Favorite Celebrity Chefs

I love to cook. I even like to bake on occasion. Cooking is a life philosophy for me. I like to do everything myself from the stock, up - nothing packaged/boxed, save for pasta. Recently, I've found myself day dreaming quite a lot about leaving multimedia development and opening my own bistro.

My favorite celebrity chefs are Gordon Ramsay, Giada de Laurentiis, Mario Batali, Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver, Ina Garten and Alton Brown.

Anyone else a "foodie"?

Actually, the less I eat, the better I feel. Doesn't Dom Deluise belong in that list? I believe he wrote a cook book. He put on a lot of weight for a movie called Fatso. He liked to cook as well & just grew sideways.

Contrast that to Robert DeNiro who put in weight for Raging Bull but returned to his normal weight after the movie.

I'm seriously into cooking, grilling and BBQ, I have to concur with your list of favorites, except (although I love her cooking) I find Ina Garten dry and boring. I'm a huge Gordon fan as well as Alton Brown (in fact I even have one of his t-shirts Death to Uni-taskers)




In addition to your list of fave chefs, dM, I'd have to add Guy Fieri (totally entertaining and love his style of cooking, love Diners, Drive-ins and Dives), Bobby Flay (I love his throwdowns,Iron Chef skills and overall versatility), followed by the only female Iron Chef and executive chef of Bon Appetite magazine Cat Cora (man that woman can cook, and cute as a Georgia peach!).

And I certainly can't leave out the person I would want for a second mom - Paula Dean, and my favorite entertainment chef, Emeril Lagasse. Something I don't think many know about Emeril is that he has a really good show on the Planet Green Network called Emeril Green which is all about healthy cooking. A lesser known favorite of mine is Chef John Besh. I quite enjoy his Louisiana style cooking.

And on the not quite yet celebrity side, I have to plug my best friend Mike Hedrick. He's the owner of PitPirate BBQ competition BBQ team and catering, as well as the Pit Boss for a relatively new NASCAR flavored BBQ site http://pitcrewbarbeque.com/ . He also is a guest chef for Charbroil Grill (he also tests their latest grills and smokers). And if you really want to get into some good southern BBQ check out his expert video series at monkeysee.com

And I'm like you. I certainly wouldn't mind giving up my day job to have a nice little Bistro somewhere.

Alton Brown is fun to watch, but I also like that bald guy that has that Bizarre Foods show. He's always so polite when he eats something that is disgusting.