Cooking With Rockstars to Return

What do you get when you mix rock stars and culinary tips? “Cooking with Rockstars,” a web show that’s been thawed like the proverbial frozen caveman and released into the modern world of online video. The show, which is pretty well described by its name, featured John Vanderslice, Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis, Rufus Wainwright and Ben Gibbard over the years.

Originally titled “The Jenville Show,” it was produced starting in 2003 by popular O’Reilly author Jennifer Niederst Robbins. At the time, she had to host her own video and had a viewership in the dozens. Now, she doesn’t have to worry about the bandwidth bill she’ll get if the innerwebs descend on her interview with Jack Black all at once.

Thanks to better video sharing technology from sites like Revver, the show can reach a mass audience and presumably help with the expenses of raising her son Arlo at their home in Providence, Rhode Island. It’s quite the talented family — Robbins’ brother Liam Lynch is a musician and web video producer in his own right; her husband is well versed in Drupal, and has been tasked with building out the new backend for the show site to add things like community features and RSS feeds; and Arlo does a pretty good Freddy Mercury impersonation.

“First of all, you find out so much about people as people when you talked to them about food,” she explained over sodas at the Downtown Austin Hilton. “If they do get on Letterman, they don’t get to talk. You never hear them talk, there’s no forum for that.”

Robbins’ plans include both more “Cooking with Rockstars” episodes, as well as a brand new series, “Parenting with Rockstars.” Now those are some feeds NewTeeVee can’t wait to subscribe to!