November 2017 – Shelf Life

I had the chance to chat with Valerie Bertinelli when she was in Chicago a few weeks ago to sign copies of her new cookbook, Valerie’s Home Cooking: More than 100 Delicious Recipes to Share with Friends and Family (Oxmoor House 2017; $30). It’s always interesting to meet someone in real time that you’ve, in a way, grown up with. Not saying Bertinelli and I were from the same neighborhood or belonged to the same Girl Scout troop, but I was about her age when I watched her play the role of Barbara on “One Day at a Time,” which ran from 1975-1984. The sitcom was rather revolutionary for its time because it was about a divorced single mom raising two kids at a time where most family shows were about households with a mom, dad and a couple of kids.

“Barbara” was adorably cute, bubbly and, in my memory, almost always smiling. Flash forward 30 some years, numerous movies and a starring role on the TV series, “Hot in Cleveland” for which she won her second Golden Globe award (the first was for “One Day at a Time”) and Bertinelli could still be channeling Barbara. She’s warm and friendly and totally enthusiastic about cooking. Currently she has two Food Network shows, “Valerie’s Home Cooking” and “Kids Baking Championship,” the latter which she co-hosts with pastry chef Duff Goldman.

Her cooking style, she says, is all about simplicity and ease.

“Who wants to complicate their life any more than they have to?” she says. “We all have enough complications going on in our life, so let’s make it easy in the kitchen. The last thing I want is for people to feel intimidated by my recipes so I work at making them easy to follow and delicious as well.”

Each of the 100-plus recipes in her book not only tell how long they take to make from start to finish but also the “hands-on” time. For example, hands-on time for her Spicy Arrabiata Penne is five minutes, total cooking time is 20 minutes. She also prefaces the recipes with a personalized anecdote about its importance to her and offers variations of the dish.

Describing herself as a Food Network addict, Bertinelli says it’s “crazy” to find herself starring in two shows on the channel and writing a cookbook, the title of the first being a take on her original TV series and called “One Dish at a Time.”

When asked how cooking at home differs from preparing dishes on her show, Bertinelli says she finds it challenging because when she’s cooking in her own kitchen she’s cooking alone.

“I don’t have to look up and talk and explain how and why I’m doing something,” she says. “It’s a little bit different of a muscle. It’s like cooking two Thanksgiving dinners every day as we shoot each show. You’re on your feet a lot and I’m exhausted everyday shooting the show. But it’s also invigorating as well because it’s so much fun to share something I love.”

Gretchen Carlson started a tsunami when she sued Roger Ailes, the all- powerful mogul CEO and Chairman of Fox News and Fox Television for sexual harassment after she lost her long-term job as a Fox anchor for refusing his advances. Now, with the release of her latest book, Be Fierce: Stop Sexual Harassment and Take Your Power Back (Center Street 2017; $27) she is garnering the stories of women—and men—who have been sexually harassed and showing them how to fight back.

“When one person says no to sexual harassment, they inspire others to step forward as well,” Carlson tells me when we meet at Books by the Banks, Cincinnati’s annual and very popular regional book festival. Like me, she is there to sign copies of her books. Unlike me, she has a large table right by the entrance and a huge sign overhead with her name on it. I am in the center of the barn-sized room, crowded together with other writers who are at my level in the food chain. We have no oversized banners with our names on them just little placards on our shared tables. Nor will we have, as the morning goes on, lines of up to an hour waiting to have us autograph our books.

Hearing the Message Loud and Clear

Those long lines show how much Carlson’s message has resonated. She’s been inundated with the stories of those who’ve also experienced sexual harassment and, to a much lesser degree, hateful comments about being a gold digger and just out for the money, advice on how women should dress to avoid being harassed and those who believe there is no such thing as sexual harassment, just lying women. Carlson blithely posts these pearls of wisdom on her Facebook page. We’re looking at you “baychevy” who posted “…most of the time women claim they were sexually harassed and make a big deal out of it simply to broadcast to other women that they are irresistible.”

“Thank you,” I say to Carlson. Hey, I’ve been through it, who hasn’t? And, of course, I thought that’s one more thing you have to deal with.

Not so, says Carlson, who had to withstand a barrage of negative publicity loosened on her by Ailes and his allies.

“That’s also to be expected,” says Carlson.

Be Fierce and Be Smart

It’s one reason why she says we need to be fierce. And smart. The lawsuit would have been just another she-said, he-said situation but Carlson had the recordings. Ailes settled for $20 million. And in the following cascade of women coming forward to tell their horror stories about his penchant for sexual harassment, he eventually was fired from his job—albeit it with a $40 million payout.

“You were so smart to record all those conversations,” I say. Carlson replies with a smile.

She is indeed, very intelligent. An honors graduate of Stanford University who also studied at Oxford University, she was the first classical violinist to win the title of Miss America. Carlson is also fierce. She didn’t just take her money and go home. Angered not only by what happened to her but what happens to so many others, she determined to empower them to become fierce. It is her mission and the purpose of her book.

“I had worked 25 years in the business–working my way up from local to national news and discovering I was going to lose all that made me determined to speak out,” she says.

Showing the Way

Her book doesn’t dwell on her own travails but instead is a guide for those who experience sexual harassment and what they should expect and how they can navigate confronting a system that has until recently taken a “boys will be boys attitude.”

“Coming forward isn’t fun,” she tells me. “Women aren’t looking for fame or money when they take the step of reporting harassment because there’s nothing rewarding about being demeaned.”

One her Facebook page, she writes, “It’s easy to be disgusted. It’s easy to be outraged. But we need more – we need a movement. It’s time to be fierce. Be Fierce:

I’ll repeat what I said to her that day in Cincinnati, “Go, Gretchen, go.”