“Somebody apparently Google searched ‘Dungeons & DragonsChef’ and I popped up,” Heroes’ Feast host Mike Haracz tells me. “So, they reached out and said, ‘Hey Chef Mike, we’re looking to do a cooking show based on the Heroes’ Feast cookbook, would you be interested?’ Absolutely.”
As part of the new Freevee D&D streaming channel, Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures, Matthew Lillard and Bill Rehor are launching Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill!, Brian David Judkins and Ned Donovon are expanding Encounter Party, and Chef Mike Haracz and Girls Guts Glory’s Sujata Day are bringingthe Heroes’ Fest cookbookto life in the form of a cooking show.
The format is pretty simple—they pick a recipe from the book and get cooking. There are also dice rolls for ingredients, giving the entire thing an extra flavour of D&D. But unlike many other cooking shows, there’s no shouting in the kitchen or competition, just a bunch of friends getting together to make some good grub. And first up among those friends is Matthew Lillard.
“The first thing Lillard decides to do is pull a real chef’s knife out of the knife block,” Haracz says. “Right out of the gate, it’s not at all surprising. A lot of the show is wrangling because we’re having such a good time. Every episode is super unique based on the guest, their energy, their cooking level.”
While the two knew a lot of the cast who appeared on the show, they themselves had never met before hosting. “I just met you on set that Friday,” Day says to Haracz. “I was really, really tired because I had just come from a full day of picketing and I was not at my highest energy levels. They wanted us to do a full run-through and I was like, ‘Sorry, man. That’s not happening today. I’ll bring the magic on the day when the cameras roll.’”
“Sujata Day,I better watch her movie, Definition Please, on Netflix, because I need to drop hints that I’ve watched the movie so that she thinks I’m awesome,” Haracz says. “On Monday when we first started, they’re like, ‘Keep our fingers crossed, let’s hope this is good.’ Within three seconds of us just being goofballs, I think it worked out just fine.”
It was their first time hosting and their first time on a cooking show. But the two were quick to get into the spirit of things, even creating their own ship name—Mikejata or Sike. “I think you’ll see a progression from the first episode to the last one, not only with Sujata’s skill level, but how we figure out how to be hosts to a show.”
“This was done before the Writer’s Strike, but it was a fully approvedSAGproduction, so no scripts or anything,” Haracz says. “For me, being a first timer, ‘Hey, Chef Mike! Cameras are rolling, time to host!’ We just kind of figured it out as we went along, which I think is pretty approachable for most people watching.”
“I havean improv background,” Day says. “I feel like I was coaching Mike a little bit. Don’t talk to the guests beforehand, things like that. He picked it up really well - he was a good student.”
Something clear about all of the shows coming to D&D Adventures is that the people behind them are incredibly passionate about the game and want nothing more than to prove how welcoming it can really be, breaking through the stigma that it’s an intensive, time consuming tabletop RPG that only diehard fans can enjoy. Heroes’ Feast is no different, but the pair also want people watching to see how similarly inviting cooking can be.
“As a non-cook myself, I think what’s fun is that I progress and get better and better as a cook each episode,” Day says. “I hope that’s inspiring to people to just get in the kitchen and experiment, to cut an onion correctly as opposed to the way I was cutting an onion before. The show makes cooking seem really fun and a communal experience.”
“It’s definitely the opposite of pretentious,” Haracz tells me. “Sujata does not like medium rare steak. She wants a well done steak. ‘That’s what you want, I’m going to make you the best well done steak I can possibly make. Here are some tips and tricks on how to do that.’ We changed the recipes up—we had a great running gag of, ‘Chef Mike, what if I put a little too much salt or pepper in it?’ And Sujata would say, ‘It’s not going to explode.’ It’s okay if you make a little mistake or it’s not cut just right. It’s the very opposite of a Gordon Ramsay yell-at-you-because-you-did-a-thing-wrong show.”
There are a whole variety of guests who appear, from Freddie Wong to Kelen Coleman to Ify Nwadiwe, but it wouldn’t be Heroes’ Feast without the cookbook’s writers, Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson, and Michael Witwer. All three make an appearance on the show as guests, bringing things full circle.
“After we filmed our regular episodes is when they filmed them talking about the lore and why they chose these recipes,” Haracz says. “I got to sit in a room, listening to these three ultra nerds—of which I’m included—talk about deep lore of Dungeons & Dragons, multiple editions previous to 5e, maybe this ingredient was imported because trade routes… just the nerdiest, awesome room to sit in. It was a privilege just to be a part of it and represent what they have done and keep that story going.”
The Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures channel is now live and the rollout schedule is as follows:
