Art Ginsburg, Mr. Food, dead at 81

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WESTON, Fla., Nov. 21 (UPI) -- Art Ginsburg, a celebrity chef known for quick and simple dishes, has died at his home in Weston, Fla., after a battle with cancer, his website said. He was 81.

Ginsburg -- known for declaring, "Ohhhh, it's so good," when tasting his creations -- died Tuesday.

The founder of the Mr. Food Co., based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., began his career as a TV chef with a local show that was eventually syndicated in the early 1980s, the Broward/Palm Beach (Fla.) New Times reported. The show was seen on more than 100 TV stations in 2007, and many stations still air 90-second segments in which Ginsburg demonstrates recipes and cooking tips.

Mr. Food Chief Operating Officer Howard Rosenthal told the New Times the company recently began producing 90-second segments in which Ginsburg does not appear, and the segments will air during the syndicated Mr. Food time slots.

Mr. Food distributes recipes and tips to an estimated 150,000 email subscribers and the Mr. Food website receives 1.7 million unique page hits and an average of 10 million page hits monthly, the newspaper said.

Rosenthal said Mr. Food's favorite dishes did not have to be fancy -- just "made with a touch of love."

"His favorite meal in the whole world -- if there was one thing that he could have eaten every day of his life -- it would have been one of his homegrown tomatoes on a simple sandwich of lettuce and mayonnaise," he said.

"If you could make a good meal quickly and have more time to spend with your friends and family, that was what [Mr. Food] was all about for him."