‘‘Food Changed My Life’’: The Chef Jeff Project and the Politics of Rehabilitative Cooking Shannon L. Holland & David R. Novak As one of the most popular entertainment genres in the US, food media continues to attract significant attention from communication and cultural critics. In an effort to complicate conversations regarding the relationship among food media, identity construction, and power, this paper examines Food Network’s reality-based series, The Chef Jeff Project (TCJP). TCJP is a seemingly ‘‘groundbreaking’’ series featuring ex-con turned chef Jeff Henderson who attempts to change the lives of ‘‘at risk’’ youth through the power of food. We argue that, despite its altruistic appearance, TCJP appropriates normative politics surrounding kitchen culture, ‘‘good taste,’’ and food service in ways that reinforce participants’ Otherness, the privileged normalcy of their clientele, and the viewing audience. We argue that TCJP represents the evolving subgenre ‘‘rehabilitative cooking,’’ a form of makeover media that aims to normalize so-called ‘‘at-risk’’ subjects through highly supervised unpaid (or underpaid) culinary labor under the guise of philanthropy. Keywords: Rehabilitative cooking; Food media; Reality television; Culinary tourism; Otherness I was born in the hood. Without purpose. I started to sell drugs. I went to prison. In the prison kitchen I found my dream and my purpose in life. (Jeff Henderson) During the 1980s, Jeff Henderson ran a lucrative crack-cocaine operation, netting approximately $35,000 weekly on the streets of San Diego. At age 24, Henderson was arrested and served over ten years in prison. 1 While incarcerated, he worked in the Dr. Shannon L. Holland (Ph.D., University of Georgia) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Clemson University. Dr. David R. Novak (Ph.D., Ohio University) is an assistant professor in the Department of Media and Communication at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The authors wish to thank the editors, the anonymous reviewers, Ms. Leslie Thornton and Mr. Paul Novak for their help in developing this essay. The authors are listed alphabetically on this manuscript as both view each other as equal co-authors. Prior versions of this manuscript were rejected from presentation at NCA, ICA, and CSCA but was accepted for presentation at the 2012 NCA Conference in Orlando, FL. Correspondence may be directed to either Dr. Shannon L. Holland at hollands28@gmail.com or Dr. David R. Novak at novak@eshcc.eur.nl ISSN 1529-5036 (print)/ISSN 1479-5809 (online) # 2013 National Communication Association http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2012.693939 Critical Studies in Media Communication Vol. 30, No. 1, March 2013, pp. 3451