Metro Detroit Chef Johnny Prep Wins Telly Award and Philo Award
Local chef earns national recognition for “Soup! & Co.” cooking show on Bloomfield Community Television.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 7, 2014
CONTACT: Your:People 248:225:5936, karen@yourppl.com
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. --- “Soup! & Company” on Bloomfield Community Television, a cooking show hosted by Bloomfield Hills chef John Prepolec – a.k.a. Chef Johnny Prep - received two national awards.
Johnny Prep and director, Steve Rota, received a Bronze at the 34th annual Telly Awards for excellence and creativity in broadcasting for their work on “Soup! & Company.” Since 1979, the Telly Awards have honored outstanding local, regional and cable TV commercials and programs. The “Soup! & Company” episode, titled “Pot Roast Sliders and Onion Soup,” was among 11,000 entries submitted from across the nation.
Prepolec and Rota also earned first place in the Best Series category of the Philo Awards, which recognize the best public access programming in a multi-state region. Michigan is part of the central region, which also includes Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky.
Chef Johnny Prep, a soup enthusiast and professional soup developer, has developed recipes for Zoup! Fresh Soup Co. and currently serves as its national spokesman. He is a diverse chef dedicated to improving our nation’s health – by teaching children about nutrition and by showing adults how to cook healthy, and tastefully, on a budget.
In 2011, he founded a non-profit called Quality for Kids and since then, he has hosted Veggie Wars, a middle school curriculum that pits student teams against each other in a healthy-cooking contest.
“Cooking is really pretty simple, and you have to approach it that way, with a good attitude and understanding of the basics,” says Prep. “When we make cooking out to be something overwhelming and only for the pros, we really do ourselves a disservice.”
After a 27-year-career in business, Prep decided to turn his lifelong passion for cooking and fine food into a career. He tries to make his TV show “instructive, to teach people how to cook, in a teaching style everyone can access easily.”
Says Director Steve Rota, “Chef Johnny knows what he’s talking about and he’s camera-friendly. Food has a big impact. People love cooking shows --- it doesn’t matter what he’s preparing. If it’s food, people are interested.”
Since the age of six, Prep has learned the art of cooking by some gastronomy greats --- from his mother, a Croatian immigrant who taught him traditional country cooking, to notable certified master chefs like Milos Chelkha, Dan Hugelier, Jeff Gabriel, Joseph Decker, and Ed Janos.
The Johnny Prep brand of culinary media, products and programs is driven by an entrepreneurial chef’s passion for making good food and teaching everyday people how to make good food, full of flavor, at home. Johnny Prep’s mission is driven by the understanding that preparing food at home is the key to nutrition and health, and getting back to the basics of simple food, prepared with heart, is the only way to be truly healthy. Learn more at www.johnnyprep.net.
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