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Ayesha Curry’s ‘The Seasoned Life’ book launch draws huge New York crowd
It was a familiar scene, a huge line to see a person with the last name Curry, except this time it wasn’t Steph, but his wife, Ayesha, for whom the crowd was clamoring.
On Tuesday, at the Williams-Sonoma flagship store inside New York City’s Time Warner Center, hundreds lined up to get Ayesha Curry’s book, “The Seasoned Life: Food, Family, Faith, and the Joy of Eating Well,” which made its debut just hours before.
Laila Bermudez, 13, came to the signing with her mother. When she approached Ayesha, her eyes welled up with tears.
“I’m just so excited to meet her,” she said.
Amanda Garrison, 23, traveled from Long Island to see Ayesha.
“She’s an inspiration, as a person, celebrity and mother,” Garrison said. “She obviously has Steph, but she’s her own person doing her own thing.”
Garrison said she has never cooked recipes from a book before, so Ayesha’s book would mark her first time.
“I had a bunch of people tell me that,” Ayesha said. “It means a lot to physically see people support you.”
This wasn’t the first time fans had come to see Ayesha. This summer, she opened a pop-up restaurant in San Francisco with celebrity chef Michael Mina. The first month of reservations sold out in minutes.
“She, on her own, is huge,” said Amanda Haas, culinary director of Williams-Sonoma, who met Ayesha three years ago and has served as one of her mentors. “If Steph didn’t show up here tonight, the line would be just as long. She has got ‘it.'”
Not only a common presence at her husband’s big games, Ayesha has an incredible social media following that rivals the most powerful of women. Steph and Ayesha combined have 17.3 million Instagram followers; Ayesha alone has 4.2 million. Their following puts them among social media’s elite power couples, such as singer John Legend and model Chrissy Teigen, who also authored a cookbook.
Ayesha became a chef with the encouragement of her husband, who patiently watched and tasted as the book was being created.
“The last month and a half, when she was working on every recipe and every story, it was like her playoffs,” Steph said.
He said a drink recipe was slightly changed after he made a funny face when he drank it.
“I tried to kind of hide it; she knew right away,” he said.
Unlike many chef books, whose authors get professional help to build and plate the dishes, Ayesha did it all, according to John Parsley, vice president and executive editor at Little, Brown & Company, which published the book. Parsley marveled at the enthusiasm when Ayesha walked down the stairs to greet the waiting crowd.
“They cheered,” Parsley said. “That doesn’t happen often in our world.”
Buoyed by her increasing celebrity, Ayesha’s show scheduled for the Cooking Channel was recently changed to the main Food Network. And odds are, she’s going to gain even more fame.
At its publishing date, her book ranked 11th among best-selling books on Amazon, seven spots behind the latest Harry Potter book, which came out a month and a half ago.