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."

He may be the David Chang of the West Coast. At 29 (two years younger than Sir David) Nate Appleman of A16 and SPQR is on the verge of opening an A16 offshoot in Tokyo, a new restaurant in San Francisco, has penned an award-winning cookbook and been showered with praise. Now, after three years on the nominee list, he is the owner of the Rising Star Chef James Beard Award. We caught up with Appleman yesterday afternoon to chat about his wayward childhood, why he lives in California, whole animals and his favorite kitchen utensil -- a bloody cleaver.

What did it feel like to finally win?
The third time is the charm. It was incredible. It was kind of all surreal.

How did it feel when you were passed over for the second time?
It was disappointing, but I thought, I got next year. (A Rising Star must be 30 or under.)

What's it like to be the only non-New Yorker to win a national award?
That's a huge, huge honor. It's not a secret that the awards are New York-dominated. To win from being outside of New York makes it that much sweeter.

Until this Monday, Babbo Pastry Chef Gina DePalma was the Kate Winslet of the culinary world, earning six James Beard Award nominations for the honor of Outstanding Pastry Chef but never taking the cake. The seventh time, though, proved to be the ... er ... icing. We caught up with DePalma this morning to chat about victory, pastry, her battle with ovarian cancer and her boss, the boisterous Mario Batali (aka Mr. Fanta Pants).

What did it feel like to the finally win a James Beard Award?
I tried not to break down into tears. I tried to keep myself together up there. After seven years, you try to emotionally turn yourself off. In past years I thought it was such a big deal to win, but it still felt good.

Is that why you were emotional on stage? That was part of it. It's also been a very tough year for me. I don't know if you know, I have been battling ovarian cancer. I was diagnosed four days after my sixth loss. I had a huge operation and went through chemo and lost all my hair. I am still in treatment. It was stage four. It was end of the line, but they got it all in surgery.

Hear why salted caramels should die and why DePalma is afraid to rock orange crocs after the jump.

When people think of chefs and restaurant food, the work "skinny" usually doesn't pop into their minds. While the food is often delicious and satisfying, it can be high in calories and fat.

I dine out each week, but I know there's a downside to indulging every day. When I worked in New York City restaurant kitchens, I learned something really valuable -- cooking techniques that I could apply to make healthier versions of those meals, so I could enjoy them more often. I also learned how to fit restaurant food into a balanced lifestyle.

My mission as the Skinny Chef is to recreate those flavors and experiences by making food that can be enjoyed guilt free, more often, at home. While I discovered great ways to maintaining a healthy weight, I chose the name Skinny Chef to remind us that food can be fun, flavorful, beautiful, satisfying and healthy at the same time.

Sharing my knowledge and love of food with others has completely changed my life and put me in touch with so many wonderful people I might have never had the chance to meet. I want to hear more about you and your food experiences, so that we can start together our journey to easy, fun ways to cook tasty nourishing meals.

Responses to questions from last post's comments are after the jump.

For many foodies, becoming a professional chef is a little bit like running away to join the circus. It seems impossible, the kind of bold, crazy move that is compelling simply because it is so unlikely. On the other hand, after hearing dinner guests repeatedly praise your cooking and loudly declaring that you should open a restaurant, it is easy to get lost in daydreams of culinary glory, imagining yourself joyfully preparing outstanding food, day after day, for a dining room full of excited, appreciative customers.

To get a better feel for the realities of the cooking trade, I talked to David Herr, a former engineer who followed the ultimate foodie dream and became a professional chef. For him, the path to culinary contentment began with a job that was, increasingly, becoming unenjoyable. After 20 years in the structural engineering field, he found that "Work was drying up, I was burning out, and I wanted something new. Since cooking was an innate part of my life, I decided that that was what I wanted to do next." After a great deal of research, David determined that his best route would be to enter a chef training program at either the Culinary Institute of America or New York City's French Culinary Institute. After a great deal of consideration, he decided to go with The French Culinary Institute, as its six-month program was shorter and cost less than CIA's 2-year course of study.

Chef Paul Prudhomme was setting up his tent at the Zurich Classic (golf) in New Orleans when he felt something on his arm and thought he was stung by a bee.

When he opened his shirt sleeve, a .22 calibre bullet fell to the ground!

Fortunately for Chef Prudhomme, the bullet was apparently not aimed at him, but had simply fallen, probably shot from somewhere within a mile-and-a-half radius of the golf course.The chef's shirt was torn and his skin was cut, but he was back to cooking within five minutes.

So he wasn't shot at, but I still like to think that chefs, given what they do in their tiny restaurant kitchens, are invincible.

The LA Times ran a piece yesterday on blogs becoming a new tool in many chefs' arsenals, and how they're entering a blogosphere that used to be reserved for us commonfolk. The difference, according to the author? Primarily, style and choice of content: commonfolk tend to "natter about what they fed their boyfriends last night, and fuzzily photograph their latest batch of heart-shaped cookies" while REAL chefs tell the stories behind the food, taking more time to detail the food's inspiration and its history.

I beg to differ. I'm biased, yes, but I think our Slashfood Flickr group is a perfect example of primarily amateur photographers and chefs taking outstanding photos of food, ones just as good as any in a cookbook. And I think people read food blogs to take in the "nattering" about day-to-day life and how it fits in with what fix and eat. And chef's blogs can be personal, too - they don't all fit neatly into one (bread) box, as this author seems to imply.

The article details several chef blogs that have been making waves, and how the chefs are using their platforms to make a statement. For some chefs, like Alison Barshak, a blog is a way to show off and advertise your new restaurant under the guise of giving viewers a tutorial on opening up an eatery. For others, like Michael Laiskonis, blogs are a chance to describe eloquently, albeit verbosely, how they got the inspiration and found the ingredients for their extravagant meals.

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.

Admit it. At some point in your foodish life, even if for a fleeting moment, you dreamt of opening a restaurant. Or perhaps a cute little cafe. Maybe it was to become a star chef. For us, Slashfoodies, a dream job is in food, right?

Snap out of it. You have bills to pay, screaming kids demanding your attention, and you still have eleven things on your to-do list that you were supposed to do yesterday.

And work in a job as a chef? Please. What you really need is a vacation.

Well, now you can do both. Vocation Vacations is a combination of a dream vacation with your dream job. They've put together lists of "vacations" all over the world that incorporate a few days of "work" in a dream job, and have a whole slew of food-related dream vocation vacations: brew master, baker, star chef. Personally, I'd love to be "restaurant critic" and fly all over the globe, eating in a different delicious restaurant every night.

But that one's not available.

Most of us will never get to eat a meal at the White House, joining up with heads of state from all over the world, as well as governors and other high-powered politicians, at one of the most famous dinner tables in the country. Curious about what the food was like, the Associated Press asked chefs, food professionals and foodies to take a look at some of White House's recent menus to see what makes the table - and whether it represents the country well.

With the exception of Tim Zagat (of the Zagat guides), who felt that the menus were "kind of strange", the reviewers praised the dishes prepared by executive chef Cristeta Comerford and her staff, designed with the help of first lady Laura Bush and social secretary Lea Berman. They used mostly American ingredients, with nods to the specific countries represented by guests. Chicken wasn't prominently featured, although Kobe Beef, Maryland blue crab, shrimp and lamb were chosen repeatedly, and every main was accompanied by lots of fresh, seasonal vegetables. The wine selections were also good, with lots of boutique wines that were clearly identified on dinner menus.

A vintner, or perhaps a devoted wine connoisseur, would recognize "Asprinio" as a type of white Italian grape that is primarily used in sparkling wines, although it is a fairly obscure type of grape. It you're not a member of this category, you probably recognize it as the last name of Stephen Asprinio, one of the members of the cast of the first season of Top Chef. He was one of the more colorful participants in the show, not only because of his standout designer suits, but because of his confidence and charm. Stephen was, even when he first entered the public eye, a man with a plan. He didn't win the show, but that didn't stop him from going forward with his plan to change the face of dining in America by becoming a restaurateur.

I had a chance to sit down with Stephen this week to find out exactly what he has been up to since the show ended and what he is planning for the future. Currently, he has two projects approaching completion, one on each coast. The first is called Tastevin and it is a concept wine boutique aimed at 20-somethings who are increasingly developing a taste for wines, but are put off from seeking out high-quality ones by the old fashioned, pretentious way wine is usually presented. Corks, dusty bottles and wooden crates are not selling points to the under-30 crowd. Stephen is doing away with all the stuffy formality of wine buying and keeping his venture sexy and ultra-modern, with Philippe Starck furniture and beautiful displays of the bottles, appealing to his age group by improving the presentation and accessibility of one of his favorite things: wine.

I'll preface this by saying that we won't be held responsible if any of these turn out to be false, but let's discuss a couple of the Top Chef rumors that we heard this week - because what fun are reality show participants if you can't talk about them once in a while?

A friend, recently returned from Las Vegas and "one of the best meals of [her] life" at Tom Colicchio's restaurant, Craftsteak, reported that her waiter said Elia was recruited for the show and never intended to audition in the first place. In this case, the friend is a reliable source, but how the waiter from the restaurant got the information is something we'll never know.

An irate "fan" of Top Chef physically assaulted Marcel in a Las Vegas nightclub by hitting him with a bottle. Marcel needed 30 stitches to close up the cut above his eye. Totally uncalled for - not to mention highly disturbing.

Ilan Hall, who is one of the two chefs to make it into the final cookoff, has quit his job as a line cook at Mario Batali's New York eatery, Casa Mono. As we all known Ilan only knows Spanish food - what will he do now? Could this be an indicator of how things turned out for him in the finale - good or bad?

On-set spies say that Padma might have the munchies, explaining the former model's seemingly large appetite.

Want to know what former contestant Sam Talbot eats in a week?

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.

This season of Bravo's Top Chef is close to an end. This episode was the last one of the regular competition and, as we could tell from the promos that ran during the week, it would determine which chefs would make it to the finale in Hawaii. The real question going in to the show was how many chefs would be competing for the title in that last competition, since there were still five chefs left on the show when this episode began.

After a few minutes of footage that illustrated everyone's determination to win, the chefs headed into the kitchen for the quickfire challenge. Everyone was surprised to see that the guest chef was Eric Ripert, who is the chef at Le Bernardin in New York and one of the most well known and well respected chefs in the country. Needless to say, his presence added to the pressure. The challenge was to use chocolate to create something sensual. The dish could be sweet or savory and the chefs had 90 minutes to work.

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.