Gwyneth Paltrow published a cookbook last April titled “My Father’s Daughter;” there have been rumors and reports from the New York Times that the actress employed a ghostwriter to compose the book and now she is tweeting back.
The star tweeted, “Love @nytimes dining section but this week’s facts need checking. No ghost writer on my cookbook, I wrote every word myself.”
Paltrow was responding to an article in The New York Times titled “I was a Cookbook Ghostwriter.” The piece was authored by Julia Moskin, the writer of nine cookbooks who has contributed to “many other chefs’ projects … some credited, but most anonymous.” In the article, Moskin looks at the often uncredited writers and cooks who help celebrity chefs “maintain cookbook production schedules. In the article, Moskin quotes writer and chef Julia Turshen, who Moskin says is working on “a second cookbook with Gwyneth Paltrow after their collaboration on ‘My Father’s Daughter.’”
While the Times’ piece states that Turshen began her career as “the ghostwriter for the ghostwriter on a book by Mario Batali,” the article only claims that Turshen collaborated on Paltrow’s tome. While Paltrow likely wrote every word of the book as she claims, Turshen did help the actress perfect her family recipes for publication.
Paltrow even praised Turshen in her author’s note, “I literally could not have written this book without the tireless, artful assistance of Julia Turshen, who stood over my shoulder at the stove and chopping block for the better part of a year, bringing a method to my freestyling madness. She quantified, tested, and retested every recipe, oversaw the production of the photos, helped brainstorm in crisis and, above all, was my intellectual and emotional support through the whole process.”
Gwyneth Paltrow made an appearance on CBS’s The Early Show with Chris Wragge and said that she used to cuddle up with her father, Bruce Paltrow, on the couch and watch the Food Network; then they would try to recreate the meals together.
She explained the importance of food and its integral role in her relationship with her dad: “My father was so important to me because he showed me the importance of family and those values — and that if you invest in those relationships, you have a good life, and that if you sit down, and have a great meal or you cook together, or you do something homemade and you have a glass of wine …that’s living!”