NEW YORK (AP) — TV chef Anne Burrell, who coached culinary fumblers by way of tons of of episodes of “Worst Cooks in America,” died Tuesday at her New York dwelling. She was 55.
The Meals Community, the place Burrell started her two-decade tv profession on “Iron Chef America” and went on to different exhibits, confirmed her loss of life. The trigger was not instantly clear, and medical experts have been set to conduct an post-mortem.
Police have been known as to her deal with earlier than 8 a.m. Tuesday and located an unresponsive lady who was quickly pronounced useless. The police division didn’t launch the girl’s title, however data present it was Burell’s deal with.
Burrell was on TV screens as lately as April, making rooster Milanese cutlets topped with escarole salad in one in every of her many appearances on NBC’s “Immediately” present. She confronted off in opposition to different high cooks on the Meals Community’s “Home of Knives” earlier within the spring.
“Anne was a exceptional individual and culinary expertise — educating, competing and all the time sharing the significance of meals in her life and the enjoyment {that a} scrumptious meal can carry,” the community stated in an announcement.
Recognized for her daring and flavorful however not overly fancy dishes, and for her spiky platinum-blonde hairdo, Burrell and varied co-hosts on “Worst Cooks in America” led groups of kitchen-challenged individuals by way of a crash course in savory self-improvement.
On the primary present in 2010, contestants offered such unlikely private specialties as cayenne pepper and peanut butter on cod, and penne pasta with sauce, cheese, olives and pineapple. The completed cooks needed to style the dishes to judge them, and it was torturous, Burrell confessed in an interview with The Tampa Tribune on the time.
Nonetheless, Burrell persevered by way of 27 seasons, making her final look in 2024.
“If individuals wish to study, I completely love to show them,” she stated on ABC’s “Good Morning America” in 2020. “It’s simply them breaking unhealthy habits and getting out of their very own approach.”
Burrell was born Sept. 21, 1969, within the central New York city of Cazenovia, the place her mother and father ran a flower retailer. She earned an English and communications diploma from Canisius College and went on to a job as a headhunter however hated it, she stated in a 2008 interview with The Submit-Normal of Syracuse.
Having all the time cherished cooking, she quickly enrolled within the Culinary Institute of America, for which she later taught. She graduated in 1996, spent a 12 months at an Italian culinary college after which labored in upscale New York Metropolis eating places for a time.
“Anytime Anne Burrell will get close to sizzling oil, I wish to be round,” Frank Bruni, then-food critic on the New York Instances, enthused in a 2007 overview.
By the subsequent 12 months, Burrell was internet hosting her personal Meals Community present, “Secrets and techniques of a Restaurant Chef,” and her TV work grew to become a spotlight. Over time she additionally wrote two cookbooks, “Prepare dinner Like a Rock Star” and “Personal Your Kitchen: Recipes to Encourage and Empower,” and was concerned with meals pantries, juvenile diabetes consciousness campaigns and different charities.
Burrell’s personal tastes, she stated, ran easy. She instructed The Submit-Normal her favourite meals was bacon and her favourite meal was her mom’s tuna fish sandwich.
“Cooking is enjoyable,” she stated. “It doesn’t must be scary. It’s creating one thing nurturing.”
Survivors embrace her husband, Stuart Claxton, whom she married in 2021, and his son, her mom and her two siblings.
“Anne’s gentle radiated far past these she knew, touching tens of millions the world over,” the household stated in an announcement launched by the Meals Community.