Appearing at the Metropolitan Cooking and Entertaining Show in Washington D.C. on Sunday, chef and restaurateur Wolfgang Puck blasted the hypocrisy of Hollywood celebrities when they badger him about driving a standard gas vehicle instead of an electric one.
Puck was responding to a query regarding any changes he would make in his life due to climate change. He answered:
I was always very concerned about the environment — sustainability. I’ve always believed to use local ingredients, you know? So, what can we do to help? Like, I have a lot of people in Hollywood. They say, “Oh, you’re still driving a car with gasoline,” and they are driving a Tesla. And then I find out they also fly a private jet and that uses 10 times more gas in one trip to New York and back than what I use in a year with my car.
As PJ Media reported, Puck added, “And I think when you think that our government today doesn’t believe in it, or at least the president doesn’t believe in global warming or anything similar to it, I think it’s really sad. But the rest of the world really, they all know we have to change because we don’t want to be responsible that one day our grandchildren are going to say we f****d up the world.”
Puck opened his first famous restaurant, Spago, in 1982. The Wolfgang Puck Companies encompass over 20 fine dining restaurants; Puck is the official caterer for the Academy Awards Governors Ball.
Puck, who grew up in Austria, was asked in 2018 whom he idolized as a kid. He replied, “As a kid, even before I started cooking I remember John Wayne in the movies. I didn’t see many movies but for his. To see John Wayne as a cowboy, seeing America, it was an amazing inspiration for me to say I want to go to America and see what’s going on.”
Puck once commented that famous actors didn’t want to be seen eating in public. He reminisced:
I remember Jack Nicholson told me once. I did a party a long time ago. He comes into the kitchen, and says, “You know, Wolf, can I eat in the kitchen?” I say, “Why would you want to eat in the kitchen?” He says, “I don’t like eating outside because people take pictures with me with my mouth eating or having a funny face eating something. It’s not good for an actor to get pictures like that.”
He added:
Also, they have to be so careful. Like today, especially. You eat something and the next day it’s on TMZ. Modern technology — everything [goes] viral right away. If you’re well known, you have to really watch your steps at what you do. Even I do now. In the old times, I would sit here, and the girls used to come over and say, “Oh, can we take a picture with you? Can we sit on your lap?” And I say, “OK, no problem.” Now, you have to watch that.