The site is located about four miles east of the small North Idaho town of Viola on Moscow Mountain. The mountain gets it's name from the town of Moscow about ten miles south where the University of Idaho is located. Warren Wright, the executive producer, and his wife Elaine have a beautiful home on eight timbered acres they built about five years ago. While constructing their home they built a small tent pad above the construction site where they could camp while building their house. 

The vast majority of cooking shows utilize indoor sets. Doing so eliminates such variables as external noise, weather, and provides uniform lighting.  But, because we use charcoal which yields carbon monoxide as a by product, our only choice was an outdoor set.

On an indoor set I'm sure the occasional insect may cause problems for a production crew, but with our outdoor set we took insect problems to a new level. On more than one occasion I have to wave away various flying insects or watch as a wasp goes after one of the camera folks. We've had folks stung during the production but never while we were rolling tape. 

In a studio, setting noise levels are easily controlled. At "Camp Wright" we end up waiting for aircraft, logging trucks etc., but....the show goes on! 

Weather can be our biggest problem of course. The first year after finishing the first eight shows we shot the 'Companion Video'. Things were rolling along but storm clouds threatened. The floor director told me as we started the third segment that if she gave me the 'cut' sign, I had 20 seconds to wrap it up. Sure enough, down came the pitter patter of rain drops and I received the 'throat cutting' motion and hurridly wrapped it up. As a result our tape ended up only 65 minutes long instead of the planned hour and a half. If you do have the tape look closely at the few seconds and you'll see the rain drops. At the price of TV cameras we couldn't afford to shoot in the rain. Several folks have commented they were disappointed they did not get to see the food I prepared in the first portion of the tape and so now you all know the reason.

I could go on forever telling production stories, but I'll save some for later updates! (Who knows we may be able to post some of the out takes on the web?!)

When we began looking for a site to shoot the shows, Warren suggested we check out his place. We paced around and checked several sites on the property but settled on he and Elaines original camp site. With very few modifications our 'set' was ready to go.

Besides our camping and cooking gear, the crew built a removable platform to set my prep table on and small elevated platforms for two of the camera people. After the shows are shot we roll up the cables, put the platforms in storage and "Camp Wright" is restored to it's original condition until shooting time rolls around again