FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | CHEF CHARLES KNIGHT MARKS MORE THAN 55 YEARS
CHEF CHARLES KNIGHT MARKS MORE THAN 55 YEARS OF COOKING, TELEVISION AND COOKWARE INNOVATION
Health Craft founder's career spans waterless cooking, WFLA-TV, Food Network's Jack Can't Cook, Chef Tell and five major cooking publications
TAMPA, FL — Chef Charles Knight, founder of Health Craft Cookware, has spent more than 55 years combining cookware, culinary education, television and publishing to teach consumers a different approach to preparing food.
Knight entered the cookware industry in Rahway, New Jersey, in 1970, beginning with the face-to-face cooking demonstrations that were once a cornerstone of America's direct-sales cookware industry.
Those demonstrations eventually became the foundation for a career that would take Knight from customers' kitchens to cooking schools, television studios, nationally distributed programming and cookbook publishing.
The business Knight began ultimately evolved into Health Craft Cookware. Federal trademark records document commercial use of the HEALTH CRAFT cookware brand beginning in 1983, while Florida corporate records document the company's subsequent establishment in Tampa.
Knight's culinary specialty became waterless and greaseless cooking—teaching consumers to use controlled temperatures and properly designed cookware to prepare vegetables with little unnecessary added water and many meats without unnecessary added cooking fat.
FROM LIVE DEMONSTRATIONS TO TELEVISION
Knight recognized early that the cookware demonstration was ideally suited to television.
By 1987, Charles and his wife, LeAnn Knight, were producing long-form Health Craft television presentations. A surviving production from that period is preserved in Health Craft's archives as the company's first infomercial.
Knight subsequently became associated with legendary Tampa broadcaster Jack Harris and WFLA-TV Channel 8, appearing as a cooking personality on Harris & Co. LIVE.
That relationship led to one of the most unusual projects of Knight's television career:
JACK CAN'T COOK
Featuring Jack Harris and Chef Charles Knight, Jack Can't Cook aired in association with Food Network and NBC/WFLA-TV.
The production was developed as a 13-week continuing infomercial cooking series, combining entertainment, recipes, cooking instruction and cookware demonstration in an episodic format rather than relying on a single long-form commercial.
Knight identifies Jack Can't Cook, based on the program's production history, as the first 13-week infomercial television series of its kind.
The series represented a natural evolution of the cookware cooking show: taking the educational and entertaining techniques developed through years of live demonstrations and adapting them to episodic television.
IN THE KITCHEN WITH CHEF TELL
Knight's television career also brought him together with pioneering celebrity chef Friedemann Paul Erhardt, better known to American audiences as Chef Tell.
The two became friends and professional collaborators, working together on television cooking programs, culinary demonstrations and Health Craft projects.
Their work included In the Kitchen with Chef Tell, associated with the PAX television network.
Chef Tell's combination of professional culinary skill, humor and television showmanship became an important influence on Knight's own approach to cooking television.
FIVE MAJOR COOKING PUBLICATIONS
Knight subsequently preserved decades of culinary experience through an extensive body of cooking and instructional material.
His major publications include:
• The Better Health Cookbook
• Healthy Meat and Potatoes
• A Guide to Waterless Cooking and Greaseless Cooking for Better Health
• In the Kitchen with Chef Tell
• Cooking for a Longer, Healthier Life
The books range from traditional American recipes prepared using healthier techniques to detailed instruction in waterless and greaseless cooking.
A Guide to Waterless Cooking and Greaseless Cooking for Better Health serves as a comprehensive instructional resource covering cookware use, temperature control, the vapor-seal method and adapting conventional recipes to waterless and greaseless preparation.
In the Kitchen with Chef Tell preserves another important element of Knight's television and culinary career, while Cooking for a Longer, Healthier Life reflects the broader health philosophy that eventually developed from his decades of work with food and consumers.
FOUR PILLARS OF HEALTHIER LIVING
Over time, Knight's culinary philosophy expanded beyond cookware.
He developed what he calls the Four Pillars of Living a Longer, Healthier Life:
The air you breathe.
The water you drink.
The food you eat.
And a deep, restful night's sleep.
That philosophy helped expand Health Craft from its cookware roots into a broader healthy-living company.
MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY
Knight's career provides a bridge between several generations of American cooking and product demonstration.
He began with face-to-face cookware cooking shows in 1970.
He moved those demonstrations onto local television.
He helped develop long-form television cookware presentations.
He co-hosted Jack Can't Cook with Jack Harris.
He worked with Chef Tell.
And he carried his cooking methods into books, instructional videos and today's digital media.
More than 55 years after entering the cookware industry, Chef Charles Knight remains active as a chef, author, educator and founder of Health Craft Cookware.
The technology has changed dramatically since 1970.
Knight's fundamental philosophy has not:
Show people how it works. Teach them why it works. Let the results speak for themselves.
That philosophy continues to support the mission that has come to define his career: