{alltv} Eva Longoria welcomes all to her 'Kitchen'

Eva Longoria's pampered character on Desperate Housewives might do anything to avoid cooking dinner. But in real life, the actress/restaurateur can't wait to start chopping, boiling and sautéing.

"It's very creative for me ... therapeutic. I find great comfort in cooking," says Longoria, who owns Beso Steakhouse (in Hollywood and Las Vegas) and whose first cookbook, Eva's Kitchen (Clarkson Potter, $29.99), hits stores Tuesday.

Growing up on a ranch near Corpus Christi, Texas, exposed Longoria to the pleasures of cultivating, cooking and eating her own food. "I know good fruit and vegetables when I see it," says Longoria, who grows herbs such as mint, basil and bay leaf in her "small" Los Angeles backyard.

It still amazes Longoria, the youngest of four daughters, that her working mom, a special-education teacher, managed to have a family dinner on the table every night.

"She had four kids going to four different schools, one with special needs (the oldest, Elizabeth), she had a full-time job and a husband who wanted dinner on the table every day at 6."

Those family dinners still hold fond memories for Longoria, 36. "Now, it's such a forced thing that parents have to do for their kids," she says. "Growing up, it was enjoyable. We really couldn't wait till our dad got home because that meant we could eat."

Longoria believes it was both culture and economics that played a role in their commitment to home cooking.

"It was like, 'What? We're not paying 20 bucks for pizza when we have tomatoes in the garden,' " says Longoria, who even while working at a Wendy's during high school didn't develop a taste for fast food. "I was never into that," she says.

In Eva's Kitchen are family recipes — and the stories behind them — and personal recipes she created while experimenting for friends and family. "I cooked a lot when I was married," says Longoria, whose divorce from NBA player Tony Parker was finalized in January. "And now my girlfriends are always waiting for me to get home, (asking), 'What's for dinner, what's for dinner?' "

In fact, Longoria says she can often be found — wearing one of the 25 aprons from her collection — making guacamole tableside at one of her restaurants. "My restaurant, half the recipes — with professional help from Beso chef Todd English— are original as well," she says.

Longoria has even thought about taking it to the next level by attending culinary school like some of her favorite chefs, who include English, Rick Bayless, Bobby Flay and Giada De Laurentiis. "They've all given me some beautiful comments" after she sent them the cookbook, Longoria says. "I was just overwhelmed with the outpouring of support I had from the cuisine community. They welcomed me with open arms."

Although in some ways, she says, that lack of professional training makes the cookbook "very accessible for people like me who love to cook but who maybe don't have the background to do that professional-caliber dishes. This is a dash of this, a pinch of that."

For Longoria, Eva's Kitchen is much more than a cookbook filled with recipes: "It's a memoir of my life through food."