Magnolia Table with Joanna Gaines marks Fixer Upper star Joanna's first major foray into
the world of TV cookery. From what makes the set unique to what 2-year-old Crew thinks
about the show, here's the truth about Magnolia Table.
The morning after teasing the idea on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in November
2019, Discovery announced that Joanna Gaines would indeed be featured in a cooking show
for the couple's new Magnolia Network.
The following spring, Joanna began posting videos on social media of herself cooking
up various dishes in the kitchen, filmed by her children. On April 2, she took to Instagram
to announce that those self-shot videos were going to be edited together into a one-hour
special airing on Food Network.
In addition, she also revealed the special would include a bonus for fans: a sneak peek
of the actual cooking show, set to premiere on the Magnolia Network.
The launch of Chip and Joanna Gaines' Magnolia Network, initially planned for October 2020,
was pushed back due to the pandemic. However, Discovery, the new network's parent company,
was moving forward with the launch of a new streaming service, Discovery+ , in January
2021. As a result, some of the programming that would have debuted on the network was
instead shifted to the streaming service.
One of these shows was revealed to be Joanna's long-awaited cooking show. Two days before
Christmas 2020, the first trailer for that show — titled Magnolia Table with Joanna
Gaines — was released. In addition to offering a sneak peek at the show, the premiere date
was also revealed — January 4th, 2021.
The trailer provided a great preview of what fans could expect to see, including plenty
of self-deprecating humor that fans of Fixer Upper will surely find familiar.
"If you're looking to learn how to cut things, this is not the show for you."
In addition, the trailer also featured her poking fun at her kitchen's cleanliness — or
lack thereof.
"I think if your kitchen is not messy, you're not having fun."
A few days after the release of the trailer, Discovery issued a press release to announce
the arrival of a new one-hour TV special ahead of the Discovery+ debut of Magnolia Table
with Joanna Gaines. Titled The Making of Magnolia Table with Joanna Gaines, the special aired
on January 3rd, 2021, simulcast on Food Network, HGTV, Cooking Channel, and DIY Network.
The special gave viewers an inside look at how Chip and Joanna transformed an historic
building in Texas into what was described as "the stunning home of Joanna's new cooking
show."
The press release also included a special message from Joanna to her fans, which read,
"I hope you enjoy Magnolia Table as much as I've enjoyed filming it. It's an honor to
get to share some of my favorite recipes with you!"
Joanna Gaines hosting her own cooking show is kind of a no-brainer. While she's primarily
known for her design skills on Fixer Upper, she's also authored two cookbooks, Magnolia
Table Cookbook and its followup, Magnolia Table, Vol. 2: A Collection of Recipes for
Gathering. Both cookbooks, in fact, feature recipes for dishes served at Magnolia Table,
Chip and Joanna's 200-seat restaurant they opened in Waco in 2018.
According to a feature on the couple in The New York Times, it's Joanna's influence that's
defined the restaurant's cuisine — and, by extension, the recipes in her cookbooks
and what she whips up for viewers on her new cooking show. However, some of those culinary
concepts were met with some resistance by Chip, especially when she declared her intention
to add avocado toast to the restaurant's menu. Chip said,
"That's disgusting, babe. No one wants avocado on their toast. [...] I like bacon."
Despite Chip sharing his dislike of both avocados and fresh juice with the Times, the restaurant's
menu ultimately featured avocado toast and a $12 "juice flight." Sounds like Joanna gets
the final word in the culinary side of the business! Chip and Joanna, by the way, also
own The Silos Baking Company and Magnolia Press Coffee Company, so they're serious about
making food a major part of the Magnolia brand.
Months before the first trailer for Magnolia Table with Joanna Gaines arrived, Chip and
Joanna hosted a tour of the then-unnamed show's set via Instagram Live. According to Architectural
Digest, the kitchen in which Joanna cooks on the show isn't a Hollywood set, but a historic
flour mill in Texas, known by locals as the Gristmill.
In the video, the couple revealed that they'd driven past the 19th century structure for
many years and had always admired it. When it came on the market, they decided to buy
it. However, their original plan of renovating the place and transforming it into a bed and
breakfast fell by the wayside when, in the midst of renovating, the proverbial light
bulb went off in Joanna's head and she realized the mill would be the perfect setting for
her new cooking show.
When it came to renovating the Gristmill, it was pretty much a given that the historic
1800s flour mill would receive the full Fixer Upper treatment from Chip and Joanna Gaines
themselves.
As Architectural Digest noted, the process was extensive. One of the key things they
did in their renovation was to rip down all the drywall to reveal the original two-foot-thick
brick hiding beneath. In addition, they also exposed the original wood beams.
The goal was to preserve the old charm of the original building while incorporating
a state-of-the-art kitchen. Joanna added her own unique touches, including vintage and
"rustic" furnishings, along with some favorite antique pieces.
In addition, Joanna revealed her landscaping plans for the backyard. Aspiring to create
an outdoor space that looks like an English garden, Joanna also wanted the yard to have
a greenhouse and a chicken coop — all of which would be incorporated into the show,
so she could cook with the freshest food available.
Given that Chip and Joanna's children helped film their mom's cooking adventures for the
Instagram videos before Magnolia Table with Joanna Gaines debuted, it's not surprising
that the kids got a sneak peek at the new series. Joanna demonstrated this when she
shared an adorable photo of 2-year-old son Crew watching an episode of Magnolia Table
on a laptop on Instagram. She wrote in the caption,
"Crew's screening my new cooking show and he keeps saying 'yummmmy' — I'll take that
as his seal of approval."
Meanwhile, fans can expect to see the Gaines children appear throughout Magnolia Table;
in fact, the trailer features an appearance by Crew, sitting atop the counter helping
his mom crack a few eggs. And another segment in the trailer sees Joanna joined by her daughter
Ella.
"So I talked Ella into cooking with me."
"It's kind of satisfying." Butterflies
While there's no question that viewers enjoy watching Joanna Gaines transform spaces in
a home-renovation show, would they feel the same way about watching her cook meals in
her kitchen?
In an April 2020 interview with USA Today, Joanna admitted that the same question had
crossed her mind. She told the outlet,
"I've never had a cooking show before, so, I get butterflies when I think about it. I
can shoot with my kids in the kitchen when they're shooting me on their little iPhones,
or on my iPhone. It's a whole other thing when there's, like, 20 people looking back
at you."
However, she declared she was ready to roll up her sleeves and do her best.
"Just like with Fixer, it's not like the first episode we nailed it. It was this ongoing
learning experience, and that's how I'm going to look at it with [Magnolia Table]."
Had it not been for a global pandemic, Magnolia Table with Joanna Gaines would have been a
jewel in the crown of Chip and Joanna Gaines' highly anticipated Magnolia Network. As ABC
News reported back in January 2020, the new network — which would take over the DIY
Network — was set to launch on October 4. In April, however, Deadline reported that
Discovery was delaying the launch.
Chip and Joanna said in a statement,
"Right now, it's important that we all continue to look out for one another by upholding the
guidelines set forth by the experts, leaders and front-line heroes working tirelessly to
get us all through this difficult time. With this as our top priority, we've decided to
delay Magnolia Network's launch until we can safely resume production."
However, the announcement of the network's delay contained a silver lining. Later that
month, the DIY Network aired a four-hour preview of what fans could expect from the new network's
eventual launch. That special — Magnolia Presents: A Look Back & A Look Ahead — featured
highlights of 10 new shows that would be calling Magnolia Network home. At the time, Magnolia
Table with Joanna Gaines was not one of them.
Magnolia Table marked Joanna's welcome return to television after a long absence, following
the couple's September 2017 announcement they were exiting HGTV and the subsequent revelation
they'd be launching their own network under the Discovery umbrella.
When the October 2020 launch of the Magnolia Network was delayed, this presented an opportunity
for Discovery. Rather than wait for the network's eventual launch, Discovery announced, content
set to air on Magnolia Network would instead be debuted on Discovery+, the new streaming
service planned to launch in January 2021. Given the Gaines' built-in fan base from Fixer
Upper, Joanna's new show could now be used as a carrot on a stick to entice fans to sign
up for Discovery+.
Until the launch of Magnolia Network, the only platform you can find Magnolia Table
with Joanna Gaines on is Discovery+. The service costs $4.99 a month, with a commercial-free
version available for $6.99 per month.
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