Season 2
Cooked is a South African travel and cooking television series created by Justin Bonello and produced by Cooked In Africa Films in which Bonello and friends go on an adventure around South Africa cooking simple but delicious meals in sometimes very surprising circumstances.
The series premiered in South Africa on DStv's BBC Food channel (which later became BBC Lifestyle) on Tuesday 18 April 2006, at 21h00. It later aired on TopTV's Top One channel. See "Seasons" below for seasonal broadcast dates and times.
Season 2 - entitled Cooked: Weekends Away - originally aired on BBC Food from 13 July to 5 October, 2007, on Fridays at 19h30. New episodes broadcast weekly. There are 13 episodes in the second season.
Season 2
South African host Justin Bonello and his motley crew are loading up the combi once again for a second season of Cooked - the cooking, eating, travelling and jolling show.
After the success of the first series, Cooked: Weekends Away is still all about the joy of food shared with friends but this time the troops travel further afield - including to Namibia.
Once again they're out to find fresh, local ingredients and create uncomplicated but tasty dishes.
For Justin, who is a self-trained cook (he is not, he stresses, a 'chef' which he sees as someone more to do with restaurants and reputation than to do with simple enthusiasm for cooking and eating together), this is a chance to build on the knowledge and experience he gained from Season 1.
The journey starts in South Africa. The first four episodes include a relaxing weekend in a Pringle Bay beach house, a houseboat on the Langebaan Lagoon, a boys fishing trip on the Breede River and a stay in the Cedarberg treetops.
Dishes include abalone baked in seaweed, pan-fried mullet, ravioli stuffed with mussels, jaffles (toasted sandwiches), 'drunken' birds and the wonderfully named, Tarzan roast (lamb on a vertical spit).
Then it's away upcountry taking in a river trip with Unite Brothers and Fish River Canyon along the way before crossing the border into the extraordinary landscape of Namibia.
Here they go off the beaten track to the Kolmanskuppe Ghost Town near Luderitz for a seafood poitjie, inland to Klein Aus Vista to check out the feral horses and on to the red dunes of the Sousassvlei for, amongst other things, chicken in a bucket.
Then there's a hot air balloon ride after which Justin cooks and eats his national emblem (that's a springbok).
The season is rounded off with some truly memorable South African places and food including a 'smiley' (a sheep's head) in the vibrant Cape Town township of Gugulethu and strandloper kos (beachcomber food), a prison breakfast and a crab curry on Robben Island.
Seasons
Season 1 (13 episodes)
Channel: BBC Food | Premiere: 18 Apr 2006 | Finale: 11 Jul 2006 | Tuesdays, 21h00
Channel: Top One | Premiere: 5 Jun 2011 | Finale: 28 Aug 2011 | Sundays, 18h30
Season 2 (13 episodes)
Channel: BBC Food | Premiere: 13 Jul 2007 | Finale: 5 Oct 2007 | Fridays, 19h30
Season 3 (13 episodes)
Channel: BBC Lifestyle | Premiere: 12 Jan 2009 | Finale: 23 Feb 2009 | Mondays, 18h30
Season 4 (13 episodes)
Channel: SABC3 | Premiere: 1 Oct 2011 | Finale: 24 Dec 2011 | Saturdays, 16h30