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Some chefs dream of hosting their own cooking show one day. The Gordon Ramseys, Rachael Rays and Martha Stewarts of the world are tough competition. Jennifer Garner just stumbled onto a cooking show when she started posting her “Pretend Cooking Show.” Now, fans want Garner to host a real, televised version of it, but Garner says no. 

Jennifer Garner
Jennifer Garner | Chelsea Guglielmino/Getty Images

However, Garner is helping feed kids during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. She started Save with Stories with Amy Adams to provide food for kids who are not getting lunch with schools shut down. Other celebrities have joined them in reading stories on Instagram. So she’s busy enough without launching another TV show!

Jennifer Garner’s ‘Pretend Cooking Show’ from Instagram to YouTube 

Garner posted her first “Pretend Cooking Show” on Instagram on Dec. 20, 2017. She started adding videos to her Garnerish YouTube channel on March 2, 2019. The longest episode is five minutes, but most are two to three minutes. She has no ambition to do a half hour or hour long show, or even to put on clothes and makeup for a studio taping.

When Garner did a Facebook Live show with Martha Stewart in 2019, a fan asked her about making her “Pretend Cooking Show” a real show. She let the fan down gently too.

“No, thank you,” Garner said. “I like doing a three or four minute version in my pajamas at my house and I like being here but no, that’s probably as far as I should go.”

LIVE with Martha and Jennifer Garner as they create recipes from our new summer issue!

Posted by Martha Stewart on Monday, July 16, 2018

Jennifer Garner’s greatest recipes

If you’ve followed Garner’s “Pretend Cooking Show” since 2017, you’ve collected a lot of handy recipes. Garner has made chocolate chip bread, English muffins, bagels, soft pretzels, pumpkin bread, chicken chili, pizza, smoothies, granola bars, fish sticks, salad, chocolate pudding, ice cream and much more. 

Garner also makes her own line of baby food. She told Stewart about her Once Upon a Farm baby food that you can buy in stores. 

“It’s the first cold pressed, organic, non GMO, no sugar added, everything good that you would want to feed your baby [food],” Garner told Stewart. “When you make your baby’s food homemade and you just don’t have time, this is as close to homemade as you can possibly find. And it’s in the refrigerated section.”

Real cooking shows are what she wants to watch, not produce

Perhaps the real reason Garner won’t expand “Pretend Cooking Show” is that it would ruin cooking shows for her. She told Rachael Ray once that she would rather be a viewer than a host.

Pretend Cooking Show Host Jennifer Garner
Jennifer Garner | BG004/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

“I am a geeky fan of cooking shows,” Garner told Rachael Ray. “I have 30 minute meals, I watch them with my kids, I watch them on my own. If I’m going to watch TV, that’s what I find relaxing.” 

Even Ray encouraged Garner to do a real show, even though that would make Garner Ray’s competition. Garner was modest.

“I don’t know enough to have my own cooking show, I really don’t,” she said. “I like a three and a half minute cooking show that I do with my friend in my kitchen and an iPhone, and it’s done. She makes it funny and cute.”

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