"Jose Garces" news and stories

• There's a hot salsa competition in Trolley Square -- and they don't mean dancing.
• Wilmington's annual St. Hedwig's Polish Festival is all about the pierogi.
• Which restaurant got the highest Zagat rating this year?
• Iron Chef Jose Garces's fame has spread far beyond Philadelphia.

Usually, when they introduce the secret ingredient on Iron Chef America, we can fool ourselves into thinking the contestants really have no idea what they're about to see. The music, the flashing lights, the screaming from The Chairman -- it all overwhelms the fact that the two chefs who are challenged to make five courses out of this stuff look, well, shockingly unshocked.

Never was that more apparent than this week. When the lids came off the trays and the no-longer-new-to-this-Iron-Chef-thing champ Jose Garces and fresh-faced challenger Kelly Liken were presented with mounds and mounds of stinky blue cheese, they didn't so much as blink. Hell, Garces didn't even look up at the chairman. When Liken unnaturally leaned in and started petting some of the cheese wedges (?!), the gig was up. This, clearly, was not an ingredient that was "new" to them.

The recipes reflected as much. Liken's stock-in-trade in Vail, Colo. tends toward local/regional cuisine, and her recipes were for the most part sophisticated and well thought-out -- except for that final fruit crisp that substituted a blue-cheese layer for butter, just under the crumb topping. Kudos for ingenuity, but -- ew!

Last night, the gloves came off in the battle for "Iron Chef" supremacy -- or rather, Jeffrey Steingarten's glasses came off. On the surface, this short, quick season has been building to a mano-a-mano showdown, between polarizing pastry master Jehangir Mehta and whomever rose to challenge him, in this case, ultra nice-guy Jose Garces.

But while they toiled over hot flames, under boiling klieg lights and in the haze of the prerequisite "Iron Chef" fog machine, we were watching the season's real battle come to a head: That's right, the one between behind the judges table, between haughty diva Donatella Arpaia and the toad-like food critic Steingarten.

If you've paid attention over the past few weeks, you've noticed the increasingly bitchy cat fights, the dismissive hand waves, and the incessant eye-rolling -- from both sides. But last night it reached a fever pitch.

If you thought these two could make it through a tuxedo-and-evening-dress finale without going for each other's jugulars, you were wrong. They couldn't even get through the initial round of the critique. It all started with Arpaia taking umbrage at Steingarten's comment that Mehta's buffalo steak in chocolate-wine sauce was too sweet, which in turn prompted a tongue-lashing: "Don't you criticize me!" Steingarten snapped.

• Just in time for Valentine's Day, dishes that serve two are popping up at restaurants all over town.
• Is the Hershey's Kiss over-exposed? Rick Nichols explores the puckery chocolate smack.
• The Market Basket is overflowing with Burnt Caramel Almonds, hand-painted teapots and reduced fat potato chips.
• Perfect for these chilly winter days, a basic bean soup that can be spruced up four different ways.
  
• Tips on cooking beans from scratch (and some advice on how to avoid the resulting gas).
• Jose Garces is opening his latest spot this week, called Chifa, it will call 707 Chestnut Street home.
  
• The Rush Hour Gourmet dish of pistachio-encrusted turkey burgers started out as a mistake and then turned into a happy accident.

• Rosh Hashanah starts on a Monday this year, which means it could be a bit challenging for working folks to get a festive meal on the table. Try some of these do-ahead tips to make your holiday run smoothly.
• Jose Garces and Marc Vetri are inspiring a new wave of chefs in Philadelphia and making their mark with multiple restaurants and now, new cookbooks.
• Marc Vetri has worked to bring true Italian cooking to a town that has thrived on red sauce and meatballs for years.
• Iron Chef winner Jose Garces has made latino food cool in a city that was ready for a break from French and Italian cuisines.
• This week, you'll find a mortar and pestle, Annie's cucumber yogurt salad dressing and square, Moroccan-style dishes in the Market Basket.
• The Rush Hour Gourmet is cooking up Sauteed Scallops With Honey-Onion Chutney.
• Rick Nichols checks out the Oktoberfest menu at the City Tavern and ponders the dearth of German restaurants in a city that was home to the first German settlement in the New World.

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