Meet the crew of "Big Ten Cookout"
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| Prior to hosting Big Ten Cookout this season Melanie Collins worked for Turner Broadcasting. Collins covered the 2009 NBA All-Star weekend in Phoenix as well as the 2009 NBA Playoffs. Collins served as a host for NBA-TV and NBA.com covering special events and features for the website as well as for the broadband channel TNT Overtime. In addition to NBA coverage, Collins hosted segments on Nascar.com as well as PGA.com and PGAtour.com. Before joining NBA-TV, Collins served as a host and reporter for the Big Ten Network. She was a beat reporter for Penn State Football and gave weekly postgame reports from the field as well as updates from press conferences. In addition, Collins hosted the on-campus programming show "Penn State Universe." Collins also spent two years as a host and reporter for WPSU-TV during her Junior and Senior years of college. She was a host on the weekly shows ""Let's Talk Sports Nittany Lion Fans"" and ""Huddle Up"". She also served as the networks sideline reporter for Penn State football, basketball and baseball. Collins' on-air career started her sophomore year of college, when she worked as a host for AccuWeather.com and the AccuWeather channel, giving weather reports for over 150 U.S. Cities. Collins is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University where she majored in Sports Broadcasting and minored in Kinesiology. |
Chef Julius serves as owner of A Tale of Two Chefs and Executive Chef for Kehe Food Distributors. Chef Julius' culinary training began at the age of eight under the careful guidance of his mother. After college, he began to build a corporate career, while continuing to hone his culinary skills. After successfully climbing the ranks, Mr. Russell left his Executive Sales Management position to pursue his passion as a Private Chef. Over the past decade Chef Julius has continued his culinary education stateside at the New Orleans School of Cooking and in Paris with Princess Marie Blanche de Broglie at La Cuisine Marie Blanche and Patrick Terrien at Le Cordon Bleu Academie d'Art Culinaire de Paris. In his work, Chef Julius consistently challenges the idea of what dining should be, often calling on his alter ego ""Chef Tiki"" to shake things up a bit. His ability to blend classic French, Spanish and Italian techniques with the flavorful influences of Cajun/Creole, Caribbean, Latin American and Asian cuisine is unmatched. His motto, ""The Flavor Leads"" speaks to his passion for blending global cuisines to create innovative dishes that transcend region. As a Private Chef, Chef Julius he accommodates the culinary needs of celebrities, as well as, prominent Chicagoans, providing in home dining and elaborate dinners of parties 2 to 50. In addition, A TALE OF TWO CHEFS provides specialty catering and menu design for corporate clients such as, Goodman Theater, N'Digo Magapaper, Jewel-Osco, NBC5 Chicago, Christian CEO's of America, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Schnucks, Giant Eagle and MillerCoors, Inc. Chef Julius serves as Executive Chef of Kehe Food Distributors, an employee-owned company, headquartered on a 1 million square foot campus in Romeoville, IL, distributing specialty, gourmet, natural & organic, Kosher and ethnic foods to more than 12,000 retail customers in 49 states, Mexico, and the Caribbean. As Executive Chef, he works in partnership with Kehe Executive Management to create innovative product development and sales programs for the 40,000+ products in the Kehe catalog. He is responsible for the culinary execution for all of Kehe's corporate events. Chef Julius' major appearances include the Bloomingdales Home Store ""Cooking with Heat"" Series, The Chicago Tribune Printers Row Lit Fest, All Clad's ""Roast Like a Pro"", Jazz at Jewel Summer Series, Real Men Cook for Jewel Osco, Giant Eagle's Food & Wine Show with The Food Network and the San Francisco Food & Wine Show. His commitment to philanthropy is demonstrated through his work with the American Diabetes Association, Chicago Public Schools ""Cooking Up Change"" Healthy Schools Campaign, Darfur Darfur, Umoja Student Development Corporation and the Firehouse Community Art Center. Chef Julius has been featured on The View, The Chicago Tribune, BET Networks, WGN, ABC, NBC, N'Digo, NBC's iVillage ""In the Loop"", Time Out Magazine and Chicago Sun-Times. |
Ben Walanka is a Chicago native born and raised. He spent three years of his high school career in Florida away from family but then moved back to Chicago for his senior year attending Deerfield High School in an attempt to be accepted to a big name school. Ben attended the Big Tens Indiana University in Bloomington, IN as a communication and culture major while also working as a dishwasher to support himself. It was working as a dishwasher in the Tudor Room (an upscale buffet on campus in the memorial union) where Ben realized his passion for food. In 2000 Ben moved back to Chicago and attended Kendall College School of Culinary Arts in Evanston, IL where he worked full time at Jacky's Bistro while maintaining the required work load for school. During his college career, Ben completed a six-month internship at the legendary French restaurant Le Francais located in Wheeling, IL where he was asked to stay on full time, eventually working all stations of the kitchen and earning his "wings" amongst his restaurant piers. After graduating from Kendall in 2002, Ben worked in such kitchens as the Everest Room, Marche and Bistro 110. He most recently worked as Chef of the Club at Symphony Center, a member's only fine dining room in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra cooking for major donors of the CSO, while also holding the title of Sous Chef at Rhapsody Restaurant. Both establishments operated by well known Blue Plate Catering, a Chicago based catering company which continues to set the bar amongst its competitors. Ben's culinary accomplishments include a 1st place finish in the 2006 Chaîne des Rôtisseurs under 27 young chef cooking competition. He also appeared as a contestant on the 5th season of "Hell's Kitchen" on Fox. Notable Media Hits:
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