CELEBRITIES

Katie Lee Joel's cookin' up a rock-star life

Katie Lee Joel leads you to the kitchen of her waterfront Miami Beach house. Husband Billy, the rock star, has just taken off on one of his motorcycles to hang out at the Miami International Boat Show.

Katie's getting lunch ready, and the whole place smells like childhood. She has cheeseburgers on white toast browning on the griddle. She's taking chocolate-chip cookies from the oven and putting in potato wedges. Chocolate ice cream comes out of the freezer, and she's scooping it into a blender, adding chocolate syrup and milk -- because what's a burger and oven fries without a milkshake on the side?

Some cooks might be a little frazzled with so much going on and somebody watching their every move. But Katie's cool, like she's back home in West Virginia on a lazy summer afternoon making a little something to eat with her grandma, the woman who taught her to love the kitchen.

''I have always loved cooking, since I was a little girl,'' says Katie, 26, whose first cookbook, The Comfort Table (Simon Spotlight Entertainment, $25), to be published in late April, features down-home recipes from her days of growing up around farmers. Granddad kept a big garden, and his cousins raised cows and pigs.

''My grandma would bring a stool over to the counter so that I could help her. My favorite was making biscuits, because it was like Play-Doh,'' Katie says. ``If I slept in, and she had already made the biscuits for breakfast, that was when I would have my little cry. She would always end up having to make more just so that I could help.''

The kitchen in the Joels' winter home is big and fancy. Top-of-the-line everything.

''We didn't have to do a single thing to the house. We bought it right after it was finished, with the furniture and everything already in it. We just brought our clothes and towels, basically,'' Katie says brightly, with a hint of Southern twang. She may have everything -- houses in South Florida, New York City and the Hamptons, plus a famous husband who has more than been there and done that -- but she seems far from copping a jaded stance.

Once lunch is ready -- the last touch is adding buttermilk dressing to fresh cole slaw -- she lets you help take everything outside so you can eat poolside, Billy's sleek retro boats (one he designed, and the other, a teal, 1950s-style $200,000 Pegiva he bought a couple of years ago while on tour in Australia) tied to the dock.

A GOOD MIX

Katie, who studied English and journalism at Miami University in Ohio and figured out then that she wanted to combine her love of writing with her love for cooking, doesn't mind telling you the secret to her ``Logan County burgers.''

``My grandma was from a town called Peach Creek, and they grew up real poor. That's why these burgers are thin. You can get six of them out of a pound of meat. Even later when we were comfortable, she didn't get out of her Depression-era thinking. Everything was about buying on sale and making things go a long way. It's lean ground beef, garlic powder, salt, pepper, grated onion, egg to hold them together. Also, American cheese.''

You haven't seen white bread in a while, you remark. And Katie chuckles.

``I mean, I mostly eat wheat bread to try to be healthy. But you can't beat white bread. People sometimes try to get too fancy with their cooking, and it ends up working against them.''

And this seems Katie's magic. She has a way of disarming folks with her simplicity. Not that she hasn't been stressed once or twice entertaining all the famous people she has met as Billy Joel's wife.

``I was really nervous last summer. There is this Hamptons concert series, and they always have a different performer and a different chef doing the event. My husband was going to do the concert, and they asked me if I could do the food. It was like 1,500 people, including some of the most famous people who live there. Kelly Ripa, Alec Baldwin, Bon Jovi. You name them, they were there. I did fried chicken, marinated skirt steak, cole slaw, baked beans, cornbread. I think sometimes people are expecting something fancy, and when you give them what they don't expect, they really appreciate it.''

The one celeb who still makes her a little nervous?

``The only person I was star struck to meet was Martha Stewart. Because I loved her so much. She lives in the Hamptons, so I have now seen her a few times, and I'm not as star struck any more. But every time I do see her, I feel like I wanna stand a little taller.''

Meeting Billy didn't stress out Katie, because the first time she met him, when she was 21, she had no idea who he was.

``It was a very chance meeting. I was in New York with a friend, being a tourist. You know, with a fanny pack and everything. Well, not really. But I was coming out of the bathroom in the lobby of our hotel, and he was coming around the corner. We almost bumped into each other. I didn't recognize him, but my girlfriend did.''

The girlfriend told Billy they were going to the bar and suggested he meet them for a drink.

''Twenty minutes later, there he was,'' Katie says. 'We talked for a while, and then he invited us to dinner. Then he said, `I have this show on Broadway, Movin' Out. And he takes us and jumps on stage to perform the last two songs. He was layin' it on so thick. Now I can't even imagine him doing something like that.''

They eventually started dating and married in 2004, when she was 23 and he 54. Billy's daughter Alexa Ray, from his marriage to model Christie Brinkley, served as maid of honor.

'Obviously, there is a big age difference. We joke that he's very immature for his age, because he has a job that has allowed him to be, and I am very mature for my age. So we sort of meet in the middle. I know people may look at it and go, `Huh?' But the part that matters is that it's right for us, and it works.''

CAREER PATH

Katie is working hard to become a food personality. She was host of Bravo's Top Chef for a season, has appeared on Paula Deen's Food Network shows, writes a food column for Hamptons magazine, goes on Extra as a correspondent. She served her Logan County burgers at the recent South Beach Wine & Food Festival's BubbleQ and made desserts for the festival's Paula Deen Poker Party.

She is hoping to snag her own cooking show and product line. And she's already working on her second cookbook. Though, truth is, she doesn't have to lift a finger. She could just enjoy being married to a rock star. (A rock star who loves his wife's meatloaf and pot roast but manages to stay clear of her career.)

''Doing nothing has never been an option for me,'' Katie says. ``I have always been a hard worker. And I want to do this for myself. It feels good to accomplish something. I was always going to have my own career, no matter who I married.''