Emeril Lagasse Serves Up Recipes for Young Cooks and Their Parents.
Emeril Lagasse might be the most famous chef in America. He has a wildly popular television show. He has several well-known restaurants, including three in New Orleans, Louisiana (one of which is still closed because of Hurricane Katrina). This past summer he prepared a special meal — freeze-dried jambalaya, a spicy stew — for astronauts on the space shuttle.
But when he started cooking, he was just a 7-year-old boy hanging out with his mom at home in Massachusetts.
His first major kitchen project was vegetable soup. He cooked a batch every day for four or five days straight. His mom, Hilda, would taste each one and tell him it was pretty good before suggesting that some ingredient be changed a bit or cooked a little more or a little less.
“When I got it right, she said, ‘This is how it should be. The vegetables are right; the broth is right. This is what we’re going to have for dinner tonight,’ ” said Lagasse (pronounced lah-GAS-ee). “And I was so proud.”
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