This is LaDonna Tittle. As the host of “Cookin Wit Tittle” on CAN 19, she’s been a fixture of Chicago Public Access for many years now. Ostensibly the host of a soul food cooking show, she’s actually more of a tour guide through the absurd, culinary and otherwise.
Julia Child probably wouldn’t smoke during a show, or for that matter, consume several glasses of white wine during one either. It’s a good thing she’s not here to see Tittle. In addition to her boozing and Krusty the Clown voice, Tittle also feels the need to wear an over-sized chef’s hat during every episode. She usually hosts the program with a special guest; past co-hosts have included Executive Chefs, noted jazz musicians and a yuppie couple she met on the El. Once she wanted to grill while it was raining out, so LT broadcast from her building’s back stairwell (communal umbrella stand squarely in the shot.)
LaDonna Tittle is a master of editing, and content selection in general. She’s quite fond of 1980’s in-Camcorder tricks, usually the 360-degree rotating screen or exploding star fade-in. Once, during a segment where she was co-hosting with a jazzman she referred to as “Big Joe”, there were several randomly placed cutaways to a large zucchini. Another time, the last ten minutes of her show were devoted to an elderly male stripper’s routine (to a reggae version of “Hot Stuff”) she recorded while on vacation in Negril. It’s like Pee Wee’s Playhouse on Night Train, basically. I swear she’s shown us how to make a mixed greens salad at least twenty times, and never all the way through. But clearly, that’s not the point.
