"I'll keep on cooking," vows new Thai PM

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai celebrity chef Samak Sundaravej is not going to let a little thing like being prime minister interfere with his true passion -- cooking.

Moments after being voted in on Monday, the combative right-wing politician vowed to revive his weekly cooking show "Tasting, Grumbling", which went off the air this month after the outgoing army-appointed government took over its host station.

"We still have three months of our new cooking show on tape. The constitution does not prohibit a prime minister from doing TV shows," the 72-year-old told reporters at his favourite open-air food market in Bangkok.

Over the last seven years, "Tasting, Grumbling" has become a staple for lovers of Thailand's spicy food, even though its host is not to everyone's taste.

Opinion polls suggest Samak, who made his name as a vitriolic anti-communist radio commentator in the 1970s, enjoys the support of less than half the country.

As a frontman for ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, he has also made fierce enemies in the military and royalist establishment that orchestrated the September 2006 coup.