For sheer unpredictability, though, nothing touched our live phone calls. They were by far the most popular feature of the show, but they operated with no time delay, which made me a sitting duck. My vulnerability came home during the first week. Happily preparing a recipe for eggplant rollatine, a dish I love, I took a call from good old “Mike from New York,” who asked me straight out if I knew the difference between eggplant parmesan and eggplant à la penis. My reaction surprised me. I wasn’t flustered, just annoyed. “Moving right along,” I said, and moved right along.
After six and a half years and 1,200 shows, I stopped doing live TV. Sara’s Secrets, my current show, is taped, and we knock ’em out like doughnut holes—no muss, no fuss, no dirty phone calls. And yet, while I’ve never been one of those people who need to parachute out of an airplane to confirm that they’re alive, I must confess that every now and again, despite myself, I find I miss the spontaneity—and the danger—of Cooking Live.
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