PLEASE NOTE: The author has pledged in Chef Tell’s name a portion of his royalties from this book's sales to 501(3)(c) non-profit, Chefs for Humanity, founded by Iron Chef Cat Cora. CFH's mission is “ to help raise awareness and provide resources for emergency and hunger-related causes."
Before the heyday of the Food Network, there was Chef Tell nickname of
Friedemann Paul Erhardt, America's first TV showman chef. Big on
personality and flavor, Chef Tell was once called by Philadelphia
magazine the affably roguish Bad Boy of the Philadelphia restaurant
world. Chef Tell explores how a young German American chef became
America's biggest TV celebrity chef of his time. Most of Chef Tell's
forty million baby boomer viewers a number comparable to Julia Child's
never knew his fascinating, hardscrabble life story. Until now. This
winning biography brings us behind the line into his kitchen and into
his, at times, turbulent personal life. Tell was known as a charmer, as
he worked the audience for live television shows, but also a
quick-witted perfectionist, who demanded only the freshest ingredients
for his life of food, fame, fortune, and women. Chef Tell's life his
colleagues would agree was a managed, complicated, and mercurial affair,
which changed two industries and millions of home cooks. An absorbing
account of an extraordinary man, Chef Tell takes us through his personal
and professional highs and lows; and his glorious successes that
explain why so many loved, or hated, him then and miss him now. The day
Chef Tell died, messages of surprise and shock flooded the media,
including Chef Tell has died? Stick a fork in him, he's done. Chef Tell
would have loved that. Readers will know why and agree.