Playboy Interview: Emeril Lagasse

Emeril Lagasse hits the stage to the type of whooping and hollering normally reserved for, say, Chris Rock or Eddie Vedder. Wearing a starched white coat and a toque, he hunches over a hunk of beef, which he gleefully pierces. Into the incisions he stuffs cloves of garlic. "Should we kick it up?" he asks, and a raucous audience of police and firemen yell back, "More! Yeah!"

Lagasse adds more garlic. Thirty, maybe 40 cloves.

The meat is shoved into an oven and Lagasse turns to a bowl that contains eggs, flour and other ingredients. He stuffs his hand into a big bowl of powder, grabbing a handful. "What do you think, guys?" he asks. "Shall we kick this one up a few notches, too?"

The audience cheers louder. "All right!" he says. "Let's kick it up just like you said." He throws in the powder, his spice mix called Essence, and lets out a staccato, "Bam!" Then other ingredients are tossed in. "Bam! Some pepper. Bam! Some salt. Bam! More Essence."

Lagasse picks up the bowl and mixes its contents with a hefty wooden spoon. There's music from a studio band that consists of a guitar picker and a harmonica player, and Lagasse breaks into a huge smile. "Man," he says, "food rocks, don't it?" The audience members cheer and stomp their feet. "Bam!" Time for a commercial.

On the slim chance that you're one of the uninitiated, "Emeril Live" is the wildest, most popular cooking show ever to appear on American television. Lagasse himself has become a megastar, not only one of the world's most heralded chefs but a TV personality who has been called "the Jerry Seinfeld of the Food Network" and is known for "bamming" and such platitudes as "Pork fat rules."

"Emeril Live," available to the Food Network's 35 million subscribers, is unlike any other food show. Lagasse, a cookbook author and famed restaurateur, makes cooking so much fun that stuffy foodies have called him bombastic and the show cartoony. But there have been far more raves. "Time" named "The Essence of Emeril" one of TV's best shows in 1996.

Lagasse has been on television since 1993, when he signed with the Food Network to host his first cooking shows, "How to Boil Water" and "Emeril and Friends," both scripted and predictable. Next came "The Essence of Emeril," which allowed him more freedom. But it wasn't until the freewheeling, spontaneous "Emeril Live" debuted in 1997 that Lagasse was unleashed. Attracting people who weren't typical cooking-show viewers--men from college age on--the show grew wilder by the week. As Doreen Iudica Vigue described it in "The Boston Globe," "It's a mashed-potato Mardi Gras revel, complete with a live band and a host who acts as if he'd consider a warning from the cops proof of a good party. When the biscuits are ready, Lagasse doesn't just stack them on a serving plate; he tosses a few into the audience like a giddy peanut vendor at a ball game. It's Rocky Balboa with oven mitts, Fred Flintstone as the Galloping Gourmet. 'Hey!' he yells. 'This is like a real cookin' show we got here!'"

Before television, Lagasse had a smaller but passionate following thanks to his restaurants in New Orleans. Emeril's, his flagship restaurant, is considered one of the best in the country, praised in magazines such as "Condé Nast Traveler," "Esquire" and "Travel & Leisure." "Restaurants & Institutions" awarded Emeril's the prestigious Ivy Award for 1994 and Lagasse has been nominated four times for best chef in America by the James Beard Foundation. Always packed (reservations are coveted), Emeril's has hosted numerous luminaries, including President Clinton and Bruce Springsteen, who is a fan of Lagasse's killer banana cream pie.

After the success of Emeril's, Lagasse opened two other restaurants in New Orleans--NOLA and Delmonico--as well as Emeril's New Orleans Fish House in Las Vegas and his newest, Emeril's Orlando, in Florida. Each has a different menu, but all feature Lagasse's "kicked up" food, which is centered on Creole and Cajun classics but includes Asian, Italian and Southwestern touches. A typical evening's menu might include eggplant-and-shrimp beignets, crawfish étouffée, quail stuffed with corn bread-and-andouille dressing, and pan-roasted chicken with oyster dressing and sweet potato pudding.

Lagasse's growing fame as a chef led to the TV shows and his position as a food correspondent with weekly spots on "Good Morning America." He has also written popular cookbooks, including "Emeril's Creole Christmas," "Louisiana Real & Rustic" and the latest, "Emeril's TV Dinners."

Food has been his obsession since he was a child in Fall River, Massachusetts, where he got his accent ("garlic" is pronounced "gawlick") and his inspiration to cook. His first teacher was his mother, who taught Emeril her Portuguese specialties, including kale soup and Portuguese stew. (Now Hilda Lagasse is an occasional guest on his TV show. She once scolded him when he changed one of her recipes. "Come on, Ma!" he responded. "It's my show.")

Lagasse's father, Emeril Jr., worked in a Fall River textile-finishing plant, which is where most of Emeril's friends wound up. But Emeril's first job was at the local Portuguese bakery, where he learned to bake bread and make pastry. He later worked at restaurants while studying music. A promising percussionist, he joined a dance band, the Royal Aces, and won a full scholarship to the New England Conservatory of Music. He turned it down, much to his parents' consternation. Instead he enrolled at Johnson & Wales, a culinary school in Providence, Rhode Island. After graduating, he worked in restaurant kitchens in France, New York, Philadelphia and Boston. In 1982, when he was 26, he left the East for the top job at Commander's Palace in New Orleans, replacing the celebrated chef Paul Prudhomme. He left Commander's and opened Emeril's in 1990.

Lagasse, 42, has been married twice. His first wife, Elizabeth, a schoolteacher, is the mother of his daughters Jessica, 19, who is a student at Cornell, and Jillian, 17. In 1989 he married Tari Hohn, an actor, who worked with him at his restaurants until they went their separate ways recently. Now single, he says he has little time for dating. He cooks even on Sundays--the one day he doesn't work--for his parents or friends.

Playboy tracked down Lagasse during a break in his frantic schedule. He had just returned to New Orleans from New York City, where he tapes his television show. Contributing Editor David Sheff, who recently interviewed Matt Drudge and Paul Reiser, found Lagasse at his namesake restaurant in New Orleans. Here's Sheff's report: "Lagasse, downing shots of espresso at a back table at Emeril's, was more serious than on TV, though he laughs heartily and punctuates his stories with an occasional 'Bam!'

"Before dinner each night the waiters and kitchen staff gather in the main dining room at Emeril's, where they are prepared for the evening by the boss and his head chefs and managers. Servers' fingernails and uniforms are inspected, and waiters present their corkscrews, pens and cigar cutters.

"After the inspection comes a reading of the night's VIP reservations. A local politician has requested privacy. 'Please respect that request,' the staff is told. The sommelier is informed that the politician prefers 'big, red wines.'

"During dinner, Lagasse is both the conductor and a player in a complex orchestra, barking orders, answering questions and presenting meticulously prepared plates of his specialties to some guests--including me. Here is what he fed your humble reporter: crepes stuffed with scallops and black trumpet mushrooms. A parfait of salmon tartare layered with a savory pastry cream, osetra caviar and shaved hearts of palm. Hand-cut noodles with truffles. Barbecued shrimp with rosemary biscuits. Escolar, the fish he has served President Clinton, in a Creole sauce, with pecans and vegetables. Venison and mashed potatoes with andouille. Finally, a taste of every dessert on the menu: lemon icebox pie, banana cream pie drizzled with chocolate and butterscotch, homemade ice cream and sorbet, Creole bonbons and a chocolate Grand Marnier soufflé. And then there was the wine.

"Later, I asked Lagasse if he had tried to kill me with the outrageous seven-course dinner. He said, 'If I'd wanted to kill you, you wouldn't be here to ask me about it.'"

[Q] Playboy: Not long ago, cooking was primarily for women. What changed?

[A] Lagasse: In the mid-Seventies, the Department of Labor changed its classification of cooking from a blue-collar to a white-collar profession. Cooking became more respected. Maybe that's what it was, because suddenly men were cooking. When I came along doing my thing, it was no big deal. Most of the top cooks were men. The biggest audience for Emeril Live is men--college kids to guys 50 and older. And they're not the kinds of guys you might expect to find in aprons. These are regular Joes who come from regular backgrounds. Because it's OK now. You don't have to stay in the closet if you like to cook dinner. You don't have to worry that the guy across the street is going to laugh at you--because he's probably doing the same thing.

[Q] Playboy: Is part of the change because now men share more in domestic chores, including cooking? Or have men been cooking all along but in secret?

[A] Lagasse: Both. There definitely were a lot of men in the closet. There still are some closet bammers out there--you don't fool me. I know that you're waiting until the kids aren't looking and the wife is gone. As soon as she drives down the street, you're at the stove bamming. But there's no need to be in the closet. Everyone is bamming. Cooking is cool now.

[Q] Playboy: It's always been OK for guys to cook on the barbecue. Why was there a distinction?

[A] Lagasse: Maybe it's a caveman thing. Playing with fire is acceptable. But now men can cook anything. Emeril helped plow the path, but I'm definitely not the only one. In America, the famous chefs used to be women--Julia Child and Marion Cunningham. In Europe there were always male chefs. Here we have the Galloping Gourmet, Graham Kerr, who is still around and is still doing a great job. But women used to rule cooking. No more. Wolfgang Puck, Charlie Trotter, Paul Prudhomme. There are many of us.

[Q] Playboy: Do men eat differently now? Do real men eat quiche?

[A] Lagasse: Real men eat whatever is delicious. Delicious is the word now. Several years ago it was "macho." But now it's cool to appreciate any good food. Incidentally, quiche is coming back. Everything--automobiles, fashion, music and food--evolves. Led Zeppelin is back. Quiche is coming back.

[Q] Playboy: What else? Don't men still want mostly meat and potatoes?

[A] Lagasse: And fish and salads and great sauces. I want a good steak once in a while, but variety is the spice of life.

[Q] Playboy: Personally, do you have a favorite ingredient?

[A] Lagasse: I love garlic. I love onion. I love potato. I love truffles. Really, everything.

[Q] Playboy: And apparently it doesn't matter what time of day or night you eat, right?

[A] Lagasse: It's the civilized way. Here you can eat anytime. In New York you can have dinner at three in the morning. But in other cities, the bars close at 11. Why? I try to stay away from those places as much as I can. For me, going out to a great dinner is good entertainment. I don't want to be rushed. I want to relish every course, enjoy the wine. Twenty years ago, many of us considered rock and roll the only true form of entertainment; you'd wait all day to get tickets for some show. What else? Maybe go to a hockey game or major-league ball game, depending on where you lived. What were you going to do? Go to the roller-skating rink? Bowling? Most people I know get together but don't do those things much. What they do is go out to dinner. Good restaurants today are entertainment. I'm not talking about the way they do it at Earth Hollywood or whatever you call it. The food is very mediocre. In those places the entertainment isn't the food, it's the pictures on the wall. When it comes to great food, though, dinner is an experience. People don't go to nice restaurants because they need to be nourished, but because they want to be entertained. Food is a significant part of life. It's no longer sex, drugs and rock and roll. Today it's food, wine and sex--and an occasional cigar.

[Q] Playboy: Or, presumably, a combination. Is food sexy?

[A] Lagasse: No question about it. First of all, people are sexy just being around the whole food thing, whether they are cooking and chopping, at the stove, kneading, stirring--anything. Food is sensual, and that's before you even start to eat. Food covers almost every sense: sight, smell, taste and feel. Food can be very seductive. I have to tell you: I get in these food modes where I can basically blow somebody right off her chair if I want to. That's because food can inspire other senses, other moods.

[Q] Playboy: What exactly do you mean by blowing someone off her chair?

[A] Lagasse: I can put someone on a food high. It's like getting such an unbelievable massage that you feel drunk. Food can do that, too. People have come to our restaurant and proposed. They didn't plan to do it, but they got caught up in this heady, excited state. You never know what will happen.

[Q] Playboy: That sounds dangerous.

[A] Lagasse: More often, it's the opposite. People usually come to the restaurants in a pretty good mood, but I have to say that they usually leave a lot happier.

[Q] Playboy: How much do wine and other libations contribute?

[A] Lagasse: It all works together. It is all part of the experience. But when you have had transcendental meals, or however you want to put it, you know what happens: You put something new in your mouth and you have the taste and the flavor and it hits you and you just can't believe it gets better than that. And then it does--with the next course. Food is seductive. It seduces. People can win hearts with food.

[Q] Playboy: Are certain foods aphrodisiacs?

[A] Lagasse: I think they are. Some of the experts say oysters are. Some say chocolate is; the Aztecs used to drink chocolate to become sexually aroused. They ended their meals with chocolate just like we often do.

[Q] Playboy: So chocolate cake works?

[A] Lagasse: I think it does. It seems to work for a lot of people who leave our restaurant very happy. Now whether they run home and jump into bed, I don't know. But they have left here on the right track. Maybe it was the chocolate. For some people, the turn-on is another dessert. For some, it is a particular caviar. For others, it's a sauce. I do a sauce that's like a love potion. I swear, you could put it on anything and you would have to be an idiot not to score.

[Q] Playboy: Are there other aphrodisiacs?

[A] Lagasse: Champagne works. Alcohol in general works, but there are other foods, too. Some people tell me pork fat works.

[Q] Playboy: Pork fat?

[A] Lagasse: Hey, I'm just reporting. Bacon, sausage or some other pork fat. People have told me that gravlax and other cured fish does it for them. For some people it's Japanese food: sushi or sea urchin, those little gifts from the sea.

[Q] Playboy: What does it for you?

[A] Lagasse: It doesn't have to be a fancy dinner with multiple courses. I had roast chicken last night. It was perfectly cooked, simple and ideal. When I finished, I felt, If something came down and crashed into the world right now, I could accept it; I would be fine.

[Q] Playboy: Can you recommend a recipe for novice cooks who want to impress a date?

[A] Lagasse: There are guidelines I can recommend. Do something simple so you can relax and enjoy the evening; you don't want to spend the entire time in the kitchen. Start light--an easy salad or something similar. An elegant but simple main course. Find out in advance what she likes; do some detective work. Select wine or champagne or whatever the meal calls for--or whatever she prefers. Finally, follow the seven Ps.

[Q] Playboy: What are the seven Ps?

[A] Lagasse: Prior proper planning prevents piss poor performance. In other words, experiment in advance. Try out the meal on your friends or family beforehand. You don't want any surprises.

[Q] Playboy: How about when people cook for you? Are they intimidated by that?

[A] Lagasse: All I know is that I rarely get invited over to anybody's house, even though I am really the simplest guy. You don't have to make anything fancy. I don't eat "gourmet." I just want you to cook me a great hamburger and I'll be happy. A good mac and cheese would make me very happy. Simplicity goes a long way. I always tell people that to have great cuisine you just have to have great ingredients prepared honestly. Nothing has to be expensive. Preparations don't have to be complicated. There's nothing like fresh, delicious, simple vegetables that are cooked well.

[Q] Playboy: So what is your opinion of vegetarianism?

[A] Lagasse: I think it's a great choice for some people. All our restaurants have a vegetarian sense about the menu. You are not going to find any asterisks or hearts or circles with lines through them that signify vegetarian food. Why does it have to be singled out? I don't believe in singling out people because they don't eat pork or have dietary constraints or are vegetarian. In our kitchens we think nothing of creating a whole vegetarian tasting for someone who wants it. And I think vegetables are good. The challenge is to be creative with simple ingredients. How much of a challenge is it to be creative with caviar, foie gras or truffles? But try being creative with a snow pea or a French bean or a potato. That's a challenge.

[Q] Playboy: Are you too much of a carnivore to consider giving up meat?

[A] Lagasse: I don't need to. I believe in moderation. I don't preach what you should or shouldn't eat, but I do tell people that moderation is everything in life.

[Q] Playboy: How concerned are you about the healthfulness of your recipes?

[A] Lagasse: Very. Educating about healthy food is a mission of mine. Again, I preach moderation. You don't have to forsake butter, you don't have to give up fried food or beef or lamb or shrimp. You don't have to give up wine. Unless you have an allergy to any of these things. Moderation is everything. I'm the guy who says pork fat rules. But I don't eat pork fat every day. I'd be the first one to sit down with you and eat a bag of cracklings, but we can't do that every day.

[Q] Playboy: Moderation? How about a meal we saw you prepare on your TV show that included a thick steak with both bor-delaise and Maytag blue sabayon sauces and a fried potato sandwich stuffed with grilled onions, a pile of cheese and tons of bacon?

[A] Lagasse: That was an off-the-chart kind of show and an off-the-chart kind of dish. Once in a while, go for it. Most of the time, moderation. I've been criticized because I use pork fat and butter and all this other stuff, but a panel of dietitians tested recipes of the chefs on the Food Network and Emeril's came out the best, with the lowest calories and cholesterol. I'm a purist. I don't believe in anything artificial. I make my own everything--Worcestershire sauce, ice cream--because I don't believe in stabilizers or chemicals that can keep things on the shelf for a long time. So I'm a purist, but I eat everything.

[Q] Playboy: But study after study has shown that butter, cream, eggs and beef can be harmful.

[A] Lagasse: OK, but look. I'm going to make a roux, and I use oil or butter as the fat. Let's say I'm making a gallon of gumbo, which is, with rice, enough to serve eight people as a main course. For a gallon of gumbo, you'd need a roux made with a half cup of fat and a half cup of flour. Divide that into eight or so servings and look at how much of the fat each person is really consuming. People don't think things through.

[Q] Playboy: What about deep-frying, the preferred method for many Southern dishes? Do you think that's OK, too?

[A] Lagasse: In moderation. But, also, the frying has to be done right. You have to use the right fat. You have to keep it at the correct temperature. If you do, how much oil absorbs into an order of fried chicken or soft-shell crab? Where people go wrong is they don't use the right oil and the correct temperature, so all the saturated fat is sucked into whatever they're cooking. That's when the food gets greasy and really hurts you. McDonald's french fries are good and they sell billions because they use vegetable oil and fry them the right amount of time at the right temperature.

[Q] Playboy: What's your cholesterol level?

[A] Lagasse: Less than 200, and I eat foie gras at least once a week.

[Q] Playboy: Do you exercise?

[A] Lagasse: I'm not a fanatic. I do when I can, but I don't have a lot of time.

[Q] Playboy: In France there is less heart disease despite all that butter, cream and wine. Some people say the red wine is responsible for the good checkups.

[A] Lagasse: All I know is that I am very serious about wine. It's one of my hobbies. I drink wine every day. It makes me feel happy and makes me feel good. I recently had a physical, and the doctor said, "I can't believe this! Your cholesterol is fabulous! Your blood pressure is great! Your heart is great!"

[Q] Playboy: Instead of the good report, how would you have responded if your doctor had put you on a diet of boiled chicken and cottage cheese?

[A] Lagasse: No way! I couldn't do it. I'd have to find an alternative.

[Q] Playboy: What if the doctor said there was no alternative?

[A] Lagasse: Sorry. I love food too much. I eat a proper balance of foods, which I think is important--grains, vegetables, greens. You mix it up. I think that's why I'm OK. You can't eat steaks seven nights a week.

[Q] Playboy: Do you smoke cigars?

[A] Lagasse: We started a cigar program at Emeril's before it was cool. It started in 1990 and is probably one of the largest cigar programs in North America.

[Q] Playboy: It would be tougher in California, with its law against smoking in restaurants.

[A] Lagasse: That is why I don't live there. California is beautiful, but I could never live there. New Orleans is one of those feel-free cities. In California, you go to a bar, you're out with the guys, you're out with the gals, you're having a few pops, and you can't even smoke! You have to go out to the parking lot to smoke between the quarters of a football game! It is a little too extreme as far as I'm concerned. Give me a smoking section. Make it mandatory that restaurants and bars have air-purification systems. We have them even though we aren't mandated to. But come on.

[Q] Playboy: But can't cigar smoke at one table in a restaurant get in the way of a great meal at another table?

[A] Lagasse: Of course. First, we have smoking and nonsmoking sections. We also have times that cigar smoking is permitted and times it's not. Late at night, when the evening is winding down and new guests aren't coming in to start their meals, the cigars come out. We live in what's probably one of the most Euro-pean-influenced cities in America. It's nothing for us to have 11:30 reservations on Friday and Saturday nights. That puts people at the bar smoking cigars at I or 1:30 in the morning, before they go out to a club. They'd be long asleep in most American cities.

[Q] Playboy: Are there any rules that you enforce at Emeril's?

[A] Lagasse: We try to have you keep your clothes on while you're eating and have you pay the check. Actually, we may not always care about the first. In fact, that rule has occasionally gone out the window.

[Q] Playboy: Are Cubans the best cigars?

[A] Lagasse: [Big smile] That's what they say. We have a broad selection of cigars in all our restaurants, a hundred at Emeril's. All the waiters have clippers; you have to have the tools to work.

[Q] Playboy: When President Clinton recently ate at your restaurant, what did you serve?

[A] Lagasse: We did a cold soup with cucumber and Louisiana crabmeat and a light relish. Then a prawn-encrusted es-colar, a fish that is difficult to get. It's line-caught, very juicy, unlike tuna, which can get dry. We served mashed potatoes, a crawfish meunière sauce and some French beans with a little relish. He was blown away.

[Q] Playboy: Though he's known to love McDonald's french fries, does Clinton have a sophisticated palate?

[A] Lagasse: He greatly enjoys good food.

[Q] Playboy: President Bush was famous for his loathing of broccoli. Could you have done what Barbara Bush was never able to do: Make Bush like broccoli?

[A] Lagasse: Definitely. I would make it in a cheese sauce and he wouldn't know what hit him.

[Q] Playboy: Do you ever eat at McDonald's?

[A] Lagasse: No. Well, rarely. If I have a kid with me who demands it. I can count on one hand the number of times I go in a year. I get my annual craving for Popeye's, generally around Mardi Gras. But if I want to eat a great cheeseburger, I go to a great cheeseburger place.

[Q] Playboy: Such as?

[A] Lagasse: I have spent quite a bit of time researching this. I've been all around America looking for the greatest cheeseburger. Now I'd say it's in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, outside Charleston. It's a barbecue place known for its ribs. The name is Melvin's.

[Q] Playboy: What makes it the greatest cheeseburger?

[A] Lagasse: They cook them on a grill. There's a bit of hickory in the grill, too. There's a great bun and real cheddar cheese, none of that processed junk. The guy is a fanatic. He has the best fresh sliced onion, the best lettuce he can buy and the best vine-ripened tomatoes. It's also served with homemade pickles.

[Q] Playboy: What trends in cooking do you loathe?

[A] Lagasse: The worst was that nouvelle cuisine nonsense.

[Q] Playboy: What do you have against nouvelle cuisine?

[A] Lagasse: Seventy-five percent of the dishes had a butter sauce, though they were flavored with mustard or tarragon or orange or whatever. But butter sauce is butter sauce, right? We would take a two-ounce piece of duck and make it look like it was 18 ounces. The whole thing was about presentation and adding a blueberry. I did it and I'm glad I got out of it real quick. We were mixing and matching lobster with blueberry sauces and salmon with rhubarb and all this crazy stuff. Food is chemistry, and that was bad chemistry. It never worked for me. I've always preferred the basics. There's another terrible trend that some of us had to go through. In fact, I'm sad to say that there are still pockets where it's happening. It's the bastardization of what was stamped Cajun cuisine. People had no knowledge about what it is, so any food that burned your throat was called Cajun. Food was rubbed with every kind of spice. Everything was blackened, from English muffins to prime rib. I'm glad that we're leaving that behind.

[Q] Playboy: Did that come from Paul Prudhomme's influence?

[A] Lagasse: Paul certainly didn't encourage it, but it happened because of his popularity. People who never really experienced New Orleans cooking, who never experienced the ingredients and techniques that have made it one of the true American cuisines for hundreds of years, made up their own ridiculous versions, which were even worse than lobster in rhubarb sauce.

[Q] Playboy: What types of food were you raised on?

[A] Lagasse: My mother was an incredible cook, Portuguese. She made everything. Her repertoire includes things I still do: her kale soup, her beans, her stuffing, her chicken. She used to do a chowder, crusted pork chops, New England boiled dinner. I'm getting hungry. Now that my parents live here, she has learned New Orleans food, too. During crawfish season, my mom and dad have a stovetop crawfish boil every Saturday at home. My first job was in a bakery in my hometown. Unbelievable. I was ten years old. I started by washing pots and pans. Then I started baking with the old bakers at night. I watched them make breads, sweet breads, Portuguese pastries, custards, cornmeal breads.

[Q] Playboy: Your father worked in a textile plant, and it was expected that most of the kids in your neighborhood would work there, too. Is that how you thought you would end up?

[A] Lagasse: No way. My dad always told me that I had to go and make something of myself. I saw the lives of the people in those plants. That's not what I wanted to do. That's not what I considered fun.

[Q] Playboy: Did you have any sense that you could make a living as a cook?

[A] Lagasse: Not really. There were no fine-dining restaurants in my hometown. I thought I might do something with music, which I loved and studied. I could have gone in that direction. I had a scholarship to a music college but chose instead to pay to go to cooking school.

[Q] Playboy: How did you decide?

[A] Lagasse: Music is inside me; when I cook, music is constantly going through my body and my brain. But cooking was more seductive to me because of the way you can play with people's senses. My parents were crushed when I told them I was choosing cooking over music. My mom cried and was upset for the first couple of years. She just couldn't understand how I could make a choice like that. I had a free ticket to the New England Conservatory of Music. I had already done two summer camps at the conservatory. Plus I had made a lot of money as a child playing music. I was in bands: the Saint Anthony Band, which was an orchestra, a Portuguese band that played orchestra music; and a symphony. I played percussion for one of the original backup bands with Aerosmith when Aerosmith was just coming up. My forte was the drums. But I got something else from cooking. I think there are a lot of similarities between them. Music is also about giving people a wonderful pleasure; it makes people happy. But food is more pure. It taps a lot more sensations. There is a more direct response. I never got a royalty check or an award for selling a million pieces of banana cream pie, but I have had a lot of experiences making people happy.

[Q] Playboy: How did you train to be a chef?

[A] Lagasse: I started with my mom's Portuguese cooking, with a little influence from my dad's French Canadian background. Then I got interested in the classics and began a formal education in them. I paid my way through cooking school. Then I got firsthand experience in restaurants. I went to New York City to cook but had trouble there because I was American. Americans weren't supposed to know anything about food; all we supposedly knew was about hamburgers and cheeseburgers and macaroni and cheese. At the time, in the mid-Seventies, the good New York kitchens were run by French and German and Swiss cooks. It was difficult to get a job. So I went to France to work in kitchens there.

[Q] Playboy: In some of the great French restaurants?

[A] Lagasse: In some great ones and some not-so-great ones. I definitely got an education. I was beat up and pushed around and shoved and made to do all the grunt work. But that was OK. That was part of it. I didn't speak the language. Didn't make any money. In a lot of the fine-dining restaurants the dishwashers were Portuguese; they were the inexpensive labor. So I had to cross that road also. "Oh, you're just a Portugee? You're lucky to be shucking oysters. You should be washing pots." Fine, I'll wash pots. I just sucked in every piece of knowledge I could. Meanwhile I ate a lot of employee meals. I had to eat a lot of mystery meat and nasty cheese and drink a lot of watered wine.

[Q] Playboy: When you returned to America, what was your first significant job?

[A] Lagasse: I went to work for a small hotel company, Dunphy Hotels. I did a stint for them and a little bit at the Parker House. I worked with a man who became a mentor, a German chef named Andreas Soltner. Dunphy ended up buying a hotel that later became one of the original Four Seasons Hotels. I went there as a sous-chef. He became the director of food and beverage, and I ended up taking over the chef's job. Next I did a restaurant for another hotel. For a while I worked for Wolfgang Puck.

[Q] Playboy: What's your assessment of his cooking?

[A] Lagasse: Wolfgang is one of the most talented chefs there is. He is also a nice man. This was a new project in New York City; I was part of the team. Wolf was very hard on me when I worked for him. He didn't know me. I was no one. He was a perfectionist and very talented. But he worked me hard. We're great friends today. But the big change came when I was working and consulting in Cape Cod. The famous New Orleans Brennan family, whose restaurant is Commander's Palace, vacationed there. I met them. When Paul Prudhomme was leaving Commander's Palace to start his own restaurant, K-Paul's, I was asked to come in. That was 1982. It was like going to another university, Brennan University. They were one of the older families running one of the most important institutions in New Orleans.

[Q] Playboy: But you were an Easterner!

[A] Lagasse: You'd be surprised at the relationship of the foods I ate when I was growing up and Acadian and Creole cooking. I was also a student of food in general, open to learning and experimenting. At first there was some distrust, I imagine, but soon I was an adopted son and a damn serious one, too. These were some big shoes I was filling. At the same time, I was a young 26. I came in with guns drawn. I lost a lot of people real quick because I was young, but I wasn't stupid. I wasn't going to put up with any nonsense. I wasn't going to put up with mediocrity. I began right out of the gate setting standards: No, we weren't going to use canned this. We weren't going to use frozen that. We were going to cook from scratch. I brought in a young sous-chef from France. When I was at Commander's Palace, it was truly one of the greatest restaurants in America. Even Playboy said so. Then I finally got my own restaurant.

[Q] Playboy: Did you learn Louisiana cooking on the job?

[A] Lagasse: I did. I loved every one of those traditions and just added my own thing to them. Fusion is what made me what I am now. These were exciting cuisines, defined by local ingredients. The river influenced the Creoles, who lived and cooked in the city. The lands, bayous and sea influenced the Acadian or Cajun cuisine. These people hunt and fish and forage, live off the land. New Orleans, a large port city, also got ingredients from around the world, and they filtered into the cuisine. So I was very happy here. I fell in love with the people, first of all. I fell in love with the elements of what New Orleans stands for. I close my eyes and feel as if I have never been out of New Orleans. And then there was the food. It excited me to see people excited about food; it's why I decided to cook as a profession. And there's the music, which is in the air in this city along with the food. I also love the architecture and the whole feel and spirit of New Orleans. It's my whole feel and spirit. I love to live. I live to eat. I don't eat to live. I love the soul, the soil, the sea, the bayou, the trees. Like I said, I often close my eyes and feel like I have never not been in New Orleans.

[Q] Playboy: Was Emeril's an instant success?

[A] Lagasse: It was. It was a big risk, because I built the restaurant in a part of town that wasn't yet redeveloped. But it did well and got lots of attention and we were turning people away every night. It led to the other restaurants. With the new one in Orlando, that's five.

[Q] Playboy: What led to Emeril Live?

[A] Lagasse: I got approached and decided to try it. I wanted to be able to influence people, especially young people. That's God's honest truth. I knew TV could reach people I never would reach otherwise. I started and did a basic cooking show. Cooking isn't rocket science; you're basically dumping all the shit into a bowl. You don't need a doctorate. But I wanted to make it fun. I didn't like the boring thing: take a quarter cup of this and an eighth cup of whatever. Do most people cook like that? Do they go home after a hard day's work and use a recipe at the stove and put in the cup of flour? Give me a break. For the most part, people are throwing together a decent meal, adding a bit of this, a bit of that. Maybe there is something to throw in that's left over from last night. So instead of another dreary show, I wanted to do something fun. Fun should equate to delicious. It doesn't have to be difficult.

[Q] Playboy: Your first show was How to Boil Water. Are there secrets you can impart?

[A] Lagasse: That one didn't last because there really weren't any. The president of the Food Network called and said, "Emeril, I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is that we think you're a little overqualified for How to Boil Water. The good news is we think you've got some television ability and you're a heck of a cook. We want to try something else." Eventually, it was The Essence of Emeril. My schedule was insane. I worked 90, 100 hours a week at the restaurant. I would leave the restaurant on Saturday night at three or four in the morning, sleep for an hour or two, pack and blaze up to New York City on Sunday. I'd hit La Guardia and go right to the studio and shoot five shows. Then on Monday I'd shoot seven. Tuesday I'd do seven more. Then I'd get back on the airplane on Wednesday so I could get back on the line and cook at the restaurant. I drank a hell of a lot of espresso. I was bored out of my mind. There was no audience. Everybody in the studio was in what I call Houston: behind glass in the control room and behind cameras. I'd be ready to fall asleep, so I started the "bam" thing to wake everybody up. I grabbed a pinch of spice, elevating the level of spice in the dish, which transformed into "kicking it up a notch." Those things became my signatures. But the real talent--and what keeps it fun for me--is the people. Cooking shows on TV don't generally have a studio audience, which is why we changed to Emeril Live with an audience. That's when the magic came.

[Q] Playboy: There have been some criticisms of Emeril Live--that you don't take food seriously enough, that's it's too cartoony. How do you respond?

[A] Lagasse: I don't hear those things anymore. I did at first, but who cares? Who said that food should be serious? Food should be fun. Who made these critics gods of the culinary world?

[Q] Playboy: Did Emeril Live lead to your job as food correspondent for Good Morning America?

[A] Lagasse: I was asked to do it and needed that job like a hole in the head. But what stoked me was the opportunity to reach even more people. I'm not the resident chef on the show but a "food correspondent." That means I can impart my knowledge beyond just a chicken dish of the week. It is a real opportunity to educate people about food. I have done segments on everything from buying eggs to cooking with oils. People take this stuff for granted, but there's a lot to learn.

[Q] Playboy: What is there to learn about oil, for instance?

[A] Lagasse: In a supermarket, you see an aisle of oils. How do you know which one to use? Which one should you fry with? Which should you use for salads? There are a dozen types of olive oil alone. I'm doing a piece about that.

[Q] Playboy: Well? Is olive oil best?

[A] Lagasse: It completely depends on what you're cooking. If you use extra virgin olive oil in some salad dressings, you can overpower your salad. You have to be careful to balance. In a light dressing I might use vegetable oil or peanut oil. Nut oils bring great flavors, but they're more perishable than other oils.

[Q] Playboy: How about eggs? What's so complicated about buying them?

[A] Lagasse: The main thing is what we don't do. We're all guilty of this: We go into the supermarket, find the eggs and look around to see if anybody is watching. We pick up a carton and open it and play with the eggs to see if they're broken. We think that if the eggs are totally intact it's a great carton of eggs.

[Q] Playboy: It's not?

[A] Lagasse: Not necessarily. Nine out often people never look at the expiration date on the carton. When they buy milk, they check, but not with eggs. It's simple but people don't know to do it.

[Q] Playboy: Do you prefer eggs from farmers or from a store?

[A] Lagasse: The fresher the better, but you have to be careful about the eggs from farmers. They may have been sitting in the sun all day at the roadside stand. There seem to be more and more reports of problems from bacteria like E. coli. Recently Costco recalled all those burgers. You have to be careful.

[Q] Playboy: What else should you watch for?

[A] Lagasse: If you buy a car at a not-too-reliable dealership, you'll probably end up getting a bad car. If you buy eggs from a person you don't know, you are in jeopardy. At least meat is controlled. It has to be graded. There aren't the same restrictions on fish. But with anything, you could get pretty sick if you don't know what you are buying and whom you are buying it from.

[Q] Playboy: Is your advice to buy from local butchers and produce markets instead of the big chains? Is smaller better?

[A] Lagasse: Not necessarily. You need to have a good butcher or fishmonger. If you shop at smaller places, you'll probably be able to establish relationships with the people who are serving you, which means a lot. At farmers' markets, which are great places to get produce, you come to know the people you're buying from. I don't really blame the beef problem on Costco. They had to rely on someone to make that purchase. But the closer you are to the source of your food, the more accountable people are and the (continued on page 151)Emeril Lagasse(continued from page 68) more likely the food will be safe. I am a fanatic about every ingredient I serve in my restaurants. I get fish at the back door from people I know. I work with the same produce farms year after year. I raise my own hogs and make my own ham and bacon and tasso, a lean spiced ham that's predominant in Acadian and Louisiana food. You wouldn't necessarily have a tasso sandwich, but you would use it in a good étouffée or gumbo. You gettin' hungry?

[Q] Playboy: You make it a point to use fresh ingredients. But what about people who don't have access to fresh ingredients?

[A] Lagasse: There are fewer and fewer excuses. There are farmers' markets in more and more cities. But if you can't get fresh ingredients, you can't get them. You do the best you can.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever used frozen vegetables?

[A] Lagasse: We don't have much of a freezer in my restaurants, except for storing ice cream and a few other things. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with frozen vegetables. We just don't use them; it's not part of our philosophy.

[Q] Playboy: Does that mean that we won't be seeing a line of Emeril's frozen foods similar to Wolfgang Puck's?

[A] Lagasse: I don't foresee that. The only commercial lines we have are my spices and the cookbooks. For what it costs for one of those pizzas, which barely feeds two, you can get a cookbook that I hope provides multiple meal memories.

[Q] Playboy: How do you feel about canned ingredients?

[A] Lagasse: When you need to. Let's take tomatoes. There are probably 20 types of canned tomatoes in any grocery store, whether you are in Des Moines or New York City. Find the one you like. You can read reviews, too; even canned tomatoes are reviewed. There's nothing wrong with a canned tomato so long as it's a good canned tomato.

[Q] Playboy: How about canned meat? Have you ever tried Spam?

[A] Lagasse: I've been a big Spam fan for a long time. I have a good friend, Sam Choy, a great chef and restaurateur in Hawaii, who is famous for his Spam laie moco; there was an article about him in The Wall Street Journal. Laie moco is on the menu at his very kicked-up fine-dining restaurant. It's this Spam loco moco dish, a delicious, incredible, fried rice loco moco kind of thing with brown gravy. It's to die for. I wish that I had some right now.

[Q] Playboy: What's the best meal you've ever had?

[A] Lagasse: With some colleagues, I had the great fortune to get reservations during the last week that Fredy Girardet had his restaurant in Switzerland. A lot of us considered him the pope of cuisine, and he was closing down and it was very sad. But we had two back-to-back reservations a couple of days before he officially retired. The dinners were phenomenal, unbelievable. Before that the meals I remember were on a trip I took with my chef de cuisine from Monte Carlo to Paris. Some days we drove four or five hours just to eat another great meal. We did two extraordinary meals a day for eight days straight. In this country, probably some of the best food I have had was at my friend Charlie Trotter's restaurant in Chicago.

[Q] Playboy: What has Trotter contributed to American cooking?

[A] Lagasse: He's a phenomenal cook, a phenomenal chef--just a tremendous restaurateur, a guy who can uphold and set amazing standards for the restaurant industry in this country. His style is stripped down--lots of vegetables and immaculate seafood. Fresh ingredients. He flies them in.

[Q] Playboy: What has your former boss, Wolfgang Puck, contributed?

[A] Lagasse: Not only did he--along with Alice Waters--pioneer California cuisine, but he brought back a sense of the classics into whatever he cooked. He was one of the first guys to fuse the Asian Pacific Rim, too.

[Q] Playboy: What about Alice Waters?

[A] Lagasse: She is the godmother of American cuisine. I have a lot of respect for her. She is the one who inspired me to use local produce from local farms, to work with local farmers and to bring that element back into restaurants.

[Q] Playboy: And James Beard?

[A] Lagasse: Beard influenced a lot of people, particularly men. He was the first man to show that it was OK to be a guy and to cook. One of his disciples, Larry Forgione, a chef in New York, influenced me a lot.

[Q] Playboy: Paul Prudhomme?

[A] Lagasse: A great guy. A special human being. Certainly he was one of the guys responsible for the regional movement of American cuisine. You couldn't find a more humble, nicer man than Paul Prudhomme. A great cook.

[Q] Playboy: Julia Child?

[A] Lagasse: There is only one Julia. That lady is just amazing. One of my first experiences as a cook was cooking for Julia Child in the mid-Seventies. I introduced her to crawfish and étouffée. I taught her how to suck head and pinch tail.

[Q] Playboy: To suck head and pinch tail?

[A] Lagasse: That's a crawfish thing.

[Q] Playboy: What exactly does it refer to?

[A] Lagasse: To eat the crawfish, you have to snap it. You suck the head, which is where the fat and juice are. Then you peel the tail and pinch it to get at the tail meat.

[Q] Playboy: Is there an up-and-coming chef we should watch for?

[A] Lagasse: There's Anne Kearney in New Orleans, who has a new restaurant called Peristyle. Food & Wine magazine named her one of the top ten new chefs in America. Annie is going to make a significant contribution to the movement of American cuisine. It's classic Provençal cooking mixed with New Orleans. Bernard Carmouche is an up-and-comer, though I may be biased. He is with me at Emeril's and was my first pot washer at Commander's Palace. We made a deal at that time: You finish school and get an education and a degree; I'll teach you how to cook. He's my chef de cuisine now.

[Q] Playboy: Why have so many chefs become stars?

[A] Lagasse: There were big-name chefs in Europe for a long time. In America it has all changed within the past five years or so, when we began respecting regional cooking and fresh ingredients right from the farms. Now some chefs are respected on the level of rock stars or opera singers or third basemen for the New York Yankees. In my case, television is obviously powerful.

[Q] Playboy: Celebrity chefs seem to hobnob with other celebrities. Has your cooking brought you in contact with any of your music or movie heroes?

[A] Lagasse: Music and food go together. That's for sure. We've had people on the show who love food. The people who make music are in my life because they come to me for food. I get the best of both worlds. Billy Joel is a great cook and a great guy. I think I influenced his cooking a little. Certainly I think I might have kicked up his wine palate a few notches. And there is nothing like Bruce Springsteen pulling up in a limousine, saying, "Can I have one more banana cream pie before I leave town?"

[Q] Playboy: Are there any films that make you hungry?

[A] Lagasse:The Godfather makes me hungry and puts me in one of those seductive moods we talked about earlier. I have had about four Godfather affairs with very close friends. I get up early in the morning and make a pot of red sauce that simmers all day and smells up the whole house. I get some really big, luscious, gutsy wines. I make a bread dough that proofs for several hours and then smells up the house, that whole crusty-bread thing. I get a big wheel of Parmesan cheese, and I make the pasta. Invite a few friends over and watch The Godfather, maybe even parts one, two and three. We eat pasta once or twice, drink a lot of red wine and eat crusty bread.

[Q] Playboy: What's a typical day for you foodwise?

[A] Lagasse: I don't usually eat breakfast. I have coffee and a piece of bread. I don't eat pastry. I'll have a simple lunch--could be a salad, could be a sandwich, could be a piece of fish. My big meal is at night after the last customer leaves the restaurant. We set a table for everyone and have a full dinner, always with wine, before we lock up and go home. That's how it's been for ten, 15 years straight. I don't mind the crazy hours and the schedule and the pressure and the people and the customers. I don't have any problem with that--as long as dinnertime comes and I get to sit down to at least one good meal each day.

People are sexy just being around the whole food thing, whether they are cooking and chopping, kneading, stirring--and that's before you even start to eat.