The Dead Celebrity Cookbook

by De Caro, Frank

• ISBN13: 9780757315961
• ISBN10: 0757315968
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-10-03
• Publisher: Hci

Summary

If you've ever fantasized about feasting on Frank Sinatra's Barbecued Lamb, lunching on Lucille Ball's "Chinese-y Thing," diving ever-so-neatly into Joan Crawford's Poached Salmon, or wrapping your lips around Rock Hudson's cannoli '¬ ; and really, who hasn't? '¬ ; hold on to your oven mitts! In The Dead Celebrity Cookbook: A Resurrection of Recipes by 150 Stars of Stage and Screen, Frank DeCaro'¬ ;the flamboyantly funny Sirius XM radio personality best known for his six-and-a-half-year stint as the movie critic on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart'¬ ;collects hundreds of recipes passed on from legendary stars of stage and screen, proving that before there were celebrity chefs, there were celebrities who fancied themselves chefs. Their all-but-forgotten recipes'¬ ;rescued from out-of-print cookbooks, musty biographies, vintage magazines, and dusty pamphlets'¬ ;suggest a style of home entertaining ripe for reexamination if not revival, while reminding intrepid gourmands that, for better or worse, Hollywood doesn't make celebrities (or cooks) like it used to. Starring Elizabeth Taylor's Chicken with Avocado and Mushrooms Farrah Fawcett's Sausage and Peppers Liberace's Sticky Buns Bette Davis's Red Flannel Hash Bea Arthur's Good Morning Mushroom Tomato Toast Dudley Moore's Creme Brulee Gypsy Rose Lee's Portuguese Fish Chowder John Ritter's Famous Fudge Andy Warhol's Ghoulish Goulash Vincent Price's Pepper Steak Johnny Cash's Old Iron Pot Family-Style Chili Vivian Vance's Chicken Kiev Sebastian Cabot's Avocado Surprise Lawrence Welk's Vegetable Croquettes Ann Miller's Cheese Souffle Jerry Orbach's Trifle Totie Fields's Fruit Mellow Irene Ryan's Tipsy Basingstoke Klaus Nomi's Key Lime Tart Richard Deacon's Bitter and Booze Sonny Bono's Spaghetti with Fresh Tomato Sauce And many others from breakfast to dessert.

Author Biography

Frank DeCaro, author of The Dead Celebrity Cookbook, is heard each weekday morning on his own live national call-in program, The Frank DeCaro Show, on Sirius XM Satellite Radio, which now boasts more than 25 million subscribers. His radio guests have run the gamut from Justin Bieber to Ernest Borgnine, and his following across North America is as loyal as it is diverse. Known as both a writer and a performer, DeCaro pens the "Icons" column on vintage television for CBS's Watch! magazine. For years as a fashion editor, he wrote the "Style Over Substance" column for The New York Times. A graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, DeCaro has written for myriad publications including The New York Times Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Newsweek, Vogue, and TV Guide. As a performer, DeCaro has appeared on the ABC sitcom Cougar Town, The Rosie O'Donnell Show, The Joy Behar Show, and numerous talking-head programs. He is best known for his six-and-a-half-year stint as the movie critic on The Daily Show and a forty-episode run of the game show I've Got a Secret. In 2010, he cocreated the YouTube sensation "Betty White Lines," a rap tribute to the Golden Girls star which was featured on the Today show, Showbiz Tonight, and dozens of blogs, and got more than 100,000 hits in its first week online. In addition, the award-winning DeCaro is the author of the groundbreaking A Boy Named Phyllis: A Suburban Memoir, which Vanity Fair called "hilarious" and The Advocate credited as opening the door for David Sedaris and "the gay American humorist as everyman." His follow-up work, a coffee table biography called Unmistakably Mackie: The Fashion and Fantasy of Bob Mackie, earned a B+ in Entertainment Weekly. DeCaro lives with his husband, writer Jim Colucci, in New York City and suburban New Jersey. Visit the author at deadcelebritycookbook.com.

Excerpts

Make Room for Dinner Father may have known best on classic TV shows, but never in the kitchen. The breadwinner was never the bread baker in the '50s and '60s. Maybe TV was just reflecting the gender roles of the day, but cooking was usually a woman's job. You didn't see Howard Cunningham (Tom Bosley) at the stove on Happy Days. That was Mrs. C's bailiwick. (The show premiered in the 1970s, I know, but it was set in the 1950s.)If a family was lucky, or a wife was liberated, food preparation was the domestic's duty. Mike Brady (Robert Reed) and his wife Carol (Florence Henderson) had Alice (Ann B. Davis) to whip up pork chops and applesauce on The Brady Bunch. Danny Williams (Danny Thomas) charged Louise (Amanda Randolph) with making everything from lasagna to matzo ball soup on Make Room for Daddy. And Mrs. Livingston (Miyoshi Umeki) saw to it that Eddie (Brandon Cruz) and Mr. Eddie's Father (Bill Bixby) didn't starve on The Courtship of Eddie's Father. If you didn't want to hire someone, you could always play the widower card and rook a relative into kitchen duty. Steve Douglas (Fred MacMurray) and his Three Sons not only had Bub (William Frawley), but when he split, they got Uncle Charlie (William Demarest) to cook for them. Off screen, though, TV dads did cook. The men whose recipes appear in this chapter were secure enough in their manhood to don an apron, grab a spatula, and do it. If they can, so can you, Daddy-O. T V lovers remember him as the soft-spoken father on My Three Sons, but filmgoers know him best cast as the insurance agent in on the con in Double Indemnity. Working from the late 1920s to the late 1970s, MacMurray appeared in such varied fare as The Absent-Minded Professor and its sequel Son of Flubber, the stylish sex comedy The Apartment, and the killer-bee disaster movie, The Swarm. He is said to have valued time spent with his own family so much that he made sure all of his scenes for My Three Sons were shot first. That may have made life hell for his cast mates, but he sounds like a pretty good real-life dad. His pot roast is enough for three sons or more.Fred MacMurray's Flemish Pot RoastIn a heavy Dutch oven, brown meat in oil, turning to brown both sides. In a separate pan, sauté onions until pale golden color. Sprinkle with flour and cook 2 minutes. Pour in beer and bring to a boil, stirring. Then pour over meat. Add brown sugar, vinegar, bay leaf, garlic, and salt. Cover and simmer 2 hours, or until juices are slightly thickened. Strain juices into a bowl. Spoon onions into a vegetable bowl. Carve meat. Pass sauce and onions at the table with the meat.4 5 pound beef chuck roast 1 tablespoon oil 4 medium onions, sliced 2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons flour 1 (12-ounce) can of beer 1 tablespoon brown sugar 1 tablespoon vinegar 1 bay leaf 2 cloves garlic 1½ teaspoons salt 2 tablespoons parsley Danny Thomas 1912-1991As Danny Williams, the nightclub Comic and father on the long-running sitcom popularly known a