They’ll still keep cooking up stories

It’s perhaps fitting that of all the outlandish stories swirling around Catherine Zeta-Jones, the latest one involves a very posh bit of food.

The actress, who plays an uptight chef in the new film “No Reservations,” gets fired up when discussing the current tabloid tale about her and her husband, Michael Douglas.

“Is it true that I put caviar and truffles in my hair to keep it glossy? Yes, I spend thousands of dollars. Michael buys me caviar and truffle oil treatments for my hair,” Zeta-Jones, 37, says with a dismissive snort.

“I’m not that dumb. If he was buying me caviar, it’d be in my stomach, not on my head.”

In “No Reservations,” ambitious cook Kate suddenly ends up raising her niece, Zoe (Abigail Breslin), after the girl’s mother dies in a car crash.

And the knives are drawn in her kitchen with the arrival of insouciant assistant chef Nick (Aaron Eckhart).

Zeta-Jones, who won a supporting-actress Oscar for “Chicago,” shows audiences a softer persona than the one seen in such glossy films as “Ocean’s Twelve” and “The Legend of Zorro.”

“I’d been looking for a while to do a different character, to show my more vulnerable side,” she says.

Adds “No Reservations” director Scott Hicks: “Often her characters have a tougher edge to them, and people mistake that (for her), and it’s quite wrong.”

To prepare for the part, Zeta-Jones decided to wait tables for a night at the Italian restaurant Fiamma in New York City’s Soho neighborhood.

She didn’t work long enough to make any tips and had a hard time memorizing the specials.

And she marvels that it took an hour for anyone to identify her.

“They’re listening to you – they’re not looking at you – and that saved me for a while,” she says. “That’s why they didn’t recognize me.

“But the cat got out of the bag, and it was time to go back to the kitchen.”

Executive chef Michael White showed Zeta-Jones how to plate food haute-cuisine style.

The actress, whom he calls a “cool chick,” wasn’t a total novice behind the stove, White says.

“She could definitely whip up a great spaghetti al pomodoro for Michael and the kids, but she was lacking the posture and nuances we have in the kitchen – like saucing the correct way.”

Though she admittedly has nothing near the culinary wizardry demonstrated by her saffron-sauce-loving character, Zeta-Jones now feels more at home in the kitchen.

And she values a well-set table.

“I’m crazy about table linens and table settings,” she says.

“I’ve got buckets of the stuff, and I enjoy doing it, the rose petals and all that stuff.”

The birthday bunch

Actor Robert Horton (“Wagon Train”) is 83. Actor David Warner (“Titanic”) is 66. Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns is 54. Actress Alexandra Paul (“Baywatch”) is 44. Country singer Martina McBride is 41. Actor Wil Wheaton is 35. Actor Stephen Dorff is 34. Actor Josh Radnor (“How I Met Your Mother”) is 33. Musician Danger Mouse (Gnarls Barkley) is 30. Actress Allison Mack (“Smallville”) is 25.