It’s 2012. High time for me to expand my cooking repertoire from leek and potato soup and beef stew to something a little more... jazzy. The problem is finding a cookbook that isn’t, dare I say, boring as hell. Yes, I want tasty meals, but I also want to be entertained. Is that so wrong?

Enter Frank DeCaro, ex-movie critic from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. DeCaro has done a little digging and come up with a cookbook unlike any you’ve read before — The Dead Celebrity Cookbook: A Resurrection of Recipes from More Than 145 Stars of Stage and Screen.

The recipes are organized in categories such as “Talk Chow,” “Musical Munchies,” “Thank You for Feeding a Friend” (recipes from The Golden Girls, of course), with each entry giving a brief, interesting bio on its featured celebrity. In an effort to become some kind of Hollywood-style domestic goddess, I decided to try a few recipes based purely on my love for the dead stars who originally cooked them.

From “I Lunch Lucy,” I chose the incomparable Lucille Ball’s Sunday Night Goulash, an incredibly simple yet extremely tasty mix of egg noodles, ground beef, green peppers, garlic and tomatoes. Light on ingredients, heavy on yumminess, it yields enough for a small army. For dessert, I thought I would be clever and attempt something from “A Gay Bash” by my favourite freaky dead musician, Klaus Nomi. His Lime Tart was, again, quite simple to prepare with minimal ingredients. But, wow, did I ever dirty a lot of dishes (damn it, Klaus! I have to wash these bowls by hand!) And the “Simple Man” delivered ­— it was delicious if maybe a wee bit runny. It was a “Total Eclipse” of my mouth. I wasn’t “Wasting My Time” making this tart. (I’ll be happy if three people get these references.)

My next recipe was one of Burgess Meredith’s from the section “Batman’s Kitchen Capers.” I loved his raunchy one-liners in Grumpy Old Men — you know the ones I’m talking about. His Nacho Salad, though? Thankfully not so raunchy. Easy to make and tasty with its mix of black beans, corn, rice, lettuce, cheese and, of course, tortilla chips. It may not be considered “cooking,” but it was good and quick.

For a sweet snack afterwards: Madeline Kahn’s Foot Cookies. Baked goods from Young Frankenstein’s Lili Von Shtupp? Yes please! Taking into account that not everyone owns a foot-shaped cookie cutter, the recipe instructs you to be creative and cut the feet out after making a stencil. Or freefoot it. (My apologies, I’m on a sugar high — leftover tart and foot cookies....)

Other recipes of note: Redd Foxx’s Spaghetti Sauce, Peter Falk’s Pork Chops (Columbo apparently loved jarred vinegar peppers) and Dean Martin’s Burgers and Bourbon — ground beef and seasoning for the burgers followed by a couple of shots.

Also of note — a lot of these celebrities had a love of mayonnaise, thousand island dressing (see Isabel Sanford’s Boston Chicken... oh, Weezy!) and condensed milk. Not a whole lot of salads in there. And there seems to be only one vegan in the bunch; Rue McClanahan’s Non-Dairy Cheesecake looks delicious, and I can’t wait to try it out. (Plus, Ms. McClanahan was married six times! Is there no end to the fun facts in this book?)

Kudos to DeCaro for helping make cooking entertaining.

Some of the saucier recipes:

Liberace’s Sticky Buns

Karen Carpenter’s Chewy Pie

Merv Griffin’s Stuffed Squash

Dinah Shore’s Red Snapper

Gwen Verson’s Muffins

More fun celebrity recipes:

Carolyn Jones’s That Fish Thing

Yvonne De Carlo’s Exotic Chicken Ecstasy

Lucille Ball’s Chinese-y Thing

Anne Bancroft’s Che-Cha Pasta