THE ELEPHANT TALKS TO GOD by Dale Estey

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Gwyneth's cookbook: surprisingly non-GOOPy.Don't hate Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbookby Drew Grant

White Knighting: (verb) Coming to the defense of an unpopular Internet celebrity, trend, or entity. As in "Dude, stop talking about how much you like 'Friday.' We all know you're just white knighting Rebecca Black.

Gwyneth Paltrow is like thethe James Franco of bourgeois aestheticism. While James is busy being an artist/author/teacher/actor/etc., Mrs. Coldplay has branched out her career from actress to include singer, lifestyle mommy blogger and, most recently, health food authority. Despite having her cooking magazine concept turned down by Hearst, Gwyneth is undeterred: Her recent recipe book, "My Father's Daughter: Delicious, Easy Recipes Celebrating Family & Togetherness," has just hit the shelves after a truckload of buzz. And like Franco, Gwyneth is one of those people who is just easy to snark on: Her GOOP newsletter is designed for people just like herself -- that is to say, moms who appreciate the tip that $60 olive oil is worth it and that a macrobiotic diet is totally key for your child's health -- making her an easy target for her clueless haute sensibilities. As Gabe Delahaye on Videogum wrote after Gwyneth came out with her "How to stuff a chicken" video:First off, you're going to want to start with one completely over-inflated sense of self-importance that allows for the belief that you should show people how to cook something for some reason even though you don’t need to do that at all and probably shouldn’t, thickly glazed with your practiced air of faux-populism as if you were not born to a famous actress and a highly successful producer, raised in Hollywood and private boarding schools, before yourself becoming a famous movie actress (or "actor,” as you would probably say), who then married a rock star and named her first child Apple.

This is a criticism I can relate to! Who is Gwyneth writing for, who are her tips helping? But after reading "My Father's Daughter," in which Gwyneth combines recipes with anecdotes about her father, Bruce Paltrow, impressing the importance of food and family on the actress before he passed away in 2002, I found myself ... moved? Maybe not moved, exactly. After all, I almost threw the book away in disgust after reading this opening segment about what you MAY substitute spelt or sheep's milk for if you don't have time to go to your local fresh farmer's market:

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http://www.salon.com/books/2011/04/04/gwyneth_paltrow_cookbook_white_knighting/index.html