homemade veggie burgers

my father's daughter (2011)

this book is dedicated to my brother, Jake, my first guinea pig, who makes meals great just by being there, and for looking so much like Bruce while he is eating them. Also to our closest friends, our family really, who are always the reason to have a dinner party, the Wigmore-Reynolds, the Van Nices, the Carters, the Turly-Burnses and their extended clan, the Maudes, the Harveys, the Downeys, the McCartney-Willises, the Spielbergs, the Nadal-Saxe-Coburgs, the Conrad-Manions, the Hill-McGraws… for Apple and Moses, hearts of my artichoke, my raisins d’être - Gwyneth Paltrow

First, a history lesson. In 2011, Gwyneth was a slightly past-her-prime movie star with a hobby. Her last big movies were the critically maligned Country Strong and the easy paycheck Iron Man, where she and the recently sober, uninsurable Robert Downey Jr., slummed it as C-tier superheroes. GOOP.com (as it was clunkily known) had just matriculated from a weekly email newsletter to a full-fledged website and incorporated company. Spain… On the Road Again, the PBS cooking show with longtime friend (wonder how he is!) Mario Batali, never got a second season. We were still three years away from conscious uncoupling, six years away from the yoni egg, fourteen years away from Marty Supreme, and (of course) five years away from the seminal, influential comedy-wellness podcast Goop Yourself.

My Father’s Daughter wasn’t released to a lot of fanfare. It never became a classic. It doesn’t contain a viral recipe or even a beloved, underrated gem. GP’s follow-up, It’s All Good, more squarely defined the public perception of her as a health-nut. But the first book did point Gwyneth in a new direction. Celebrities have always released cookbooks, at least since Vincent Price’s 1965 Treasury of Great Recipes. Some of them were good, some of them were bad, but none of them had redefined a celebrity’s persona, rewritten the first paragraph of their obituary. My Father’s Daughter is less an important cookbook than a pivot point in the business of celebrity itself. Shilling product lost its shame, its whiff of Thighmaster desperation. Gwyneth could be an Oscar-winning actress and a legitimate wellness mogul. Rihanna could have the most Billboard Number Ones in the 21st Century and a makeup brand that rivals L’Oreal and Estee Lauder. Katy Perry could be an astronaut, a nun killer, and the secretly alive JonBenet Ramsey.