Today's Kitchen Cookbook

By JULIETTE ROSSANT It is a great feather in your toque to get on NBC's Today Show and cook up a meal (or at least assemble a dish) with Katie, Matt, Ann or Al. In a few minutes a dish is presented and tasted. It goes by too quickly to write down technique or recipe -- hell, it usually goes by too quickly to be called "cooking" at all. Afterwards, The Today Show lists the recipes on its website -- somewhere -- but by the time you've printed one out you probably have forgotten what the finished dish is suppose to look like, or why you wanted to make it in the first place. What's the recipe to solve that problem? Wrap up a good hunk of those recipes in a nice package, list as a cookbook high up on your website, and hawk online and on-air. Thus, we have the new Today's Kitchen Cookbook (Meredith Books, September 2005), which rustles up over five years of recipes by celebrities and celebrity chefs. The charity cookbook benedits the T. J. Martell Foundation, which supports cancer and AIDS research, and is closely connected to the entertainment industry. The Foundation arranged for the first few pages of pop star recipes from the likes of Celine Dion offering Sfihas and Fried Cauliflower, which calls for Pilsbury Refrigerated Crescent Dinner Rolls (p. 9) and Sharon Osbourne's Shepard's Pie with Rosemary Mash (p. 10). These celebrity recipes fit into the book, since it is essentially a potpourri. Loose organizing principles organize each chapter -- but target audiences will be buying the book for similarly broad reasons: can't get enough of NBC's fab four every morning, or want to support their favorite charity, or must have every single recipe by Mario Batali, Charlie Palmer, or Jamie Oliver ever published. And many well known chefs have contributed: Alice Waters, Tom Colicchio, Nobu, Ina Garten, and on an on. The books starts with a Simple, Healthy & Quick chapter, then Gourmet Feasts, Casual Cuisine, Family Gatherings, and Holiday Menus. There are Q & A with each of the four hosts. Thus, Matt Lauer starts of the chapter on Gourmet Meals with: When I was a bachelor, I really dove into cooking. I would buy the large (economy) size cans of Beefaroni, tear the label off the can, open it, and put the can right on the burner of the stove, then I would stir with a large spoonm and when it was hot, I would pick it up with a pot holder. When it was ready, I would eat it right out of the can, so the only thing I ever had to wash was the spoon! Now that's cooking! (p. 51) Matt follows that introduction with a recipe for Pasta with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe (p.53) that is made from scratch. In fact, this chapter has some of the finest and most complicated recipes, like Jacques Pepin's Poulet at la Creme (p. 68) and Daniel Boulud's Lamb Stew with Rosemary and Orange (p. 69) and Coleman Andrew's playful Polka Dot Cheesecake (p. 78). The very last chapter has a few surprises. Who would have thought British chef Jamie Oliver would know how to put together a Thanksgiving Feast complete with Roast Turkey with Stuffing and Apple Pie (pp. 194-9)? Finally, at the end of the book are short bios of each contributor. The food photography is very satisfactory. The video clips which often flow along the bottom of pages seem to have received no doctoring at all, whether trying to improve resolution (nearly impossible) or making some celebration of their on-air qualitiies. Virtually untreated, they detract rather than add to the book's appearance. Overall, it seems that more could might have done with so many intellectual assets, but with so many chefs cooking up this book -- Meredith Books, NBC Today Show, NBC-Universal, T. J. Martell, all with something to "add" (or demand) -- well, let's just say that sources tell superchefblog that Katie came up with the cookbook's concept over five (5) years ago. (Superchefblog has been working on some charity cookbook formulas of its own -- but that's another story.) On the other hand, in this case, why bother more? With such star power and a top morning show to advertise for you, you will soon be a top-seller -- and Today's Kitchen Cookbook was already in the top 1,000 on Amazon.com as of yesterday evening. Clearly, celebrity branding works -- but it is Giada De Laurentiis' book Everyday Italian that reigns among cookbooks among Amazon.com's top 100 sellers. The simpler format -- one (beautiful) celebrity chef with regular TV appearance -- would seem to be the more successful -- unless of course the market tires of this new face and subsequent cookbooks pale in sales. Publishing, like Film, always is always a bit of a gamble, in which case Today's Kitchen Cookbook may not become a topseller but is very likely to remain a steady, high seller and thus a better "team player" for its publishers. NB: Potential purchasers should also note carefully that "a good portion" of the royalties for this cookbook will be donated by both Meredith and NBC-Universal to the T. J. Martell Foundation for charity. None of the cookbook partners would be more specific -- but whatever the percentage, clearly it is short of the 100% of proceeds regularly raised and/or donated by such institutions as City Meals on Wheels, for instance. 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