page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | all | buy But not this time; not this year. Suddenly it felt like too much effort: Gus Simpson, one of the most popular entertaining gurus on television, didn't want to throw a party. In fact, she'd have preferred canceling her birthday altogether. She poured a stream of rich hazelnut-scented coffee from her large French press into an oversized blue-and-white-striped pottery mug. With care she carried her drink to the speckled gray-and-black granite breakfast bar, perching herself on the counter-height navy chair. Gus took a sip, just a little almost-slurp (since no one else was around) so as not to burn her tongue, and flipped through the New York Times, trying to jolly herself out of her gloomy mood. But her natural habit–it was Monday, which meant the weekly Media section, and she loved to follow her industry–led her to a large article above the fold of the paper. "The New Faces of Food TV," Gus read to herself, feeling a whoosh of anxiety in her chest. "Food is the new fashion and the latest crop of program hosts look as delicious as their culinary creations." Gus tapped her teeth against each other as she always did when she was tense and scanned the large photo with all the up-and-coming hotshots in cooking television: there was that young surfer chef who always wore shorts and looked barely old enough to be in college, the young Midwestern housewife who only made dishes that took up to six ingredients, and the young Miss Spain who had turned a gig promoting her country's olives into an Internet cult following on YouTube. From there, Gus read how Miss Spain had created her own 10-minute Web show, FlavorBoom, which was also downloadable to TiVo, and had edited a small cookbook that had just come out at the holidays a few weeks before. It had already been a top seller online. The story continued on page 2 of the section, where there was a glamour shot of the petite, black-haired Miss Spain in her crown and far too much mascara, with a large caption underneath: "Carmen Vega: From Beauty Queen to Foodie Queen." "I bet she can't even cook," Gus announced to her coffee mug, quite ready to close the paper in disgust. But then a familiar line caught her attention and she found herself scanning the words carefully. '"Imagine there are only a certain set of ingredients and that's all there is to use," says Gus Simpson, CookingChannel's ubiquitous program host and star of the well-known Cooking with Gusto! in a recent interview in Every Day with Rachael Ray. "But we don't all create the same thing. So it's not really about what you put in a dish–it's about how you make that meal taste. It's not about how you make it but about how eating it makes you feel. Cooking, like life, stays interesting when you keep the experience fresh." And fresh new hosts seem to be how cable is hoping to hold on to viewers, as ratings continue to decline on all channels...' Blah, blah, blah went the article. On and on about these exciting new voices in the world of food television, all seemingly sanctioned, via the clever use of already reported quotes, by none other than Gus Simpson. Oh, how she hated that! Being interviewed for one article–which had been published over a year ago–and then finding those same words popping up in every other journalist's food story. The lesson she'd learned: Don't ever say anything, cutesy or cutting, that you don't want to hear parroted back to you for the rest of your life. Gus thought about crumpling up the paper and tossing it in the bin, but there was no one around to see her dramatics and she always felt that grand behavior wasn't really worth the energy when there was no one to witness it. Television had trained her well. Instead, she sighed and left her spot at the breakfast bar for more comfortable surroundings. She shooed her white cat, Salt, out of an overstuffed wing chair in the bay window page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | all | buy