MONDAY MARINADE #2 ~ Wolfgang Puck

Chef du jour: Wolfgang Puck. Born in Austria, trained in France, achieved fame and fortune in the USA.

I first came across this name at O'Hare airport in Chicago, while en route for my last trip back to Blighty in 2005. I ate at a restaurant bearing his name - had the best Caesar Salad ever. I wasn't aware then of his reputation. As I ate my salad I just pondered on his rather strange surname, one I'd only encountered before in Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream".

Wolfgang Puck is both chef and entrepreneur these days. He now owns some of the most splendid restaurants in the USA.

Puck maintains a cutting-edge role as a creative culinary force with signature dishes like gourmet pizza topped with smoked salmon and caviar. He has also launched companies, including Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group, Wolfgang Puck Worldwide, Inc. and Wolfgang Puck Catering.
The Wolfgang Puck Companies encompass 15 fine dining restaurants, premium catering services, more than 80 Wolfgang Puck Express operations, and kitchen and food merchandise, including cookbooks and canned foods. He is the official caterer for the Academy Awards Governors Ball, and has parlayed his celebrity into acting; his credits include Frasier, a recurring role as himself on Las Vegas and a cameo appearance on The Weather Man. He also appeared as himself on Iron Chef America: Battle of the Masters, as well as Cooking Class with Wolfgang Puck on The Food Network, and in an American Idol season finale episode where he introduced unusual foods to Kellie Pickler in comic relief segments. He also made a cameo appearance as himself on an episode of Tales from the Crypt, and appeared in a TV commercial advertising California (along with famous people such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jack Nicholson).

Puck is active in philanthropic endeavors and charitable organizations, co-founding the Puck-Lazaroff Charitable Foundation in 1982. The foundation supports the annual American Wine & Food Festival which benefits Meals on Wheels and has raised more than $15 million since its inception.

(Information from Wikipedia)

Born on 8 July 1949 in Sankt Veit an der Glan, Austria. Birth time isn't known. Chart below is set for noon. Ascendant and Moon degree will not be as shown, other placements are correct.



So here's a chef with Sun in Cancer, the nurturing sign. This is one of the two signs I most expected to find prominent in a chef's chart. I was wrong lat week in Escoffier's case though.

Wikipedia tells us that Puck learned cooking from his mother, who sometimes worked as a pastry chef. As Cancer also relates to the mother, there's a nice correlation here.




Puck, like Escoffier, is said to delight in innovation. Innovation has to be a large part of a chef's agenda, in order to hold the interest of his customers. Uranus conjunct Mercury reflects this flair for innovation. Uranus represents invention and novelty, Mercury, strong and unadulterated in its own sign of Gemini relates to Puck's obvious talent for communication. He has written books, as well as appearing on or acting in several TV shows. His two Leo planets fold in to this facet of his personality.


Puck's artistry and creativity (and his draw towards acting) relate back to Venus (planet of the arts) in outgoing Leo sextile Neptune (creativity) in Libra (ruled by Venus).

Saturn lay in Virgo as Puck came into the world. And the world welcomed another perfectionist. Cooking led on to a chain of business interests, gradually beoming a veritable catering empire. Jupiter in Capricorn speaks of luck in business, and expansive outlook, which Puck obviously has, in spades. Moon in Sagittarius no doubt has a hand in all this expansion too.

There's no emphasis on Aquarius in this chart, as there was in Escoffier's, but Uranus is important here, conjoined as it is to Mercury. Saturn and Capricorn play an important part, as do Sagittarius and Jupiter, again. We'll see if these continue to be highlighted in more charts during coming weeks.

It seems that (some) talented chefs are not be content to simply cook and run a kitchen, they must feel driven to expand and expand. I'd love to do a post on a chef who is just a chef, but a stellar one. These types though will not hit the internet with birth data and detail, so unless I can dig out information on a straightforward working chef, this series will have to focus on "celebrity" chefs - which is a bit of a shame.