Giada De Laurentiis is setting the record straight. The Food Section has posted a quote from her dishy piece in the New York Post:
Porn? I’m not doing porn! What the hell are people talking about? The way we shot close-ups, I just wanted the food to look beautiful. I thought that’s what Americans loved about Italy—that it’s so sensual and romantic. [It’s not] PBS-style cooking. Lidia Bastianich, sorry, but [she’s] kind of boring. I mean, I love Lidia, but you can fall asleep watching her.
This is a low blow, considering that Bastianich is a respectable grandmother who doesn’t need to shake her tatas over a pot of meatballs to keep her fans interested. But hey, why shouldn’t Giada ooze sex appeal while she’s crushing tomatoes or posing with an eggplant? Why not look sexy when daydreaming about amaretti?
But with all the lovely ladies on the Food Network, where are the hunks? Isn’t it time for a ridiculously handsome male celebrity chef? Perhaps a strapping Harrison Ford–circa–Raiders of the Lost Ark type who gets really excited about venison? I personally have a soft spot for Jamie Oliver, but I wouldn’t put him in the “Stone Cold Fox” category. And TLC’s Take Home Chef is attractive, but really not as smokin’ as Giada, right? Is there a sexy male celebrity chef that I’m missing?
The San Francisco Ferry Building will be ground zero for Asian-food aficionados in October, as the Asian Culinary Forum hosts its first ever symposium, Asian Food Beyond Borders, which will cap off the ACF’s three-day-long event of the same name.
The weekend’s fascinating lineup includes hands-on activities such as a Chinatown culinary tour; panel discussions on the politics of rice farming; workshops on how to pair wine with Asian food (what does one drink with chicken feet anyway?); the changing traditions of tea; and the role of narrative in Asian food cultures. My favorite of the planned events is perhaps the free “ask the experts” clinic where you can bring in confounding recipes, ingredients, and kitchen tools for clarification. There’s also the star factor of having Madhur Jaffrey, Martin Yan, Roy Fong, James Oseland, and Olivia Wu all in the same room for the symposium.
Or you might just want to come for the jook and dumplings from Slanted Door—most likely the best conference breakfast you’re ever going to get.
When my husband went to PotBelly the next day, they could give us no information. I can’t imagine them reversing an $858,000 charge anyway, especially without a receipt (given this was done after my husband had left the premises.)
Just to put things into perspective, $858,000 could buy:
About 203,000 PotBelly sandwiches
9,755 double porterhouse steaks at Manny’s, the finest steak joint in the Twin Cities
2,860 prix fixe meals at New York City’s Masa
or 57 of those stupid “diamond-tinis” at the Tokyo Ritz-Carlton.
San Francisco Magazine is publishing a serialized novel that explores the local food scene, says SFist. Robert Beringela has the byline, but apparently this is just a pseudonym for an “anonymous food insider.” All this sounds pretty juicy, but heavy-handed food allusions weigh down the writing. The first chapter, “A Vegan’s Vengeance,” starts out like this:
With his circus-freak physique, yellow summer-squash complexion, and electric shock of blood orange hair, Alfie Falfa had reasons to be angry.
His name, for instance, inflicted on him by hippie parents.
His appearance, for another, a grotesquery he blamed on the polluted well water at the ostrich ranch where he was raised.
Falfa was scarred by witnessing “avian beheadings” as a child, is a vegan-cum-freegan, and drives a “vegetable oil–powered Rabbit” with a celebrity chef bound and gagged in the back. In chapter two, “Goose Chase,” a “weary food writer” joins the search for the missing chef. Clearly, this is meant to be a bit over-the-top.
If it’s too much for your taste, the Chowhounds have plenty of suggestions for other food fiction.
Will Allen had an extremely successful harvest last week: The Milwaukee-based urban farmer won a MacArthur “genius grant,” which brings with it a half million dollars and zero obligations. Allen’s organization Growing Power Inc. was running an urban farm in what he calls a “food desert” long before it was cool. But he’s always had a social mission too. “I am a farmer first, and I love to grow food for people,” he told the New York Times. “But it’s also about growing power. We grow relationships first; otherwise, nothing else makes sense.”
When I worked at Chicago’s Green City Market, I saw Allen almost every week at the Growing Power tent. Tall and muscular, still looking like the professional basketball player he once was, he’s hard to miss. He’s known as a sweet and gentle man, who’ll happily talk about worm composting until the sun goes down, and he’s an inspired choice.
Seems like just yesterday mixologists were muddling agave syrup into their market-fresh, botanically correct cocktails as if it was goin’ out of style. Well, it was. Although initially believed to always have a lower glycemic index than high-fructose corn syrup or sugar, and to be a raw, uncooked product with more vitamins and minerals, this agave-plant byproduct is proving to be not so very different, gasp, from HFCS!
Turns out it’s not raw at all, but processed, often at high heats, and some brands are even rumored to be cut with high-fructose corn syrup by less scrupulous producers.
Check out this patent that explains how agave syrup is made, and tell us if it sounds like health food to you. Stick to honey, people! At least you know it comes from a bee.
On November 11, Thomas Keller and Grant Achatz will team up to serve a 20-course dinner at Per Se—and charge $1,500 per guest. Achatz told Time Out New York what diners can expect to see on the menu: “Likely it will include a few Alinea and Keller classics, like the oysters and pearls from him and the hot potato-cold potato from me…with a few new ones in the mix.”
Maybe there’s a charitable donation involved, maybe to a hunger organization or the American Cancer Society? you say.
Nope.
Just two greedy chefs.
I’m completely fucking disgusted and I’m never setting foot in any of their restaurants ever again.
But shortly after posting this tirade, Catherine received an email from Nick Kokonas, co-owner of Alinea, that convinced her to eat her words. She explains that the price point was chosen because the menu will include “top-notch caviar and other expensive ingredients,” as well as wine pairings, “many of which will be vintage champagnes and other library wines.” The price also includes tax, tip, and the costs of Keller’s new book, Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide, and Achatz’s cookbook, Alinea, which retail at $75 and $50, respectively, and will be given to each guest. The price will also make it possible to fly at least eight chefs to New York for additional kitchen support. With this in mind, the price seems a bit more reasonable. But seriously, three grand for dinner for two? Could any meal be worth that much?
The first words out of my friend’s mouth when I showed him this flatware set: “It looks like a tattoo!” And he’s right. The way the laser etching travels from the base of each handle and then tapers off is tattoolike, and definitely eye-catching. Most silverware I find is either dated or strictly utilitarian and boring-looking. This set has a modern design and, as a plus, a comfortable heft.
People always tell me how great my job is because I get to eat all day. But too much of anything is a bad thing—particularly if that thing, well, tastes bad. After primping and preening the likes of our Grape and Grappa Focaccia for its moment in the photo studio, the food team dug into the third (or maybe fourth) test of a sweet potato spoon bread. We’ve been experimenting with different types of sweet potatoes, grinds of cornmeal, and cooking times, hoping to get it right after this latest round of testing. And I thought we had, until Amy and I tasted the spoon bread.
It took a minute to register, but after looking at each other, we both ran to the trash can to spit it out. Even after all of the recipe testing, the spoon bread was still a tasteless, neon-colored mush. It was clear that neither the sweet potato nor CHOW would be better off for it. So, just as often as we’re working to give you new recipes that are fun, reliable, and tasty, we’re also getting rid of the underachievers.
The actor started Newman’s Own food company in 1982 with his business partner A.E. Hotchner, after the two stirred up a batch of salad dressing in the basement of a barn using a vat and a canoe paddle. The company went on to create popcorn, pretzels, pasta sauce, cookies, coffee, lemonade, pet food, and more. Newman’s daughter Nell founded Newman’s Own Organics in 1993, convincing her father that the organic trend had a future by cooking an all-organic Thanksgiving dinner.
Both companies donate all proceeds to charities and have been hailed as pioneers in “cause marketing.” The Newman’s Own motto is “Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good.” Newman himself joked to the New York Times that he just wanted “to be able to give away more than Dick Cheney got in tax relief.”
