Firm Whips Up Everything For Writers' Visits

The cameras were rolling, the visiting cookbook author was whipping up a demonstration dish - and the TV-studio crew was in a panic.

Someone had forgotten to connect the cooking top to power, so while the chef fussed with the ingredients, a crewman scrambled between his feet, below camera range, trying to make a hookup.

He never succeeded, and the ingredients never did sizzle in the skillet. But the TV audience didn't know the difference because Joy Delf already had saved the day by preparing the finished dish in advance. After a commercial break, the dish was displayed and sampled on camera without a hitch.

It's the kind of nail-biting situation Delf is used to coping with. As the owner of Bellevue-based Joy Delf Media Services, she escorts and assists authors and celebrities whose book-promotion tours bring them to Seattle. It's one of several such services locally.

Although Delf and her two part-time employees escort celebrities of many sorts - Michael Caine, Tony Curtis and Gloria Steinem have been among them - cookbook authors are her specialty.

Some of the most famous of these have been her clients: Julia Child, Martha Stewart, Graham Kerr, Debbie Fields of Mrs. Fields' Cookies and many others.

Last week found her escorting TV chef Pierre Franey and prolific cookbook author James McNair, both promoting new books.Gets everything in place

She not only picks up the gourmet gurus at the airport and drives them to their hotels and to TV studios, newspaper offices and book signings, she also assembles and prepares food for their cooking demonstrations.

For television, that means having a dish ready in several stages: raw ingredients; partially prepared elements; and finished dishes for showing and tasting at the end. The visiting author gives a show of preparing the food on camera but actually lacks time to do the whole job.

Usually things go smoothly, but glitches can happen. Delf remembers the embarrassing day that Anne Willan - founder of the famous La Varenne cooking school in Paris and author of many cookbooks - was scheduled to do a radio-broadcast cooking demonstration in a Tacoma-area mall.

Unfortunately, no one showed up to watch her. Just why wasn't clear, although Willan was less well-known then, before she had her own TV show. Finally, three elderly women wandered by and stopped to watch.

What Delf remembers most was Willan's response. "She was so gracious. . . . Stoic pro that she was, she went ahead and did the demonstration and cooked the omelet for the three little old ladies," carefully explaining everything. Visitors let their hair down

Some celebrities are less composed, even surprisingly insecure. Faced with an embarrassingly skimpy audience, a few - Delf doesn't identify them - will find somebody to blame. In the privacy of the car, some also reveal shaky self-esteem by asking how much of a turnout or how many interviews some other author had.

"And they'll gossip about their fellow book people and try to get me to tell them things, too (which she doesn't)."

Certain celebrities have a reputation as hard to work with. Stewart is one, but Delf says things went well in the three Stewart visits she handled.

"Everybody warned me, but it was fine. . . . She's just a very dedicated person. She works at a pace 10 times faster than the rest of us. She wants to learn everything about everything. If there's 10 minutes between interviews, she wants to go antique shopping. . . . She doesn't wait for me to set things up (for a demonstration). She knows exactly how she wants it."

Delf says Child - possibly the most beloved of America's food famous - is invariably gracious. Delf has a framed letter from Child thanking her for doing "a splendid job on that television show."

Another of her favorites is TV chef and Camano Island resident Kerr, whom Delf was thrilled to meet in person after watching, and loving, his "Galloping Gourmet" show as a teen. She has since done food styling for some of his book covers.

A native of Canada, Delf worked in musical theater in Vancouver, B.C., before moving to Seattle with her husband and then earning a degree in home economics. Teaching at several local cooking schools followed, and that led to assisting touring cookbook authors and finally opening her own media-escort firm.

The loneliness of a long book tour prompts some authors to share personal problems with Delf. "People have told me about going through a cancer experience or about marital problems," she says.

Delf listens with a sympathetic ear. If her job is sometimes nerve-wracking, her goal is simple: "I want them to feel good about their day here."

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