Meet The Team / Karen Danick

With more than 3,500 cookbooks from the late Gourmet Magazine library just added to its collection, New York University's Fales Library Food Studies Collection has something major to cheer about. Slashfood attended the a recent celebration honoring award-winning cookbook author Rozanne Gold for her generous donation that made the acquisition possible. We caught up with Marvin J. Taylor, Director, The Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University to get the scoop on what's really on the shelves.

Slashfood: What makes The Fales Library Food Studies Collection the largest and most important in the country?
Marvin J. Taylor: First, sheer size. We hold more volumes than any of the other collections. It's most important because our collection looks at food from a cultural standpoint, not just from nutrition, science, women's studies, etcetera, but from all these viewpoints at once.

How many cookbooks are in the collection?
MJT: I'm not sure, but we estimate that there are 55,000 volumes and counting.

Master chef Wolfgang Puck (of Spago and CUT), who's already been chosen to cook for 16 Governors Balls (the official Academy Awards after-party), is revving up to prepare the 17th feast this Sunday night after the 83rd Annual Academy Awards ceremony. With more than 1,500 Oscar winners, nominees, presenters, and other guests eating your food, a chef just might get a little edgy. Slashfood chatted with Chef Puck to find out what he, partner chef Matt Bencivenga, pastry chef Sherry Yard, and their staff of 300 have up their sleeves for the glitterati, what makes the perfect Oscars party, and what makes for a kitchen disaster or two. Puck even reveals a surprise move that may shock Spago fans.

Slashfood: What's one of your favorite dishes from last year? And what are you excited about this year? We hear the menu packs a lot of Latin flavors.
Wolfgang Puck: We make something different every year. (Except Sherry Yard's gold-dusted desserts -- everyone goes home with an Oscar.) Last year we prepared Black Truffle Chicken Pot Pie -- we assembled the dish at night, and in the morning and we baked it perfectly hot for all of the guests. This year my tribute to The King's Speech is the entrée of Pan-Roasted Dover Sole with Fennel, Olives, Haricots Vert, Tomatoes, Lemon, Sherry, and Olive Oil. We're flying in 1,600 Dover Sole for the dinner.

What about the "Black Swan Paella?"
We have a Vegetable Risotto "Paellla" with Saffron, White Wine, Chile, and Parsley -- it has great flavors, and it's easy for Natalie Portman to eat since she is vegetarian.

What happens when actor Stanley Tucci (Big Night, Julie and Julia), choreographer Tommy Tune, "Top Chef" judge Gail Simmons, and author Stephen Dubner (Freakonomics) uncork a bunch of Chiantis and start swirling? An episode of "Vine Talk," Tucci's weekly wine-tasting talk show debuting on PBS April 7. Slashfood joined the taping this week at New York's WNET studios.

Recalling Jon Favreau's "Dinner for Five," "Vine Talk's" weekly half-hour chat-and-sip-a-thon features guests the likes of Julianne Moore, Kyle MacLaughlan, Nathan Lane, Daniel Boulud, Marcus Samuelsson, Joe Bastianich, Patricia Clarkson, and Penn Badgley. Tucci picks a different wine region each week, pours for the whole audience, and then, over drinks, they discuss.

Ray Isle, wine editor of Food & Wine magazine, and the show's resident expert, gives us our assignment: "Taste all six wines, and pick a favorite." (The audience, along with the panel, determines the best wine of the bunch each week.) And in case you think this is all sip and spit, Isle adds, "We haven't given you anything to spit into, so don't spit on your neighbor." In other words, swallow and enjoy the vino.

We caught a sneak peek on Monday night of Chef David Burke's new SoHo digs, David Burke Kitchen at The James Hotel (opening on Feb. 3, at 23 Grand Street), at a bash Burke held with Food Network's Lee Schrager to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival (coming up February 24-27). (This isn't Burke's first outing with The James -- his Primehouse is already a hit at the hotel's Chicago branch.) First impression? These downtown digs fit the uptown chef like a glove.

When the Steelers meet the Packers, Italy meets Texas, and Mario Batali meets Tim Love, there's going to be a wild Spaghetti Western throwdown that isn't exactly a Sergio Leone movie (although Batali and Love in Stetsons is something we'd like to see). The boy from Babbo and the lad from Lonesome Dove Western Bistro are co-chairing a Dallas Super Bowl Weekend party on February 4th which, with cocktails, dinner, cooking demos, silent and live auctions, and a cast of characters that includes mad-dog chefs Guy Fieri and Emeril Lagasse, is going to be hotter than Austin in August.

Plus, the Spaghetti Western, which may blow the roof off Tim Love's Love Shack S07, is a benefit for the Mario Batali Foundation (supporting children's education, food, and health programs) and the Moyer Foundation's Camp Erin (a camp that helps children in bereavement). Jamie Moyer, MLB pitcher and founder of the foundation with his wife, Karen) will also be on hand, as will Texas Ranger Tommy Hunter.