It's nine in the morning and Nik Manojlovich has a bad case of fruit flies. They sparkle and flash in the television studio lights. They crawl over the bowl of fresh Ontario peaches on the counter and get rolled into guest chef Kathryn Leinster's pie dough. It's an inauspicious start to the day for Savoir Faire, a program on Home and Garden Television Canada (HGTV) all about extravagant entertaining and high living, but you'd never know it from looking at the show's host. There doesn't seem to be a lot that bugs this guy.
"We're going to have problems with fruit flies!" Manojlovich calls out to the show's director, Michael Prini, and turns to Leinster to give her a few pointers. "Now, as serious as your recipe is, I want you to think about having fun! Talk whenever you feel like it. And don't he afraid to spill things. I spill stuff all the time. Are you nervous? I've got sweat rings down to here. This is exciting!"
It takes a lot to make a peach pie exciting, but Nik Manojlovich is up to the challenge. Whether he's creating an all-pink dinner or baking his own nutritious biscotti for dogs, Manojlovich takes every project on Savoir Faire to the absolute limit -- and beyond. Why just fry a fajita when you can throw a whole fiesta? Hang colourful sombreros and crepe paper streamers from the ceiling. Use the wire stems of giant Mexican paper flowers as napkin rings and lay a serape for a tablecloth. Place cards? Bah! Write each guest's name on a pot holding a live cactus. And while you're at it, make a few wild Aztec masks for the occasion by dipping your head in wet plaster of Paris....
No matter what kind of bizarre task he's set for himself, Manojlovich tackles it with astonishing finesse, infinite enthusiasm and a certain "Let's put on a shindig!" demeanour. ('Spicy peppers! There's jalapeņo and manzano, serrano and habanero, poblano and Tabasco, to name a few. Sometimes one little piece will leave you shaking like a chihuahua! They sure are caliente, which is hot, hot, hot!")
It would be classic high camp except that it all seems so
deliciously devoid of irony. It makes you wonder: Is he for real?
Manojlovich's show, Savoir Faire, is ranked in the top five programs on HGTV. The half-hour show airs seven times a week in Canada, twice weekly in the United States, and is now being broadcast as far away as Singapore and Hong Kong. Almost 250,000 Canadians tune in to the show every week, and Manojlovich's Savoir Faire Live seminars are so crowded they are nearly impossible to attend. The show's Web site attracts 3.6 million visits a year from fans around the world.
Savoir Faire's success is partly a symptom of a new preoccupation with gracious living. According to a 1997 Statistics Canada report, Canadians now spend a quarter of their disposable income on lifestyle activities such as home decorating, gardening, handicrafts and entertaining. In this two-income, post-housewife era, we have developed a huge appetite for TV shows that vicariously deliver us a cozy home life. We crave virtual nesting, and the networks are responding.
Manojlovich has been referred to as "Canada's male Martha
Stewart" by Maclean's, but he's as different from Martha as a
wingding is from a cotillion. While Manojlovich's projects can
often be just as cornball as Martha's, what sets him apart is the
weird and infectious sense of joie he maintains while going off
the deep end. His ability to be authoritative yet childlike, to
be suave yet silly, is what's helping Savoir Faire leapfrog over
the legion of Martha wannabes to ensconce itself comfortably near
the top of the ratings.
"What is so attractive about Savoir Faire is Nik himself," says Barbara Williams, the senior vice-president of programming at Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting, HGTV's owners. "He's a charming guy - clever, funny, warm, endearing. People trust him. They can imagine him being in their home and helping them arrange flowers for a party."
It helps that the guy has the look: the kind of swarthy romance-novel type who is perfectly comfortable standing in a tuxedo being showered with rose petals, as he is in the opening credits. But a good-looking host alone doesn't make the show a hit. The title of the show means "know-how" and Manojlovich packs a hefty sense of it.
"It's amazing what we do with Savoir Faire, considering our budget," says Prini, who is also the show's producer. "That is, in comparison to someone like Martha Stewart." An episode of Savoir Faire costs about $30,000 to produce, while industry sources estimate that Martha spends easily five times that amount.
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., a truly monolithic US company with revenues in 1998 of $180 million (US), claims to touch the lives of 88 million people every month through every conceivable means of communication short of smoke signals. Not to be left behind, Savoir Faire's production company Primevista Television, and Snap Media, the company that produces Savoir Faire's Web site, are joining forces to create an interactive party-planning site and an online catalogue of Savoir Faire housewares and products. A book is also in the works.
"I think everyone can do the things that we show;" says Manojlovich. "I'm just trying to say: 'Hey listen, this really is pretty easy. Come on, I'm with you on this! I feel confident. I know you can do it.' And hey, if a recipe falls apart or doesn't work or isn't what you expected, try it again and see what happens!"
Along with gentle reassurances, Manojlovich passes on advice his
mother has given him. This isn't just a shtick - he calls her the
single most important influence in his life.
Nikola Dusan Manojlovich was born on October 26, 1963, in Windsor, Ont., the youngest (and only boy) of five children "He always had extra energy in him and always wanted to do things," says Bozana Manojlovich, his mother. As a child, there wasn't anything Nik didn't think he could do, and once he saw how something was done, he would expand on it. "If you showed him how to do watercolours, he'd try charcoal and watercolours together. Then he'd try charcoal and acrylics and watercolours. He'd always go two or three steps further just to see how it would react."
When Manojlovich was seven, his father, Dusan, died suddenly of a heart attack. He then had to become the man of the house as well as the host of the family's dinner parties - often with interesting results.
When Manojlovich was 16 years old, he cooked a lavish dinner to honour a friend of the family "I did this whole thing," says Manojlovich. "I set the table, I did a tomato and sherry soup to start, and then I thought I'd do something special and do a beautiful pheasant recipe." But by mid-meal, Manojlovich noticed the guest of honour had a collection of little metal balls on the side of her plate. "It was the shot from when they killed the pheasant," he says with a shiver. "I didn't know enough about where pheasants came from to realize that it could be a bit of a problem. It was like oysters with a pearl, but without the excitement."
Manojlovich has since learned a lot more about entertaining. Most of his knowledge of design, haute cuisine, wines, china, linens and gracious hospitality he picked up during the eight years he worked in event planning and food and beverage operations at the Sheraton Corporation. In 1995, he left Sheraton to open Plan-It Meeting and Special Occasion Planners Inc. with a partner, Michael Rosen. It's a Toronto-based company, which they still operate, specializing in extravagant social and corporate events.
Early in 1997, Michael Prini, a broadcast journalist and budding independent producer, was looking for someone to host a new home decor show. Prini caught Manojlovich giving entertainment tips on a morning TV show in Toronto. "Within 30 seconds I knew he was someone I wanted to talk to," says Prini. "He's very handsome, but he also has a way of speaking that drew me in. Nik has a way with the camera, and he comes right through the television screen at people."
I get a first-hand taste of Manojlovich's relationship with the camera during the taping of an episode of Savoir Faire. He doesn't look at all like the man on TV. He's a big guy, six feet tall, kind of pear-shaped, with a weird crooked nose and delicate features that are a little too small for his head. It doesn't help the illusion any that he's shown up looking a little schlubby in white shorts and a baggy polo shirt.
But when I glance at a video monitor as he wanders in front of one of the cameras, I can see what Prini is talking about. On screen, all the bedraggled pieces of him somehow fall together. The camera adores him. Even his hair looks combed. As I look back and forth between the real Manojlovich and the video Manojlovich, I think, "Wow. Now that's a TV star."
There's a lot about Manojlovich that's not quite what you'd expect from watching Savoir Faire. Unlike his TV persona, Manojlovich doesn't live the high life in a deluxe loft apartment. His real home is the top two floors of a row house in Cabbagetown. It's got a broken toilet, water damage and a kitchen undergoing renovation. He'd like to move into grander quarters eventually, but that will have to wait until he has more time in his busy schedule to enjoy it.
"On an everyday basis, I use paper napkins," he says, "and I've got my regular standard dishes. Because I'm single, I'm eating on my own. I grab a bowl of cereal in the morning. It sits in the sink until I get home from work. I wash it, I stick it away. It's not a fancy thing."
It's not as surprising to learn that he sings; in fact his voice is supple enough to fill in for any choir part -- from bass to soprano. For at least five hours every week, he immerses himself in the haunting four-part harmonies of liturgical chants as conductor for the 35-member St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Choir. He has little time for partying.
"People think I'm having people over every single night," he groans. "They think every Friday, Saturday and Sunday I've got big theme parties going on. One night I go to Hawaii. Another night, Greece. That's totally not realistic. If I have five people over to dinner at my house one month then, trust me, for the next five months I'll be going to their homes."
Manojlovich says that in real life he prefers to have small, simple dinner parties. "I've gotten over getting so stressed out that by the time the last guest leaves you're ready to collapse because you've worked yourself up into such a frenzy."
So the Savoir Faire lifestyle of Nik Manojlovich isn't real at all, even though he does occasionally handcraft fancy guest books and he keeps a meticulous journal of every dinner party detail, including the recipes.
"When you do that one dinner party, let's say once a month, make it nice" he says. "I believe that sharing a dinner with a friend is an honour that's worth all the effort you can put into it."
In other words, like the rest of us, Nik Manojlovich just wants to be like that perfect fellow on Savoir Faire.