Maria Lawton’s mission to showcase Portuguese food and culture has been a long road. But like her own journey emigrating from her native Azores to the United States, she’s finally arrived.
Her new television show, “Maria’s Portuguese Table,” will begin airing on WSBE, Rhode Island’s PBS station, starting on Jan. 4. In eight 30-minute episodes, Lawton takes viewers on a culinary tour that spans Providence, the Azores and California.
“It feels surreal. It’s been such a long time,” said Lawton, a resident of Dartmouth who is also known through her blog and cookbook as the Azorean GreenBean.
Her plan to highlight Portuguese food started with her blog, Azorean GreenBean, and then the cookbook, “Azorean Cooking: From My Family Table to Yours.”
Like in her book, Lawton said she wanted to take people on a journey showcasing Portuguese culture and cuisine and show how the food has migrated and evolved in other parts of the world. The first episode starts in Providence, and from there Lawton heads over to the Azorean island of Sao Miguel for the next several episodes. “It’s not your typical cooking show. I wanted to go back to where I started. I was born in the Azores,” said Lawton, who moved here when she was six years old.
Her next stop in the series is California, where Lawton meets with innovative Portuguese American winemakers in Napa and chefs in Fresno and San Jose. “I loved them. They’re continuing their traditions, but they’re also really progressive,” she said.
While it should have widespread appeal among anyone interested in food, Lawton said she also hopes the TV series illuminates Portuguese cuisine to second-, third- and fourth-generation Portuguese Americans who may not even speak Portuguese. “My hope is that barrier is broken. They can say, ‘That’s where my family came from and oh, I remember my grandma making that,’” said Lawton. “That’s what I get from people who read my book.”
Lawton’s plans for a cooking show about Portuguese food started with a pilot she submitted to the RI PBS station that aired three or four years ago. She followed that up with a series of four mini five-minute cooking segments that aired on the station. Both the pilot and the mini segments she made locally with Something Productions, Inc., a production company operated by The Portuguese Kids comedy troupe members Derrick DeMelo, Brian Martins and Al Sardinha. “When I had a vision of the show, I knew there was no other show talking about Portuguese food — at least not a whole series about it in English,” she said.
At each step along the way, she said the people at WSBE urged her to continue with her plans for a cooking show but she had to find the funds to make it happen.
Lawton said she found that with sponsorship from Bay Coast Bank. “When I sat down with Nick Christ, not even five minutes into it, he said, ‘What do you need?’” she said. “He believed in what I was going to do.”
The next big step in the process came when she found Emmy award-winning cinematographer Dean Camara of California-based Cineasta Digital Productions to film the series. “I’m so proud of my work and of Dean’s work and of everybody who touched this project,” said Lawton. “And I’m happy and blessed that PBS RI believed in me... They told me to keep going and don’t give up.”
Once the RI PBS station airs the entire eight episodes, it will become available for PBS stations across the country to pick up for airing. The ultimate goal, said Lawton, would be to find a partnership that will allow the series to continue beyond the first eight episodes.
The first two episodes will air back-to-back on WSBE on Jan. 4 starting at 8 p.m. For more information about Lawton, visit www.azoreangreenbean.com.
Email Linda Murphy at lmurphy@heraldnews.com.