"Thomas Keller" news and stories

Endorsements are usually left for top-tier athletes and movie stars, but now chefs are in the mix too, endorsing things like stock pots, muffin tins and...automobiles? Yup. Thomas Keller, chef-owner of the revered French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley, has signed on with BMW to enlist a fleet of the company's new ActiveHybrid 7 car (priced at $102,300), for the restaurant's new concierge service, reports Bloomberg.

The partnership is also being honored with a BMW-inspired menu at the restaurant, featuring a Four Story Farm apple-fed pork loin with bratwurst, braised red cabbage, apple dumplings and grain mustard sauce. It's German, get it?

While the restaurant-automobile deal is new, it isn't entirely out of left field -- the French Laundry and BMW share a similar (well-to-do) clientele. "Our guests at the French Laundry are people who have BMWs or are looking at BMWs," says Keller, as reported by Bloomberg, while BMW is vying for the top spot against Lexus, which "remained the sales leader through August," above BMW and Mercedes, Bloomberg notes.

Plus, Keller does have a couple in his garage -- a 5-Series wagon for daily use, and a 1978 BMW 320i, the first car he ever owned, which he lovingly restored four years ago.

Choosing the best of anything is a subjective game, but newspaper and magazine editors love to make lists and then let their readers duke it out. The Guardian, a British daily newspaper, recently gathered a mix of Americans and Brits -- including Top Chef Master Chef judge Jay Rayner, "Heat" author Bill Buford, and chef Fergus Henderson -- to judge the 50 best cookbooks of all time.

Coming in at number one is Richard Olney's "The French Menu Cookbook." It's a pretty safe choice, considering Olney's revered status in the food world, but some of their other selections have people scratching their heads. Julia Child isn't in the top 10 (she pops up at 21). Much-loved food writer MFK Fisher is almost at the bottom of the list at 47. And Thomas Keller doesn't appear at all.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, of course, but to overlook Keller's "French Laundry Cookbook" completely seems odd – it's a huge seller in the states, and has been praised by critics and home cooks alike. Is it a deliberate snub?

Today is National Quiche Lorraine Day.

Named for the Lorraine region of France -- and borrowing from "kuchen," the German word for cake that was eventually altered to "kische" -- the quiche Lorraine is a hallmark French dish that dates back to the 16th century and is still served in France as a light lunch available at boulangeries, or a first course or hors d'oeuvre at dinnertime.

Julia Child, in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, described the original quiche Lorraine as an open pie with a filling consisting of an an egg and cream custard with smoked bacon or lardons. Today, in France, the quiche Lorraine is filled with beaten eggs, créme fraîche and bacon pieces all baked in a flaky pastry shell, but it's still served without the addition of cheese (in the U.S. we often add Gruyere). The addition of onions technically makes it a "quiche Alsacienne."

For the American-born French food expert and chef Thomas Keller's quiche Lorraine recipe, check out Chowhound's helpful discussion on baking your perfect tart.

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Over the weekend, Eater tracked down Thomas Keller and asked about a Thomas Keller Hamburger Joint: "It's kind of a secret fantasy. It would be a hamburger restaurant based on wine so the genesis of it needed to be Napa valley. I could have opened one in Las Vegas or New York years ago, but I always wanted to save it to have the original be in Napa Valley." [Eater]