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When Sunny Anderson reflects on her life, landing on Food Network's "The Kitchen" makes perfect sense. An Army brat, she grew up in many locales, and her parents, from the Carolinas, were adventurous diners. "We didn't have the same thing over and over for dinner," she says from her Brooklyn, N.Y., home. "We were constantly trying new ingredients." Still, becoming a chef was "not something I could have planned," she says. "When you grow and mature and start doing things that make you happy," cooking was a natural career. Besides, she adds, "It's really hard to make a cake for yourself and not share it, and when people like what you make, it emboldens you to cook more for others. It snowballed into a career I never planned, and I am really happy." Anderson was in the Air Force for four years and worked at the military news agency. Later while working in radio, she whipped up dishes at home and brought them to the station. "Catering was not my plan," Anderson says. "I started to charge my friends for the groceries. It was so rude to charge for the service of cooking. I thought they would not ask as much if I put a price on it. And that backfired." " 'Oh it is just $5 for a tray of mac and cheese and a tray of greens?' " she quotes her friends as saying. " 'Well, can you do my friend's baby shower? Can you do the conference I have in my office? So it just kind of spread." By 2003, Anderson was living in a Jersey City apartment building with a common kitchen area certified by the health board that gave her enough room to work. "I could do volume and I found a local chicken place that would fry my chicken for me," Anderson says. Now she devotes her time to the Food Network shows, and is in partnership writing cookbooks for Extended Stay America, a hotel chain featuring full kitchens. "To me it is a match made in heaven for a girl who likes to travel and eat," Anderson says. BY JACQUELINE CUTLER -What did you have for dinner last night? "A frozen vegan Ethiopian meal that got delivered from Fresh Direct." -What is always in your refrigerator? "Beer, different types of milk – almond milk, soy milk, heavy cream, half and half – fake eggs, lots of butter, all kinds ... . One of my fridges is just sauces. I have three fridges. I am an active cook in the business." -What will you not cook? "Puff pastry that goes to lazy and impatient. You are going to eat it in five seconds; why should it take you five hours? There is nothing I don't like cooking." -What would you like to learn to make? "Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and a real Twinkie." BEST ROOSEVELT MOVIES "Sunrise at Campobello" (1960) Ralph Bellamy immediately became the screen standard for actors playing Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as he re-created his Tony Award-winning stage performance focusing on the then- president-to-be's battle with polio. "The Wind and the Lion" (1975) Brian Keith makes a fine President in this sweeping adventure instigated by a Berber leader (Sean Connery) who kidnaps an American (Candice Bergen) and her children. "Eleanor and Franklin" (TV, 1976) Jane Alexander and Edward Herrmann were so successful in playing the couple, they reprised the parts a year later in "Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years." "Eleanor, First Lady of the World" (TV, 1982) Jean Stapleton does a fine job as the widowed Mrs. Roosevelt, who reinvented herself as a stateswoman after her husband's death. "Annie" (1982) Edward Hermann played FDR yet again in the theatrical-movie version of the ever-popular stage musical ... not as much a Roosevelt movie as others on this list, yet highly memorable in part for the meeting of the orphan (Aileen Quinn) and the president. "Rough Riders" (TV, 1997) It stands to reason that any project with this title would have Theodore Roosevelt among its primary characters, and Tom Berenger fills the role in this saga of the volunteer regiment. "Warm Springs" (TV, 2005) Kenneth Branagh and Cynthia Nixon do lovely work as FDR and Eleanor in a drama set in the same time frame, and covering much of the same territory, as "Sunrise at Campobello." "Into the Storm" (TV, 2009) While this drama principally is about British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (played by Brendan Gleeson), Len Cariou ("Blue Bloods") does superb work as FDR. "Hyde Park on Hudson" (2012) The notion of Bill Murray playing FDR had some naysayers scoffing that it would have the effect as a "Saturday Night Live" impersonation, but the actor-comedian actually is quite effective in dramatizing Roosevelt's relationship with a cousin (Laura Linney). BY JAY BOBBIN "Warm Springs "The Wind and the Lion" "Hyde Park on Hudson" 8 The Goshen News • TV Spotlight • June 16 - 22, 2014

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