TVGuide.ca Interview with Ken and Mary Jo

Who’ll get the last word on ‘He Said, She Said’?

He said Mary Jo Eustace has back hair, a moustache and is “a tranny.”

She said Ken Kostick is a “Russian egg man,” the doll-inside-a-doll toy, because between his clothes and talking about himself, Kostick is “endless.”

These are the creative insults hurled from Eustace to Kostick and back again on the second season of their Viva cooking show, He Said, She Said with Ken and Mary Jo.

In each episode, the series centres on one “star ingredient,” which each host uses to devise two different recipes. They also make a “High 5,” an extra meal that uses only five ingredients. But while they cook, they not only roast chicken – they roast each other.

“He’s very irritating,” says Eustace, “and I propose on some levels I am too. We just always make fun of each other, you know, to keep ourselves amused, essentially.”

Kostick and Eustace hosted What’s For Dinner? during its five-season run and the radio program What’s For Breakfast? on 103.9 ProudFM for two years. Today, they are continuing their successful pairing on He Said, She Said.

This season, viewers can look forward to fillet mignons, roast beef, fish and roast chicken. “We’ve really stepped up our game and the recipes are a bit more intricate,” says Eustace.

Kostick adds, “We always keep in mind that we do things that we know the viewer at home will be able to accomplish.”

Although leafy greens and orchard fruit have been featured as star ingredients in past episodes, Kostick and Eustace say “spice” is the ingredient that best describes He Said, She Said.

“It would be spice because we are a cooking show, but you never know what you’re going to get when you tune in and either do we,” says Eustace. “It’s really like the Sybil of cooking shows, every day’s a different personality.”

Says Kostick, “Any other ordinary cooking show you’re just putting the ingredients in and popping out with the recipe. We do that, but we also add something, that added value, and we think it’s, believe it or not, our pathetic lives.”

Eustace adds with a laugh, “We think the added value to the show is us, which is really sad.”

Despite the insults, Kostick and Eustace are friends. “I think that when we first met doing the shows, we actually liked each other,” says Kostick, “even though, you know, in every relationship there are always problems.”

Eustace chimes in, “A little rain must fall.”

Kostick continues, “There are going to be things in our lives that are going to irritate each other, in any kind of relationship, but the big things are the important ones and I think that we’ve been able to maintain that level of a relationship so we know where each other’s coming from.”

When the friends aren’t working together, they are talking to each other on the phone, and Kostick repeats the same stories. “She just lets me ramble on,” says Kostick. “I think she puts the phone down, goes and does some shopping and comes back and she picks up from where I left off.”

Eustace jokes, “I did my taxes the last time he called.”

In the end, each host brings something to the table on He Said, She Said. He says Eustace brings her sense of humour; she says Kostick’s contribution is his personality.

Watch Ken and Mary Jo duke it out on He Said, She Said Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m. on Viva.