Kicking it up a notch

Quick-who's the best-known, most beloved chef in the entire world, the biggest star in the culinary galaxy-or universe, for that matter? Bam! You're right-it's Emeril Lagasse, of course, the brash, bravura cook, author, TV personality and ruler of an empire that includes restaurants in New Orleans, Las Vegas, Orlando and Miami Beach. And he'll kick the Naples Winter Wine Festival (already the world's top-grossing charity wine event) up a notch when he cooks for guests at one of its vintner dinners this month.

As Michael Ruhlman (a star in his own right, as one of the country's leading food writers) reports in this issue, Emeril has become the first chef superstar in history, a household name even among those who are more likely to dine at the drive-thru than the latest downtown bistro, and he did it by turning food into entertainment. Like Oprah Winfrey, he's more than the sum of his parts-a talented chef and savvy businessman who sizzles into something spectacular the second the cameras hit him.

He's not only an American star-he's global, and I didn't need Ruhlman to tell me that. My boyfriend George's mother, Euphita, who lives on the island of St. Lucia in the West Indies, watches Emeril's TV shows religiously, turning the sound up high and shushing anyone who dares to talk in the background. At 80, she can't read or write, but she's a master of West Indian cuisine, and now, improbably, of many New Orleans-style recipes as well.

Every time George goes home she makes him bring a cooler full of cream cheese, which is not available in the island supermarkets but is a key ingredient for Emeril's cheesecake, which she likes to prepare, along with her green banana salad and akra (salted codfish cakes) for special family occasions.

It wasn't that long ago that the archetypal image of the chef was the lonely artiste, laboring in obscurity for a public that rarely appreciated the refined nuances of his creations. (I'm thinking of Primo, the purist Italian chef in that fabulous foodie movie Big Night: Rather than making the spaghetti and meatballs his American patrons want, he turns out exquisite, authentic dishes while his despairing brother watches their business dwindle away.) But in the last decade or so, boosted by the Food Network and rising culinary consciousness, chefs have become sexy media stars and CEOs of multimillion- dollar conglomerates.

Early last summer, when we learned Emeril was coming to the festival, we started talking to his publicist about an interview and photo shoot; after months of back-and-forth, she agreed on a Friday in August to nail down the details the following Monday. "By the way," she said toward the end of our conversation, "I hear there's a hurricane heading your way-good luck."

"Let's just hope it doesn't cross over into the Gulf and come up towards you," I said-never imagining that was exactly what Katrina would do, savaging New Orleans-and Emeril's operations there-about the same time Monday that we had been scheduled to talk.

After the storm, an interview for Gulfshore Life was hardly the highest item on Emeril's list of priorities, and when I finally tracked the publicist down in Miami Beach a few weeks later, she explained he was too overwhelmed to even consider it. But Ruhlman, who has written extensively about top chefs, including in his much-acclaimed Soul of an American Chef, and had recently interviewed Emeril for a piece in Gourmet, came to our rescue; his story begins on p. 126.

Hurricanes have a way of interfering with this Food and Wine annual, since we write and photograph the stories during peak storm season. Last year, Hurricane Ivan prevented Food Network star Tyler Florence from flying into Naples on the day we'd scheduled an elaborate food shoot with him; fortunately, a festival trustee delivered him by private jet before the lobster, tenderloin and all our other groceries went bad. And this year, Wilma hit on the day we'd scheduled a vodka tasting at Baleen's in Naples. She also destroyed the tomato fields we intended to photograph for a feature on heirloom tomatoes and sent the growers fleeing north. But like most folks in the region, we escaped without much lasting damage. A few weeks later, our judges savored an international assortment of vodkas and admired a gorgeous tropical sunset on a cleaned-up beach at Baleen, and the growers returned with new seedlings-and hope-in hand.