Product Description

Hollywood's celebrities expect only the best-especially when it comes to food. That's why they turn to Akasha Richmond, Hollywood's favorite healthy chef.

In Hollywood Dish, Akasha brings her A-list menus to the rest of us. She offers more than 150 recipes from her favorite experiences as a chef and caterer, including theme parties and holiday dinners for some of today's top stars and parties for MTV awards shows, the Sundance Film Festival, and the Grammy Awards. Mouthwatering but surprisingly simple recipes include Cinnamon French Toast with Pomegranate-Cherry Compote, Wild Salmon and Artichoke Salad with Green Tea Ranch Dressing, Pumpkin Seed Crusted Cod with White Peach Salsa, Short Ribs Braised with Chinese Flavors, Crispy Fruit Crumble, and Sundance Chocolate Torte-all deliver fresh, authentic flavor and are made with wholesome, tasty ingredients.

But Akasha offers more than just recipes. She is the authority on Hollywood's long-standing tradition of healthy eating. From the early health-food pioneers to today's healthy-living trailblazers, she weaves a fascinating history of food trends, stars, and events that have made Hollywood the health capital of the world. With each recipe, she shares the nutritious culinary habits of the stars of the silver screen, including Greta Garbo, Cary Grant, and Gloria Swanson, as well as today's hottest celebrities, like Madonna, Tom Cruise, and Tobey Maguire.

Now you, too, have the chef to Hollywood's A-list at your disposal. To create chic, healthy, delicious food, all you need is Akasha Richmond's Hollywood Dish.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #644373 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Reading like the strange love child of a gossip column and a cookbook, this book intersperses tales of old school Hollywood stars like Mae West and Greta Garbo among ur-Californian recipes. The author, a chef and caterer to the stars, tilts vegetarian in dishes like Seared Tempeh Cobb Salad, an appealing twist on the classic (which originated in a restaurant founded by "a well-known gourmet who happened to be Gloria Swanson's husband"). Johnny Weissmuller, the first Tarzan, inspired Green Chile Soy Mac and Cheese, and the author attributes Cauliflower Chive Puree to Frank Sinatra Jr.'s album Spice and the cookbook that accompanied it. Dr. Bieler's Broth, a key component of a 1970s health regimen, is surprisingly good despite its virtuous ingredients-the leeks and celery turn gently sweet after a long simmer. Other recipes are equally tasty: rich and spicy Thai Chicken and Daikon Curry, sinful Honey-Goat's Milk Flan and addictive Almond Eggplant Balls, delicious with tomato sauce and cheese. The only off note in the book is the author's excessive reverence for the golden age of Hollywood that seeps into her recipe descriptions. Luckily, they're not integral to the recipes and can be easily skipped.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author
Akasha Richmond is the chef/owner of Akasha's Visionary Cuisine, which has prepared meals and catered parties for numerous celebrities and Hollywood events. She is the cofounding chef of Eaturna, an all-natural food company devoted to revolutionizing the way people eat, with delicious and beneficial meals for every day. She is also a contributing editor to Vegetarian Times magazine, a national spokesperson for Silk Soymilk, and a consultant to natural food companies and restaurants. Visit her website at chefakasha.com.

Customer Reviews

Entertaining, delicious, and healthy!!
I loved this book! You don't even need to cook to enjoy it -- the stories and sidebars are a delightful read just by themselves. And if you do cook -- WOW! the recipes are different without being strange, with interesting twists on some standards, and some great new ideas, and all of them are healthy and yet sound utterly delicious. I've already done a dozen or so recipes, and every one was a huge hit. I have a lot of cookbooks, but this one instantly became one of my favorites. DOn't miss it!

Gossip and great food in equal measure!
From the Orange County Register
July 7, 2006

by Judy Bart Kancigor, author of Cooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family

When I was growing up I lived for the movies. I devoured Photoplay magazine from cover to cover and daydreamed I would meet my idols like Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter. Well, Rock is long gone, but who knew that decades later I'd be eye to eye with Tab still gorgeous after all these years.

I attended the LA Times Festival of Books at UCLA in April mainly for the food demonstrations at the cooking stage, but it's a huge venue, and just about everyone hawking a new book was there, including Tab, signing his memoir for adoring fans.

Back at the cooking stage, Akasha Richmond, private chef and caterer to the stars, was dishing some Hollywood trivia herself as she demonstrated recipes from her new cookbook, "Hollywood Dish," a collection of 150 health-filled recipes interspersed with fascinating tidbits and Hollywood gossip.

Richmond's client list includes such A-list luminaries as Michael Jackson, Carrie Fisher, Al Pacino, Pierce Brosnan and Richard Gere. When Billy Bob Thornton wanted a wheat-free, dairy-free Thanksgiving dinner, he called Richmond, who began her career in the late seventies as chef of the Golden Temple, one of LA's first vegetarian restaurants. When celebrities started clamoring for her healthy menus, she began catering Hollywood parties and became personal chef to Barbra Streisand among others, later moving on to cook for the MTV awards shows, Sundance Film Festival and the Grammies.

Richmond is passionate about using healthy and organic ingredients to produce such tempting dishes as Thai Chicken and Daikon Curry, Almond Eggplant Balls, even her spectacular Sundance Chocolate Torte, her "wheat-free, soy-enhanced version" of Alice Medrich's Chocolate Walnut Torte. "I'm allergic to dairy, so I use soy milk in everything," she revealed. "The only thing I can't do with it is flan." The book does, however, offer a Honey-Goat's Milk Flan from famed spa, Rancho La Puerta, which began, she reports, as a $17.50-per-week retreat where guests brought their own tents and helped with the cooking, going on to become the exclusive getaway it is today.

"Hollywood Dish" is so much more than a collection of recipes. Richmond chronicles the history of healthful eating in America, interweaving stories of old Hollywood and the food preferences of stars from Gloria Swanson (she carried avocadoes in her handbag) to Woody Harrelson (a raw-food proponent) to Rudy Vallee, whose penchant for frozen strawberry daiquiris helped put the Waring blender on the map.

Hollywood embraced healthy eating, and the nation soon followed, Richmond noted. "At the turn of the century Germans from the communes, who were into eating healthy foods, came to California for the cheap land, abundant fruit and sunshine," she said. "They started teaching here and opened juice bars in the movie studios. The movie business came to Hollywood at the same time the health food business did."

One of Richmond's favorite appetizers is adapted from the pimento cheese sandwiches Billy Bob Thornton whipped up one year for the kitchen crew when Richmond was catering his Christmas party. She likes to cut them in quarters and serve them with a cream of tomato dip. "I made these for Frank Zapper's wedding," she said. "Everywhere I go I make these sandwiches. They're the friendliest little sandwiches I've ever seen."

PIMENTO CHEESE BITES
From "Hollywood Dish" (Avery) by Akasha Richmond

1 cup grated soy cheddar cheese or cheese of your choice
2 tablespoons vegan or light mayonnaise
2 tablespoons chopped green onion
1/4 cup diced pimentos, drained
1 tablespoon chopped green olives
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon hot red pepper sauce
6 slices spelt, whole wheat or sourdough bread
Canola cooking spray
1 tablespoon nonhydrogenated soy spread or olive oil

Mix cheese, mayonnaise, green onion, pimento, olives, salt, pepper and red pepper sauce in a small bowl. Divide equally among 3 slices bread and top with remaining bread slices. Heat 10- or 12-inch nonstick sauté pan over medium heat. Spray with cooking spray. Add soy spread. Brown on both sides, adding more spray or soy spread as you go along. Cut into quarters and serve.

Great read, wonderful recipes
I was very pleased with how this book flowed. There are great stories of old and new hollywood and the recipes are easy to follow, and there is not one that I have not enjoyed. If I had to pick which recipe I loved the most it would have to be the CINNAMON-RAISIN BREAD, it is just outstanding and no one in your family would be the wiser that they actually are eating healthy. A must buy for anyone!!!