Tallmadge charcuterie artist lands spot on food-based national TV game show

A Tallmadge woman's passion for food has earned her an appearance on a Cooking Channel game show that calls her and five others "the best charcuterie board artists in the country."

"Amazing Graze: Board Games" is described as a new food competition special produced by Scott Brothers Entertainment, known for the long-running HGTV series "Property Brothers," among other programming.

Episode 1 of "Amazing Graze" debuts 5 p.m. Friday. Other air dates and times have not been announced.

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Angela Warren, the Tallmadge entrepreneur and owner of The Moorer The Merrier Grazing, specializes in charcuterie boards.

The term charcuterie is French, pronounced with a "que" in the middle, and literally means "cooked meat." It generally refers to sausages, salami, ham and other prepared meat products, but put charcuterie on a board with other ingredients and you end up with a universe of flavors almost unlimited in its variety.

Up to her knees in cheese

Warren, like many, was hit hard by the pandemic. She had formerly traveled the country training doctors and physicians to use an electronic medical records system but was laid off in early 2020.

She found herself in business making charcuterie boards after posting a photo on Instagram of an after-school snack tray she had made for her children.

"I just posted a picture, and someone asked if they could buy one from me. And then I posted their board and tagged them in it to thank them, and then the next person asked to buy one, and the next and the next," Warren said last year in a Beacon Journal profile of her business.

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Last June, she decided to change her business name from Say Cheese Charcuterie By Ang after realizing the term "Say Cheese" tended to make her online presence disappear amid a crowd of other firms – especially photographers.

She said photos posted on her Instagram account under the new business name – after her boyfriend Marc Moorer – got the attention of a Scott Brothers talent scout a few months later, when she got an inquiry about appearing on the show.

She said that the process included a Zoom interview, along with her submission of a 15-minute video she had professionally recorded.

The final word she would be on the show came via email during a busy time for her business.

"I was working on a workshop, my first public workshop, plus it was Halloween. I didn't really get a chance to scream and holler and be excited because I was literally knee-deep in cheese," she said.

Filming was in November, but she said she couldn't divulge the competition's results prior to its airing Friday.

Filming in a 'graze utopia'

The six contestants were first tasked with creating their own individual boards. They were then grouped into teams of three to assemble a larger creation.

The winners of the team competition won a trip to Rome.

Warren said contestants had the chance to request some food items for their creations prior to the contest.

She described the supplies that were on hand as "a graze utopia."

"You walk into the set and there is just meat and cheese and fresh fruit and baked goods and dried fruit and nuts and jams ... it was the sky's limit for charcuterie," she said.

"It was built almost like a little farmer's market," she said. "There were different stations. There was a fruit station, there was a floral station, there was a bakery, there was a butcher, there was a cheese shop and they had all these little carts set up for us everywhere. It was a beautiful setup all on its own."

She said the competition was not easy but could not offer more details other than she did not complete her board on time – a detail that she said went unnoticed due to the fact that nobody knew what her vision was.

"You couldn't tell. It was not everything that I had hoped it would be," she said, adding "I think I recovered pretty well."

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Warren said that she was initially excited, then nervous.

"I am really good enough to do this?" she asked herself, adding one of the other competitors had carved LeBron James' face in a watermelon.

"I just knew I was doomed then and there," she said.

In the long run, production crew made everyone feel very comfortable,  she said.

A link to her business information can be found on her Instagram page at @moorerthemerrier.

Eric Marotta can be reached at 330-541-9433, or emarotta@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @MarottaEric.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Tallmadge charcuterie artist lands spot on Amazing Graze TV game show