See Todd Wilbur At Cleveland's Great Big Home + Garden Show!

Do you have a favorite restaurant meal? How would you like to be able to make that same meal at home? Todd Wilbur, a self-proclaimed "food hacker" can help you do just that. Armed with only an acute sense of taste and smell he spends hours and days dissecting and reverse-engineering famous foods in order to bring the best possible clone recipes to the masses.

Todd will be sharing some of his favorite recipes at The Great Big Home + Garden Show, presented by Carrier, on Thursday, February 12 and Friday, February 13. But before you see him at the show, get to know him a little better in our interview below.

Marketplace Events (MPE): If you weren't a cooking expert, what would you be?

• Todd Wilbur (Todd): "Underpaid TV News Reporter. Because that's what I was before this."

MPE: Have you had a "favorite moment" on your show? Tell us about it and what makes it so special.

• Todd: "When an old friend of Colonel Sanders whispered to me one secret ingredient in the chicken recipe. He thought it was a private moment but our cameras caught it all. This was on the pilot and it helped me land the series."

MPE: What inspires you?

• Todd: "Creative people with years and years of success, doing what they love."

MPE: What's one thing we wouldn't guess about you?

• Todd: "I won $65,000 in cash and prizes on a TV game show called Break The Bank. Lived off that for a year."

MPE: What's your go-to dish to serve at a dinner party?

• Todd: "Most likely any clone that I was hacking earlier that day."

Learn more about Todd by visiting his website and following him on Twitter and Facebook. Buy your tickets early to see him on the Main Stage during The Great Big Home + Garden Show! Right now you can get 2-for-1 tickets on our Facebook Ticket Deals.

FEBRUARY 6 - 15, 2015.
I-X CENTER

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Todd Wilbur Is Coming To The Birmingham Home + Remodeling Show

Author of Top Secret Recipes and professional "recipe hacker", Todd Wilbur has made a career out of figuring out the highly-guarded ingredients in popular fast food and restaurant recipes. Todd's tricks for securing information include feigned allergies to get ingredient lists from sympathetic wait staff and sneaking behind the scenes in restaurants to get a taste of the action. His first cookbook, Top Secret Recipes, hit the shelves and soon became a bestseller. He has gone on to write ten more cookbooks and is currently working on his eleventh.

Don't miss Todd at the Birmingham Home + Remodeling Show, September 26-28, at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex, where he'll be sharing some of his biggest and most popular dishes with audience members. But before you see if Todd really can copy some of the most famous dishes in America, enjoy our brief interview with him below.

Marketplace Events (MPE): What was the one recipe that was hardest for you to hack? Is there one that took more attempts or time than the others?

• Todd Wilbur (TW): "KFC Chicken because there are infinite ways to combine 11 herbs and spices. Also, the technique is one of KFC's best kept secrets. I have created three versions of that recipe over the years as I gather more information. I believe my most recent version is as close as anyone has ever gotten to duplicating the taste of the real thing."

MPE: What tips do you have for foodies to improve their palates? How can you get better at picking out ingredients by taste?

• TW: "It's important to understand how things are made. You need to be able to identify a wide range of ingredients and flavors. I run through a mental checklist of ingredients as I taste foods to identify what is used. I also ask servers for information on what is in the dish, and I have developed several techniques and tools to dissect and analyze dishes."

MPE: What is the most requested/asked about recipes from your books?

• TW: "KFC coleslaw. It is the number one search term that brings people to our website."

MPE: You've done so many books and recipes, are there any that are currently on your bucket list to figure out?

• TW: "My top three are Butterfinger, Fig Newtons, and Bush's Baked Beans."

MPE: What are your favorite ingredients to cook with at home?

• TW: "Butter and bacon."

Make sure to see Todd at the Birmingham Home + Remodeling Show on the Fresh Ideas Stage Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Grab your tickets online to get the best deals - right now you can get two for the price of one when you like our Facebook page. We can't wait to see you there!

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Top Secret Recipe Hacker Coming to OKC

Todd Wilbur hacks your favorite restaurants’ recipes!

Todd Wilbur, author of best-selling cook book series “Top Secret Recipes,” will bring his exciting personality and recipe hacking secrets to the Oklahoma City Home + Garden Show January 17-19 at the Oklahoma State Fair Park. Todd describes his talent for uncovering secret recipes as recipe hacking: a process where he studies everything from the tiniest ingredients to the preparation process in order to recreate some of America’s favorite dishes.

Since releasing his first cook book, “Top Secret Recipes,” in 1993, he has gone on to publish nine others and is currently working to release the eleventh book in the series. In his books, Todd uncovers recipes like Cheesecake Factory’s Thai Lettuce Wraps, Olive Garden’s Breadsticks and P.F. Chang’s Kung Pao Chicken.

Receiving no formal culinary education, Todd educated himself by reading recipes and watching cooking shows, viewing the recipes as puzzles he needed to solve.  So we wanted to know, just how does he do it?

Q: What steps do you take to unlock recipes?

A: Once I zero in on a target dish, I watch shows about that particular type of food to learn the ins and outs before trying to hack the recipe. I had to come up with my own process and techniques for reverse engineering these foods. Sometimes I will run sauces through a strainer or use a magnifying glass to help identify different herbs and spices. I also use my sense of touch to help me estimate the fat contents of foods.

Q: What advice do you have for fans interested in becoming food hackers themselves?

A: Don’t be afraid to ask your server at the restaurant. They may not give you the exact recipe but they will be able to tell you what ingredients are included in the particular food, and that’s a great jumping off point. From there, look for recipes for a similar type of food online or in a cookbook, and then tweak that recipe until it matches.

Q: How long does it typically take to get the recipe right?

A: Expect a lot of trial and error. Sometimes I can hack a recipe in one day, sometimes it takes weeks, sometimes I never get it. That’s all part of the fun.

Todd will demonstrate several of his favorite recipe hacks at the Oklahoma City Home + Garden Show and allow the audience a chance to test his creations. Don’t miss his delicious presentation on the Cooking Stage Friday, Jan. 17 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, Jan. 18 at 2 and 6 p.m.

CLICK HERE to guess the ingredients in Iron Starr's Fancy Mac & Cheese

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