A Chicago Area Contestant on What It's Like to Be on 'The Great American Recipe'

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On Monday, June 19 at 8:00 pm on WTTW and streaming via the PBS Video app, nine home cooks from across the country gather to share their recipes in a second season of The Great American Recipe. While the show is nominally a competition, it’s also about showing off the stories behind recipes and celebrating the culinary traditions that thrive in American communities and homes.

Ted Pappas is a contestant from Western Springs who grew up in Chicago’s Greek community. A “semi-retired” architect, he began really devoting his time to cooking for his family during the pandemic. We spoke to him about the experience of being on The Great American Recipe, why he wanted to share his recipes, and what he learned.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

How was filming the show?

It was a blast. The other home cooks made it just that much better because it was such camaraderie. Everybody's so different, but when you hear the stories and what food means to you, what cooking means to you, it was all eerily familiar, which is really kind of cool.

What does food mean to you? How did you learn to cook?

I'm just a dad who loves to cook for his family: my wife and two daughters. [I] love sharing some of the history of recipes that was passed down in my family, because my mom was the cook in our house. She is a second-generation Greek immigrant. My dad came over in the late sixties as an adult. For me, cooking was stuff that was passed down, that either my mom learned from her grandmother, or recipes that my dad's mom would give to my mom.

I grew up on the Northwest Side, in Edison Park. My father was a laborer, worked in factories. My mom was a secretary. We didn't eat out. My mom always made food. Even when she went back to work as we got a little bit older, she always made dinner. I wanted to share what my mom cooked and did for me and my family with my kids.

On my mom's side, we had a few restaurants in the Chicagoland area over the years, most of it before I was born. I think I was five or six when we sold the last restaurant, a breakfast/lunch place in Edison Park. It was about entertaining people and taking care of people, and that was my grandfather’s philosophy. He would take care of other Greek immigrants coming over, and he would help them out.

Do you mainly cook Greek food?

That's a big part of what I cook. My mom cooked primarily Greek stuff, but she would try different things. In the past year and a half, I've expanded to more than just Greek or Mediterranean cooking. I like to try different recipes. I love trying to copycat recipes from restaurants that we go to and try to do it myself.

One of the things I really enjoyed about being on the show and meeting the other home cooks was hearing about their recipes and seeing how similar a lot of these dishes are. Yes, you can have different spices and different flavors, but a lot of it is very similar, which makes it fun to try new dishes.

Do you have a family specialty or your own specialty?

I’ve got a couple of Greek dishes that I’ll pull out. For an everyday meal, Greek kebabs. Certain other dishes are more of a Sunday dinner-type thing: a pastitsio, which is a savory meat sauce and béchamel sauce in a casserole dish. [Editor's note: Try a recipe for pastitsio from America's Test Kitchen.] Every time I make them, I have my notes section for my recipes: I did this a little bit different, or the heat was a little bit lower this time. And it’s fun to see how it changes and makes it better over time.

Did you learn any new techniques or anything from being on the show?

I definitely learned how to up my flavor profile. I've never had any professional training. So being on the show really helped me look at how I was flavoring food to make sure that I got the best end product, when it came to salting properly, or making sure that I did things in the proper order. Since the show, I've expanded on that. And it's been a ton of fun to see how my dishes have evolved since I first started posting on social media back in late 2020.

What was it like to cook under pressure?

My daughters call it “nerve-cited,” like nervous and excited. Your stove isn’t exactly what you’re used to, the placement of your utensils is not in the exact spot. But it was also exciting because, as you and everybody are finishing these dishes, you’re like, “Boy, this is awesome! I just created this!”

Even now at home, since the show, when I cook whatever I cook, I’m like, “I can cook that in 60 minutes or 90 minutes or whatever.” I kind of use that as a baseline to go off of now.

Did you enjoy spending time with the other contestants?

I don’t hang out with people who are just cooking. So it was fun to be able to talk about what we do at home with our families and how we cook. Talking about food with other foodies, people who love to cook and people who have experimented and grown their own home cooking through what was passed down and what they've tried as amateur home cooks totally helped me change up my cooking game.

We have our group text chat and we share stuff about our families and what’s going on in our lives and little successes that we’re having. It’s so fun to be able to have that new extended family.

Ted Pappas shared a recipe he made on the show, for pork souvlakia and tzatziki. Try it here.