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AuthorsLive: Chef Frankie Celenza Talks EAT with Special Guest George Motz

AuthorsLive is excited to welcome Daytime Emmy Award–winning chef and recipe creator, Frankie Celenza, author of EAT: Easy, Affordable, Tasty: 100 Recipes with All of the Flavor and None of the Fuss. Frankie will be joined in conversation with George Motz, renowned chef, burger authority, and Emmy Award–winning documentary filmmaker.

EAT is the antithesis to the never-ending competition for the most elaborate, expensive, complicated, and shocking dishes showcased both on tv and social media. While you might recognize Frankie from Struggle Meals, he started his career with the goal to help people who felt overwhelmed cooking at home. For a dish to be featured in this book, it must meet three simple criteria:

  1. EASY: Each dish must be easy, which means nothing takes more than 20 minutes of hands-on cooking time.
  2. AFFORDABLE: Each dish must be affordable, meaning there aren’t any fancy specialty ingredients, and what is used, is used fully.
  3. TASTY: Each dish must taste great; classic ingredient combinations play the nostalgia card that readers identify with.

Dishes like these have become part of Frankie's repertoire of family meals that can be made over and over again and never go out of style. Frankie has put his spin on classic American dishes, dove headfirst into practical trends, and provided the context of the culinary techniques that take these dishes to the next level.

Join us if you're ready for Frankie's recipes to make your life easier—whether you're a novice in the kitchen, on a budget, or want to spend less time cooking your meals and more time enjoying them.

Copies of EAT: Easy, Affordable, Tasty and The Great American Burger Book will be available for purchase and signing, with thanks to Diane's Books. 

Date:
Monday, August 11, 2025
Time:
7:00pm - 8:30pm
Location:
Marx Family Black Box Theater
Audience:
  Adult  
Categories:
  Author Talk  
Registration has closed.

FRANKIE CELENZA is an Emmy Award–winning American chef, author, and television host best known for his work on Tastemade. He graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and launched his cooking career in 2008 by posting budget-friendly food videos. His signature show, Struggle Meals, teaches cost-effective, flavorful cooking and earned him the 2022 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Culinary. He’s also hosted Tastemade series like Frankie vs the Internet and Worth the Hype, and has cooked everything from dorm-room meals to dishes for top-tier athletes and appearances at the White House. His debut cookbook, EAT: Easy, Affordable, Tasty is set to release July 29, 2025, and he has a new Tastemade series launching in August. He lives in Connecticut. 

GEORGE MOTZ is a well-traveled chef, author, award-winning filmmaker, and photographer. He has also been called the 'foremost authority on hamburgers' by The New York Times, and ‘America's biggest burger name' by Eater LA. In the spring of 2004, Motz completed Hamburger America, his second documentary film, which he shot, produced, edited, and directed. The film was nominated in 2006 for a James Beard Award, and in 2011, was recognized by the US National Archives as an integral part of American food history. The film's success led to a state-by-state guide to hamburgers, also titled Hamburger America: a State-by-State Guide to Great Burger Joints. And in 2016, Abrams Books released his first cookbook, The Great American Burger Book, fully updated in May 2023. George can be seen on his show Burger Scholar Sessions on Complex Media's First We Feast. 

George can also be found spreading the word of burger around the globe through workshops, consultations, and burger pop-ups. In 2023 he opened his dream restaurant, Hamburger America, in the Soho neighborhood of NYC, which was awarded 2-stars by Pete Wells in The New York Times.