Thursday, Oct. 11, 2001 | 8:30 a.m.
Celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse has it all.
Two hit television shows on the popular Food Network (Cox cable channel 42), four restuarants in New Orleans, two in New York and two in Las Vegas and six cookbooks with a new one out last week, "Prime Time Emeril" (William Morrow, $30).
Most recently he launched a career as a sitcom star with "Emeril," (Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on NBC Channel 3).
But Lagasse remains foremost a chef.
"My sincere passion is food and wine and the restaurants and people," Lagasse said recently by telephone from his office in New York. "I couldn't be in a better place. But it takes a lot of work because every day is a new day and I think that if you go through life worrying about small things and thinking small then that's exactly what happens."
The 5-foot-11-inch tall chef has been called larger-than-life on television. But in real life, he is low-key and family-oriented and never uninspired.
The self-starter made a name for himself in food while TV and food critics joked that the brash cook was a flash in the pan. The 42-year-old has yet to fizzle and continues to parade his brand of cooking and cheeky style in front of grumbling critics.
Emeril continues to garner high ratings with his weeknight Food Network show, "Emeril Live," where his catch phrases "Bam!" and "Let's kick it up a notch" have caught on with fans around the country.
He opened his first restaurant, Emeril's, in New Orleans in 1990. He entered the television culinary scene in 1994 with "Essence of Emeril" on the Food Network. "Emeril Live" debuted in 1997.
In 1995 he made the leap from the Big Easy to Las Vegas with a new restaurant, Emeril's New Orleans Fish House at MGM Grand, and again in 1999 with his second upscale restaurant, Delmonico Steakhouse, at Venetian.
He became a best-selling author with "Emeril's TV Dinners" in 1998 and stepped into his good friend Julia Child's role as "Good Morning America" food correspondent when she left the show in 1999.
Last year he married Alden Lovelace, 34, his longtime friend and a New Orleans real estate agent. It was his third trip down the aisle.
The newlyweds travel from Los Angeles, where the sitcom is taped, to New York, where Food Network is headquartered, with stops in Las Vegas and New Orleans to dabble in the kitchens of his restaurants.
"Alden is with me, thank God," Lagasse said. "She's been a tremendous support system for me -- not only as my friend, but she dives in and helps wherever she can, whether as my line coach or support (on the sitcom). It's a good thing that we are able to do that."
He tapes most of his "Emeril Live" shows on Food Network ahead of their scheduled airings, and returns to Los Angeles each week to tape "Emeril" on Fridays and Saturdays.
With all the success, why start a new endeavor -- especially one that puts him in the line of fire of TV critics and fills his life with a cross-country work schedule?
"I'm always really appreciative of waking up and (of) what I have and health and happiness," Lagasse said. "But I don't take it for granted. I work hard everyday and when I wake up tomorrow, I'm going to try a little bit better than I did today."
The idea for the sitcom, which debuted Sept. 25, came last year when veteran sitcom writers Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and Harry Thomason (of "Designing Women" fame) approached Lagasse.
Bloodworth-Thomason had seen "Emeril Live" on the Food Network and was taken with Lagasse's affable attitude.
"That was kind of wild because she doesn't really cook a lot," Lagasse said. "She was just intrigued with ("Emeril Live") and the person behind it."
The idea simmered for a few months before Lagasse immersed himself in the role of, well, himself.
On "Emeril," Lagasse plays a New York City chef with his own cable food show and a family. He is surrounded by a cast of characters played by Lisa Ann Walter, Sherri Shepherd, Carrie Preston and Robert Urich, who keep the laughs afloat.
But Lagasse doesn't take his new role lightly. He has a dialogue coach on the set and runs lines with his wife at night. But he has used his cooking savvy to hone his acting skills.
"Yeah, I didn't go to Julliard, or one of these acting schools, but I'm with a lot of people that know me and know food, including the cast," Lagasse said. "It's so easy to give cooking tips for acting tips."
On high
So far viewers aren't salivating over Lagasse's sitcom, but they are coming back for more.
"In the beginning there were a lot of mixed reviews," Lagasse said. "And some of it, to be honest, was really unfair."
The test-pilot episode arrived on TV critics' desks this summer. The show was later significantly retooled, with seasoned actor Urich added as Lagasse's longtime friend and self-obsessed agent.
"A lot of people took notes from (the test pilot), which wasn't the actual show," Lagasse said. "Now they are scratching their heads because the show is starting to turn around. The critics are backpedaling."
One critic who blasted the show was Kevin D. Thompson, of the Palm Beach Post in Florida.
Last week Thompson wrote that Lagasse should keep his day job, and summed up his review by saying: "A talented trio of co-stars can't mask the fact that Emeril has the comic timing of a slug."
But Thompson has tuned in since the show's debut to find that although the chef's comic delivery remains as stiff as whipped egg whites, there may be a glimmer of hope in the mix.
"As I've said, Emeril is not an actor, but he might quite possibly grow into the part," Thompson said by telephone from Palm Beach. "Emeril doesn't add a lot to the show, but he's a fun guy to watch and he comes across as a nice, likeable guy."
Joe Schlosser, Los Angeles bureau chief for Broadcasting & Cable magazine, said that critics and television-industry executives slammed the "Bam!" king.
"It was already coming in wounded, the ratings are killing it off faster," Schlosser said. "But Emeril's (popularity) is high up there with a lot of people."
Jeff Zucker, president of NBC, fought for the show, Schlosser said.
"Quite frankly, what we want Emeril to be is himself and just play himself," Zucker said to Schlosser for an article in July's edition of Broadcasting & Cable. "This (show) is certainly outside the mainstream of what Hollywood is. I think it's probably not made for the folks in New York and Los Angeles. I think it's the folks in between who will ultimately decide whether this works or not."
That down-home sentiment sticks with the self-made Lagasse.
"I'm not doing TV for the critics," Lagasse said. "I'm doing it for the American people, and when the American public figures out what they want to watch, whether it's the 'Emeril' comedy or the other shows, that's what's going to decide our fate."
The network plans to wait out the ratings lull while viewers settle into a schedule of fall season shows, Mike Nelson, a spokesperson for NBC, said.
"I think patience is a virtue," Nelson said. "Consequently, with everything that has happened (since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11), TV viewing habits are not formed yet."
In its second week the show garnered a 3.1 share of the ratings for Tuesday night, third among prime-time shows for the 8 p.m. time slot. ABC's "Dharma and Greg" took in a 3.3 share and CBS's "JAG" won the time slot with a 3.8.
"The numbers aren't huge, but they are on the same level as shows that are considered to be a hit," Nelson said. "It's a little better than the (failed sitcom "The Michael Richards Show") that we (NBC) had in that slot last year."
Time is also of the essence for "Emeril," in that the 8 p.m. Tuesday slot is not ideal, Nelson said.
"It's hard for an 8 p.m. show that has no lead-in show," Nelson said. "It needs to be a self-starter."
Chef's course
Born in Fall River, Mass., in 1959, Lagasse is one of three children of a French-Canadian father, John, a former textile-mill worker, and a Portuguese mother, Hilda, who first taught him the essence of cooking.
Lagasse recently moved his retired parents to a luxurious home around the corner from his own home in New Orleans.
His father rises at 4 a.m. every day to work a six-hour shift at the original Emeril's in New Orleans. Lagasse's mother continues to be a source of inspiration for him, the chef said.
His life is organized around his busy schedule, his new wife, self-motivation and, of course, experimenting with food.
"If I have a day off, I cook," Lagasse said.
Lagasse's determination came with his first job as a dishwasher in a Fall River restaurant, he said. He studied culinary arts in high school and apprenticed in France.
Lagasse moved to New Orleans 18 years ago after the birth of his two daughters -- Jessica, 23, and Jillian, 20 -- from his first marriage.
In 1982 Lagasse joined the New Orleans fine restaurant Commander's Palace at age 24 as an executive chef, replacing restaurateur-matriarch Ella Brennan's first protege, Paul Prudhomme.
"We were trying to avoid interviewing Emeril because he was so young at the time and we didn't want to have to reject him in person as we had assumed we'd have to do, but he simply persisted," Brennan said in a January 2000 interview in Nation's Restaurant News. "What we saw was a passion and energy that had no phoniness -- clearly because the man had a mission. He knew what he was going to do with his life."
When Lagasse began to appear on the nation's radar in the early '90s, critics panned his dumbed-down approach to culinary arts, including his catchphrases such as the oft repeated, "We're not building a rocket ship here," to explain the simplicity of cooking.
The rise to celebrity chef was not initially on his career menu.
"It's unbelievable," Lagasse said. "I remember in the mid-'70s I had two (college) degrees, I had experience, and I couldn't even get a job in a New York City restaurant."
Lagasse, who has an apartment in Las Vegas, said he plans to maintain the busy schedule as long as possible. With his wife, his family and his constant drive, he can have many irons in the fire and wake up happy, he said.
"I worked hard to get here," Lagasse said. "I'm on no ego trip. I realized a long time ago that the restaurant business is tough. You either become very good, or you become out of business."
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