When 'General Hospital' Meets General Foods

by Jason Best, Posted Nov 29th 2010 @ 2:00PM

Still rounding out your holiday shopping list? Surely you've got an aunt, grandma or second cousin somewhere who lives for daytime TV, and for whom this would make the perfect (or ironic) gift: Soap Dishes: The Cookbook.

Billed as a collection of favorite recipes from your favorite soap stars, the book features more than 30 dishes from the villains and vixens of such daytime staples as General Hospital, All My Children, Days of Our Lives, Bold and the Beautiful, One Life to Live and The Young and the Restless.

No doubt the book's creators, Derk Cheetwood (who plays Max Giambetti on General Hospital) and Steve Burton (GH's Jason Morgan), figured the real incentive here would be the "sneak peak" interviews with the stars and maybe the fact that proceeds from the book go to the Desi Geestman Foundation, which helps children with cancer. Because it's nearly impossible to tell what recipes are actually featured in the book before you buy the thing.

That may have been a smart marketing move (after all, this is a group better known for their chiseled features and come-hither looks than, say, their prowess in the kitchen -- do you ever actually see anyone eating on a soap opera?). The book's website gives rather generic descriptions of the supposed focus of the book -- the food. To wit, what looks like a tomato tart from General Hospital's Carolyn Hennesy is enthusiastically (but vaguely) touted as a "vibrant dish!" while the penne topped with what seems to be some sort of meat sauce, from The Young and the Restless's Kristoff St. John is billed rather blandly as a "healthy and decadent pasta dish!"

Click on the link, and instead of a preview of the recipe itself, you get a pin-up pic of a ripped, inked and smoldering St. John.

We'll take two.

Filed Under: Television/Film, Cookbook Spotlight
Tags: cookbooks, gifts, soap operas