Now, now, settle down. It's not quite what you think.As you well know, or should have guessed by now, cheftestant Betty Fraser, known affectionately to us as Spice Rack (see photo, left), used to be an actress.
Shocking, we know. Actors, after all, are reputed to be temperamental, egotistical monsters, able to be bubbly and smiley one moment, and then to fly into foul-mouthed, full-lunged rages. How is it possible our very own Spice Rack was ever one of their number?
But a recent profile of Spice Rack in the L.A. Independent reminded us of her, uh, thespian past. As our favorite paragraph in the entire profile says:
Fraser, who started her career as an actress, starred in various stage productions and played a “hooker with a heart of gold” on the 1980s television “Wolf” before becoming a full-time chef, and sees some parallels between the two professions besides the small screen stardom she’s found.
Oy, where to start? First, let's discuss the importance of good grammar and clear writing. That bit about "the two professions" comes awfully close to suggesting parallels between being a chef and whoring. So inconceivable is this--cough, Emeril, cough, Batali--that we surmise the author meant parallels between acting and cooking. Still, let it be a lesson to you.
But you know us all too well, and so of course you know we were thrilled to see that Spice Rack played a "hooker with a heart of gold" in a cheesy 80s television series. We were, of course, also shocked and surprised (see photo, left).
Intrepid little reporters that we are, we delved into the history of "Wolf." We turned to the estimable IMDB.com, but found no mention of Spice Rack in the cast. There was one actress listed as playing "Purse Woman," but no "Prostitute with Two Aureous Ventricles." Perhaps Spice Rack had a nom de poon?
At any rate, the show looks like a winner:
"Tony Wolf, a San Francisco cop, is framed on a drug charge by the criminals he has been pursuing. Thrown off the force, he gets a job as a private detective working for the attorney, Dylan Elliott, who led the fight to have him thrown off the force. Dylan came to believe that Tony had been framed and attempts to help him prove his innocence. Tony lives with his father, Sal, on a boat that always needs repairs, and spends most of his free time with Connie, his girlfriend."
How is it possible the show didn't make it past its first season?
