Back in my early days, long before I ever really knew anything about cooking, I once found myself in Cher’s kitchen, helping to prepare Christmas Eve dinner at her Malibu estate. For lack of a better term, it was one of those typical “Hollywood moments” — a common person’s brush with celebrity — that Angelinos tend to be so proud of. At the risk of sounding jaded, I will admit that I did feel a sense of pride at the time. Not that I really cared that much about 
Cher, in particular. As a film buff, I do admire the fact that she has won an Oscar, and I respect the fact that she was a mega-superstar in the 1960s. But I was far more proud of the fact that I was actually cooking somewhere professionally.
For the past several months, I had been working nights as a short order cook in West Los Angeles, basically struggling to keep pace with a small — yet bustling — dive bar called the San Francisco Saloon. My nights at the Saloon were often long: the kitchen was open late, and my mornings usually began with a full day of prep work at another restaurant in Santa Monica. I used to catch a half-hour nap between gigs, and then somehow battle through a marathon dinner shift at the Saloon. My work schedule was relentless, but back then, I was eager for any kind of professional cooking experience.
Sometime during my hazy tenure at the San Francisco Saloon, the owner of the place introduced me to a caterer who had occasionally worked for a handful of the B-list celebrities in town. Every once in a while, this modest network of celebrities would foster a somewhat lucrative catering job, and I would gladly enlist my services, hoping to earn a little extra income. In those early days, catering — compared to short order cooking — was a huge step forward for me: easier, better hours, better food, more money.
• • •
Knowing what I know now, I suspect that I landed this Christmas Eve gig because no one else was willing to work during the holiday. Although there is that possibility, it didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. The dinner itself was well within my skill set, since it was just a basic turkey dinner for eight, complete with all of the requisite trimmings. Even as a novice cook, fixing mashing potatoes and making cranberry sauce was rudimentary work. And really, all things considered, my most valuable contribution was probably unloading the catering van.
Given the fact that I was cooking for Cher, you might assume that I would remember more about the meal than I did. But it was a long time ago — I barely remember anything about the day, except that it was raining, and that Cher had a stunning view of the Pacific Ocean from her kitchen. Of course, the kitchen itself was also beautiful in its own right, with a giant professional stove that could’ve easily been mistaken for brand new. I also remember that I heard Cher being mentioned dozens of times before I ever saw her. Clearly, everyone in the house wanted to make sure that she was having a happy holiday.
When Cher did finally appear in the kitchen, she exuded a commanding presence, although I expected her to be much taller than she was. She had an aura about her that was completely unique and unmistakable. It proved to me, once and for all, that “star quality” was definitely a palpable trait, an attribute that transcended mere charisma. I have to assume that Cher had carried this aura with her for her entire life, even long before she ever became famous. Her presence was undeniable, regardless of what you thought of her movies or her music. No wonder she was the basis for so much chit-chat around the house: she may as well have been the Queen.
After her one brief appearance in the kitchen, Cher retired to a separate part of the mansion for the rest of the day. However, she did deliver my chef an old, hand-written recipe card for stuffing. It was the very recipe that her grandmother had used for years, and Cher wanted us to prepare the dish. Instinctively, I had my doubts. For one thing, I knew that Cher’s grandmother had probably stopped using that recipe card years ago, and if she was like most grandmothers, she most likely made that entire dish from memory. With these sorts of expectations, we began the day at a distinct disadvantage.
Originally, the plan was for my chef to cut and prepare all of the ingredients for the stuffing. Then, once everything was ready, Cher would come in, assemble the dish, and put it in the oven. Many of my readers — especially those who fancy themselves gourmets — may dismiss Cher for this rather detached approach to cooking. But let’s face it, this scenario is really no different than what most celebrity chefs do on television. I could easily understand how Cher — as someone who has been in show business for several decades — would prefer to just swoop in for the glory.
Except that she never did. As the ingredients sat waiting on the counter, someone on Cher’s staff instructed us to assemble the stuffing ourselves, and to go ahead and bake it. Although this stuffing had seemed very important earlier in the day, we were told that Cher was occupied with something else for the time being. We double-checked to make absolutely sure that Cher did not want to be involved, and then we mixed the ingredients, and slid the glass baking dish into the oven. We set the timer, and began turning our attention to other projects.
Then, about halfway through the cooking process, the stuffing suddenly became the focal point of the kitchen (and possibly the entire house). One of Cher’s assistants arrived and asked for a sample of the stuffing from the oven. Although it wasn’t finished yet, Cher was curious about how it was coming along. We obliged with a heaping spoonful of our work-in-progress, which was whisked out of the kitchen to another part of the house. After a minute or so, the assistant returned to the kitchen with the spoon and a verdict: the chicken livers were not diced small enough.
• • •
I once had a chef-instructor at the Culinary Institute who said that professional cooking has a lot to do with recovery. Unfortunately, in the case of the stuffing, we didn’t have the time nor the ingredients to start over. Recovery, in this case, presented very few options. Therefore, we were soon collecting bits of chicken liver from a steaming dish of half-baked stuffing, then piling the tiny liver scraps onto a cutting board for further mincing. It certainly wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t impossible, either. After some effort, we returned the finely chopped livers to the stuffing mixture and continued to bake it.
About twenty minutes later, the same assistant reappeared to procure another spoonful of stuffing, which was again hurried out of the kitchen. Then, a couple minutes later, we learned our next bit of troubling news: the stuffing had too much liquid in it. This information was a bit more dire. Aside from possibly rolling the mixture in a giant piece of cheesecloth and somehow wringing it out, there really wasn’t much that we could do about an overly moist stuffing. Sure, it would lose a little more moisture through baking, but the dish was just about done — so we had essentially reached our point of no return. There was simply no recovery in this scenario.
Despite being slightly demoralized, my chef and I tasted the stuffing and decided that it was actually pretty good. And we weren’t just being overly optimistic and positive. It was a competent version of stuffing, after all, and it was certainly beyond something that was merely warm and edible. Look at any two recipes for stuffing, and there are so many stylistic variations on this dish, to claim that one is “right” while another is “wrong” has more to do with personal taste than anything. Some folks like their stuffing slightly dry and crumbly, while others may prefer it more moist and adherent. Personally, I could do without the chicken livers altogether, but that’s just me.
• • •
Although this incident happened years ago, I have pondered this situation many times since then (usually every time I make stuffing), and I have decided one thing: we were simply doomed from the very beginning. Given the origins of the dish — a cherished family recipe — there was simply no possible way that a couple of caterers were going waltz in and duplicate Cher’s grandmother’s stuffing, whether or not we had the original, hand-written index card or any other specific set of instructions. The odds were simply stacked too heavily against us.
Cher, like so many of us who treasure family recipes, was in search of nostalgia, craving a certain taste that might elicit fond holiday memories. But for someone else to recreate that dish would have certainly taken a Christmas miracle. Family recipes are just that way. They are unique, and at the same time, comforting and familiar. In fact, these dishes are very much like celebrities themselves: they seem to have their own aura and their own star quality, never to be captured by others, and never to be duplicated.
