Jump to content

  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

*Celebrity* "Chefs"---Who's Your Favorite?

Pickles

By Pickles
in Food Media & Arts

 Share

Recommended Posts

Pickles

Pickles

Posted
Posted

Not Food Channel chefs now... :hmmm: Who are your favorite tv and movie stars who love to cook? Do (did?) they have a cookbook out and do you recommend it?

I think Dinah Shore wrote some good cookbooks...she loved to cook and brought her love of Southern hospitality with her.

I really enjoy Dom DeLouis' Eat This, It Will Make You Feel Better and his food segments on talk shows, like Dinah's, were always fun and very silly. Especially when Burt Reynolds came on...and I think that's the ONLY time Burt was ever amusing....

Cristina Ferrare, former model and former host of "Home and Family" (dang I loved that stupid show with Chuck Woolery!!) has a basic Italian Cookbook out Family Entertaining and she always thought she was an expert on her show, and crowded out her cooking segment host chef (Jamie Gwenn). You could FEEL the catfight coming on when the cameras stopped. :laugh:

I have Sophia Loren's old cookbook. Who can resist a woman who claims "Everything I have, I owe to pasta!" :biggrin:

My holy grail is Liberace's cookbook! Very rare! And also rare is Vincent Price's cookbook. My Mom has that under lock and key....surrounded by a mote filled with alligators and pitbulls.... :blink: ...lest I steal it!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
ninadora

ninadora

Posted
Posted

I would give anything for the liberace cookbook, dear lord in heaven.....

i have a huge soft spot for that man, i've got t-shirts and magnets, magazine layouts on his homes, post cards, i've been to the liberace museum in las vegas...

I even busted up my chin jumping off a diving board backwards into a piano shaped pool of his design when I was seven years old. I swam to the side of the pool, blood gushing everywhere turning the water red...

Liberace and I..we're connected..well, we both like glitz...and I've never heard his music

and now for something that isn't COMPLETELY off topic

:shock:

erm, I like that sofia lauren cookbook as well...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Gifted Gourmet

Gifted Gourmet

Posted
Posted (edited)

thread on a favorite of mine, Christopher Walken

and then there were Danny Kaye and Vincent Price, both terrifically talented chefs!

Not particularly recommended cookbooks by these celebrities (Lucy, Grannie on Beverly Hillbillies, Aunt Bee, Elvis, Three Stooges):

Cookbooks with movie star authors: did they actually cook anything?? :rolleyes:

Edited by Gifted Gourmet (log)

Melissa Goodman aka "Gifted Gourmet"

Link to comment
Share on other sites
andiesenji

andiesenji

Posted
Posted

I have to say that Vincent Price is my favorite. He was enthusiastic about food and the cookbook compiled by he and his wife is wonderful.

I was fortunate to get their signatures in the book when I worked one of the Motion Picture Country Hospital events during the holidays in 1965. It was newly published and when I was asked to work at the dinner I took the chance and carried it with me. The doctor for whom I worked at the time in his private practice, was one of the doctors for the MPR Fund (later he was medical director of the hospital for several years) and a great many film and TV people were his patients.

There were quite a few actors who were interested in the culinary arts and they often asked questions as they were selecting items at the buffet. It is interesting, now that I look back on it, that none of the actors and others in the business, who were food enthusiasts, were ever remote or unfriendly. If they shared an interest with someone it did not matter who or what they were.

Invariably, they were the nicest people in the business.

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Pickles

Pickles

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted
Not particularly recommended cookbooks by these celebrities (Lucy, Grannie on Beverly Hillbillies, Aunt Bee, Elvis, Three Stooges

Those aren't written by the celebs themselves though--I know you know that, but I just wanted to clarify in case someone thinks Lucille Ball etc. wrote a cookbook. She didn't like cooking at all, matter of fact. In a story she related to Barbara Walters, she once decided to impress her husband Gary Morton's jewish family and made chopped liver. She tasted it and realized it was under salted. So she went to pour salt on it, and the container's lid came off. She saw the huge pile of salt all over the liver, and didn't know what to do....so....she rinsed it! And of course...it dissolved into a mushy mess. :laugh:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Gifted Gourmet

Gifted Gourmet

Posted
Posted
In a story she related to Barbara Walters, she once decided to impress her husband Gary Morton's jewish family and made chopped liver. She tasted it and realized it was under salted. So she went to pour salt on it, and the container's lid came off. She saw the huge pile of salt all over the liver, and didn't know what to do....so....she rinsed it! And of course...it dissolved into a mushy mess. :laugh:

Tell me this wasn't actually another Lucy episode in which the rice pours out of a pot on her stove and out the kitchen door or even the "assembly line chocolate factory" speeding up ...

I know these stars didn't write about their own cooking but simply choses dishes they enjoyed .. I thought the bizarre collection I have mentioned here was hysterically odd ... :hmmm:

Who would buy and cook from a book by the Three Stooges??? :laugh:

Melissa Goodman aka "Gifted Gourmet"

Link to comment
Share on other sites
CompassRose

CompassRose

Posted
Posted

Christopher Walken? If Christopher Walken did a food show, I would get cable. :wub:

No, not like that. Stop it!

The peculiar thing is that I have been told I look like him, when my hair is cropped. Some people want to be told they look like Gwyneth Paltrow. Christopher Walken? Why thank you, let me just grin maniacally for you! :hmmm:

I'm more into literary celebrities' cooking, myself. The Nanny Ogg Cookbook, now that's genius stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jason Perlow

Jason Perlow

Posted
Posted

I loved Tony Randall's appearances on various variety shows when he used to cook.

William Shatner, on the other hand...

Jason Perlow, Co-Founder eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters

Foodies who Review South Florida (Facebook) | offthebroiler.com - Food Blog (archived) | View my food photos on Instagram

Twittter: @jperlow | Mastodon @jperlow@journa.host

Link to comment
Share on other sites
fifi

fifi

Posted
Posted

I just checked Amazon and that Vincent Price book is up to $150 in "fine" condition. I bought that book for my parents when it first came out. I am sure that it is not in fine condition, though, because they actually cooked from it. :smile:

Linda LaRose aka "fifi"

"Having spent most of my life searching for truth in the excitement of science, I am now in search of the perfectly seared foie gras without any sweet glop." Linda LaRose

Link to comment
Share on other sites
daniellewiley

daniellewiley

Posted
Posted

As a child I had a strange fascination with Florence Henderson's Country Kitchen on the Nashville Network. She'd cook with a country music star and then they get together and sing a song after the meal was prepared.

I think it was the foreign-ness (is that a word?) of it all - as a Jewish kid on Long Island, I wasn't exposed to much country cookin' or country singing.

I still love her for that. :biggrin:

Danielle Altshuler Wiley

a.k.a. Foodmomiac

Link to comment
Share on other sites
patti

patti

Posted
Posted (edited)
I think it was the foreign-ness (is that a word?) of it all - as a Jewish kid on Long Island, I wasn't exposed to much country cookin' or country singing.

Maybe it was her 'Wessonality' that appealed to you.

Edited by SmrtAss (log)

Dear Food: I hate myself for loving you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Pickles

Pickles

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted
As a child I had a strange fascination with Florence Henderson's Country Kitchen on the Nashville Network. She'd cook with a country music star and then they get together and sing a song after the meal was prepared.

Oh my....forgot all about that one! I used to watch that all the time. She was always flirting with all the male guests. She's written several cookbooks, too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
ruthcooks

ruthcooks

Posted
Posted

I catered for the crew of Florence Henderson's show one season...we always had a salad for her; she was very nice about the food and would often come out back to compliment my partner and me. Never watched the show.

Ruth Dondanville aka "ruthcooks"

“Are you making a statement, or are you making dinner?” Mario Batali

Link to comment
Share on other sites
jhlurie

jhlurie

Posted
Posted

Gee, I notice a distinct lack of people answering "Suzanne Somers" or "Marilu Henner". Could it be... (gasp) that these two don't know anything about food? :biggrin:

Christopher Walken did a food show, I would get cable.

Ditto. It would be priceless--beyond calculatable value. Really, once more I have to send out an appeal that if anyone here actually knows the man, that they try and pester him to agree to contact us about doing a food-related-only Q&A session. :wink: Maybe we'd let through a single question about his dancing too--just to totally frustrate people who want to ask him about "The Dead Zone" instead.

Jon Lurie, aka "jhlurie"

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Pickles

Pickles

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted
Gee, I notice a distinct lack of people answering "Suzanne Somers" or "Marilu Henner". Could it be... (gasp) that these two don't know anything about food? :biggrin:

That, and they're both basically whack jobs. :raz: Marilu Henner has her own diet that eliminates most, if not all but occasional meats, and all dairy. She'd be no fun at all for me. Suzanne does her own version of Atkins and calls it "Somersizing." :hmmm: I do like to watch Suzanne cook on QVC because she really likes food...and she's pretty competent. However, seeing her hawking a line of cheap jewelry in the next segment kinda detracts from her being a chef. :laugh:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
srhcb

srhcb

Posted
Posted
I have to say that Vincent Price is my favorite. He was enthusiastic about food and the cookbook compiled by he and his wife is wonderful.

Vincent and Mary Grant Price published several books about food and cooking. "A treasury of great recipes; famous specialties of the world's foremost restaurants adapted for the American kitchen" is the hardest to find.

My Sister, an inveterate used bookshop and garge sale shopper, found a copy in beautiful condition for a buck!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
jhlurie

jhlurie

Posted
Posted
Gee, I notice a distinct lack of people answering "Suzanne Somers" or "Marilu Henner".  Could it be... (gasp) that these two don't know anything about food?  :biggrin:

That, and they're both basically whack jobs. :raz: Marilu Henner has her own diet that eliminates most, if not all but occasional meats, and all dairy. She'd be no fun at all for me. Suzanne does her own version of Atkins and calls it "Somersizing." :hmmm: I do like to watch Suzanne cook on QVC because she really likes food...and she's pretty competent. However, seeing her hawking a line of cheap jewelry in the next segment kinda detracts from her being a chef. :laugh:

Well that, plus the fact that it's been alleged that she stole the whole thing.

Jon Lurie, aka "jhlurie"

Link to comment
Share on other sites
fiftydollars

fiftydollars

Posted
Posted

Paul Sorvino!

I am not sure where exactly I saw him cooking, but it was on some show on the Food Network a long, long time ago. Here's a link to some event where he combined singing and cooking to benefit the CIA.

I imagine it was kind of like the scene in Goodfellas... with singing...sans prison.

http://www.ciachef.edu/press/archives/2002/pr052802.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...