Guide dog owner Alex Pepper is set to appear on the new series of Ready Steady Cook, which returns to BBC1 after ten years off our TV screens.
Ready Steady Cook returns with a new host, Rylan Clark-Neal, and promises to feature new challenges such as cooking on a budget and eating healthily, managing food waste, and feeding the whole family to put the next generation of chefs through their culinary paces.
In each episode two contestants are each paired up with a chef, going head to head in the famous Ready Steady Cook kitchen.
Alex, who is the face of the recent Guide Dogs campaign “By My Side”, will team up with chef Mike Reid to compete against Alex’s cousin, Joe Pepper, who is also visually impaired, and chef Romy Gill.
Alex uses a number of kitchen gadgets to assist with cooking, including stickers to locate the centre of hobs and a beeping device to fill pans.
Taking part in Ready Steady Cook was an amazing experience! Rylan and the team were so welcoming and seemed genuinely interested in how I navigate the kitchen.
It was a great opportunity to demonstrate how blind and partially sighted people can cook just like anyone else, and the producers spent a lot of time asking me what tools, tips and tricks I use that I thought people at home would be interested in.
Alex Pepper, guide dog owner
The show’s new host Rylan Clark-Neal praised Alex’s ability, saying: “Alex unbelievable in the kitchen. He wasn’t treated any differently to any other contestant. The first thought I had was, ignorantly, how is he going to get on with the chopping? How is he going to get on with the gas hob? Is it going to be dangerous? Absolutely not, because there’s little things we learnt from him.”Alex was treated for retinoblastoma (cancer) twice as child and has been paired with his guide dog River since 2017.
