CiCi Williamson recently ‘scored’ a ‘three-pointer’ of sorts--and it had nothing to do with shooting hoops. Specifically, on September 13 a TV show in which she was the host aired on public television, that show was based on a book she had authored, and the public TV fundraiser which aired during a ‘pledge break’ in the TV show included interviews with her about her show and her book--which was being offered for a fundraising pledge of $75.

Williamson is a technical information specialist with the Food Safety and Inspection Service and is one of the staffers on USDA’s toll-free Meat & Poultry Hotline. She is also the author of six cookbooks.

More recently, following over two years of on-site research, she authored a book titled “The Best of Virginia Farms--Cookbook & Tour Book.” “I used recipes, tours, interviews, essays, maps, and illustrations to tell the story of Virginia agriculture,” she explained. “And I’d like to think it spotlights the history and mystique that surround Virginia farming.”

She was subsequently approached by a producer for public television to turn her 308-page book into a feature for public TV, and she concurred. Titled “The Best of Virginia Farms with CiCi Williamson,” the show first aired in March 2003 on a public TV station based in Norfolk, Va., that services viewers in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. Following eleven additional airings in other parts of Virginia plus in West Virginia, on September 13 it aired on a public TV station based in Washington, DC that services viewers in the Washington metropolitan area.

The TV show spotlighted several recipes and rural, farm-oriented geographical sites that Williamson had already featured in her book. It included her interview with a chef at the Smithfield Inn in Smithfield, Va., as he prepared a dish of peanut-crusted pork chops with mushroom sauce; her interview with a chef at the Virginia Governor’s Mansion in Richmond as he prepared a dish of pan-seared rockfish with white-bean mustard sauce; her interview with a cook in The Plains, Va., as she prepared a dish of turkey and oysters in champagne sauce; and features on agriculture at such scenic spots in Virginia as Monticello and the Eastern Shore.

When Williamson wasn’t interviewing the chefs and cooks, she was offering food preparation and food safety tidbits to her viewing audience such as “A friend of mine used to say that ‘All mushrooms are edible--some only once’.”

Did she review in advance with her interview subjects the questions she planned to ask them on camera, or were they all ‘winging it’?

“Our conversations were all ad-lib,” she explained. “But we did rehearse the actual preparation of the food. It’s because they used three cameras to shoot the activities in the kitchens, and we needed to plan in advance which camera would be used, for instance, on the closeup shot when the chef stirred the food.”

And when she spoke directly to the camera herself, was she using a teleprompter or cue cards, or was it extemporaneous?

“It was all extemporaneous,” she said. “But that’s mainly because it isn’t practical to have teleprompters set up in kitchens. So I had to memorize all of my ‘intro’ material--and that was more difficult than writing the book in the first place!”

At the pledge drive held during the pause in the show’s airing, how much of the banter is rehearsed?

“Nothing was rehearsed,” she said. “The pledge drive typically begins with a wide shot panning the bank of phone volunteers. Just before that, they’d cue me to get out of my chair, stand up, and start talking with one of the head volunteer staffers.”

“That worked out well,” she continued, “because I wanted to get in some plugs about the current plight of agriculture and farming in Virginia--and I got away with it because they didn’t know what I was going to say in advance.”

Williamson’s publisher donated copies of her book, at cost, for use as pledge offerings. How many were subsequently purchased?

“To date, it’s over 1,000, from all thirteen airings of the show,” she said. Williamson added that she appreciated the fact that national TV personality--and Virginia farm owner--Willard Scott closed her TV show by urging viewers to obtain two copies of her book: one for the kitchen for cooking and one for the car for sightseeing around Virginia.

Williamson noted that a second show, which focuses on holiday-based recipes and geographic sites around Virginia from her book, is scheduled to air on ‘geographically appropriate’ PBS-TV stations this November. A third show is currently scheduled to air in March 2004.

In addition, she is the series editor for similar combination cookbooks and tour books in two other farm states in the publisher’s ongoing series. Those manuscripts are titled “The Best of Texas Farms” and “The Best of Oregon Farms.” She said it’s conceivable that there may be similar public TV features based on those books, and that they would air in those states, as appropriate.

“And, if I’m part of a public TV fundraising effort in those states,” she quipped, “I want to tell those viewers the same thing I told the viewers on September 13: ‘Y’all call!’” •