Plucked annually to offer the latest tips and trends for a delicious holiday meal, these culinary gurus represent some of the best talent in the kitchen. The 2007 Talkin’ Turkey Council is:

Spokesperson Curtis Aikens
Curtis Aikens has educated and entertained food lovers since 1988.  Curtis hosted several notable shows on television’s Food Network including “Pick of the Day,” “From My Garden,” “Meals Without Meat,” and “Food in a Flash.”  He has been a regular cast member of ABC's “Good Morning America,” dispensing food-related advice and creative, healthful recipes. Curtis has hundreds of television credits including appearances on CNN, “Oprah,” “Entertainment Tonight,” “NBC Nightly News,” “ABC World News Tonight,” “Regis and Kathy Lee,” “The Queen Latifah Show,” “TheToday Show,” “CBS Good Day,” “Donny and Marie,” “The Jane Pauley Show” and many more, as well as dozens
of other local network affiliate appearances. He has been a featured columnist in local and national print media, and is the author of Curtis Cooks With Heart and Soul (Hearst Books), as well as Garden Grocer's Guide to the Harvest and Curtis Aikens' Guide to the Harvest (Peachtree Publishers).


Cat Cora
In 2005, Cat Cora made television history on Food Network's Iron Chef America as the first and only female Iron Chef, and in November 2006 Bon Appetit magazine bestowed her with their Teacher of the Year Award. That month, she was honored with another great culinary distinction when she was named executive chef of the magazine. Cat made her TV debut in 1999, as co-host of Food Network’s “Melting Pot” with Rocco Di Spirito. She went on to host “My Country My Kitchen: Greece,” “Date Plate,” and was one of the featured hosts on Fine Living’s “Simplify Your Life.” A documentary, “Cat’s In The Kitchen” was also made about her first James Beard dinner in April 2002.  In 2006, Cat appeared alongside Wolfgang Puck in NBC’s primetime miniseries, “Celebrity Cooking Showdown,” where celebrities were paired with famous chefs and competed in a timed cook-off à la “Iron Chef.” Outside of the kitchen, Cat is known for her philanthropy. She is president and founder of Chefs for Humanity, an organization which was founded in response to the 2004 Tsunami disaster. In addition to this, she recently became the nutritional spokesperson for UNICEF.


Michael Schulson
Michael Schulson is the host of the new series “Pantry Raid” on the Style Network. The former executive chef of Buddakan New York, Schulson’s unique menu incorporated time-honored Japanese culinary techniques into Buddakan’s modern taste.  His culinary training began in New York but has extended around the world. He has experienced and learned diverse cuisines in Europe, Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong and Indonesia. Upon graduation from the Culinary Institute of America, Schulson made cooking stops at New York’s Waldorf Astoria and Peacock Alley, Philadelphia’s five-star Le Bec Fin and Steven Starr’s Buddakan Philadelphia along with other top kitchens. He spent three years as the chef de cuisine at Buddakan Philadelphia before deciding to expand his cultural horizons. During an extraordinary nine-month culinary expedition throughout Japan, he studied Asian cooking and the Japanese language. Upon returning to the States, Steven Starr enlisted Schulson as the executive chef for his next Philadelphia venture, the futuristic Asian restaurant, Pod. Schulson has made recent guest appearances on “Live with Regis and Kelly,” “The Today Show” and “The CBS Early Show.”  He has also been a featured chef on the Discovery Channel’s “Go Ahead and Make My Dinner.”