Kickstart This: The Farm Is A Public Television Food Show With Meat On Its Bones

For nine years Ian Knauer was the food editor at Gourmet and co-hosted the magazine's two award-winning television shows, Diary of a Foodie and Adventures with Ruth. (He also wrote about hunting and cooking groundhogs for Food Republic in our early days.) So when Knauer makes the bold claim that food television is in a state of disrepair, we know it's coming from a pretty legitimate source. "Reality contests and bubble-head hosts are great for entertainment, but where can we turn to learn about food, cooking and living well?" he asks. But instead of answering the question with a long opinion piece on the Huffington Post, Knauer is letting actions speak louder than words with his Public television show, The Farm.

The series, which is already shot and partially edited, will air as 13 half-hour episodes. Each episode is broken into three cooking segments featuring easy-to-follow recipes using farm-fresh ingredients from your own backyard or your local market. Episodes will focus on concepts like bee keeping and growing your own hops for home brew. Knauer has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise crucial funds for the final leg of production — including closed captioning and mastering. As Knauer says, "television is expensive!" The prizes are pretty great too, including a private cooking lesson and a guest cameo on a future episode. If you're a fan of quality food television programming, that's like buying a Seinfeld walk-on.

Kickstarter: The Farm TV Show