After this you should probably get something real to eat

by Thom Yee

Chef images courtesy of Open Road Films

The cult of celebrity chefs may be one of the more peculiar developments of the early 21st century, but it’s a celebrity that’s at least a lot more earned than many of the other celebrities that have risen and fallen over that same time. Rather than trading explicitly in their looks, notoriety or leaked nudes, the celebrity chef must use his implicitly earned skills, often developed over years of a culinary schooling several times more difficult and demanding than your common business or dental schools (though who am I to talk, all I ever learned in school is how to write things down I hope make me seem thoughtful or clever).

However, it’s also true that the chefs for whom celebrity has come most naturally tend to be those who combine some level of photogenic intangibles and an unpredicted twist (e.g., they act crazy and wear sunglasses on the back of their head or… maybe they yell a lot), but there’s also a warmth in their tone and methods, an invitation to a world that’s not so far from our own that lets us all know that these are people often worth respecting, doing something much more worth watching.

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