Unscripted adoration

Book festivals tend to be sedate affairs, full of thoughtful, earnest people who care about important things. But at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, the scene at the cooking stage was more like an outdoor rock concert.

Fans shifted restlessly in their seats under the hot sun, tiny cameras clutched at the ready. The air buzzed with anticipation.

The panel?

“Super Chefs,” moderated by Leslie Brenner, food editor of The Times and author of five books about food and wine.

The panel featured Juliette Rossant, author of “Super Chef: The Making of the Great Modern Restaurant Empires,” and -- in explanation for the antsy crowd -- Rocco DiSpirito, author of “Flavor,” chef-owner of Rocco’s on 22nd Street in New York and, perhaps most important on this afternoon, star of “The Restaurant,” the unscripted drama set in his restaurant that began its second season on NBC last week.

In the last nine years, the festival has grown from 70,000 attendees to an affair that this weekend lured about 150,000 people and 400 authors to the UCLA campus. This year, say festival organizers, is the first time someone from reality TV has appeared on the official program. The incursion of television celebrity into the staid world of bookdom brought its own distinctive tenor to the discussion.

“He’s the man,” said Patrick Hardy, 24, who had been waiting for this moment for two hours. He pulled DiSpirito’s “Flavor” out of a bag, primed for a signing.

“We watch ‘The Restaurant.’ We’ve recorded it all,” threw in his girlfriend, Lucy Garcia.

“I love to cook,” continued Hardy, who hopes to open a restaurant one day. “I got into cooking because of Rocco. He really is an inspiration.”

Wait. At last, DiSpirito appeared.

No professorial tweed blazer here. The star of the moment wore stylish jeans and a hot-pink floral shirt unbuttoned just far enough. He pushed up his glasses, brushed his boyish, sun-kissed hair from his face and smiled at his fans like a movie star.

He stepped down from the stage and leaping groupies mobbed him. Gracious and good-natured, he posed for pictures, draped his arms over girls who went woozy with pleasure. There were teeny-boppers, earnest Gen-Y wannabe chefs. And there was Bonnie Carroll, Beverly Hills bureau chief for Food & Beverage International magazine.

“Can you take a picture for me?” she asked, shoving her camera into her neighbor’s hand and heading into the thick of the crowd. “For the magazine.”

“What are we going to do about all these women?” asked Elliot Shirwo, another front-row attendee. “They are here to see Rocco. Forget Tad Hamilton. What I want to find out is, is this guy really about food, or is he just about glamour and fame?”

The discussion started, but the fans kept buzzing in their seats.

What is a super chef? Brenner asked Rossant, whose book focuses on such chefs as Wolfgang Puck, Charlie Palmer, Todd English, Mary Sue Milliken, Susan Feniger and Tom Colicchio.

“The category of super chef is just being defined now,” said Rossant. But, she said, super chefs are great chefs, manage multiple restaurants in multiple places, have cookbooks and have achieved a measure of fame.

“Chefs have gained the status of architects and artists in any other field,” Rossant said. “You can be a celebrity.”

“My grandson,” said Carroll, the food writer, “he’s 9. He used to love football. Now he loves Rocco.”

But what happens on the way to super chefdom? asked Brenner. “Is the chef spending enough time in the kitchen?”

Will people want to become chefs for the wrong reasons? Rossant added.

DiSpirito jumped in to the discussion.

“It’s not at the point where someone is 5 years old and they say, ‘I want to be a famous chef,’ where you have your mother managing your career like Britney Spears. We are at least 20 years from that,” he said

Not all present were fans. Actor Ronnie Sperling slipped into a front-row seat to snap photos with his phone-camera. He muttered under his breath as DiSpirito held forth.

“Have you watched the show?” he asked. “He comes across as a big jerk. The catch phrase is, ‘Where’s Rocco?’ No one ever knows where he is. He’s never in his restaurant. Now his partner is suing him....[Rocco filed a countersuit] His 80-year-old mom is a bigger star on the show than he is. Everyone knows Mama. She’s always in the kitchen making meatballs.”

Allusions to fashion and style ran through DiSpirito’s discussion. Sometimes, he sounded more like a stylist than a foodie. He is nothing if not media savvy. Cute is good, he told the audience (and he is that). Cute sells. Why wouldn’t it apply to the cooking industry? he asked.

Of his new book, he said, “I’ve taken couture cooking and made it ready-to-wear. I’ve made everything 10 ingredients or less.”

He does make cooking accessible, appealing. To be a cook, all you need is a big knife, a small knife, a bunch of pots and your palette, he told the crowd. Your palette is the key -- it is like your barometer of personal style. You have to learn to trust it, to know what you like.

The questions came quick and fast. What does it take to move from a cafe to a restaurant? Does celebrity investment help? How do you stay skinny? What is your favorite food? (Pizza.) Where’s Mama? (At home, making meatballs.)

“I like to cook at home,” said 9-year-old Cameron Sperling, who added that his favorite food is artichokes dipped in butter. “I was wondering if you have any advice about how to become a good chef?”

Use salt and pepper, DiSpirito said. Keep your knives sharp and taste everything you cook. Play with food like it’s a toy.

The fans were swooning. This was just soooo good.

After the panel, the authors sat in tents for book signings. The line for Rossant and Brenner trickled in.

“He’s not a super chef,” mused Rossant, the chef theorist, on DiSpirito. “He’s skipping over having multiple restaurants in multiple places, something super chefs pioneered. Rocco is trying to go straight to where all the money is, product endorsement, TV.... But if I wrote another book, I might really focus on what he has done, because it might be a new kind of model for young chefs. He could change my definition.”

Meanwhile, the line for DiSpirito stretched forever. There was a little talk of cooking, and much adoration.

“You look gorgeous,” gushed a middle-aged woman as DiSpirito signed a giant “Rocco” in her cookbook with a dramatic flourish.

“What would you like?” he asked a gaggle of girls.

“A hug,” said young groupie No. 1.

He hugged them. They took a picture.

“I like your shirt,” said young groupie No. 2

“I like your show,” said No. 3.

“I like your jeans. Your hair.” Groupies in unison.

A festival volunteer ushered them along. As they left, they clasped their signed programs to their hearts and jumped up and down, screaming and squealing as they bounced across the lawn and out of sight. “Rocco! Rocco! Rocco!”