Food You Can Eat: Celebrity Sunday Matinee: Suzanne Somers’s Grilled Apricot and Heirloom Tomato Caprese Salad

"Chrissy, Mr. Roper will be here any minute! Make some of that apricot salad to distract him!" "But Jack, you're the chef!"

Image via suzannesomers.com. So pretty!

Today is Suzanne Somers’s birthday! Yes. She is 76. Happy birthday, Suze! It’s also Celebrity Sunday Matinee star Angela Lansbury’s birthday (she’s 97) [IMPORTANT UPDATE: OH NO SHE’S NOT. SORRY FOR THE BAD TIMING OF THIS PRE-WRITEN POST!] but I’ve already covered her, or at least to the point where she’s about 21, by which age she had packed an entire lifetime’s worth of experiences.

This is going to be a rather unconventional bio, and very long. Bear with me, or just skip to the recipe, or just stop reading altogether. 

Before I begin, can I just say that I bet in real life Suzanne Somers is a really great, loyal, positive friend and person. And yet…She was ambushed recently on some chat show where the host informed her that they had also booked Richard Simmons but when he heard that she’d be there he canceled. This came as news to her because they had been great friends but since he went into seclusion she (and no one else really) hadn’t heard from him. She seemed legitimately hurt but understanding and forgiving.

She is, maybe was, besties with Barry Manilow. Their sprawling Palm Springs estates border each other, although Suze put hers on the market and I think it sold. She went on “Watch What Happens Live” to talk about how important it was to her to be there when Barry and his manager of the last 120 years finally decided to…not exactly marry, but to commit more formally, and Suze went to the ceremony. Which she talked about. Manilow, intensely private but well-known for getting his start in show business by being Bette Midler’s pianist/backup singer when she performed at New York City’s Continental Baths in the 1970s and an habitué of Palm Springs’s gay bars, said nothing. The manager, somebody last-named Kief, went through the roof.

You might remember that she became a superstar when she played Chrissy Snow on Three’s Company, which was direct rip-off of Britain’s Man About the House. Three’s Company was a huge hit and Suze demanded a raise (from $30,000 to $150,000 per episode, the equivalent of about $540,000 today). The network balked, they replaced her, and the ratings almost immediately tanked and the show was canceled. Her then-best friend John Ritter didn’t talk to her again for 20 years but they reconciled shortly before his death.

I wonder if she showed up at his door with all sorts of “medical” advice and supplements and non-traditional “healing” practices. Because, like medical sage Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., she has gone far down the path of woo, a well-trod path to be sure. One of the things she is best known for is promoting her friend T. S. Wiley’s “Wiley Protocol,” an untested cancer treatment that has been condemned by the American Cancer Society. Not surprisingly Oprah Winfrey, lover all things dangerous to public health, like her launch and promotion of charlatans Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz, had her on her show to discuss. And you can bet Oprah and Gayle in real life don’t go within 100 miles of this crap and have the best doctors (real MDs) on speed dial to ensure that they live long and prosperous lives.

I happened to read a long time ago Suzanne Somers’s first autobiography (she’s written many, many books), Keeping Secrets, and it’s really heartbreaking. She was born on this day in 1946, making her a member of the first class of Baby Boomers, a little younger than America’s most quintessential Baby Boomer, Bill “Third Way” Clinton. She grew up in a working class Irish American family in a working class town outside San Francisco. Dad was an abusive drunk and she had a sister and brother who followed in his dipsomaniacal footsteps. She made it out though and her first onscreen appearance was uncredited in Bullitt, of all things, the Steve McQueen movie with the famous car chase. Since it took place in her San Francisco hometown maybe she was an extra who jumps out of the way of the ’68 Mustang. (That car sold for $3.74 million at the Mecum auction block area at Oceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee, Florida, which is the most depressing string of words I’ve ever typed, I think.)

After that she did some bit parts and appeared on game shows, the usual, and then she was cast in Three’s Company. The Golden Age of T&A programming had arrived and she was perhaps its queen. It’s amazing to think that the 70s was also the Golden Age of second-wave feminism but you’d never know it by glancing through a TV Guide from the period.

After Suze crashed and burned 3C she became famous as the spokesmodel for Thighmaster (I still remember those ads) and kept working in TV but nothing seemed to stick until she landed on Step by Step, another show I’ve never heard of but apparently was on for seven seasons in the 90s and was a big hit. Next up she cohosted the revival of Candid Camera for two seasons with Peter Funt, son of Allen, the creator and host of the original. 

There’s other stuff, showbiz-related (she cameo’d in Serial Mom as herself and dropped into an episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for some reason) and non (25 books, including one of her poetry, the others dealing with exercise, food, and wellness—wellness is where the woo really shines.) In 2007 one of Southern California’s periodic wildfires destroyed her spread in Malibu; I hope she had insurance. 

She wrote four diet books which I have never read and runs a website with ads for her various lifestyle products and some recipes. I chose this one kind of at random because I love apricots so much. I made this for a recent pescatarian Friday and it exceeded expectations, so thank you, Suze. And by the way I grew up in a town did not fluoridate its water and have a lifetime’s worth of dental bills to prove it, so on your birthday I would ask you to reconsider your staunch opposition to this preventive-healthcare practice. Just in case you’re reading this.

A word about this recipe: I don’t know if INFUSIO is her own brand or she’s in a partnership or what but just ignore all references to it and use whatever you’ve got or adapt any way you want. That’s what I did.

GRILLED APRICOT & HEIRLOOM TOMATO CAPRESE SALAD

3 ripe apricots

Extra virgin olive oil

1/2 teaspoon INFUSIO Tuscan Sea Salt Rub

3-5 Heirloom tomatoes*

1 large ball Bufala Mozzarella

INFUSIO Basil Olive Oil

INFUSIO Peach White Balsamic

INFUSIO Traditional Balsamic

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Fresh basil leaves

Slice the apricots in half and remove the pit. Drizzle the apricots on both sides with olive oil and a little sprinkling of Tuscan Sea Salt Rub. Using a grill pan or a grill, place the apricots onto the heat and allow to slightly char on both sides. Remove and set aside.

Slice the tomatoes in different shapes – some as ½” slices across the equator, other as wedges. Arrange the tomatoes into a serving dish. Add the grilled apricots. Break the bufala mozzarella into 6-8 sections and arrange with the tomatoes and apricots. Drizzle with INFUSIO Basil Olive Oil, Peach White Balsamic and Traditional Balsamic. Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Garnish with fresh basil leaves.

* I actually used heirloom tomatoes, from New Jersey which is known for its tomatoes, and I can only hope that my heirloom tomatoes didn’t grow in soil that’s been supersaturated with industrial chemicals since their ancestors were first planted 100 years ago.

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4 Comments

  1. Infusio sure looks like her own badged product line — I only see it in connection with her.

    Because olive oil on the market is so heavily counterfeited and adulterated, I’d be wary of any brand without rock solid reputation to back it up. I’m sure she’s not selling poison olive oil, but buyer beware as far as whether it’s worth what she charges.

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