WEST CHESTER, Pa. – It’s a Sunday afternoon, and David Venable is in his element: on the air, in one of the kitchens at the QVC home shopping network, chatting a mile a minute about bakeware on his popular show, “In the Kitchen with David.”

As ubiquitous computer monitors track sales of the product on display, a vendor walks on with a dish, hot and steaming. “Oh, wow,” Venable says with a smile. “Is that the mac and cheese from my cookbook?”

The gregarious Venable, a bear of a man at 6-foot 6 inches who’s known to break into a “happy dance” when he tastes something good – especially if it contains bacon, which he calls the “Divine Swine” – has extra reason to be smiling these days. Skilled at selling the cookbooks of other chefs, not to mention countless other products, he’s spent the past several months promoting his own cookbook, too – a collection of comfort food recipes called, naturally, “In the Kitchen with David.”