Remember when Gwyneth Paltrow was in Shakespeare in Love?  She was ethereal—pale white in those ornamented gowns—and good—she won the Academy Award in 1998.  Apparently, this award became a curse.  Gwyneth didn’t know what to do with herself, taking questionable roles in films and a career break.  Lately, she recorded a country hit for her movie, Country Strong.

She’s attempting a comeback, it seems.  And that’s what everyone thought her recently published cookbook, My Father’s Daughter:  Delicious, Easy Recipes Celebrating Family & Togetherness, would be.  But, aside from a Holly Hobby-ish photograph of Gwyneth smiling near a butcher block of cheese and a glass of wine on the front cover and a few other complaints, the consensus seems to be that the book is pretty much okay.

Critics seem to agree that only a celebrity could write the cookbook. The book’s theme isn’t cuisine focused, but is more about loving food with one’s family and friends. While this is fine, the critics say, some of Gwyneth’s food excursions are atypical (read, pricier) than a normal family’s cook-and-sit-at-the-dining-room table experience.  For example, Gwyneth and her late father had a wonderful meal of duck ragu.  Fine, but this particular meal was on a “culinary road trip” throughout rural Italy. Not your typical meat-and-potatoes kind of eater, Gwyneth.   

In addition, a lot of the recipes ingredients and culinary tools only match an extremely wealthy (read, a celebrity) person’s budget.  Gwyneth includes a substitution chart at the beginning of the book, which says that readers can substitute simple mayonnaise for the called-for Vegenaise and pig bacon for duck bacon (?). Cooking tools, too, are exceptionally high end, assuming that the reader has a kitchen stocked with butcher block countertops, a Vitamix blender and a Le Creuset Dutch oven.

Critics also like the book and its recipes.  The recipes are diverse and, for the most part, healthy.  Most do not require a ton of time or a personal assistant to whip eggs while bent over backwards.  The book’s footnotes, whether Gwyneth herself wrote them, are relatable, not too cute and only include minimal celebrity friend references. 

Despite these favorable reviews, however, two of the most important questions about Gwyneth and her book still remain. Would an actor (male) —a real actor, like Gwyneth, mind you—ever make his Hollywood comeback with something domestic like a cookbook?  And, did Gwyneth really want to write this thing? 

Here’s where the non-culinary problems come in.  A male actor would never write this book because a male actor of Gwyneth’s acting caliber and celebrity wouldn’t need to make a comeback.  If male actors who are taken seriously as actors make shoddy movie choices, they are forgiven and still allowed to be serious actors. They are never flung from the limelight like poor Gwyneth. Male actors, too, would never enter the domestic sphere. Male actors necessarily need to remain untouchable—they are celebrities!

Alternatively, most actresses need to cultivate a relatable appeal—men think they can bang them; women learn that celebrities are just like us!—to bring in the business for their rom-coms or other middlebrow movies.

But for movies with higher aspirations, acting is what brings in the viewers. Acting, regardless of gender. And this was the kind of performing artist that Gwyneth used to be—a real actor whose acting, not culinary, skills brought viewers to the theater. But with her middlebrow turn in Country Strong, maybe that’s not the type of actress that she is allowed to be anymore.

To answer the second question, my guess is no, Gwyneth didn’t want to write this book.  Because she used to be a real actress in The Royal Tenenbaums and Shakespeare in Love.  This cookbook is so sad—and a little bit creepy—because it seems to mark her unwilling transition into rom-coms.