Customer Reviews

TV Chefs: The Dish on the Stars of Your Favorite Cooking Shows

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I'm a big fan of cooking shows and was quite happy to find this book by chance at my local bookstore. It is great fun -- easy to read and very thorough. Covers all the major Food Network chefs and a few I had never heard of. Good sense of history as well.

Influenced no doubt by Anthony Bourdain's comments in 'Kitchen Confidential,' I've developed a little antipathy to celebrity chefs, with their catchphrases and signature lines of spices and kitchen equipment. At the same time, though, I keep finding myself drawn back to the cooking-themed TV network, where many of the chefs featured in this book find a home. For people who need to know whether Mario Batali is really from Italy or whether that hunky Bobby Flay is married, this is the book for you.

Despite the suggestion on the title page that this book gives us 'the dish on the stars of your favorite cooking shows,' there's nothing really gossipy or titillating here (maybe I'm misinterpreting what 'dish' means). Instead, most of the chefs receive a brief biography-cum-conversation that explores their background, how they got into cooking and then onto TV, and their philosophy of food and food preparation. All personality-driven, there are no recipes or food-preparation tips in this book.

Whether you're a serious fan of a particular TV chef (they have some, apparently), or just someone who stumbled across a cooking show and wondered who this person mixing salad with their bare hands was, you'll probably find the things you're looking for here.

I know a lady who is addicted to the weather channel. She's crazy. If you have to be addicted to a channel, it ought to be the Food Network. If you're on a diet (isn't everyone) and can't eat the things you want to, tune in. It's just like going to a nice restaurant, but it's free and nonfat. You can see the food on the screen and imagine what it looks like, but it's just not possible to eat it. I remember those old cartoons from a long time ago. The cat would be real hungry or something and he would start to eat pages out of a cookbook as if he could convince himself it was the real thing. This book has over 25 chapters about different chefs, but even if you just care about Emeril or whatever, it's worth it because each chef gets plenty of attention. It's fun to know what these people would want for their last meal on earth or what is always in their refrigerators.