Postal Service Releases Celebrity Chef Stamps
On Sept. 26, 2014, the U.S. Postal Service released a design of five Forever Stamps, each featuring a famous American chefs. The stamps are of Julia Child, James Beard, Joyce Chen, Felipe Rojas-Lombardi and Edna Lewis.
The stamps were designed by Greg Breeding, the USPS Art Director. The images, created by Jason Seiler, are digital illustrations of the chefs that have been rendered to look like oil paintings. The selvage, or border around the picture, is white and meant to look like white china on a linen tablecloth.
According to the USPS, the chefs were chosen for “revolutionizing our understanding of food.”
Featured chefs
- Julia Child was chosen because of her very popular television shows and cookbooks and her role in “demystifying” French cuisine in the U.S.
- James Beard is featured on a stamp because of his part in encouraging a vibrant food culture by advocating the use of local markets and ingredients.
- Joyce Chen was recognized for her part in popularizing Chinese food with cookbooks, a TV show and her Boston-area restaurants.
- USPS chose Felipe Rojas-Lombardi for introducing the United States to Spanish small-plate tapas and for bringing South American cuisine to the U.S.
- For her Southern cooking, Edna Lewis is also featured on the stamps. She brought roast chicken and shrimp and grits to the menus of trendy restaurants.
Fans of online cooking school and the culinary arts industry can preserve their celebrity chef Forever Stamps in a special edition release. The stamps are framed inside of an image of a white china plate and garnished with a painted-on herbs. The artwork also has a place card that notes the stamp series title and details about the date that it was released on, also known as the stamp’s First Day of Issue.
The stamps will always be worth the cost of the current First Class Mail one-ounce rate.
