If you read one magazine article this week, definitely check out the New Yorker profile of Chicago chef Grant Achatz. The wunderkind behind the molecular gastronomy mecca Alinea, Achatz is currently running the show without a sense of taste. In what must be one of the worst cases of irony ever, the 34-year old was diagnosed with Stage IV tongue cancer earlier this year. Though he refused the standard treatment that would have involved removing most of his tongue, radiation therapy has nonetheless zapped, at least temporarily, most of his taste buds.
Still, Achatz presides over the Alinea kitchen, guiding his employees in the creation of his trademark outrageous confections - desserts of strawberry, olive, and violet essence; squab candy bars; pea and smoked salmon lollipops. Slowly, his sense of taste is returning - he can now taste salt and sugar again, and expects regain the ability to detect more subtleties as the months pass. He even hopes the experience will make him a more creative, edgier chef. Though coming from the man who served dehydrated bacon suspended from a silver scaffold during opening week, I'm not sure what that means.
Dan over at The Food in My Beard has created a hilariously goofy TV Chef Kitchen Quiz, which you cooking show fans should check out stat. He's basically taken stills from the shows and erased the person from the scene, leaving behind a blurry white blank that looks like a Yeti's taken over at the frying pan for Rachel Ray. The game is to guess what show it is by looking at the kitchen. How well do you know Paula Dean's cabinets, Giada de Laurentiis's tile backsplash? Basically, just how much time do you spend in front of the Food Network every night? If you guess them all right, we may have to stage some sort of cooking show intervention, or get you a puppy.
We've all heard stories about food "rules" - the chef who refused to serve a food writer for ordering a Diet Coke with her meal, the waiter who wouldn't bring ketchup to the table because the frites were "supposed to be" eaten with garlic mayonnaise. Ordering the steak well done is sacrilege! Don't you dare put extra wasabi in your soy sauce dish - the sushi chef has already put in the exact right amount!
Writing in the New York Times Magazine, Robert Trachtenberg discusses the issue of food rules with an essay on the Italian taboo against putting Parmesan on seafood pasta. Trachtenberg knows it's against the rules, that traditional Italian chefs claim it masks the delicate seafood flavor. But he's not buying it - he likes it that way. Chefs chastise him, waiters serve him in secret, whispering that they fear for their jobs.
Seems pretty silly to me, the idea of rigid food rules. On the one hand, I'm always keen to eat the "original version" of a food, the way it's supposedly been eaten for hundreds of years in Thailand or made by grandmothers in Mexico for generations, yada yada yada. Tasting things the way the locals eat them is a way of connecting with the culture, of expanding your own horizons. And certainly I wouldn't want to disrespect a culture or a chef by doing something truly rude.
On the other hand, sometimes you just know what you like and what you don't like. And why is it anyone's business to tell you different? I would be pretty darn annoyed if a waiter withheld my Parmesan because the chef felt the pasta was better without. If a dining companion warned me against putting more wasabi on my sushi I would probably tell him to shut up. I really like wasabi. The very phrase "It's a matter of taste" is used to point out that taste is subjective, and necessarily varies from person to person. And does food really need to be taken so seriously anyway?
What do you think about following/breaking food "rules?"
The question is, does the Sexy Chef Costume really work for a Slashfoodie on Halloween?
You see, Halloween is about dressing up in ways in which, under normal, everyday circumstances, you would not. For a lot of people, that means dressing up as some storybook character like Alice in Wonderland, and in many cases, it means dressing up (or down, as the case may be) in some "normal" outfit that has been modified to reveal some secret fantasy, like a Naughty [you-name-it-they-make-it-in-a-naughty-version].
Still, even though we are all truly Iron Chefs in our own personal Kitchen Stadiums, the Sexy Chef is a great little costume -- and by "little," I really do mean little -- costume for those of us who want to wield a balloon whisk and whip you into stiff peaks.
The Sexy Chef Halloween Costume is availabel from Amazon for $47.95.
This past weekend the Maine Fare was held here in Mid-Coast Maine. A celebration of the bounty of all things food in Maine. It was three days packed full of tasting events, cooking demos and classes, fine food, interesting new food products, the good company of other food aficionados, and fascinating panel discussions on everything food related in Maine. Add in the top 30 chefs in the state and it was most definitely the food event of New England this weekend.
Last night I was invited to a special Maine Fare Chefs' Table Dinner at The Edge, the cutting edge restaurant at the luxurious Inn at Ocean's Edge in Lincolnville, ME. It was a special tasting dinner put together by six of the best chef's in Maine, each creating an outstanding dish that would both complement and contrast with the others. Along with the dinner was the option of a matching flight of truly excellent Bell wines from Bell Wine Cellar in Yountville, Napa Valley, CA. As you can see from the menu it was an intriguing , fun, and delicious meal.
If you've moved on from the horror that has become the Food Network to cooking shows on PBS and the Discovery Channel, you might be familiar with Chef Daisy Martinez, who's been cooking on her show, Daisy Cooks!and has published a cookbook, Daisy Cooks! Latin Flavors that Will Rock Your World.
Daisy has put together a fabulous list of products for entertaining friends and family, something you'll want to start thinking about as summer entertaining is just around the corner. Take a peek at the list, which leans heavily toward Latin cuisine, and Latin-themed dinner parties!
We told you last week about Alison Arnett leaving the Globe. Here's a look at her favorite restaurants and an essay on what it's like to be a food critic.
An email I received from Jessica's Biscuit pointed out that the nominees for the International Association of Culinary Professions Awards (IACP) and the James Beard Foundation Awards were both announced yesterday. For those unfamiliar, both awards are akin to receiving an Oscar within the food community. Both recognize outstanding cookbooks, journalism and professionals in the food world, and while there is some overlap, the list of nominees for Beard Foundation Awards is far lengthier. Beard nominees for best food-related website include Leite's Culinaria, Epicurious and Dr. Vino's Wine Blog. There are also categories for webcasts, weekly newspaper sections, magazines, and a diverse array of awards chefs and cookbooks. The IACP is presenting a Lifetime Achievement Award to Knopf VP and editor Judith Jones (who helped launch Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking) and a Humanitarian Award to Frontera Grill's Rick Bayless. Go check out both sites and see if any of your favorites have made the lists of nominees.
There are only four chefs left in this season's Top Chef competition and all will be participating in the Hawaii finale. The decision of the judges as to who will win the title of Top Chef will be decided based on their performance throughout the competition and on their dishes in the finale. As viewers, we have seen a little more of their personalities and interactions, but let's take a look at the backgrounds of the final four, as well:
Marcel Vigneron - Marcel, 26, lives in Las Vegas, NV where he is a Master Cook at Joel Robuchon at the Mansion. He attended the Culinary Institute of America, where his strongest subjects with butchery and, of course, molecular gastronomy. He prides himself on his creativity and skill in the kitchen and, as those are what landed him his job at Joel Robuchon, he is certainly right to do so.
Sam Talbot - Sam, 28, is originally from Charlotte, North Carolina and currently works as executive chef of Punch Restaurant in New York City. He attended Johnson and Wales University, but has been involved in food since his first job as a production chef at Dean & Deluca in NC when he was just 16 years old.
Do you think that you have what it takes to be the next Top Chef?
Bravo is now casting for season 3 of the popular reality show. The only requirement is that you need to be a professional chef at some level. They want both self-taught cooks and those who have trained at top culinary schools. If you fit into one of the stereotypes that the show has used in both season one and season two, your odds of making the cut probably increase (overly confident molecular gastronomist, And, of course, you definitely have a better chance if you are young and attractive than not, simply because most of the competitors can be described that way.
There are two ways to apply. First, you can send in a video audition that is 5 minutes long and shows a little bit of your personality, your daily life, your hobbies and tells the production team what sets you apart from other chefs. Alternatively, you can attend an open casting call in Dallas, Miami, New York or Los Angeles. More open casting dates might be added, but the info for these cities can be found after the jump.
New year, new episode of Bravo's Top Chef. The season picked up again this week with only seven of the original fifteen competitors still in the competition. At this point, the chefs have been living together for several weeks and, as in many situations where you have a group of type-A personalities, things are getting a little tense. Everyone in the group seems to oscillate back and forth between feeling compelled to act as a team trying to screw over everyone else so that they, as individuals, can get ahead. It makes things more interesting from a dramatic standpoint, but the chefs really need to get a grip on their tempers if they want to end up as Top Chef.
As the episode started out, one of the first things that we got to see was that Michael had a wisdom tooth pulled. He made it sound like he went to a less-than-reputable individual for the procedure, but seemed to be getting along fine aside from the pain and swelling. Medicated, Michael was much less feisty than usual. He noted that he hoped the challenges weren't too long and the rest of the tired-looking competitors agreed.
While we're all busily listing the best restaurants we've eaten at in the last year, Adam Platt, from New York Magazine, already has a list put together of where to eat in New York during the next one. He gives his picks for the best eateries in fifteen different categories: Vegas on the Hudson (Buddakan, Del Posto), The Out-of-Towners (L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon), Neighborhood Chic (The Little Owl), Haute Italian (Café Boulud), Haute Barnyard (Telepan), Real Barnyard (Daisy May's BBQ USA), Gourmet Bar Food (Degustation), Makeover Madness (Tocqueville), Designer Steaks (Craftsteak), Nightclub Chinese (Shun Lee West), The Great Lunch (Adrienne's Pizza Bar), Brooklyn Ramble (The Farm on Adderley), Breakfast Ramble (Zucco: Le French Diner), Cocktail Madness (Employees Only), Dessert (Russian Tea Room, Pinkberry and Chikalicious) . And there are many more listed in each category!
In spite of the laws in Chicago and the thread of a fine if they are broken, many Chicago area chefs are planning on turning their restaurants in to "duckeasies" for New Year's Eve diners, adding foie gras to one or more menu items on the grounds that the "holidays just wouldn't be the same without a little fattened liver." Restaurants that will be serving foie gras include Gioco, Wave in the W Hotel Lakeshore and Cyrano's Bistrot & Wine Bar, among others.
City health officials are not surprised by the news, saying that there are some restaurants that never stopped serving the stuff. Health inspectors say that looking for the fatty livers is "without question the least-important thing [they]'re called upon to do" and some chefs even report that their health inspectors have turned a blind eye to it when it is in plain sight.
The competitors on Top Chef seem to endlessly complain when they have to work with an ingredient that they didn't make from scratch, repeating ad nauseum that they feel such things - namely, processed foods - are far beneath them. But using commercial ingredients isn't beneath all chefs, not even ones like Jean-Georges Vongerichten and David Bouley. Vongerichten serves his Two-Flavored Stir-Fried Shrimp in a sauce of Hellmann's Mayo and condensed milk. Bouley uses Heinz Ketchup in several sauces, including the one served with his Braised Hawaiian Yellowtail appetizer. Other secret ingredients in chefs' pantries include Gravy Master, Kraft Singles, canned creamed corn and Dr. Pepper.
How are high-end, starred chefs getting away with using ingredients that you could find at a convenience store? The answer is that they don't advertise it the same way that they highlight grass-fed beef and organic tomatoes on their menus.
Have you ever stashed a Coke in the freezer, hoping to chill it quickly, then forgotten all about it, only to have it explode all over your frozen peas?
We've all heard stories about food "rules" - the chef who refused to serve a food writer for ordering a Diet Coke with her meal, the waiter who wouldn't bring ketchup to the table because the frites were "supposed to be" eaten with garlic mayonnaise. Ordering the steak well done is sacrilege! Don't you dare put extra wasabi in your soy sauce dish - the sushi chef has already put in the exact right amount! 
The question is, does the 
A new twist on the classic 
An email I received from 
Do you think that you have what it takes to be the next Top Chef?
In spite of the laws in Chicago and the thread of a fine if they are broken, many Chicago area chefs are planning on turning their restaurants in to "duckeasies" for New Year's Eve diners, 
The competitors on 
A fraking amazing Battlestar Galactica cake
Iced Tea 101
Pierogies + cheese + onions + kraut = Parmageddon!
