Actress Heather Graham is famous for her standout performances in films like Boogie Nights, Drugstore Cowboy and The Hangover. When she’s not performing on camera, two of her favorite past times include cooking and eating delicious food, as well as talking with her friends about sex. In fact, Graham is currently developing a TV cooking show that will feature the actress cooking and talking about sexuality with dinner party guests. She’s the perfect celeb to chat with for Playgirl’s first-ever food issue.
So, you love food?
I’m obsessed with food. I could talk about food all day. When I’m having lunch, I’m thinking about what am I gonna eat for dinner. I love having people over and making them food. A lot of my friends have been saying, “You should do some sort of cooking show.” We’re looking to do a show about food and sex, basically. I want to combine travel and cooking and have a feminist slant to it—featuring female chefs around the world. When you sit with people at dinner, you learn about their intimate lives, their sex lives, their dating lives, and they tell you really personal things.
Sounds great.
Food, sex, friendship.
Is there a type of food that you like most to cook?
I like cooking food with really healthy ingredients. I can sometimes get decadent. I love Mexican food. I love Italian food. I love Japanese food. I love all food that’s good, basically.
Heather Graham • Photo: Dan Faiman/Revyrie Media.
For your birthday, if you could have any food you wanted, what would it be?
I love guacamole. I love sushi. Going to Italy and eating food there is incredible. I like being on a beach in Mexico and eating shrimp tacos. Where the shrimp is fried, and it’s got a delicious creamy sauce. I can make a very good shrimp taco.
I think my last meal would maybe be breakfast tacos, potatoes, eggs, and a tortilla, with hot sauce. It’s heavenly to me.
Okay, if we’re getting very decadent. Of course, a hamburger is—sorry vegan friends, but an In-N-Out burger, or there’s a burger at this place called Dudley Market that’s really good—just a great, great burger. A hamburger that’s amazing can’t be beat, really. I also love a really good chocolate chip cookie.
What is the recipe for a fabulous dinner party?
My most frequent dinner guests are my girlfriends. I love that nurturing quality of making food for someone else. I love when people make food for me. It feels so good to be catered to by someone you care about. I think it’s more just the company than the food. It’s being around your friends in a relaxed situation at home. People are not rushing you out with like, “Hey, we need to clear this table for the next guests!” You can just relax in your own house and get to talk to people that you care about.
What are the sexiest foods? Do you think there’s a connection between food and sex?
I think anytime somebody cooks for you, that is sexy. My boyfriend just cooked for me on Valentine’s Day. That was really awesome. You can’t beat chocolate. Plain chocolate. I mean, it’s not cooking, but a really amazing bar of chocolate after dinner that’s sexy. Sometimes when I’m ordering from Instacart, I’ll get Lily’s dark chocolate with sea salt or Lindt dark chocolate. Lindt dark chocolate with sea salt is like crack cocaine, basically.
Whoever the first person was who thought of putting salt on both chocolate and caramel they deserve a Nobel Prize.
Oh, my God! There’s Levain cookies.
Mm-hmm.
It was recently my birthday, and one of my friends sent me 14 cookies from Beverly Hills Cookie Company, half chocolate chip, half Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. The inside is so dense and moist. They feel like they just came out of the oven. The outside is a little crispy—I could not keep them in my house. It took too much self-control to just not eat the whole entire thing.
Heather Graham • Photo: Dan Faiman/Revyrie Media.
To me, whatever size the package is, that’s a single serving.
I try not to keep those things in my house—it’s hard to not eat the whole thing.
Also, you can’t beat ice cream. I went to Max and Helen’s the other day, and they have this amazing milkshake, and I normally would never order a milkshake, but it was mind-blowing. It was so good.
What cooking shows or female chefs are you interested in?
Of course, Nancy Silverton. She’s amazing. I’m more just eating her food than, like, following a cooking show. I’m a little bit friendly with Phil Rosenthal, and so I’ve watched his show and gone on his podcast, which is very cool. I’m more just, like, going out and eating at different places than actually watching it on TV, to be honest.
And, um, what are your favorite restaurants in LA, if you’d have to choose some?
I love Mozza. I like Katsuya, Sugarfish, and Nobu. There’s this restaurant, Muse, that’s really good. There’s a place called Matsukaze. I like the Dudley Market hamburger. Those are a few.
Have you started filming for your potential cooking show?
We have not filmed anything yet. I have some cooking videos for my Instagram that I haven’t posted yet.
Heather Graham • Photo: Dan Faiman/Revyrie Media.
You have a movie coming out this month?
It’s out March 27th. It’s called They Will Kill You, and Zazie Beetz is in it, Patricia Arquette, me, Tom Felton, Paterson Joseph, Myha’la. I get to do a lot of action scenes where Zazie Beetz and I try to kill each other, which was kind of fun.
Wow. Do you like bread?
I feel like if I go to Europe and eat bread, it just feels like, it feels much healthier than if you eat it in America. Or cheese, like, they don’t put all these weird chemicals in it. I wish we could take a page out of the European way that they grow their food. It just, it tastes better. It’s healthier. I wish that we could learn from them.
So, for the show, you’ll be talking about sex and food in addition to cooking?
We’ll be traveling to different places and having unapologetic conversations around the dinner table about life, and sex, and love, and food. And we’ll highlight a female chef.
Do you find people generally excited and open to talk about sex?
Well, my close friends are… We just tell each other everything. One of my girlfriends was over the other day, and she was mad at this guy that she broke up with, and she’s like, “I want my blowjobs back.” We hope to get some real conversations with women.
Somebody could seem very polished and very together, and then they tell you about their love life, and you get to know this whole other side of them.
