Getting ‘Real’ with Sunny Anderson

Sunny Anderson of “Cooking for Real,” airing Saturdays on Food Network, knows her Bahamian rice and peas from her Jamaican rice and peas. She also knows her M16 from her 9 mm. You’d expect as much from a Food Network star who is also an Air Force veteran. But what she doesn’t know is that she is about to be very disappointed in Rob Lowe. Sometimes doors open for you, and you walk through them. For Anderson, it seems she was smart enough to build a few doors, each one seemingly entering a kitchen. While in the Air Force, Anderson found her calling as a radio host and news reporter. That career continued after her tour of duty ended, and she wound up on New York’s hip-hop radio station HOT 97.

“OK, so here’s the story. I was not a dime piece or a 10,” Anderson says, laughing. “So in order to get my interviews with these big names I would bring food. I would show up at these artists’ studios with food. And it worked! I love cooking. I am literally a case study in ‘Do what makes you happy… .’ It had nothing to do with the money.” It still doesn’t. Those hip-hop happy meals landed her actual catering gigs from record company executives. The next thing you know, in 2005 she got a guest spot on “Emeril Live,” cooking beside the big man himself.