Best and Worst Celebrity Cookbook - My Favorite is SOPHIA LOREN'S RECIPES AND MEMORIES

PimpMom Kris Jenner is actually a good cook...I'll give the devil it's due.

Loni Anderson doesn't like fresh tomatoes so she puts ketchup in her beef stroganoff.

This is why I love the Internet. DataLounge recommend, Amazon search and book on the way.

R1, you might like Dom Deluise's cookbook "Eat This, You'll Feel Better". He had two cookbooks, the first one is better IMO. Many of the recipes are his mother's. It's the food I ate growing up. Wonderful stories about growing up in Brooklyn, too.

Sorry, that was for OP, not R1!

Jolie Gabor's Family Cookbook

I think that's the one my sister loved, r4. It taught her what antipasto was.

It was not a cookbook per se but it had recipes. Nora Ephons books heartburn.

Olivia Newton-John has a great cookbook called Livwise. Although I think a good portion of the recipes are from the chefs at her resort spa, Gaia.

[quote]And there's something especially authentic about her spaghetti alla puttanesca.

Lol, I should think so--the dish was originated by Sophia herself!

R10 beat me to it. Mamma mia, che vergogna!

I have IKE COOKS - he didn't write it, really, but when there was cooking to be done Mamie wasn't really the one to do it, and it's an interesting glimpse at middle-century man tastes.

Three I've wanted to get are cookbooks by Liberace, Coolio and Yul Brynner. Lord.

I admit it was bias that put me off Jenner's - I only saw one recipe and it looked typically over-the-top stupid.

A lot of "stars' favorite recipes" are out there, too, but the ones who've committed to a full book offer such interesting branding/image takes. Some of the ones ascribed to Elvis' bunch are good, white-trash cooking. Not a put-down, because Helen Hayes wrote a blurb praising the original White Trash Cookbook, saying the recipes are what she was raised with.

Yes about Sophia Loren - ho ho - but, really, her voice is there and the anecdotes may be burnished but sound like they come from her life. Her comments about American GIs being behind carbonara dishes as they now appear are interesting. She just sounds like she really enjoyed cooking, unlike the money-grab or ego-trip feeling so many have.

There was one recipe that Danny Thomas was famous for, but for some reason you just don't find it in the compendiums.

At a charity book sale I picked up a copy the 1961 Amy Vanderbilt Complete Cook Book. It was illustrated with line drawings "by Andrew Warhol," before he was famous.

The recipes are very good and straightforward and quite representative of the best American cooking of the era--not the Jell-O mold and Campbell's soup casserole variety. Due to her travels there were some odd recipes for that time: a Spanish gazpacho (that she claimed her husband hated and said tasted like salad dressing) and an early recipe for nachos (which she mistakenly called Noches).

Irradiate your way to good health!

I know I’m stretching the word “celebrity” a little far here but I made Chrissy Teigen’s StoveTop pork chops and they were really really good. Not something you could eat everyday though because it’s literally pork chops fried in dressing.

I also made a really good bacon and peas pasta dish that I found on Pinterest— turns out it was a recipe from Kate Gosselin’s cookbook.

Margaret Hamilton's "Cora's Country Cokbook"

Fantastic idea, OP! I'm a big cookbook fan here, and I love this thread already... Patti LaBelle's cookbooks are very rich and decadent-but DAMN they are tasty. Patti LaBelle's Screaming Mean Greens and her signature Mac N' Cheese are delicious as FuCK! LaBelle's recipes kick Barefoot Contessa's ass and also Paula (Racist POS Bitch) Deen to the hitchkitchieyaytatta.

I am with you R19!! Patti LaBelle’s cookbooks rock! And the recipes are intuitive and easy to follow.

I have some old cookbooks by who were considered celebrity chefs back in the day - Franny Craddock, Delia Smith, Graham Kerr. Some good recipes in them, but also a number of misses too.

Another fav is “The First Ladies Cookbook” - a collection of the favorite recipes of the presidents from Washington to Johnson (the edition I have - it has been updated a few times since). I remember there was a kind of cooking/reality show where 4 strangers get put in a group where each hosts a dinner party at their home — each party is then graded by the guests on ambience, food, drink, entertainment. At the end of the dinner parties, the winner gets I think it was $5000 - I liked that show. Anyway, I remember one guy used the First Ladies Cookbook for all the courses. If I’m remembering correct, he was, wait for it, a carpenter from Astoria NY!

Re: r18

[quote]I know many of you have wondered “what does Jack Lord cook for dinner?” No, it is not some exotic dish from Hawaii. It is watercress soup. Awesome!

[quote]This book has all the hot celebrities that no one under the age of 35 will remember without a Google search. For those of us who are more mature, there are lots of stars of yesteryear featured. Dina Merrill and her Mussels, Vikki Carr and her Chicken Catalana, and Anthony Quinn’s Stuffed Potatoes are just a few of the names. Besides the Hollywood crowd, Mark Spitz, Dr Jean Mayer, and Muriel Humphrey have featured recipes. I found myself just flipping through and trying to remember who was still alive.

[quote]Franny Craddock

DOUBLE "Oh, dear."