Patti LaBelle on New Cooking Show: ‘I Cook My Face Off, Honey’
The Seventies were all about getting it on. James Brown felt like being a sex machine; Roberta Flack felt like making love. But Patti LaBelle, with the help of her group at the time, Labelle, had perhaps the coyest coitus cut of the decade, “Lady Marmalade,” in that the big refrain from the song wasn’t even in English. American audiences didn’t seem to mind the tease, though; the line “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soir)?” — French for “Do you want to sleep with me tonight?” — propelled the funky track to Number One in 1974.
The Patti LaBelle story neither begins nor ends with “Lady Marmalade,” though. The Philly singer has had plenty of other hits, from the steamy “If Only You Knew” to the frenzied “New Attitude,” and recently capped a run on Dancing with the Stars. LaBelle’s latest move finds her back on television, but she will not be performing, exactly. This Sunday on Cooking Channel, she’ll host Patti LaBelle‘s Place, a cooking special on which she’ll cradle ladles, not microphones. Her guests will be Whoopi Goldberg, vocalist Michelle Williams and her partner from Dancing with the Stars, Artem Chigvintsev, and the menu includes signature LaBelle dishes such as Over the Rainbow Mac and Cheese, and Patti’s Berry Parfaits.
In advance of the premiere of Patti LaBelle’s Place, LaBelle spoke to Rolling Stone about the show, Whoopi Goldberg’s food preferences and working with New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint.
Can you tell me a little bit about how this special came about?
I’ve been cooking all my life. As a child, I started coming up with recipes for hot sauces and barbecue sauces and ketchup, and all those kind of things. So I watched my mother cook, my father cook, who were very great cooks. And all through my life, I was cooking, so the show was inevitable. Having my own cooking show. Because I cook so well, and I’m not bragging, not patting myself on the back, but I cook, I think, better than I sing. I cook my face off, honey.
Well, that’s saying a lot.
I’m serious, though. Or maybe they’re equal. ‘Cause my passion for singing is amazing, and my passion for seeing someone smile after they taste my food, that’s the answer. They smile, and they laugh, and they say, “Can I have more, please? More. Can I take some home?” All of those things that make me feel great, so the cooking show is showing everyone that I cook very well. I have no sous chef. I do it all myself right in front of the cameras. Actually, I think people thought that I was pretending when I would say how well I make my macaroni and cheese, and the potato salad, and the fish. All these things I still make for other folks, because I’m a diabetic. But I still have to taste it to see if it’s great. You know, my fresh fried corn off the cob. Just … I can cook! So it shows that to people [laughs].