MONTCLARION: August 20, 2015

The popularity of food shows has exploded since Julia Child sliced, diced and peeled her way into our hearts. Just ask Montclair cooking instructor Linda Carucci. The author of “Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks,” with 40,000 copies sold, is working with local filmmaker Mike Williams on a web-based cooking show scheduled to debut this fall.

Carucci and Williams met at a meeting of the Montclair Entrepreneur Society — something they’d learned about after reading one of my columns.

“You are a matchmaker,” says Carucci, who says I inadvertently put the two of them together when they realized they could help each other with their business goals. The next step is to raise $50,000 for the project.

“We have assembled ace technical and marketing crews and we are now in the fundraising phase,” Carucci says. The show will be 20-minute segments on YouTube, inspired by Jerry Seinfeld’s hilarious Internet show “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.”

To that end, Carucci wants to make cooking fun and easy for her viewers.

“I want to get cooking off the ‘altar,’ ” she says. “It’s something we do every day.”

News note: Montclair native Joy Meads was quoted in an article in Fortune magazine recently. Joy is a member of Kilroys, the Los Angeles-based collective of playwrights and producers pushing for more exposure for women and minority playwrights. Meads says she reads hundreds of plays a year and women are writing high-quality plays that deserve to be produced.

Around town: Jack London Square’s hot Jack’s Night Market will show the documentary series “Oakland Originals” Friday. Founders Jim McSilver and Erin Palmquist will screen their short films about four unique Oakland residents as they launch a Kickstarter campaign (http://bit.ly/NewOOdocs) to raise money for four new documentaries. See the films and find out more at http://oaklandoriginals.com/.

Heavy metal: Love can be a weighty proposition. Just look at the pedestrian bridge on the west end of Lake Merritt. A growing number of padlocks are appearing on the wire railings — each adding extra ounces to the structure.

Yes, it’s sweet to see love locks on our own little bridge. But let’s not go overboard. Earlier this spring, city workers in Paris had to remove a railing with more than 700,000 locks from the Pont des Arts bridge. All that weight was akin to having 20 elephants standing on the structure. Now that’s a whole lotta love.

Animal tales: The Oakland Zoo celebrates World Lion Day on Saturday, just a few weeks after the killing of a celebrated lion named Cecil. Learn all about big cats, including our own mountain lions, through all kinds of interactive activities. You can even take a wildcat selfie. And no, I’m not lion.

Got news? You can reach Ginny Prior by email at ginnyprior@hotmail.com or on the web at www.ginnyprior.com.