Imagine, a man who not only could you bring home to meet mother but who also cooks for you and, wait for this, looks good while doing it. Yeoh Siew Hoon meets Curtis Stone, the "Take Home Chef".
The first thing I asked myself when I met Curtis Stone (pictured below), the Take Home Chef on Discovery Travel & Living, was, would I want to take him home?
Well, I am sure I was not the only female in the ballroom asking that question – in fact, I think most probably would have jumped from question to answer (YES) without passing the word "Go" – but I, of course, had to ask a few questions before I leapt.
"Was your father a bad cook too," I asked, as I gazed into his deep blue eyes.
Stone, for those who don't know him, was a surfer boy in Australia who somehow rode the right wave and ended up being a celebrity chef.
His first series was "Surfing the menu" which basically shows two surfer-type Aussies cooking on the beach but his biggest claim to fame is "Take Home Chef" where he ambushes mainly sweet, young girls in supermarkets in America and offers to cook for them at home. It's a winning formula – boy takes girls home, boy cooks for girls and girls drool over boy and, oh yes, the food.
I asked that question because earlier on stage, he had said the reason he learnt to cook and grew to love it was because his mother was a bad cook – he remembers overcooked vegetables and bland, British dishes.
"Yes, he was," he said, gazing into my bespectacled brown eyes. "What I didn't say though was my mother was a good baker, and I learnt a lot from her."
"Which celebrity chef do you admire most?" I quickly asked before he slipped away to his adoring public, all of whom were waiting their turn to shake the hand of a man who I don't really know whether he can really cook but he sure looks good doing it.
"That's a hard question," he said, the full intensity of his gaze upon me. He paused, looked upward and then down at me. "Actually the people I admire most are the producers, the people who make the produce that we use – the people who make the goat cheese and do it to perfection. That's real hard work."
When you watch Stone cook on television, he doesn't make it look like hard work – instead, he makes it look fun, natural and easy. Just like the way he came across that night at one of the World Gourmet Summit dinners hosted by Discovery Travel & Living.
Stone, who was classically trained in London under Marco Pierre White, is described as "the face of a new generation of chefs" with People Magazine voting him as one of the sexiest men alive.
In person, he comes across as affable, personable with a good sense of humour.
Yes, just the sort of man you'd want to take home.
Incidentally, Stone is returning to Singapore in July and even hinted that he may film an episode of "Take Home Chef". I am going to make sure I visit the supermarkets everyday then.
Yeoh Siew Hoon, one of Asia's most respected travel editors and commentators, writes a regular column on news, trends and issues in the hospitality industry for 4Hoteliers.com.
Siew Hoon, who has covered the tourism industry in Asia/Pacific for the past 20 years, runs SHY Ventures Pte Ltd. Her other writings can be found at www.thetransitcafe.com Get your weekly cuppa of news, gossip, humour and opinion at the cafe for travel insiders. 
