By Belinda Luscombe

TOO MANY "COOKS"

A highly unscientific poll conducted by TV's Politically Incorrect found that more people would be embarrassed to be seen at New York City's Fashion Cafe than at any other themed restaurant. Undeterred by this, otherwise respectable model CHRISTY TURLINGTON has joined NAOMI CAMPBELL, ELLE MACPHERSON and CLAUDIA SCHIFFER as a partner in Fashion Cafe. Her duties, while unclear, do not include waiting tables. Now comes the news that compulsive chest-hair exhibitor DAVID HASSELHOFF is interested in starting a chain of Baywatcher restaurants, with the first planned for already overpolluted New York City. Finally, in a key breakthrough in celebrity-Israeli relations, Kurt Waldheim's buddy ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER visited Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin before breaking ground for a Planet Hollywood in Tel Aviv.

SEEN & HEARD

STEPHEN HAWKING, proving (once more) that a debilitating motor neuron disease is no match for sheer will, plans to marry again, according to the London Telegraph. His bride will be his erstwhile nurse--once married to the designer of his voice synthesizer. Hawking divorced his first wife in 1991 after 26 years of marriage.

Just because Coneheads and It's Pat! were bombs doesn't mean an Opera Man: The Movie couldn't do well (not to mention Billy Madison 2). And so, ADAM SANDLER has announced he's leaving the beleaguered Saturday Night Live to devote himself to the cinema.

RIGHT STUFF, WRONG FOOD

Captain Kirk never seemed to mind outer space. But before NORMAN THAGARD, left, with cosmonauts, returned from 115 days in orbit on Russia's Mir space station, he had some things he wanted to get off his chest. First, the food was only so-so (tinned perch was a staple). Then there was the lack of news from home. "The cultural isolation is extreme," griped Thagard, who referred to himself as a "lab rat." NASA officials said they have begun to look into the psychological effects of long-term missions in space, where people can indeed hear you complain.

SHORT TV

A pugilistic, 4-ft. 11-in. lawyer with bad hair and a long list of no-good clients has about as much chance of getting her own TV talk show as she has of successfully defending a rich parent killer, right? Right. Unless she is LESLIE ABRAMSON. "After 25 years of cross-examining, I know how to ask the right follow-up question," says Abramson of the show, in development for the fall of 1996--after she defends Erik Menendez for the second time.