"The Dead Celebrity Christmas Cookbook: More Than 60 Recipes and Reflections in the Holiday Spirit" (see review)-- When it comes to holiday fun, the stars of Hollywood's Golden Age knew how to make merry – on stage, on screen, and especially on the dinner table!

The Dead Celebrity Christmas Cookbook: More Than 60 Recipes and Reflections in the Holiday Spirit
 
by Frank DeCaro, Virginia Bell

Now you can put some glam in your holiday ham with The Dead Celebrity Christmas Cookbook. When it comes to holiday fun, the stars of Hollywood's Golden Age knew how to make merry – on stage, on screen, and especially on the dinner table. With The Dead Celebrity Christmas Cookbook – the follow-up to his international sensation The Dead Celebrity Cookbook – Frank DeCaro shows how to put the kitsch into your holiday kitchen as he salutes a quirky collection of celebrities who are gone, but fondly remembered every year at Christmastime.

Filled with pop culture ruminations and genuine (and genuinely delicious) recipes of the stars, The Dead Celebrity Christmas Cookbook hails such movie classics as It's a Wonderful Life and White Christmas, gives three cheers for such time-honored animated gems as Frosty the Snowman and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and puts such offbeat offerings as The Star Wars Holiday Special in their rightful place – the dining room!

Serving up such chapters as 'Miracle Whip on 34th Street,' 'Eat Meat in St. Louis,' and 'Munch of the Wooden Soldiers,' DeCaro dishes up an attic-full of culinary delights garnished with his signature wit and cultural observations. Feast on such temptations as Peggy Lee's Holiday Halibut Casserole, Burl Ives's Stuffed Leg of Goat Hawaiian, Nat 'King' Cole's Ham Loaf, Barbara Stanwyck's Christmas Kipfels, Dinah Shore's Fruitcake, and Spike Jones's Molasses Jumbles. Even the Grinch himself – Boris Karloff – shares a recipe! Wash them all down with Edmund Gwenn's Christmas Cup and John Lennon's Cocoa. With The Dead Celebrity Christmas Cookbook, you also can decide which makes for a better New Year's Eve, Guy Lombardo's Lobster Lombardo or Dick Clark's Spicy Turkey Meatloaf. There's nothing auld about them!

The book is the ultimate hostess gift, and one that won't get buried in the cupboard. Placing the accent on mirth – and casting a forgiving eye toward Santa's girth – The Dead Celebrity Christmas Cookbook promises to get even the biggest Scrooge in the holiday spirit and liven up any gathering. It'll have you saying your 'ho, ho, ho's' in true Hollywood style, this year and for many years to come.

MY REVIEW: Author Frank DeCaro has another winner with "The Dead Celebrity Cookbook: Christmas in Tinseltown"! This book is a fantastic follow-up to the fabulous original "The Dead Celebrity Cookbook". Hollywood holiday traditions and recipes are served up in sensational style and given extra luster with the addition of great photos of favorite stars. The sweet and snappy "Christmas Tidbits" that accompany the celebrity bios and recipes are perfect appetizers for the feast to follow. I am a true foodie and film fan--a devoted aficionado of the entertainment world. I learned to cook from my wonderful Gran, who also loved movies and movie stars. Frank DeCaro brings back many wonderful memories and offers new insights to the lives of stars and star-makers of the screen and stage. "Christmas in Tinseltown" features recipes for the holiday season and all year around. All of the celebrities who are featured have a special connection to the holidays. Frank DeCaro's funny, friendly narrative writing style adds a warmly witty tone to the book, and the recipes run the gamut from simple to superb. The chapters are divided into courses, and the titles are quite punny: "It's a Wonderful Lunch"; "Miracle Whip on 34th Street", "Munch of the Wooden Soldiers", and "What a Fruitcake", just to name a few. Here are some recipes that really caught my eye: "James Stewart's Spareribs with Barbeque Sauce"; "Jimmy Durante's German Cole Slaw"; "Red Skelton's Ham Hock and Lima Beans"; "Natalie Wood's Beef Stroganoff"; "Dinah Shore's Fruitcake"; "William Frawley's Mulligan Stew"; and "Oliver Hardy's Baked Apples with Honey and Almonds". Just like the original "The Dead Celebrity Cookbook", "Christmas in Tinseltown" is delicious from appetizer through to after-dinner drink. If you are a "food and film fan", and so are your friends and family, then you will want to collect these books and also gift them to others.

Book Copy Gratis HCI Books

About the Author

 

Frank DeCaro, author of The Dead Celebrity Cookbook, is heard each weekday morning on his own live national call-in program, The Frank DeCaro Show, on Sirius XM Satellite Radio, which now boasts more than 25 million subscribers. His radio guests have run the gamut from Justin Bieber to Ernest Borgnine, and his following across North America is as loyal as it is diverse.

Known as both a writer and a performer, DeCaro pens the "Icons" column on vintage television for CBS's Watch! magazine. For years as a fashion editor, he wrote the "Style Over Substance" column for The New York Times. A graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, DeCaro has written for myriad publications including The New York Times Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Newsweek, Vogue, and TV Guide.

As a performer, DeCaro has appeared on the ABC sitcom Cougar Town, The Rosie O'Donnell Show, The Joy Behar Show, and numerous talking-head programs. He is best known for his six-and-a-half-year stint as the movie critic on The Daily Show and a forty-episode run of the game show I've Got a Secret. In 2010, he cocreated the YouTube sensation "Betty White Lines," a rap tribute to the Golden Girls star which was featured on the Today show, Showbiz Tonight, and dozens of blogs, and got more than 100,000 hits in its first week online.

In addition, the award-winning DeCaro is the author of the groundbreaking A Boy Named Phyllis: A Suburban Memoir, which Vanity Fair called "hilarious" and The Advocate credited as opening the door for David Sedaris and "the gay American humorist as everyman." His follow-up work, a coffee table biography called Unmistakably Mackie: The Fashion and Fantasy of Bob Mackie, earned a B+ in Entertainment Weekly. DeCaro lives with his husband, writer Jim Colucci, in New York City and suburban New Jersey. Visit the author at deadcelebritycookbook.com.