Pint-Size Chef Has a Giant-Sized Idea for TV : Talk circuit: Justin Miller, who is only 5 years old, has already appeared with David Letterman and Phil Donahue and hopes for his own show. His agent calls the boy’s winning personality as well as his talent with a spatula a recipe for success.

He’s got chipmunk cheeks, a laugh like a case of the hiccups and a wicked way with a spatula.

No wonder Justin Miller, an amateur chef at age 5, is making a name for himself on the talk-show circuit.

Already he’s whipped cream cheese with Phil Donahue, shared laughs with David Letterman and fried zucchini with Michael Burger of “Mike & Maty.”

His parents and business manager envision more of the same, as well as possible appearances in commercials and movies.

They’re even talking about a sitcom, to be called “Justin’s Kitchen.”

“It’s a God-given gift that Justin was born with, to charm America via the tube,” said Justin’s manager in Los Angeles, Phil Lobel, who also handles publicity for magician David Copperfield.

“When people see him, they find him an adorable, very appealing individual.”

At home in Baden, a Pittsburgh suburb, Justin seems more interested in demonstrating his recipe for zucchini moons than in talking about his rise to minor fame.

Boosted up to the stove by a blue Playskool chair, he flips zucchini slices in a sizzling frying pan and sprinkles Parmesan cheese on them.

“You have to cook them until they’re tender and crisp,” he says.

A few seconds later, he points to a slice that’s lightly browned.

“This is what you want them all to look like,” he says, an endearing lisp slightly blurring his words. “They should all look just like that .”

Justin first showed an interest in cooking when he was a little more than a year old, according to his mother, Linda.

“When he was in his highchair, if I was making cabbage rolls, I’d give him a little bit of the filling and some of the cabbage leaves, and he’d practice rolling them up,” she says.

He also helped her stuff peppers and mash potatoes and began making his own peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches when he was about 2.

“He always said he wanted to be a chef,” recalls Linda Miller, who says her son idolizes Graham Kerr, television’s “Galloping Gourmet.” “From the time he started to talk, people would ask him what he wanted to be, and he’d say, ‘A chef.’ ”

In March, Justin’s father, Jimi, a disc jockey at a Pittsburgh country music station, sent “Late Show With David Letterman” a videotape of his son cooking.

Producers scheduled him for the April 27 show.

The segment dissolved into giggles, with Letterman and Justin flinging vanilla wafers into the audience instead of baking mini-cheesecakes.

Justin was even invited to stay on the set after singer Anita Baker, the next guest, appeared.

“He really cracks me up. He was just so excited about things like the whisk and the blender,” says talent assistant Leigh Ann Gibson. “I definitely think he has potential.”

Not long afterward, he was invited to appear on “Donahue,” where he finally got a chance to demonstrate how to make mini-cheesecakes.

Last month, Justin traveled to Hollywood, where he appeared on the nationally syndicated “Mike & Maty” show, had a personal host show him around Disneyland and made a pizza with Wolfgang Puck at Spago. Footage of parts of his visit was aired on CNN Headline News.

“I like going on television because I get to cook,” he says.

Lobel and Justin’s parents know that to keep Justin happy, any show business venture will have to involve time in front of a stove. That’s why Lobel came up with the idea for “Justin’s Kitchen,” which he says will be a cross between “The Galloping Gourmet” and “Bewitched.”

“This is a child who loves to cook,” says Lobel, who is working with a few writers to develop the concept.

“In listening to him, what came through is that what would make him happy would be a kitchen set designed for him, with all his blenders and fancy spoons.”