Graham Kerr

- Born in London to hotelier parents in 1934. - Early Hotel training Brighton and South Devon Tech. - British Army. - General Manager Royal Ascot Hotel. - New Zealand in 1958 as Chief Catering Advisor to Royal NZ Air Force - 1960 began TV series in NZ wrote Graham Kerr Cookbook. - TV went to Australia in 1965 and to US and worldwide in 1969. - Traffic accident caused end of Galloping Gourmet TV series (455 episodes) in 1971 - Two years recuperation followed by return to TV and Adjunct Professor at Cornell Hotel School. - Recorded over one thousand shows and inserts and wrote eleven books during 1976-2011 all of which dealt with ‘nourishment and delight’. A major U turn! - Awarded Honorary Doctorate of culinary nutrition during this time. - Married Treena Doorne in 1955. Has 3 children, 6 Grandchildren , 4 great grandchildren and a vegetable garden! - Treena produced all his shows and died in September 2015. - Graham lives and works on food behavior issues in his community of Mount Vernon ,Washington State in the United States. - Graham’s life work to date includes 1,800 Television shows and inserts and 31 books My first book was published in 1963 when I was 29. One other book,The Graham Kerr Cookbook, led the way to my Galloping Gourmet ‘season’ during which my late producer wife Treena and I criss-crossed the world in search of....delight. The recipes for that two-year effort are gathered Into one large volume of nearly 500 internationally known regional dishes. My life that had unfolded at too high a speed, came to an abrupt end in 1971 when we were hit from behind by a vegetable truck. (Shades of things to come?) I was partially paralyzed down one side and unable to jump chairs, with or without a glass of wine. Seemingly that act was a prerequisite for my ‘success’? It took two years to recuperate during which time we sailed in our own boat with family for 24,000 miles. Life aboard was simple and local and fresh. A major change, with obvious health benefits! Upon return to dry land in Maryland US in 1973 I went back to television with shorter programs for CNN in which I began to explore how to moderate my past pursuit of rich...delights. I also taught as an Adjunct Professor at the Cornell University Hotel School. In March 1975 I began another major season of personal change. I moved from a form of esoteric Buddhism to that of Christian. That decision was to mark the start of the 180 degree change of direction in my career. I went from a search for....’delight’ to a journey that led to ‘nourishment and delight’, in that order. The New Seasoning (1976) and The Love Feast (1978) recorded my first steps in a much narrower pathway, with some very direct references to how my faith had begun to impact my day to day lifestyle choices with food and wine. Some well-meaning people suggest that I should have been deep frozen or locked up during this time but instead, I sat down and wrote my heart out with gratitude for the healing that it had brought to my family. All the ensuing books are less focused upon faith issues, at least outwardly. My sole commitment however, was to find new food habits that could replace my former habits that had tended to harm my families health. My focus was to ‘convert habits that harmed ,or hindered , into resources that healed’. Both for ourselves and others for whom we had begun to understand, were greatly in need. That has remained my direction up to my 30th book and continues to be my passion and purpose for the rest of my still inquisitive life! The books listed include The Complete Galloping Gourmet so that you can see the place from which I have come. The journey has not always been easy and it has covered four decades during which I have seen a gradual turning in a similar direction as we continue to seek to nourish and delight one another. My own families life has benefited greatly as the search unfolded and continues to do so and we have been able to share out of our abundance with people less fortunate. It’s another way to measure... the good life?