Prime Time Emeril: More TV Dinners From America's Favorite Chef

With his ubiquitous Food Network cooking programs, Good Morning America appearances, five bestselling cookbooks, six celebrated restaurants, and starring role in an NBC sitcom, celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse may be the ultimate "food ambassador." "Nothing makes me happier than getting people involved with food, excited about food, and cooking food," he says in the introduction to Prime Time Emeril: More TV Dinners from America's Favorite Chef. We may wonder if Emeril's over-the-top antics actually inspire his legions of viewers to spend more quality time in the kitchen, but there's no argument that he gets people excited about food. The mere addition of garlic, heavy cream, butter, or the slightest drop of truffle oil to one of Emeril's decadent dishes and his studio audience explodes with a fevered enthusiasm akin to a frenzied mob of face-painted hockey fans up in the nosebleed seats during the playoffs. As an Amazon.com customer from Boutte, Louisiana, writes, when it comes to Emeril "...there are two competing factions. Those who love and worship Emeril and those who refuse to." But, as Emeril might say, we "won't go there."

Prime Time Emeril is packed with menu ideas highlighting Emeril's well-known Louisiana-by-way-of-Fall River-Massachusetts cuisine. Recipe introductions feature witty Emerilisms (his "roux theory": a nice, dark brown roux requires about 25 to 30 minutes cooking time, or the amount of time it takes to knock back two beers) and chapter titles like "Pork Fat," "Y'All Southern?" and "Macho Meats," among others, set the tone. Comfort food is on the menu, including Chicken, Bacon, and White Bean Soup Portuguese-Style and Baked Ziti with Italian Sausage and Fennel ("love in a bowl"), along with more elegant fare such as Apricot-Glazed Cornish Game Hens with Sausage-Rice Pilaf Stuffing and Chilled Roasted Beet and Fennel Soup with Apple-Mint Crema and Toasted Pistachios. Any Super Bowl party would welcome his Turkey Chili; Baked Crabmeat, Artichoke, and Spinach Dip; or Kicked-Up Chicken Drummettes with Blue Cheese Sauce. And just imagine the killer next-day sandwiches Emeril's Spiced Baked Ham with Sweet Potatoes would provide.

Emeril may want his readers "to be at ease with making homemade pâtés or consommés, pickling, and home smoking," and maybe Prime Time Emeril will inspire them to be more adventurous in the kitchen, but odds are they'd be more than happy just watching him on TV, sprinkling his signature Essence on everything in sight and shouting "Bam!" --Brad Thomas Parsons