Starbucks 'Trenta': How The New Size Compares To Your Stomach
Famous Death Row Last Meals
 |
||
| Jonathan Waxman Photo: Fabrizio Ferri, courtesy of jonathanwaxman.com |
But Wednesday was something else entirely. The competing foursome went to a place somewhere beyond mere camaraderie -- a place even further than the conciliatory, bromantic half-hug shared by final-round losers Roy Yamaguchi (Roy's Hawaiian Kitchen) and Michael Cimarusti (of LA's acclaimed Providence). What we witnessed last night was an emotional journey, a blubbering, four-hanky love-in.
The warm fuzzies started with the introduction of this group's demigod, Jonathan Waxman. Not only was the Barbuto owner and New Yorker a literal mentor to Cimarusti years prior, but his clout with James Beard and Julia Child back in the day held Yamaguchi and Oprah's favorite Southern chef Art Smith (Table 52) in awe for most of the episode.
When it came time for each chef to pick the ingredients for each others' final cook-off, their selections the best seasonal goods Whole Foods had to offer, rather than sundry oddities meant to undermine the competition: kumquats, sunchokes, mangoes, beautiful bone-in pork chops. "The word 'sabotage' isn't in a professional chef's vocabulary," Waxman reminded us.
