Stuart O'Keeffe Shares His Hearty but Healthy Culinary Perspective

Julia Child started the TV chef revolution almost 50 years ago as "The French Chef.” The “Two Hot Tamales,” Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, made Mexican accessible in the ‘90s. And Giada De Laurentiis helped people cook “Everyday Italian” food starting in 2006. But there’s a new star on the culinary scene, Stuart O’Keefe. And he’s teaching people how to make hearty but healthy creations as an expert chef on the OWN series Home Made Simple.

Stuart explained how he developed a passion for food at a young age. “I learned all this from my mother. She owned a clothing store… back home and she would get up add at like six o’clock in the morning and start making us lunches for that day before she would go to work at 9 a.m.”

His mother instilled in him a taste for unprocessed ingredients. He recalled, “She always believed in putting fresh food on the table that day… She always liked fresh protein or fresh vegetables and in Ireland we have all of that available to us. We have some great livestock there and some of the best meat in the world comes from Ireland.”

Besides food, Stuart also had an interest in American culture. He watched U.S. television shows and was aware of celebrities across the pond. He dreamed of moving to Los Angeles. He revealed, “I always wanted to do TV, whether it was TV hosting or we parlayed it into me being a chef on TV. I feel very fortunate. I feel very lucky.”

After a stint as one of the stars of the Food Network reality series Private Chefs of Beverly Hills, he landed his own show in Ireland called, Stuart’s Kitchen. But now he’s returned to the U.S. TV as an expert chef on the OWN series Home Made Simple. There he shares his philosophy of hearty but healthy cooking.

The Ambush Cook Kristina Kuzmic Makes Her OWN Debut

 Photo by Devin Pense/Courtesy of OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network

When OWN debuted earlier this year, we were instantly sucked into the competition series Your Own Show: Oprah’s Search for the Next TV Star. And in true Oprah Winfrey style, they surprised us by announcing not one but two winners — Kristina Kuzmic and Zach Anner. Kuzmic is a working mom with a passion for cooking and her new series, The Ambush Cook, debuted recently. In an exclusive interview she told us about the gifts that Oprah has given her and her relationship with Zach.

Kristina reflected on her time on Your Own Show, telling us that the highlight of the entire experience was simply “having time with Oprah.” She recounted an exciting, but intimidating interview that Op did with each finalist before the winning decisions were made. “We didn’t know she was coming. So it wasn’t like I could mentally prepare myself. I remember thinking, ‘Don’t cry,’ because I was so emotional through that whole process, it was such a big deal for me to make it to the top ten. So I just kept thinking, ‘Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Try and form sentences like a normal person.’”

This Week's Inspirational Pop Culture Moments

Photo by david_shankbone

A Sex and the City star donates shoes for charity, singers pay tribute to a lost legend and an Angel helps kids in Kenya. Here's this week's most inspirational moments in pop culture.

Will Sarah Jessica Parker Give Up her Minolo’s?

Sarah Jessica Parker’s iconic Sex and the City character Carrie Bradshaw was known for her love of one thing over all others — no, not Mr. Big. We’re talking about shoes. Her affection was so deep in fact that she once almost lost her apartment and remarked, “I've spent $40,000 on shoes and I have no place to live? I will literally be the old woman who lived in her shoes!”

In real life the actress is using her obsession for good. SJP is just one of a long list of stars who is donating their cherished footwear to the Small Steps Project’s auction. The organization supports children who live in rubbish dumps around the world.

The list of donors includes Parker’s SATC co-star Kristin Davis, Academy Award winners Rachael Weisz and Helen Mirren and Hollywood legacy Jamie Lee Curtis. But it’s not all about the pumps. Male celebrities are participating, too. Guys will be able to bid on Simon Pegg’s orange hi tops, Ricky Gervais’ black dress shoes and Boy George’s pony skin booties.

The idea came from Small Steps Project’s founder, former entertainment journalist Amy Hanson. According to the organization’s website, “After years of asking celebrities about their shoes, Amy gave up her job as a showbiz reporter and started this charity but wondered if there was a way she could generate something good out of her career. She decided to ask every celebrity she had ever interviewed if they would like to donate their shoes to the project, so the celebrity’s shoe could be auctioned to raise money to provide shoe and aid for children on rubbish dumps with no shoes.”

For more inspiring pop culture moments, visit Beliefnet.com.

One NPR Listener's Summer Job with a Pop Culture Icon

Let’s face it, when you’re young, summer jobs blow. Who wants to skip an afternoon at the beach with their friends, for minimum wage in some crappy clothing store. But every once in a while, a gig comes along that allows for a brush with greatness.

Such was the case with one NPR’s All Things Considered listener, who spent two summers in the ‘70s during college with a true pop icon—one of America’s first great celebrity chefs. No, he didn’t make coc au van with Julia Child, or flirt with the ladies on the Galloping Gourmet. But he does have the distinction of spending ten weeks cooking up the Pillsbury Doughboy (and his lady love the Dough Girl).

Ed Via worked at Dayton Flexible Products, and there he estimates that he baked up almost a quarter of a million Poppin and Poppy Fresh each summer, 50 at a time. But as much as the giggling, glutenous pitchman, still prances through our childhood dreams of days gone by, Ed suffers from a twisted latex nightmare or two.

Hear how he describes his Poppin Fresh days:

The Cooking Channel Isn’t Just for Hipsters

In case you haven’t noticed, the Food Network has been overflowing with cooking shows lately. So the masterminds behind everybody’s favorite food destination decided it was time to do something with the leftovers.

Their new concoction, the all new Cooking Channel, is truly yummy. The CC is designed to appeal to a new generation of foodies with shows like Food Jammers (think Mythbusters meets the Naked Chef), Indian Food Made Easy (seriously, you won’t be afraid of tumeric tumeric anymore), and Chuck’s Day Off (this dude makes things like alphabet pasta for grown-ups, cool).

And still, instead of being too hip for its own good, the network also pays homage to some unexpected godmothers and godfathers of food. We were delighted to see the Galloping Gourmet Graham Kerr, the French Chef Julia Child, and the Two Fat Ladies Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson.

But if you plan on watching any time soon, you might want to order some Chinese food. Trust us, you’re going to get so sucked into the shows, you’re not going to want to leave your TV set to go to the kitchen and cook.

Watch the Top Chef Masters Finale Tonight

Let us start by admitting that we’re still disappointed that French culinary genius Hubert Keller was not a contestant this season on Top Chef Masters. Add to that how bummed we were that local culinary queen and founding Food Network maven Susan Feniger (aka one of the Two Hot Tamales) got the boot a couple of weeks ago, and we’re a little torn about the way this season is shaking out.

Needless to say, we’re having a hard time deciding who we want to take home the title of Top Chef Master. From what we can tell, Susur Lee is one of those once in a lifetime creative visionaries, but his particular brand of cooking doesn’t really whet our appetites. Marcus Samuelsson seems like a nice enough guy and a talented chef, but he doesn’t seem to overwhelm the judges with innovative cooking. Then there’s Rick Moonen, who comes across like the guy who just wants to grab some attention to get people to come to his restaurant, which, we’re sure, is fabulous. We’ll just have to wait and see who takes home the top prize for his charity of choice.

In the meantime, we’re just happy for the worthy cause of the winning master. If you haven’t checked out each chef’s charity, you should. Maybe send in a little cash on behalf of your favorite.

Here’s the info:

Suser is playing for the Andre Agassi Foundation for Education which"is dedicated to transforming U.S. public education for underserved youth."

Marcus Samuelsson is competing on behalf of the Tap Project, a UNICEF sponsored program that is fighting to bring "clean and accessible water to millions of children around the world."

Rick Moonen is representing Three Square a Southern Nevada organization that collects and distributes "rescued food."

And don't forget, Bravo's new series Work of Art starts tonight at 11:00 PM following the Top Chef Masters finale.

Pop Culture Passionistas' Brush with Juan-Carlos Cruz

We can neither confirm nor deny reports that former Food Network star Juan-Carlos Cruz is guilty of solicitation to commit murder. But we can tell you this – he was not a great cooking class instructor.

Not long before he became the Calorie Commando on everyone’s favorite cooking channel, we took a six-week course at a local cooking school and Juan Carlos was our instructor. In reality, he was our instructor for three weeks because that’s how long we lasted before we left Juan-Carlos’ kitchen and got a credit to take someone else’s class.

There were a couple of issues: