HER‘ BUCKET LIST’
Christy Carlson Romano travels around the world from her kitchen in new at-home cooking series
CHRISTY Carlson Romano, who’s best known for voicing teen spy “Kim Possible,” has added chef to her TV resume. In “Bucket List Bistro,” Romano and her husband, Brendan Rooney, take viewers into their California kitchen to cook dishes from various countries around theglobe.
It premieres Thursday on the “Taste of Fox” YouTube channel, Fox Now and Hulu.
“Because of the quarantine, my husband and I were looking to make some content that could really help families,” Romano, 36, who put off attending college until later in life and met Rooney while at Barnard in 2011. They two have two young daughters.
“You know, everyone is stuck at home, everyone is thinking about where they want to escape to once quarantine lifts,” she says, “so we’re giving them an outlet to enjoy their lives, with cooking destination food and destination themed food
“We’re making food that gets them talking.”
Aside from “Kim Possible” (2002-2007), Romano starred as Belle in “Beauty and the Beast” on Broadway ( 2004) and on Disney Channel’s “Even Stevens ”with Shia Labeouf, (20002003). Fans still approach her to this day about both roles, she says.
“I have the kinds of fans any celebrity could hope to have. They’re always so sweet and gracious,” she says. “And they have such great stories, like, ‘I used to watch your show when I was in the hospital with a childhood disease and “Kim Possible” made me believe that I could get better and do anything.’”
But aside from showbiz, cooking has been her lifelong hobby, she says.
“I’m self-taught and have been handed down the techniques that my father showed me — so I am family-taught, if you want to call it that,” she says. “My family were royal bakers in Italy, and they traveled to the East Coast and opened a successful bakery, and my father was always cooking. They made breads, and actually sold their Italian sauce recipe to Prego. So there are deep roots for me
in cooking and baking, and it’s something that I’ve been doing more and more since becoming a mom and a wife.”
The 10-minute “Bucket List Bistro” episodes feature Thai, Spanish, Columbian, Japanese, German and Italian cuisines. Romano says she’s been to about half the countries featured on the show, while the other half are “bucket list” destinations she wants to visit once travel is safe again.
“The first episode that’s premiering on Thursday is Thailand,” she says. “I have not been there. My husband has, but he went before [we had] kids. It’s fun, because for a person watching [the show], it throws them