Working with the chefs' advice and consent, Fox adapted the recipes, re-creating them at home with ingredients readily available in most supermarkets, using shortcut cooking methods to trim prep time and labor.
The adapted recipes, presented with simple, straightforward instructions, give the cook the option of using the modified version or following the chef's original. The entree on today's menu, for instance, can be made with Muscovy duck breasts, as in chef Martin Hamann's original recipe, or with chicken, in Fox's less-costly version.
Each recipe comes with explanations and a guide to finding unusual or regional ingredients. There are notes on substitutions, and recommendations for wines or other beverages (one economical, one more extravagant) to serve with each dish.
But that prompts the question: How did Fox get 100 top chefs to cooperate on a cookbook?
Well, she started by asking nicely. And having her television credits - more than 10 years' hawking products from cookware to cosmetics on QVC - might have helped some, but, she said, not all that much.
"Chefs don't give out their recipes that readily, and I wasn't in the food business - they didn't know me," she said, reflecting on the task that she described as the hardest thing she'd ever done.
"I had to wear them down with passion, persistence and integrity. Sometimes I'd have to call at 3 a.m. when they finished in the kitchen."
Still, when Fox turns up her high-voltage charm, her enthusiasm is contagious.
Anyone who has seen the ebullient Fox on the West Chester-based shopping channel will understand how persuasive a saleswoman she can be.
It's hard to say no. And few chefs did, especially after she scored a major coup by getting two famed New York chefs to participate.
