NEW YORK (AP) — TV chef Anne Burrell, who coached culinary fumblers by means of lots 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 dying. The trigger was not instantly clear, and medical experts have been set to conduct an post-mortem.
Police have been referred to as to her deal with earlier than 8 a.m. Tuesday and located an unresponsive girl 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 considered one of her many appearances on NBC’s “Today” present. She confronted off in opposition to different prime cooks on the Meals Community’s “House of Knives” earlier within the spring.
“Anne was a remarkable person and culinary talent — teaching, competing and always sharing the importance of food in her life and the joy that a delicious meal can bring,” the community mentioned in a press release.
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 means of a crash course in savory self-improvement.
On the primary present in 2010, contestants introduced 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 guage them, and it was torturous, Burrell confessed in an interview with The Tampa Tribune on the time.
Nonetheless, Burrell continued by means of 27 seasons, making her final look in 2024.
“If people want to learn, I absolutely love to teach them,” she mentioned on ABC’s “Good Morning America” in 2020. “It’s just them breaking bad habits and getting out of their own way.”
Burrell was born Sept. 21, 1969, within the central New York city of Cazenovia, the place her dad and mom 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 mentioned in a 2008 interview with The Publish-Normal of Syracuse.
Having at all times liked cooking, she quickly enrolled within the Culinary Institute of America, for which she later taught. She graduated in 1996, spent a yr at an Italian culinary college after which labored in upscale New York Metropolis eating places for a time.
“Anytime Anne Burrell gets near hot oil, I want to be around,” Frank Bruni, then-food critic on the New York Instances, enthused in a 2007 evaluation.
By the subsequent yr, Burrell was internet hosting her personal Meals Community present, “Secrets of a Restaurant Chef,” and her TV work grew to become a spotlight. Over time she additionally wrote two cookbooks, “Cook Like a Rock Star” and “Own Your Kitchen: Recipes to Inspire and Empower,” and was concerned with meals pantries, juvenile diabetes consciousness campaigns and different charities.
Burrell’s personal tastes, she mentioned, ran easy. She informed The Publish-Normal her favourite meals was bacon and her favourite meal was her mom’s tuna fish sandwich.
“Cooking is fun,” she mentioned. “It doesn’t have to be scary. It’s creating something nurturing.”
Survivors embody her husband, Stuart Claxton, whom she married in 2021, and his son, her mom and her two siblings.
“Anne’s light radiated far beyond those she knew, touching millions across the world,” the household mentioned in a press release launched by the Meals Community.
