Miranda has artichokes, an Italian cuisine staple she loves; Callea has his mother’s recipe book because he’s tried, without success, to replicate her meatballs. As the host and her guests cook up dishes together utilising these contributions in their respective episodes, Zaslavsky shares a wealth of hacks and tips, and suggests possible substitutions to accommodate allergies, intolerances or aversions.

Early episodes are productively packed with advice including how to crack an egg to avoid getting shell in the bowl, reasons for using pasta cooking water in the sauce and the advantages of wet-frying mushrooms. Then there’s easy avocado stone removal, use of basil as a pest controller and why leftover juice from the pickle jar should be retained.