If you're a fan of Curtis Stone and happen to be in New York, it's your lucky day.
The chef is currently filming a reality TV show with a bunch of other celebs and will be at Burger Heaven at 9 E. 53rd St. from 10:45 a.m. to 2 p.m. serving gourmet hamburgers for the charity Feeding America. It's not cheap -- $100 a burger -- but it's not every day that you can buy a burger from Curtis Stone.
Since the very beginning of "Top Chef Vegas" -- when she sheepishly chose immunity over a prize in a quickfire challenge -- the spazzy, chatty 40-something firebrand with the Kool-Aid hair has been courting the hatred of just about every mammal on the show, including the dead ones she's overcooked in the kitchen.
Even the cameramen seem to be joining in the slander. Each week, her pancake makeup looks a little worse, her puttering around the house more aimless, her early morning pilates routine more ridiculous. If you're looking for someone to teach you the doggy paddle on your front lawn, Robin's your girl.
Call it ageist, call it sexist, call it discrimination against the uniquely untalented, but certainly the bile and vitriol directed her way are disproportionate to her overall annoyance factor -- or are they? This week, the show's editors played up the Eli-vs.-Robin smackdown, wherein the elder stateswoman of "Top Chef" had the gall to suggest a nice serving platter for the Weeble-like Eli's scallops.
"You're not my mom," the snotty 25-year-old shouted, just after reminding us that he still lives with his mom and dad -- and is quite happy with the arrangement, thank you.
Paula Deen had a bit of a freak out last week on the set of the "Today Show" after an NBC staffer accidentally walked into the shot and hid behind a kitchen island.
"Oh my goodness, can you all see? What is he doing in here? Does he work here?" Deen asked Al Roker as she prepared her Nutty Orange Coffee Cake to promote the New York City Wine & Food Festival. "He doesn't have a gun does he? Should we pull out our knives?"
Roker laughed along with Deen, although it became a bit awkward after he asked her what she was making.
"Nervous. That's what we're making -- nerves, nervous," she said. "Is he from this country?"
But all became hunky-dory once more when Deen learned the man did indeed work for NBC.
"Oh so you do work here, well here," Deen said as she handed him a slice of cake.
Not enough tension in your cooking competition shows? Do you find your blood pressure leveling out to near-normal readings during "Top Chef"? Do you wish that "Chopped" had more creepy smoke-machine fog piped into the set? Would judges' decisions be more exacting if only they were accompanied by loud, metallic wooshing sounds?
You're in luck. Last week brought the return of "The Next Iron Chef," one of the Food Network's variations on the legendary Japanese cook-off show, and with it a heaping helping of adrenalin-fueled, hacksaw-edited mania. After just two episodes, it's clear the show isn't going to give us a moment's peace, whether to pour ourselves a nice glass of sherry or grab our anti-anxiety meds -- or both, should it ever come to that.
Saturday Night Live included a faux cooking show last night featuring Food Network mainstay Guy Fieri's (played by Bobby Moynihan) death by avian evisceration. Whether that was more or less painful than his limb-from-limb shredding administered by Friday night's "I Call Bullsh*t" panelists Anthony Bourdain and Momofuku's David Chang at the New York Wine & Food Festival remains to be seen.
"Who chaps your ass?" asked Bourdain, and Chang was quick to rake Fieri over the coals, citing his "douche glasses," and "stupid f***ing armband," and went on to ask a gleefully obliging Bourdain to "catch me and kick me in the ass" should he ever find him similarly adorned. Chang went on to add, "I'm sure he's a swell fella."
We're sure that Fieri, upon hearing of this, sobbed big, hot, manly tears into a solid platinum handkerchief and drove away in his diamond-encrusted dune buggy to have his frosted tips replaced with actual 24-karat gold.
Anthony Bourdain.
Photo: New York City
Wine & Food Festival.
When we got our hands on a coveted ticket to the Frank Bruni/Anthony Bourdain TimesTalks event, we were psyched to attend. What could be more fun than witnessing the outgoing New York Times restaurant critic participating in a culinary spar with the preeminent enfant terrible of the chef world?
Not surprisingly, Bourdain is a natural and answered practically every Bruni question with a clever, brutally honest quip. Bruni began by inquiring about one of the more unusual things he had seen Bourdain eat on his Travel Channel show, "No Reservations." The delicacy in question was a warthog's rectum. After firing off a few expletives, Bourdain admitted that while he was eating the warthog delicacy, he knew he was "in trouble," adding he humbly tries to eat everything that people around the globe offer him.
"Where we're going is based on directors we like and want to dupe," Bourdain said of the show. "We want to make something along the lines of films we admire." Of course, he capped the exchange off with a self-mocking, "But, it's all about me in the end."
Now it gets ugly. This is when the tears start flowing, the chefs get sick to their stomachs and the not-quite-least-deserving go home just a little bit before their time. That's right, we're over halfway through the Vegas season of "Top Chef" -- episode seven, to be exact -- and for the most part, the wheat has been separated from the figurative chaff. Only the best remain, and the smallest misstep could cost them.
Well, that's not entirely true: Cheftestant consensus would have it that Robin -- she of the fiery red hair, weird lips, incessant nattering and "I will survive" cancer back story -- should've been gone weeks ago. And in a double-shot of reality-show irony, this week saw her randomly partnered on a team challenge with her nemesis, Jersey Mike -- just about the only person who annoys us more.
Admittedly, the man can pull together the occasional impressive dish, and once you get past his egotism -- best signified by his countless rocker-fist salutes to himself -- you might uncover the Fonzie-like charm that lurks somewhere within. But when he's presented with a grocery bag full of Asian ingredients and doesn't have a clue as to what to do with them, you kind of wish he would just suck it up and play second fiddle, if only for a moment.
Instead, we get the team-challenge friction that only "Top Chef" can provide: Jersey Mike blithely quipping that his game plan involves "throwing out all the stuff" Robin cooks. The ever-humble Ash makes suggestions to would-be superstar Michael V., but, after being rejected, chooses instead to decorate the dinner table, tail between his legs.
Got the chops, fire, fauxhawk and facial jewelry to be a "Top Chef" contender? Pack your knives and go on over to a casting locale near you, 'cause the hit show is firing up for its seventh season on Bravo. The renewal was announced earlier today, and in addition to taped submissions, in-person auditions will take place coast to coast from Oct. 18 to Nov. 15.
The host city has yet to be named, but Slashfood is banking on at least one "make a snack for pregnant Padma" Quickfire challenge.
See a list of open casting call locations and dates after the jump.
A "Top Chef" host has a little something in the oven -- and it's not a Quickfire dish.
Reps for Padma Lakshmi confirmed to Usmagazine.com that the former model, burger spokeswoman and Emmy winner is pregnant with her first child after a multi-year struggle with endometriosis.
The 39-year-old co-founded the Endometriosis Foundation of America earlier this year in an attempt to raise awareness about the condition in which uterine lining accumulates in other parts of the body, sometimes leading to chronic pain and infertility.
Lakshmi's three-year marriage to novelist Salman Rushdie ended in divorce in 2007 and the identity of the father has not been publicly revealed.
"Gordon Ramsay, at Your Service" will feature the host of FOX's "Hell's Kitchen" cooking competition traveling the world in a "'MacGyver' meets 'A-Team'" food-inspired comedy, Cuppa Coffee's Adam Shaheen told Slashfood.
Find out why Ramsay "makes a good-looking puppet" after the jump.
We're fans of the Chicago Tribune's"Cheeseburger Show," and we had to chuckle as "cheeseburger bureau chief" Kevin Pang gears up for a the fall burger season with a tribute to "Perfect Strangers." It's kind of a sloppy scene-by-scene re-enactment -- perfect for a cheeseburger. Click on the photo for the video. (Warning: Mild vulgarity by French Fry.)
Robin, the thorn in Top Chefs' sides. Photo: Bravo.
Toby Young really missed his potatoes last night. In his return to the "Top Chef" judges' table, the snarky British author and all-purpose pundit was presented with a couple of deconstructed dishes that, at their best, would've celebrated his homeland.
At their worst, however -- and as prepared by Ash and Laurine, respectively, they were at their worst -- the two concoctions were an outright affront to the dear old Blighty: fish 'n' chips and shepherd's pie. Even guest judges Penn and Teller, chosen for their skill at deconstructing magic tricks, couldn't contain their disgust.
Credit Laurine for at least trying: Her cube of halibut, pile of zucchini relish and smear of tomato confit was what an eager community college-student might think deconstructed cuisine should look like. But the all-important tuber was merely represented by a tiny communion wafer of chewy, parsley-infused potato. Missing "what you call fries, what I call chips," Young and company summoned her to the loser's circle.
Ash's, meanwhile, was a mess of elements on a plate, ranging from inconsistently cooked lamb chops to pea puree, glopped on in a desperate attempt to make up for a potato-parsnip side dish that was "too gluey" to serve. As if that admonition wasn't enough, the young cook went so far as to confess that the only shepherd's pie he had ever tasted was his own, which brought to mind nothing so much as Jodie Foster in "Nell," living by her own special language that no one else could understand.
It's not unusual for TV chefs to be loved by anyone. But we had no idea the avid fan base for Guy Fieri of the Food Network's "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" had reached Tom Jones proportions.
At a cooking demo held Sept. 19 at the Turning Stone Casino in Verona, N.Y., Fieri was stunned when someone threw a bra onto the cooking stage. "I don't even know what to say," he said. "I thought it was going to get a little out of control."
He managed to uncover the "mystery fan" with an offer of Fieri swag. An older and younger woman approached the stage, and Fieri seemed more than a little stunned to learn who the bra belonged to -- the older woman.
"It's your mom's?" he said with a laugh. "I have seen it all ladies and gentlemen."
It turns out one of Her Majesty's secret agents lived the high life only in the movies. The James Bond of the 1970s, Roger Moore, won't eat foie gras, and he won't speak to friends who do either.
"Before I knew how it was produced I would often pick at it at parties just because it was on offer -- though I never ate too much of it because of its huge calorific content," he writes Tuesday in an op-ed in the Daily Mail. "Since I have understood the cruelty attached to its production I have never touched it again. I now boycott restaurants where it is served."
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