The '90s Acting Icon Who Now Works As A Chef
Lifestyle - News
By ROW LIGHT
You've probably seen Freddie Prinze Jr.'s face on movie posters, on bedroom walls, and when you think of iconic teen leading males from the 1990s and 2000s. However, moviegoers may have noted that Prinze Jr. hasn't made a movie since 2004's "Scooby-Doo: Monsters Unleashed," so what's kept this A-list charmer busy?
Actors like Stanley Tucci, Reese Witherspoon, and Oprah Winfrey are among the newest wave of cookbook authors, combining originality, delicious food, and memoir in their books. Prinze Jr. joined the ranks of celebrity cookbook authors in 2016, when he released "Back to the Kitchen: 75 Delicious, Real Recipes (& True Stories) From a Food-Obsessed Actor."
Prinze Jr. recalls enjoying time spent in the kitchen as a child, adding, "My mother worked in restaurants her whole life. That's where she met my father, at a comedy club in Reno, Nevada. She was the chef there." He continued, "My cookbook is about saving time [...] Everything is nine ingredients or less and two of those ingredients are salt and pepper so that doesn't count. I try to make everything very simple."
Cooking was his fallback, he revealed in a 2020 interview, "When I graduated high school my mom encouraged (okay, "forced") me to attend cooking school as a backup plan to my acting ambitions." He continues, "I was all set to go to Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Pasadena when I got my first real acting gig — and the rest is history. But I never stopped loving good food or cooking."