They play tough guys on GH, but Steve Burton (Jason) and Derk Cheetwood (Max) give new meaning to the term “food for thought” with their star-studded Soap Dishes: The Cookbook.
Soap Opera Digest: How’d this project come about?
Steve Burton: Derk and I were roommates a long time ago and he loves to cook. He would cook for us all the time. There’s no secret that he loves to cook and he loves to eat, and I love to eat, so it worked out for both of us.
Derk Cheetwood: I love to cook. I always have. I grew up cooking with my mom. I love to barbecue. I always watch the Food Network and I was just thinking what a great thing it would be to do a cookbook with a bunch of actors from different shows, make it a collaboration, involve a charity and learn what it’s like to put a cookbook together.
Digest: Once you had the idea, then what did you do?
Burton: We thought, “Let’s put a proposal together and see if we can get a literary agent and have the agent pitch this to publishers.” So, [after] six months of pitching with only a few little bites, pardon the pun, nobody really got it, understood, was passionate about it. We hit walls, and Derk and I started to pursue self-publishing. From that day on, we started building the book from scratch.
Cheetwood: We’ve been working on it for about a year-and-a-half. As you might imagine, it’s a lot, but we’re excited about giving back.
Digest: What makes this cookbook unique?
Burton: I want to say it’s a cookbook meets Vanity Fair, where it’s a peek into people’s lives as opposed to, “Hey, I’m in the kitchen with a carrot.” You see behind the scenes, in people’s homes or wherever they wanted to be shot. Intimate photos. The photography is incredible. It’s a cookbook/coffee table book.
Cheetwood: We wanted to give a peek behind the curtain, an idea of who we are outside of work. It’s personal and up close: Why is this their favorite recipe? Where is it from? Here’s Laura Wright‘s [Carly, GH] vineyard, out with her kids. Bob Woods [Bo, OLTL] out on his terrace in New York overlooking Central Park. Christian LeBlanc [Michael, Y&R] in New Orleans sitting in a red velvet chair in the middle of his Dad’s property that was decimated in the flood. People really opened up and we were excited they embraced the idea.
For the rest of the interview and more on Soap Dishes: The Cookbook, check out next week’s issue of Soap Opera Digest, on sale November 5. To purchase a copy of the cookbook now, go to www.soapdishesthecookbook.com!
And check out Michael Fairman‘s video interview with the Burton and Cheetwood below! (There’s also an in-depth online piece here.)
