Why Leonid Parfyonov forbade his wife to give birth. Biography of Elena Chekalova Cooking - a world without borders

So just be as you are in life, and there is no need to be afraid of anything. Imagine that it’s not a camera in front of you, but, for example, I’m sitting, just like now. And tell me everything." And I began to tell the story and recipe for French potato soup Parmentier. And when I saw that everyone was smiling and laughing while listening to me, I calmed down a little... You know, before, under Soviet rule, it was believed that the profession of a cook was somehow not prestigious. When I, as a journalist, began to engage in gastronomy, my mother skeptically said: “Listen, you received such an excellent education - you graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University, worked as a literature teacher at a historical and literary school, published in prestigious publications, and now what have you become? A cook..." And in my opinion, a cook is one of the most creative professions.

This is not only cooking, but the history of civilization. I approach food as a philologist and historian.

- How did you develop an interest in cooking? Family traditions?

Vice versa. My dad was a journalist. Now, unfortunately, he is no longer alive. He worked in the newspaper “Soviet Russia”, then in various industry publications. And my mother is an editor and compiler of dictionaries, a lexicographer by profession. My parents were always very busy. My older sister and I - she is an engineer by training - were not given much attention. They were interested in books, museums, theaters and everything related to the profession. But everyday life and household chores were never a concern. They considered housework, home improvement, and cooking to be philistinism.

The talented journalist's family life is approaching thirty years, and all this time he has been happy with his wife Elena Chekalova. Leonid Parfenov's wife also a journalist by training, she is a graduate of Moscow State University. Lomonosova, who during her career managed to work with many publications, including Moscow News, Soviet Literature, and one of her favorite genres was cooking. Viewers are familiar with Elena from the program on Channel One “There is Happiness!”, and she also runs a column about food in the Kommersant newspaper.

In the photo is the wife of Leonid Parfenov

They met Leonid Parfenov while he was working at Vologda television, and Elena, who saw his talented reports, asked him to write for his newspaper. The collaboration gradually developed into a romantic relationship and after a while they got married. A year later their son Ivan was born, and five years later their daughter Masha was born. Leonid Parfenov’s wife admits that back then, no matter how tired he was at work, he always helped her wash diapers, cook and go grocery shopping.

Lena Parfenova is an excellent cook, and does it with great pleasure - she loves to feed her husband something tasty. Leonid Parfenov’s wife admits that the secret of her family happiness is that, despite the years they have lived together, she and her husband have not lost interest in each other. And the key to well-being in the family, according to Elena, is mutual trust - she cannot imagine how you can live with a person and constantly monitor him in order to be aware of where he goes and who he meets.

In the photo - the family of Leonid Parfenov

As in any normal family, there were quarrels in the Parfenov family, but they all ended in reconciliation, and they never had any thoughts of divorce. Although Elena Parfenova is perceived by many only as an ideal housewife, she is also a woman who takes an active life position, and for participating in a rally in support of Navalny, when he was running for mayor of the capital, she paid with her job on Channel One, when with her the contract for the program “There is Happiness!” was not renewed.

Elena Chekalova struggled with her daughter’s illness for several years

Elena Chekalova struggled with her daughter’s illness for several years

Leonid PARFENOV and Elena CHEKALOVA celebrated their silver wedding this year - 25 years of marriage. Both are talented journalists. And their children went their own way. In an interview with Express Newspaper, Elena, the host of the “Happiness Is” column as part of “Good Morning” on Channel One, frankly spoke about the secrets of family happiness, the envy of colleagues and uneducated viewers.

- They wrote that before meeting Leonid you had an affair with a Frenchman. This is true?

Yes. But at that time I really listened to my mother’s opinion. And she then told me: “The political situation is difficult now, and if you leave, it is unknown whether you will be able to come and visit me, and I will not be able to survive such a separation.” I had to forget about the Frenchman. - You and Parfenov have been together for a quarter of a century. Have you celebrated your silver wedding?- Certainly! This is a big date. Among our friends there are not many people who have lived together for so many years and have not lost interest in each other. We went to San Sebastian to celebrate. I know many outstanding chefs there; I admire these people. - What is the secret of your marriage?- To save a family, everyone must have their own life, their own work, their own career, their own inner world, their own friends. You can’t get hung up on your spouse, dissolve in him - this is a vicious path. There are wives who want to know about every minute of their husband: where is he, what is he, how is he? This endless surveillance doesn't lead to anything good. You cannot be a dependent in a family - neither financially nor spiritually. This leads to the destruction of relationships. You just need to trust! There are many families: he works, and she sits and waits. And then such a wife wonders why her husband does not want to return home. Although it is very important to have a tasty and cozy home. Lenya and I changed during our marriage, but we changed together. And we never thought about divorce. They quarreled and made up, but it didn’t go to extremes.

Hell of patience

- Your father is a journalist. The children did not continue the dynasty?

I believe that under no circumstances should you put pressure or impose your opinion. Every child must find himself. When mine were little, I suggested they study painting, languages, mathematics, figure skating, and football. Now Ivan works at RIA Novosti and runs a successful Internet project. He is 24. He studied in England and Germany. Graduated from the Milan University of Economics, speaks fluent English, Italian and German. My daughter Masha is 19 years old. She studies in Italy, to the surprise of everyone, she successfully graduated from the British Council School. We look forward to her every visit like a holiday. When we get together, we have a big feast. I dream that our children will make us grandparents. Vanya has a regular girlfriend, and Masha has a young man. But for now... They don’t even go to the registry office. - I’ve heard more than once that you are a wonderful mother and you have an excellent relationship with your children. Why did you decide to limit yourself to two? - I wanted another child, but my husband was against it. He went through a lot, I had a very difficult birth, and Lenya was not ready for a new test. I have had two cesareans, but the second time I gave birth to my daughter was a disaster. And not because doctors are bad, there are simply women, I am one of them, who are not programmed to give birth. My daughter did not study well until the tenth grade; she had dyslexia. It is a difficult thing when a person does not master written language. After graduating from primary school, she read syllables. I had to sit at home for several years and just read aloud to her. Otherwise she would not have been able to finish school.

It took hellish patience. In the end, I tried to calm my daughter down: “Masha, it’s okay that you’re not good at science, let’s learn to cook with you. You’ll graduate from school, get a certificate and go to study to become a cook.” We found her a college in France, where they study to become a chef, but in the last year of school Masha suddenly had a fracture. She graduated with a very high score, with which she can easily enter any foreign university. But my daughter still had the idea that she would be a cook. Moreover, she already has experience working in a restaurant. My children have been working part-time since they were in school. Vanya - from 14, Masha - from 16. My daughter worked in a hotel as a maid and at the reception, and washed dishes in a restaurant.

Monstrous diet

- When you appeared on television, everyone whispered that this happened not without the help of Leonid Parfenov.

My column has been on air for several years. Due to connections, you can’t last that long on TV. Our rating numbers are high. We used to go out three times a week, now it’s five. Sometimes TV viewers ask me to tell you specifically about something, sometimes I look for it myself. We have a mandatory principle of seasonality. During the years of Soviet power, people forgot how to eat seasonally, and this is important in order to get the most from their products and spend a minimum of money. You need to buy strawberries not in January, but now - while they are tasty, juicy and fairly inexpensive. Previously, there was a lot of criticism directed at me, but the criticism was from completely uneducated people. - Not only the uneducated, but also, for example, Kira Proshutinskaya. Not the last person on television!- I am not offended by any criticism at all. A Kira Proshutinskaya- an uneducated person in cooking. And I think she is absolutely unphotogenic on screen. Kira has pulled up her entire face and, at 65 years old, plays like a 25-year-old girl. If this is good for her, what can I say?! I never hide my age. My ideal cooking program host is Julia Child.

She worked on the air until she was 90 years old! She had knobby hands, an old voice, a huge number of wrinkles, but all of America loved her. She is the most popular food presenter of all time in the States. A woman who has never had plastic surgery, never injected Botox, or dyed her hair. Gastronomy is an area where the viewer will trust not a picture with huge breasts and a painted face, but a woman with experience, a mother of a family, a grandmother.

- Do you follow a diet?

When I saw myself on the screen, I experienced a lot of unpleasant feelings. When a person does not see himself from the outside, he does not notice what and how he hangs. But I hate the word “diet”. Diet is always extreme. You are dooming yourself to terrible hardships, to becoming an outcast in the society where you live, because you set yourself a bunch of prohibitions: this is not allowed, this is not allowed, you shouldn’t eat after 6 p.m., and so on. In my opinion, the currently popular protein diet Dukan- monstrous. Yes, people lose weight, but this undermines their health. In the Middle Ages there was such a torture: a person was put on nothing but boiled meat, and he died, because the body became slagged, the liver and pancreas quickly became clogged. I haven’t been on a diet for a day and have lost five kilos and dropped two sizes. It is very important to think about portions and their size, people overeat a lot. A person feels the taste of the first two sips, a piece - everything. Chefs in restaurants are slim because they don’t eat, but taste - that’s how I feel. My motto: you need to try everything, and not overeat! But my husband eats no more than 150 grams of meat, and that’s enough for him. - Can Leonid Gennadievich cook?- No. Probably, I once cooked, when I was still living in the hostel, I cooked mushroom soup, I haven’t seen or tried it. But he has amazing taste, he sees the flaws in dishes. - That’s why your joint book “World Cuisine” was such a success: you complemented each other perfectly!- I'm interested in working with my husband. Now I’m writing a book about light food, how to eat everything tasty and not gain weight. For example, chocolate cake, where one serving contains 172 calories - that's about the same as two apples!

He was born on January 26, 1960 in Cherepovets. In 1982 he graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of Leningrad State University. Zhdanov. At that time, he was already an established personality, a journalist, his articles were published in Pravda, Ogonyok, and Moscow News. Worked on Vologda TV.

She graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University. She taught Russian to foreign students at a geological exploration institute. Later I became interested in journalism and plunged into it headlong. In 1985 she began working for the newspaper “Soviet Culture”. She became known as a film and television critic.

IN 1987 THEY got married: Leonid PARFENOV, who was just starting his career at Central Television, and Elena Chekalova, who at that time wrote critical articles in the weekly magazine “Moscow News” - that is, she criticized her husband on duty. It was at that time that Parfenov, together with Andrei Razbash, shot his first documentary film, “Children of the 20th Congress,” about the generation of the sixties.

Elena became for him not only a reliable support in family affairs, but also an adviser and assistant, and also shouldered a difficult task - she began to formulate the style of a TV presenter, while remaining in the shadows. Parfenov is a very private person in his personal life - at social events it is easier to meet him in the company of fellow television workers than with his wife. Although it is to his wife that he owes much of the image of a polished dandy to which everyone has become accustomed since the days of “Namedni.”

In 1988, their son Ivan was born, and in J 993 their daughter Masha was born. The son studied in England, in Germany, graduated from school there, then from the Milan University of Economics. The daughter is studying in Italy and plans to work in the restaurant and hotel business. In 1990, the couple published the book “Our Portrait is Being Returned to Us: Notes on Television,” which was included in the compulsory program of the “Fundamentals of Television Journalism” course and where the idea of ​​the “Old Songs about the Main Thing” project was first formulated.

After that, Elena gave up TV criticism and switched to quiet family joys like raising children and cooking. She fell in love with cooking from her youth, and her passion resulted in a new profession: when she was offered to run the “Food” column of the Kommersant Weekend magazine, she happily agreed. Almost every issue of the column was lively discussed by the culinary community - mainly because Elena skillfully chopped up traditional recipes so that practically nothing remained of the original.

Since 2009, she has been hosting a 4-minute column “There is Happiness” in the Channel One program “Good Morning”. And in March 2010, she became the host of Channel One’s full-fledged program “There is Happiness!”

Countless fans of Leonid Parfenov, having learned the truth about the family life of their idol, are perplexed in their blogs: how is it possible, why the wife of the most stylish TV presenter is not an ephemeral blonde, but a completely earthly woman with a pot of borscht? And he affectionately calls her “Kysya” and confirms the old truth that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.
She loves French and Italian cuisine, but she was the first to master Georgian cuisine. She loves to travel, and at the same time learns to cook from chefs from different countries; she has collected a huge collection of recipes.

Leonid impressed her even before she saw him. At that time, she wrote a television column in the newspaper “Soviet Culture”. A friend, a teacher of advanced training courses for television workers, periodically showed the work of her listeners - journalists. And among these works, Elena came across an absolutely amazing essay by some boy from Cherepovets about the group “Aquarium”, about Boris Grebenshchikov. I was struck by the stunning, unconventional style - light, cheerful, relaxed. One day, when another company gathered at Elena’s house, a friend came with Lenya. They met, she ordered him some material, He wrote it, then there were other articles...

“When I first came to visit you, I was so amazed by the extraordinary aromas coming from the kitchen that I immediately wanted to stay in your house forever,” Leonid later admitted to his wife Elena.
When they became friends, he once said: “I can show you a Petersburg that you don’t know.” She agreed. This was Leonid Parfenov’s Petersburg, which included Gogol, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, and many other wonderful people, but in addition to this there were various cafes, clubs where rock musicians gathered, and some unknown parks, courtyards, alleys, canals... This was his world, his life. She was dumbfounded. And I realized that... I fell in love with him. He was something special: on the one hand, very natural in communication, on the other hand, ironic, with a European sophistication, in general, a completely non-Soviet person... After the trip to St. Petersburg, they began to correspond and call each other at the first opportunity.

They are so different - in style, in character, in temperament. She is so homely and open. He is a closed, aloof person. He believes that telling someone about yourself, about your life is bad form. She says. As for character, the opposite is true - he is a much more hot-tempered person. She can let any conflict situation slide, but he can’t do that. Many who work with him know his temper and often harshness. But everyone also knows that these outbursts pass quickly for him. Of course, there was a period of character adaptation. In some ways they did not understand each other, they quarreled, the lack of money and instability weighed on them. Gradually, both realized that life together, if, of course, you want it to be long-term, it is a series of compromises and mutual concessions.
They have been married for twenty-four years, and this is practically a union of old-world landowners: it grows stronger under the smell coming from their own smokehouse, the noise of the mixer, the clanking of table knives and the clatter of skewers.