My Top 10 Celebrity Chefs - Part 1

I love watching cooking shows and I spend hours browsing the cook book section of bookshops. In my weekend newspaper the food section is one of the first I look at.  So I have decided to compile my own personal list of favorite celebrity chefs.  If they appear on television, have a restaurant, write for magazines/national newspapers and are generally well known then I consider them to fall in the celebrity camp.  Some of the chefs on my list will be household names and some are less known outside their own countries.  My list is also weighted towards the countries that I have lived in.

I have decided to rank them in order of how long I have known them, followed their recipes, watched their shows etc.  So my new favorites will be at the end of the list but are by no means last in my affections.  Not all my chefs are 'user friendly' - in other words I might just like them because they are great to watch and make beautiful food.  But I wouldn't necessarily be attempting their creations at home.  This top ten is coming in two parts on account of length - so don't forget to read part 2.

So here goes - 

1. Delia Smith  
   

Delia Smith, born in 1941, is a classic rags to riches tale.  She left school at the age of 16 without having passed an exam.  After a brief stint at hairdressing she started washing dishes in a restaurant in Paddington.  It was here that her interest in food began.  She began reading cookery books at the British Museum and before long she was working for the Daily Mirror as the cookery writer.  She first started appearing on TV in the mid 1970s.  She is now the U.K.'s best selling cookery writer - having sold 18 million books.  Three of them are on my shelf!  One of Delia's main goals was to teach people how to cook.  She does this brilliantly - both through her TV series 'How to Cook' and the accompanying books.  One of the great things about Delia is that she will show you a short cut if there is one to be had.  Delia started an interesting phenomenon known as the 'Delia Effect' whereby if she recommended something on her TV show it could be sold out the next day.

Since Delia first appeared on television there has been a whole new generation of celebrity chefs who are perhaps more exciting to watch.  Poor Delia has been compared to watching paint dry by one critic.  But I love her.  She may not be sexy (although I suspect some would disagree with me) but  I think she really took the mystery out of cooking for many people.  Her recipes are very easy to follow classics that work.

Delia has also converted to Catholicism and has written about her faith.  She is a keen football supporter with business interests in Norwich City Football Club.  Although she has a rather prim and proper image she did cause a bit of a rumpus when (slightly the worse for drink) she grabbed the microphone at a football match and started calling for a 12th man.  I include a video clip of this below - to demonstrate that alcohol and celebrity don't mix!

This year she was appointed CBE by the Queen in recognition of her contribution to television cookery and recipe writing.  Oh yes - and did I mention that she is worth several million quid.

2.  Jamie Oliver

Jamie Oliver (born 1975) - the Essex boy. Jamie's parents ran a pub and Jamie used to practice in their kitchen.  He also left school at 16 with no qualifications.  He attended Westminster Catering College and then went on to work for Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray at the River Cafe in London.

Jamie's first TV series and books were called the 'Naked Chef' in reference to the simplicity of the food not to actual nudity but for a long time Jamie was known as 'The Naked Chef'.

I love Jamie for his absolute enthusiasm.  His cooking TV shows and his books are really easy to view and easy to use.  He is into total simplicity - it is all about flavour with Jamie.  He doesn't muck around with fancy presentation.  He is a people's cook.  He uses a lot of herbs and fresh local ingredients.  There is no way you can go wrong with one of Jamie's recipes.

In the last few years Jamie has become known for his campaigning - to change unhealthy diets and to stop the use of processed food in school dinners in particular.  These campaigns have been the subject of television shows - like 'Jamie's School Dinners'.  The school dinner campaign was very successful in raising public awareness and the UK Government agreed to spend 280 million Pounds on school dinners as a direct result of the campaign.

Jamie has been keen to put his personal fortune to good use. He started his Fifteen restaurant which took 15 disadvantaged young people and trained them to work in the hospitality industry.  The original restaurant is in London but the concept is now going global.  There is one here in Melbourne where I live.  

In 2010, a currently unnamed six-show special series will be aired on television in the United States starring Jamie and Ryan Seacrest. The premise of the mini-series will be for the two to visit some of the most unhealthy cities in the United States and try to improve its residents' eating habits.  Should be interesting!

3.  Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson (born 1960).   Nigella graduated from the University of Oxford and started her career as a book reviewer and restaurant critic, going on to become deputy literary editor of the Sunday Times.  She then began work as a freelance journalist and brought out her first book 'How to Eat' in 1998.  It was an instant best seller.  

She then went on to publish 'How to be a Domestic Goddess' and in 2000 started to host her own TV show - 'Nigella Bites'.  Because of her very flirtatious manner and good looks she has been called 'the queen of food porn'.  She has also once been named as the world's most beautiful woman.

I must admit that I personally rate her far more highly on her presentation skills and the fact that she is so watchable than on her recipes.  I have her book 'How to be a Domestic Goddess' which I use sometimes - and there are some great recipes in it.  But in my opinion some of the recipes could be improved upon. However all the recipes are user friendly and Nigella isn't afraid to take a short cut where there is one to be taken.  She is not afraid of using gallons of cream and other cholesterol laden products either.  She is not a trained chef and she is quick to point this out.  She simply cooks for pleasure and because she likes to eat.  As a voluptuous woman who is always shown eating her creations she is an excellent role model for younger women who are overly concerned with their weight.

4.  Bill Granger

Bill Granger - originally from Melbourne but now living in Sydney is also not a trained chef.  He originally moved to Sydney to study art but after working as a waiter he realised his passion was for food.  He opened his first restaurant 'Bills' in the Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst when he was only 22.  Initially Bill became famous for his breakfasts - scrambled eggs in particular.  His eggs were analysed by food critics from Sydney to New York to London.   The secret it turns out was good free range eggs, cream and a good non stick pan.  And this is really what Bill is about - simplicity.  He himself points out that his food is not overly original.  His Sydney restaurants pull in the crowds - many people wouldn't think of visiting Sydney without eating at one of them.

Bill established himself as one of Australia's leading food writers with the publication of 'Bills Sydney Food' in 2000 in which he successfully translated the simplicity and flavour at the heart of his food, and the relaxed informal atmosphere of his restaurants, onto the printed page. 'Bill's Sydney Food' has become an international bestseller, as have the three sequels ''Bills Food' (2002), 'Bills Open Kitchen' (2003) and 'Simply Bill' (2005). His fifth book, 'Bill Granger Everyday, was published in 2006.

In 2004 Bill Granger made a 6 part TV series 'Bill's Food' and a sequel which has been shown in 22 countries and turned him into an international celebrity.

I love Bill because he sells 'lifestyle' by the bucket load.  Tanned, good looking and dressed in white - he is of course a delight to watch but in his TV series you get snippets of his lovely Sydney home on the water, the surf, the sunshine.  His beautiful little daughters (dressed in white always?) running into the kitchen to lick a bowl or grab a cookie he has just made.  The photography in his books is the same.  Fresh, sunny and inviting.  I don't just want to follow Bill's recipes I want to go and live with him in his fine Sydney home.  If I lived in a cold, damp basement flat in an outer suburb of London I would have bought my ticket already!

5.  Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (1965).  Hugh is a British celebrity chef, television presenter, journalist, food writer and "real food" campaigner, known for his back-to-basics philosophy.

Hugh studied at Eton and then at Oxford before going on to work in Africa as a conservationist.  After working in Africa he had a brief stint at the River Cafe in London before becoming a freelance journalist. 

His first TV series was 'Cook on the Wild Side' where he earned himself the nickname 'Hugh Fearlessly-Eatsitall' on account of happily picking up roadkill to eat.  This was followed by 'TV Dinners', during an episode of which he notoriously flambéed and puréed a human placenta which was served as a pâté and much enjoyed by the baby's family and friends.

Hugh is as far from Bill Granger as you can imagine.  He is very definitely eccentric and always looks as though he has been sleeping in a hedge.  But very sexy in an intellectual sort of way I think.  I see he has been voted 'Man of the Year' in the Whickham Lifestyle Competition so I suppose others must agree with me.

He has introduced the British public to chicken farming methods with one of his shows.  In this he exposes how commercial breeds of broiler chickens are reared for their meat in just 39 days. This compares to slow growing breeds which live for at least 75 days in more humane and natural surroundings. 

With Hugh it is not just about the food.  He really aims to inform.  I find that I don't necessarily want to cook or eat what he is making but he is a joy to watch and one definitely learns something from him.

Go on to read part 2 for the rest of my celebrity chefs.