Emeril Lagasse will look you straight in the eye and swear that he's just an average guy. A New Orleans boy who loves his mama and is the host of a little cooking show.

"Look," he says, as he moves closer and musters a soulful look. "I get up every day and put my pants on like everybody else. It's just a cooking show."

He's lying.

"Emeril Live" is not just a cooking show. And he's not just some chef looking to teach you how to make a mean Chicken Delmonico.

The man is a star. He knows it. The screaming, stomping fans who travel across the country to catch a glimpse of him know it. And, soon, if you don't already, you'll know it, too.

One can easily forgive Lagasse's soulful prevarication. It merely adds to his appeal -- a down-home kind of a guy whose swarthy good looks and boyish playfulness make rabid fans out of men, women and children.

"I don't try to pretend to be anybody," he says. "I'm just me. Nothing special."

Be sure, there is a world of growing Emeril-freaks out there fed daily by his raucous show on cable TV's Food Network.

College kids with way too much time on their hands have devoted Web pages to him. Button-nosed children who love purple dinosaurs mimic him. Smitten women propose marriage, and who knows what else, in their thousands of letters to him. Whenever this guy seasons a turkey breast, thick-necked men who knock down buildings or fight fires for a living whoop it up with the fervor heard at pro-wrestling matches.

He has created a long list of catch phrases that fans hurl at him every chance. "BAM!" he says when he seasons food. "Kick it up a notch." That's for times when he wants to break with traditional ingredients for a recipe. Then there's "Happy, happy, happy" and "Pork fat rules."

Lagasse is so charmingly entertaining that his show hauled a dry, unwatchable 24-hour cable network out of the ratings cellar. He now has two shows on the Food Network (the other one is "Essence of Emeril") and they are No. 1 and No. 2 for the station.

"I think there are some natural qualities I have that appeal to people," says Lagasse. "I think at a young age, I was an entertainer."

Looking uncomfortable, he quickly catches himself. "Not that I'm a performance persona."

He pronounces "persona" as "persom-i-na."

OK, so maybe there is some average guy in Emeril.

A passion for food

Emeril Lagasse (pronounced La-GAH-see) is lovable, smart, even sassy, but in a manly way. He's the guy you can go to a ballgame with or take to a high-falutin' soiree and he won't embarrass you. His passion for food, for making it taste good, for having a swinging good time, is what makes him so irresistible.

A tad short and on the pudgy side, the 42-year-old with the French Canadian and Portugese background has an infectious smile and the shiniest coal-black hair you'll ever see.

He learned to cook in his mother's kitchen in Fall River, Mass. As a child he juggled his love for music, sports and cooking. Cooking won out. He gave up a full scholarship to the New England Conservatory of Music for a stint at the prestigious culinary school Johnson & Wales.

Jobs in kitchens in France, Philadelphia, New York and Boston followed before he got the break of a lifetime at age 26: At the renowned Commander's Palace in New Orleans, he would replace the famous Chef Paul Prudhomme. Legend has it that he sealed the gig when he walked into the kitchen and declared, "It smells like my mom's kitchen."

He stayed for seven years, soaking up the style and the sensuality of New Orleans and its food. He learned to pepper his deep southern Massachusetts accent with a "y'all" or two.

His own place, Emeril's, opened in 1990 to a 90-minute wait. Esquire magazine awarded it "Restaurant of the Year." In 1993, he opened a second, more casual version, called NOLA, an acronym for New Orleans, La. It too was a success.

That same year, he signed on with the Food Network for a show called "How To Boil Water." It bombed. He was given another shot on "The Essence of Emeril." It was just him and a camera guy -- and a script. Lagasse loathed being told what to do.

"I realized, you know, that's not how I do things," he says. "I had been cooking for 25 years. I didn't just come off the block. So finally they realized what we needed to do was cut [to the chase]."

"Emeril Live" was born. He had an audience, a live band and his imagination to play with for an hour.

More restaurants followed, one in Las Vegas and another one in New Orleans. In between, he co-wrote three cookbooks and got a weekly gig on "Good Morning America." Time named his show one of the top 10 television shows in the country. Just this month, GQ named him one of its "Men of the Year."

All the recognition has made getting a ticket into the "Emeril Live" studio audience tougher than getting a seat at one of his restaurants.

Fans flambe

It is supposed to be a cooking show, but with all the noise and fan worship, you'd think you were at a rock concert. All that's missing is the mosh pit.

"Emeril! Emeril! Emeril!" the audience chants at his cooking set in New York City's Spanish Harlem. Some guy in the back row is barking.

Rhonda, the woman whose task it is to whip the audience into a frenzy, has the easiest job on the staff. The 150 folks in the audience walked in keyed-up.

Lagasse is in his dressing room. Out of sight, he's concentrating, trying to transform himself from quiet businessman to Arsenio Hall with a spatula. When he finally emerges, he charges into the studio like Rocky in an apron.

"Hello, I'm Emeril Lagasse!" he says in his bullhorn voice.

The barking man in the back row is pounding his cowboy boot into the wooden stands. The dozen or so people on his row have no choice but to vibrate with each gleeful kick.

"I want to make you happy, happy, happy!" Lagasse booms.

Today's taping is of a holiday show, combining Christmas (ham), Hanukkah (latkes) and Kwanzaa (stuffed pork) into a culinary celebration. The audience ooohs and aaahs at all the proper moments, but soon it becomes clear that food is just a vehicle. For his fans, "Emeril Live" is about their man putting on a good show.

Lagasse obliges. He banters with his audience in his breezy style. He cracks jokes laced with a little ribaldry.

While preparing the Christmas ham, he casually suggests that if the mood strikes the home audience, they can rub his two ingredients, molasses and syrup, over their bodies instead of drizzling it over the ham. He pauses, slyly raising his eyebrow at a couple sitting nearby.

Then a woman standing at the camera signals him -- it's time to go to commercial. Lagasse tells everyone to "stick around." When the camera clicks off, so does Lagasse's 100-watt smile. He's in business mode.

He steps away from his stovetop and a band of white-shirted chefs and assistants hurry in to replace the uncooked ham with one that's done; it is sliced and handed out to some audience members, along with biscuits and glazed fruit. They can't chow down until the show comes back from commercial break.

A makeup woman dabs sweat from Lagasse's brow, applies more pancake make-up. All the while he watches over the set, making sure everyone is doing what they are supposed to do.

He tastes the cooked ham and mouths, "OK." The backstage staff (five cooks, one dishwasher, two shoppers and several assistants) revel in his approval. Just before the camera clicks back on, Lagasse's big smile clicks back on, too.

As he walks the audience through the preparation of the stuffed pork, he breaks, walks back to his freezer and peers inside. The audience squeals. They know what he is about to do because he does it every show. He takes out frozen Snickers or Oreos and tosses them into the audience, careful to make sure all the kids get one.

The 'Holy Grill'

"I came down here to see him, specifically," says Peter Blind, a Framingham, Mass., roofer sitting in the audience with his wife. "I told my wife, we see Emeril first, then the Empire State building,"

"I don't think he'd mind it too terribly if I had stayed home," his wife says drolly. "This is the 'Holy Grill' for Pete," she says, cracking up at her play on words.

Lagasse's fans are a storied bunch. They've been said to hop out of their cars in the middle of busy New York streets to get autographs. There is the one about the woman from Dallas who mailed Lagasse her underwear: white lace, size 12.

Eric Schmeltzer has a Web page devoted to Lagasse: "Emeril and Me." It features a tale about how in 1994, he and his college buddies ran across an "Essence of Emeril" show while flipping through the channels. The page has received thousands of hits.

Schmeltzer, a 23-year-old public relations agent who recently moved to Washington, claims Lagasse changed his life. This happened after he and his buddy, Joel Finkelstein, went on a pilgrimage to meet Lagasse, finally tracking him down at a book signing in Philadelphia, then getting into a taping of a show.

"I have the episode that I was on," Schmeltzer says. "I have watched it about a million times. The top two interests in my life are pro wrestling and Emeril."

Schmeltzer's not kidding. He is so crazed about Lagasse, he says, he is experiencing withdrawal since the Food Network is not a part of the cable system in Washington.

"It is really a hard time in my life," says Finkelstein, also 23.

For now, he has to be content with a picture of himself with Lagasse from the Philadelphia book signing that he enlarged to poster size. A matchbook and menus from Lagasse's NOLA restaurant are among his most prized possessions.

"Back when we lived in Northern Virginia, we broke down and got satellite [TV] so we could get Emeril," he confesses. "I'm not ashamed. Emeril is a fun guy to watch. He is so cool. Everyone I meet, I spread the word about Emeril. It is a very manly thing to be in the kitchen. It is sensual and exciting and powerful. There are guys afraid of leaving the [outdoor] grill and getting into the kitchen."

Elliana Agnello, who lives in Calvert County, insists that she has been Lagasse's ultimate fan for five years running. She spent hours making him an elaborate doll.

"I wanted to show what he looked like as a child," Agnello #F gushes. "I dressed it up and put 'E.L.' on the pocket, put a chef's hat on it. It was big enough to wear a 24-month-old child's clothes."

She sent it to him, and asks a visitor about to attend an "Emeril Live" taping to check on it.

"Would you ask him if he got it?" she asks softly. "Could you make sure to do that for me?"

She's already onto her next project, she says. A life-size doll of Lagasse's mother, Hilda, a frequent guest on his show.

Puts aside his TV self

All the fan adoration can be a hoot, Lagasse admits, but "I don't like people when they are obnoxious and they get crazy about it."

Though his fans may think of him as a rollicking wild man who has had about five too many cups of double-espresso, that's just his shtick, he says. Though it's not really an act, it isn't entirely him either.

"It's funny how you see both sides," says Sean T. Dowd, a production manager at the Food Network. "It's like he is a good Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

When he's cooking at one of his restaurants, there's no sign of the tough-talking, blue-collar guy who shouts "Bam!" Instead, customers see a chef utterly serious about his culinary creations.

"I went to Emeril's last year," Maureen Newton recalls after watching an "Emeril Live" taping. "I was so excited that he was there; I didn't expect that he would be. Well, he was cooking something out in the open and I asked him to say 'Bam!' He said to me, 'Ma'am, we don't do that here.' He was really respectful about it, but I was shocked he wasn't that guy I see every day on TV."

Off camera, Lagasse is soft-spoken and courtly. He gives firm, lingering handshakes. When he speaks, he moves in close so you can hear his butter-smooth voice.

"Everything I am surrounded by and touch has to do with food," he says. "I don't have no other life. I occasionally get a golf game in. I occasionally get a date in. But when I have a day off, I cook."

Days off are rare. With his restaurants, books and TV shows, he winds up working 16-hour days. His friends and fans quietly fret that he may be stretching himself too thin.

Die-hard fan Agnello reluctantly admits that although the food at his restaurants is always spectacular, she can still taste the difference when Lagasse is absent, which is far more often than she'd like.

"When I'm in New Orleans for two weeks, I'm at Emeril's for 10 meals," she says. "Nowadays, you go there and you don't see him."

The twice-married, twice-divorced father of two girls says he has always spent too much time focused on his craft.

"My family life suffered," he says wistfully.

Lagasse doesn't like talking about personal stuff. Food takes precedence over everything else. Including his current stint as television star.

"Look," he says quietly, "I'm doing this for fun. I have been since Day 1. I don't do this for a paycheck. When it doesn't become fun anymore, I'll become the 'Seinfeld' of cooking."

Pub Date: 10/27/98