Recently, I went into my local Barnes & Noble and was greeted with this sight that got me thinking…

Dis­play of “Best­selling Cook­books” in Barnes & Noble.

I never really noticed the plethora of “celebrity” cook­books until recently. It seems like every celebrity not only must do their nor­mal 9to9 (acting/singing/”reality show”/etc.) but they also must have a fash­ion line, a fra­grance (or more in the case of a few celebs), a beauty line, a book and, if their agent/manager can fina­gle it, a cook­book fol­lowed by a food/drink line, cookware/bakeware/homewares line, and so on and so on.

I  would see the occa­sional celeb cook­book (and I use the term “celeb” loosely since I also am includ­ing real­ity stars in that mix) and I never really paid it any mind. Lately, it seems there is more celebrity cook­books and I’m sorry – these indi­vid­u­als are not “celebrity chefs” no mat­ter how much they try to uti­lize that moniker. How­ever, the “def­i­n­i­tion of a celebrity chef” is a rant for another day. Also, I have to state for the record that I firmly believe that that are celebs that are pas­sion­ate about cook­ing and actu­ally prac­tice what they preach (Ms. Patti Labelle is one that walks the walk and talks the talk – same with Ms. Dolly Par­ton and, of course, Cook­ing Channel’s Debi Mazar and Gabrielle Cor­cos who had a blog and online cook­ing show long before it was “trendy”) but this “dis­cus­sion” isn’t about them because their recipes and actions speak volumes.

Recently a well known celebrity went on a national morn­ing show to hawk their lat­est cook­book. Dur­ing the demo, I noticed that this celeb didn’t appear to really know her own recipes or the sto­ries behind it. It was then a light­bulb clicked in my recov­er­ing pub­li­cist mind – she must have had a ghost­writer or fam­ily mem­ber put it together. This celeb had a rel­a­tive with her and that per­son caught the fum­ble and ran with it for a touch­down but I resolved then and there to NOT buy that spe­cific cook­book nor review it and, tech­ni­cally, it also made me ques­tion that celebrity’s integrity because while she’s on there hawk­ing this cook­book and say­ing she put her heart and soul into it, by all appear­ances, clearly she didn’t.

I totally get brand­ing and endorse­ments but, if you col­lab­o­rated with some­one, be hon­est. Your fans and the audi­ence would absolutely appre­ci­ate the trans­parency. This isn’t a one time sit­u­a­tion – it seems to be a many time sit­u­a­tion and she’s not the only celeb – many oth­ers are guilty of this as well. I won’t even address the whole “house­wife” drama where they put out cook­books one, after another, after another and the recipes not only leave much to be desired, but in the case of one of the book, as noticed by a dear friend, some of those “recipes” weren’t even writ­ten by that celeb but were taken from a well known cook­book with no credit, adap­tion, nada. (And, for the love of all things Julia Child, I have to say that if net­work suits give one of these house­wives a cook­ing show instead of a tal­ented chef or cook that knows their way around a kitchen, I’m really going to won­der what is wrong with the net­work and per­haps flip the chan­nel – permanently)

I have heard time and time again about how celebri­ties use ghost­writ­ers to write their nov­els, etc. and I’m sure that there are many recipe devel­op­ers that were behind the mak­ing of a celebrity cook­book. The pub­lish­ing com­pany puts the celeb’s name on it and sales are high and all involved are happy. Does that make the celeb the next Martha? In my opin­ion, def­i­nitely not. Martha Stew­art has a pas­sion for cook­ing, enter­tain­ing, etc. and has built her media empire on it. The celebrity has a dif­fer­ent legacy, in my opin­ion, and while I appre­ci­ate that some have the pas­sion for it – many often don’t and see it as yet another rev­enue tool – cour­tesy of their agent/manager/etc. They go on pro­mo­tional tours for this spe­cific cook­book and, at the end of that media blitz, it’s over and onto the next brand­ing oppor­tu­nity. There is a lucra­tive busi­ness in brand­ing – there’s no deny­ing that. If you talk to many celebrity chefs, you will see that they have a clear plan – cook­books, house­wares, linens, etc. But those celebrity chefs also deliver, in my opin­ion, and many often uti­lize their own lines in their day to day dealings.

I’ll jump off my soap­box now before I get TOO ranty – but I’m curi­ous to see what you think.

Are you YAY or NAY for Celebrity Cook­books and would you pur­chase them before you pur­chased one from an actual food per­son­al­ity (whether it’s from OWN, Food Net­work, Cook­ing Chan­nel, PBS, Bravo, etc.).