Recently, celebrities publishing cookbooks has been trending. As someone who enjoys food (I would be unique if I didn’t enjoy food) and cooking food, I figured why not talk about people who make directions for preparing food. If you too enjoy food, you’ll have somewhat of an appreciation for the cookbooks these celebrities have produced. If you have no appreciation for the celebrities themselves, well at least they contributed something very important to society. Recipes on recipes, so you can entertain guests without seemingly like a scrub who just wanted to order pizza (point of clarification: I am that scrub).

Before you start to wonder why I choose celebrities over celebrity chefs, because who honestly expects most successful celebrities to create a cookbook? With low expectations, you’re likely to be more impressed. When someone is a professional chef, I expect them to author at least three cookbooks, co-author journal articles, and be the recipient of a Golden Spatula award.

Also, it’s a no-brainer for celebrity chefs: Giada De Laurentiis, Ina Garten, Bobby Flay, and Martha Stewart.

Chrissy Teigen

Because how could Chrissy Teigen not be on this list. Model, Twitter savage, Lip Sync Battle co-host, mom, Instagram extraordinaire, and now author of a dope cookbook, Chrissy Teigen, everybody. Seriously, her celebrity did not come from her recipes or Tweets. I’m sure her Twitter and Instagram did help with recognition and her branding, but none of that would have happened without the modeling. Maybe it helps that she’s married to John Legend and they have a beautiful child, but again, she wouldn’t have that without the modeling career.

I need her to have her own show on the Food Network ASAP. They could air her show in the evenings and call it “Food Network After Dark” because many of the words Teigen uses are “inappropriate.” When Food Network decides to pickup this idea, I’ll be here waiting to do the marketing.

Tia Mowry

For fans of Sister, Sister, seeing Tia without Tamera is strange. Child stars apparently like to branch out of acting, and what better way to branch out than to become a chef. Mowry made the list because obviously she was known as an actor, and now a chef with a show on the Cooking Channel. If only all former child stars contributed something as important as a healthy cookbook to society. Nothing says “Look, Ma, I made it!” like cooking food (as opposed to cooking up meth). Apparently, any scrub can transition out of being a child star, but not just anyone can do it without drugs and alcohol. And odds are she’s not abusing any substances since she has endometriosis. In fact, her cookbook is endometriosis friendly, which means many of the foods are anti-inflammatory. Basically, she’s a celebrity who just wants to enjoy her meals and in the process contributed something for the greater good.

Ayesha Curry

Nothing quite like being married to a star NBA player and having your own side hustle with recipes. In my opinion, this woman is goals. Her Instagram is on fleek, and she’s really like a pseudo-celebrity because she is known for being a basketball wife. She’s much more than that as she has proven by building her brand through cooking and parenting. Throwing shade on Twitter at refs is yet another one of Ayesha’s talents that should be appreciated. However, if you really only care about her cookbook that’s cool too. She, like the other women on this list, has created a cookbook for your consumption, so consume. If that wasn’t a compelling enough argument, did I mention she actually has her own cooking show? You may not even need to read the book, you can just follow along while watching her. She may in fact be the only “qualified” chef on this list. She still counts as a celebrity before a chef, because she was recognized as a celebrity before she was recognized as a chef. I’m not getting into the nitty-gritty details, the bottom line is Ayesha Curry makes the cut.

Gwyneth Paltrow

[media-credit name=”Ellen Silverman” link=”http://blog.cookingchanneltv.com/2011/04/26/by-the-book-cooking-with-gwyneth-and-loving-it/” align=”alignnone” width=”300″][/media-credit]

Maybe you recognize her from Iron Man or some other movie. Perhaps, you even recognize her as Chris Martin’s ex-wife if you’re a big Coldplay fan. Whatever the reason, you probably have at least heard of Gwyneth Paltrow. My personal favorite for how people know her is because she’s the epitome of extra, which probably contributes to why she published a cookbook. I assume her reasoning behind making a cookbook came from her decision to give lifestyle advice. Naturally, a cookbook comes out of telling people how to make their lives better because food makes your life better. The GOOP founder is all about a healthy lifestyle, which I can behind. Although her recipes may be time consuming, at least they’re healthy, tasty, and manageable if you’re not crunched for time.  And when I start making the kind of money she makes, I may even get behind more of her lifestyle recommendations.

 

Celebrities who could make cookbooks and change this list: Zendaya, Beyoncé, Michelle Obama, Ron Swanson, and Taylor Swift.