Gwyneth Paltrow is the cover girl for the August issue of Vogue Magazine. August is always Vogue’s annual “Age Issue” and they usually pick someone in their 30s or 40s for it, thankfully. It’s not like they get the 21-year-old starlet-of-the-moment to pontificate on aging. The Age Issue is actually one of my favorites of the specialty issues, just because they usually profile really cool women to represent the older decades, 50s, 60s, 70s, etc. My least favorite? The Shape Issue. I find it patronizing who they choose to represent “petitie” and “full-figured” usually. Anyway, they got Gwyneth for the cover even though she’s got nothing but GOOP and her Goopy, Vitamin-D-deficient diet (and cookbook!) to promote – seriously, Iron Man 2 promotion is over. There’s no reason for her to have the cover other than she wanted to be photographed by her friend Mario Testino. Usually, I’m impressed by Testino, but this photo shoot is rather bland. Like Goopy herself. Anyway, the full article is here (and it‘s mostly about food and cooking), and here are some of the highlights:

Gwyneth’s cookbook has 144 recipes, is scheduled for publication in April 2011, and its title is My Father’s Daughter. The writer notes: “I discovered that My Father’s Daughter is nearly free from food phobias and from an exaggerated concern for health (with the possible exception of Paltrow’s notion that gluten, as in wheat, is bad for you). One of Paltrow’s favorite foods is French fries; she gives an oven-baked recipe and a deep-fried recipe—which she sensibly admits tastes much better because it’s fried. She loves pizza. She also loves foods that people generally consider healthful. Her recipes reflect the kind of cooking that Paltrow prepares for her family most nights when she and her husband stay home.”

What Gwyneth looks like in person: I noticed was that Gwyneth is considerably more beautiful in the flesh than in pictures. She’s an ectomorph (in the language of anthropometrics). You might call her “gangling”—stretched out, a bit taller and svelter and better muscled than you would think, especially in the crucial upper-arm area. She doesn’t look gangling in pictures. She has fine genes, good bones. Gwyneth has at least one personal trainer, works out for two hours a day, and owns a piece of the gym near her downtown Manhattan apartment. (Her business partner is Tracy Anderson, who appears in a Goop video.)

On making her own chicken stock: “That’s going to be yum,” she said. Gwyneth makes her own stock about once a month. “It makes such a huge difference in the food,” she preached.

Did Gwyenth hate any body part of her own? There was a brief pause. Gwyneth said, “I’ll have to give that a little thought.” Her voice had changed. It was as though a cloud had passed over the sun.

Gwyneth‘s introduction to her cookbook: “I always feel closest to my father, who was the love of my life until his death in 2002, when I am in the kitchen. I can still hear him over my shoulder, heckling me, telling me to be careful with my knife, moaning with pleasure over a bite of something in only the way a Jew from Long Island can, his shoulders doing most of the talking. I will never forget how concentrated he looked in the kitchen….It was as if the deliciousness of the food would convey the love he felt in direct proportion….Health food was never really on the agenda, it was about fun and deliciousness and togetherness….The most striking aspect about his cooking was how much joy he derived from feeding people that he loved. I mean, genuine, bursting happiness….This book is meant to channel the ethos of my father by sharing the greatest gifts that he imparted to me. Invest in what’s real. Clean as you go. Drink while you cook. Make it fun. It doesn’t have to be complicated. It will be what it will be.”

[From Vogue]

Eh. The piece is very, very, very far from a competent interview, or even a basic “What’s your favorite color?” interview. It’s basically just the writer fanboying all over his crush and how she’s so food-competent. Blah. Just to be fair, though, it sounds like Gwyneth did not want to talk about anything other than food, as if she thinks that her thoughts on chicken stock should be enough to earn her a Vogue cover. And the cookbook doesn’t come out for another nine months! This kind of early promotion is crazy.

UPDATE: Here’s Gwyneth’s Vogue video. God, I just hate her voice. She just sounds so f-cking snotty.

Vogue cover courtesy of Vogue online, all photos by Mario Testino.