Roger Mooking

Early life

Mooking was born in Trinidad into an extended family made up of food and beverage business providers. He moved to Canada at the age of five, and grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, where his parents were in the restaurant business. He has both Caribbean and Chinese ancestry. Mooking was introduced to European flavors by his mother, who prepared dishes from recipes passed on by her Ukrainian neighbors.

Chef

Mooking studied culinary arts at George Brown College of Hospitality and still continues to operate as the chair of the Professional Advisory Committee. Mooking worked at Toronto's Royal York Hotel before co-owning and consulting on many food and beverage operations in Ontario.

During his years as a restaurateur, Mooking was the Executive Chef/Co-Owner of Kultura Social Dining and Nyood Restaurant.

Television Appearances

Mooking is the host on two television shows, Heat Seekers and Man Fire Food. He is also the co-creator and host of Everyday Exotic, a television show in which he features spices and other flavor ingredients from around the globe and shows viewers how to use them in everyday cooking. As the main host of Man Fire Food on the Cooking Channel, Mooking travels around the U.S. exploring different ways to cook, using small campfires to creative custom-made grills and smokers. Mooking served as a recurring judge on Food Network's Chopped: Canada. He served as a judge on two episodes of season 10 Guy's Grocery Games.

Chef Mooking has also been the subject of an hour-long biography titled "Chefography" for Cooking Channel

Mooking has appeared The The Today Show, Good Morning America, Iron Chef America, Top Chef Canada, The Marilyn Denis Show (as the Culinary Expert), Wendy Williams, Martha Stewart Radio, Unique Eats, Williams Sonoma's Grilling Special, and Steven and Chris. Mooking has also made regular appearances at various food and wine festivals, including New York Food and Wine Festival and The Essence Music Festival.

Author

Mooking’s cookbook, "Everyday Exotic: The Cookbook", was published 2011, and garnering a Gourmand World Cookbook award. The book explains how to add unconventional ingredients to traditional dishes to experience the flavours developed by cultures from Asia to the Middle East, Europe, the Caribbean, and the Americas.

Recording Artist

During the 1990s, Mooking was a member of the soul trio, Bass Is Base. The band consisted of Chin Injeti on bass, Ivana Santilli on keyboards, and MC Mystic (Roger Mooking) on percussion. All three members contributed vocals, Injeti and Santilli as singers and Mystic as a rapper. In addition to the early single "Funkmobile", which garnered the band a deal with A&M Records, their debut album, First Impressions for the Bottom Jigglers, won a Juno Award in the Best R&B/Soul Recording category in 1995. A year later, the second consequential album, Memories of the Soul Shack Survivors, gave the band its first Top 20 hit, “I Cry.”

Mooking released his second solo album, "Feedback", in July 2013.

Discography

Charitable work

Mooking recently paired up with World Vision Canada and made a trip to Cambodia to exchange information and ideas about child nutrition, and to bring awareness to the issues of healthy food and clean water for families in all countries.

In Fall 2012, Mooking traveled to Bangladesh to visit nutrition-related programming run by Save the Children and to meet with community groups, medical clinics, and local families and explore ways to create sustainable health and nutrition programs so that successful concepts can be applied worldwide.

Mooking is also committed to Toronto-based charity Second Harvest, co-hosting its annual charity Toronto Taste, for providing rescued food to families in need.

Personal life

Mooking is married and has four daughters. He has claimed to have "never [cooked] the same thing twice."