We’ve all got our favorite celebrities. Maybe they’re in your favorite TV show, they’re a killer musician, or perhaps a skilled comic who never fails to make you laugh. It’s easy to daydream and imagine bumping into someone famous out in public, then wonder what it’d be like to spend some time with them over a drink. You never do know who you might be next to you, like the time Mick Jagger showed up at a bar in North Carolina while on tour, and nobody noticed him. I still can’t get over that story, by the way.
I asked my coworkers who they’d like to spend time with over a drink. Fellow staff writer Lillian Stone chimed in with actor Woody Harrelson, while associate editor Brianna Wellen emphatically mentioned comedian Nicole Byer. Staff writer Angela Pagán said her pick would be Emily Blunt, and editor in chief Marnie Shure chose Stephen Colbert. (Coincidently, Colbert did quote a piece we wrote about Perdue’s ThanksNuggets.)
Who would I pick? God, that is a difficult question. In a past life I think I’d probably have mentioned a chef of some sort, but after my five years in a restaurant, that type of fandom waned a lot in me. We recently watched The Sopranos at home, so James Gandolfini might have been a choice (though I have read he was a hard nut to crack).
I cheated and walked over to the shelf where we store our movies and rifled through them pretty quick. Still, nothing in particular caught my eye, until I saw a cookbook I had stashed on the same shelf, called Cooking With Coolio. Yes, by that Coolio. Coolio the rapper.
I can’t believe I’m saying this on The Takeout, but... Coolio was the last concert my fiancée and I saw before the pandemic hit. I don’t have enough space or time to talk about what that experience was like, but it was something, all right. So that’ll be my choice today. Coolio. So let’s hear it, are there any celebrities you’d like to share a drink with? I bet you’ve got some good ones.