One Day to "Private Chefs" Premiere...And the Misquoting Begins

I'm starting to notice that there are certain ways to know you're becoming a "someone."

The first time I was recognized for being on "Private Chefs of Beverly Hills," JMT and I were at a screening of Get Him to the Greek (lordy that movie was unfunny) when a woman walked up to our row. I assumed she just wanted to squeeze past so we moved aside to let her through but instead she just stood there, grinning at me, and announced, "I'm a huge fan."

"Of what?" I asked, genuinely dumbfounded.

"Of you," she replied eagerly.

"Why?" I said, a little shocked.

"Because of the show."

"What show?" I was stuck on stupid.

"Private Chefs of Beverly Hills," she ventured, looking at me warily, like I was playing some sort of game with her.

"Ohhh! Oh! Right! Thank you so much!"

I tried to recover, but she'd already seen how blank I'd been. I was just so shocked, I didn't know how to respond. In my mind, the show is basically high quality home videos and I still can't believe anyone sees them.

But now I'm starting to realize there's bigger picture that I haven't grasped.

Besides getting recognized at the gym or grocery story or at a screening, here are the ways to know you're star is rising:

People who were awful to you in high school send you friend requests on Facebook, you get walked into special seats to events and people start misquoting you.

Last season there was an unfortunate incident with a writer who threw out all kinds of misquotes and falsehoods about me in the hopes of creating a really salacious story. It was hurtful and awful and totally shocking, especially as a fellow writer. Where was this person's journalistic integrity?!?!

Having someone twist your words is violating and upsetting. I've always seen having the chance to interview people and write stories about them as the opportunity to make their audience fall even more in love by given fans a bit of insight into someone celestial and slightly garrisoned.

Anyway, getting off my high horse and not to say that I'm in anyway celestial beyond my choice of tea seasonings, I had another moment where I discovered I'd been totally misquoted, my words twisted to create something much more "newsworthy" even if totally false.

But this time, instead of getting upset, I took it as a badge of honor.

You're not "someone" until the media corrupts your words. Especially when it's Grubstreet (that's big time, yo!).

They pulled a quote I gave to Monsters and Critics and wrote it up as: Private Chefs of Beverly Hills star Sasha Perl-Raver, on her tastes, which she proudly describes as "crapulent."

When in fact, what they were pulling from went exactly like this:

Monsters & Critics: Chefs often secretly eat pedestrian crap on the DL, they just don’t tell anyone their guilty pleasures. What is your secret craptastic food craving, sweet, savory and in-between?

Sasha Perl-Raver: I’m totally proud of my crapulent taste!

Now I'm not exactly thrilled that Grubstreet has me calling anything about myself crapulent, but it's GRUBSTREET! I read them all the time. It's kind of thrilling to know I'm on their radar, even if I'm being ribbed. And, hey, at least they billed me as the "star" of something.

Monsters and Critics Review of Private Chefs of Beverly Hills

Apparently, according to April MacIntrye at MonstersandCritics.com, I'm "statuesque" with a "rapier wit."

I'll take it!!!

Thank you, April, for the great review.

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/smallscreen/reviews/article_1547065.php

Tonight bows the premiere of Food Network's first foray into what they call a "docu-soap" but really is more a heightened reality series that veers into straight up comedy at times.

The effort is refreshingly entertaining and gives us all a vicarious peek inside the lives of people with so much money they honestly don't know what to do with it.

Meet the "Private Chefs of Beverly Hills" premiering Friday (tonight), April 9 at 10pm ET/PT, as this new series takes six interesting chefs who work together in pairs for assignments from the mothership: Big City Chefs, which is a full-service catering and private chef agency that has a roster of rich, famous and infamous people who need the good eats tout de suite.

Anyone who works in a service related profession, whether you are doing hair, makeup, decorating, cooking and nanny-ing know the game: Once a contract has been struck for your services, you're their bitch until the allotted task and time are over. Not easy for those who cannot sublimate ego and smile while your inner child wants to eviscerate the paying client.
Big City Chefs is the premiere agency for personal chefs in Beverly Hills. Tonight you will meet some of their top chefs who work kitchen magic. Producers picked an interesting mix of personalities to deliver to the TV audiences.

The premiere episode features three vignettes of real Big City clients who agreed to allow cameras to film their events. Two of the chefs, Jesse Brune and Manouschka Guerrier, are to make a human and canine menu for a private dog club where a slobbering little bulldog named Pumpkin is having a doggie debutante party to meet the local bitches and studs. Chef Jesse Brune is a natural for the camera and has some of the best moments and impromptu lines, as he and his chef partner are driven insane by an older female client who keeps changing the game plane for the menu as they work.

Two chefs are assigned a wealthy woman's Botox party at her home in a bid to stoke business and build clientele. The two who are partnered are chefs Stuart O’Keeffe, an Irish looker who has a natural charm (go figure) and a pretty blond named Brooke Peterson, who is aghast when they suggest she might entertain the idea of Botox herself.

Their segment is a slice of LA life where people look for flaws and faults in the mirror in a bid to keep up with their plastic surgery obsessed friends, and wind up looking like the Joker or get the Puffer-Fish face due to too much filler, very bad looks any way you slice it, but commonplace here in Tinseltown.

The last two chefs we meet are the charismatic duo of statuesque chef Sasha Perl-Raver who dishes with a rapier wit and chef Brian Hill, a smooth talker. They get to go "Glamping" and cook for rich dudes (this whole show revolves around The Rich) and one particular "glamper" is a restaurant owner/chef who micromanages the two. The chefs are given a spit and some wood, no real stoves or culinary tools or electricity. They pull a miracle out of their chef's aprons while their tongues are bleeding from trying to manage Mark the "hovering" chef.