Elizabeth Taylor seemed larger-than-life on screen, and according to Neil Zevnik, her personal chef for nearly a decade in the ‘90s, she also threw larger-than-life parties at home.
“We always did an enormous single table,” Zevnik tells TODAY.com of her Thanksgiving dinners, attended by 40-plus guests at her ranch-style home in Bel Air, California. Formerly an actor, he worked as Taylor’s chef from 1991 until 1999.
Thanksgiving place setting at Elizabeth Taylor’s home.Courtesy Neil Zevnik
Zevnik says, while he would typically only cook for her, holidays were a special case. As he prepared the feast, movers would remove all her furniture from her living and trophy rooms to make space for a square of banquet tables, which he says he also decorated.
“I would literally take off my shoes and have to get up there on the table,” he says. “I would do these very elaborate centerpieces with fabrics and vases of flowers and tchotchkes and candles.”
Neil Zevnik decorates a table for a Thanksgiving dinner at Elizabeth Taylor’s home.Courtesy Neil Zevnik
Taylor liked to seat all at the same table, he says, adding that kids, adults, celebrities and noncelebs all sat together, “because then who gets to sit with her?”
For turkey day, Zevnik would prepare traditional fare: turkey, mashed potatoes, classic bread stuffing, cornbread sausage stuffing, sweet potato casserole, green beans, creamed pearl onions, fresh cranberry peach relish and a mince meat pie.
“You know, she liked cranberry jelly out of the can, sliced,” he says.
Thanksgiving dinner buffet at Elizabeth Taylor’s home.Courtesy Neil Zevnik
“Her two favorite things for Thanksgiving would be turkey wings and gravy, and the turkey wings needed to be crispy and crunchy and salty, and she wanted several of them,” Zevnik recalls. “Lots of gravy.”
Scroll to the bottom for his crispy turkey wing recipe.
Taylor required her chef to make extra portions of those two dishes so there would be plenty to pile on her plate as well as leftovers.
On days when she wasn’t entertaining, Taylor’s solo meals were casual — but never boring.
“Generally, we wouldn’t make a whole lot of plans in advance,” Zevnik says. He would arrive to cook during the day and provide her options “prepped to a certain point,” as well as her favorites that he could easily whip up.
“At some point, she’d say, ‘Okay, what do we got today?’” he says. He would ask her what she was in the mood for: salty, crunchy, creamy, healthy, etc. “Then we would go from there.”
Every afternoon, Zevnik says Taylor would have him cook for everyone working at the house. “All the staff would gather and sit down together in the kitchen.”
Taylor was very open to trying new cuisines, but since she was brough up in the U.K., she especially loved British foods, like roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and Marmite.
She was also a fan of sweets — in fact, she loved Zevnik’s “toffee fudgies” so much, she had a fridge stocked with them in her bedroom.
Neil Zevnik working as a private chef.Ken Hively / Courtesy Neil Zevnik
Zevnik has since worked for a long list of celebrities — Reese Witherspoom, Jennifer Garner, Pierce Brosanan and Charlize Theron, to name a few — but those years with Taylor still inspire him.
“She was one of the most loyal and giving people I’ve ever known,” he says. She began her AIDS advocacy in the ‘80s, when most celebrities refused to help, and eventually established the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. “She didn’t give a f— what people thought. She did what she thought was the right thing to do.”
When she disliked a stew he made, he recalls, she “kind of ate a little bit of it, and then was kind of done.”
“She very kindly said, ‘I think we won’t make that one again.’”
Crispy Turkey WingsIngredients6 turkey wings1 tablespoon olive oil3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire saucesplash of Frank’s hot saucePreparationPreheat oven to 425 F. Line a sheet pan with heavy duty aluminum foil. Spray lightly with olive oil cooking spray.Whisk together olive oil, butter, Worcestershire and hot sauce. Place wings on sheet pan and baste on both sides with butter mix.Roast in oven for 18 to 20 minutes, turning once. Turn oven up to 475 F and cook for 3 minutes more, until nicely crisped.Sprinkle with salt and serve.
Dining and Cooking