There’s a new cooking show starting on TV tomorrow night. It promises to turn up the pressure on 16 Canadian chefs who test their cooking skills, stamina, and ability to handle stress and manage their egos as they attempt to outlast each other in an intense series of cooking competitions.

The Pressure Cooker pits the chefs against each other in a series of cooking competitions designed by chef Mark Walpole that require them to create specific dishes from mystery boxes of ingredients in very short time frames. To add to the excitement for viewers, the chefs wear wireless heart monitors that record their stress levels. The elimination-style format of the show gradually whittles the starting line-up down to two chefs who compete in a final grueling cook off.

The Tasting Judges – chefs Mark Picone, Cornelia Volino and Tawfik Shehata – are a demanding trio whose job is to taste, critique and score the dishes. Their standards are high and they aren’t afraid to voice their opinions, in no uncertain terms.

Kitchen Judges monitor the competing chefs’ performances as they prepare the dishes. They are tasked with eliminating chefs from the losing teams.

As a representative of one of the sponsoring organizations – Egg Farmers of Ontario – I was present for some of the week-long taping of the show which took place at Niagara Culinary Institute in Niagara-on-the-Lake in July. Judging by what I saw then, the show promises to be very entertaining. I don’t know the final outcome; that was kept very hush-hush! However, the show’s producer, Alan Aylward of Forevergreen Communications Inc., says he couldn’t have scripted the ending to be more exciting.

You can see a trailer of The Pressure Cooker at www.thepressurecooker.tv.

The hour-long show will air on Sunday (Nov. 2) at 10 p.m. on SUN TV and on Men TV Monday (Nov. 3) at 7 a.m., noon and 7 p.m. It runs for 9 episodes.

There will be an online component to the show where visitors to The Pressure Cooker’s website – www.pressurecooker.tv – are invited to answer trivia questions to win prizes.

Enjoy!