The Knife

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2

Food & Wine gives LA a consolation prize
2008-04-03 22:24:00
F&W dissed Los Angeles once again with their Best New Chefs 2008 list (we ain't got any!), but the May 2008 issue does include a consolation prize in the form of the "Food & Wine Go List." Those that made the cut: Bastide, Catch, Comme Ca, Fraiche, The Hungry Cat, Osteria Mozza, Paperfish, R-23 and V-Vinbar at Valentino's as well as Campanile, La Terza and Urasawa.

Drink, drink and be merry
2008-04-03 20:23:00
>> This weekend is the Malibu Wine Classic at the Malibu Civic Center, otherwise known as five hours of something close to bliss with wines from Alma Rosa, Fiddlehead, Qupe, L'Aventure and many others, including those from the 'bu contingency. There's also food (highlights: All' Angelo, American Flatbread, Il Grano), but this one is really about the wine. The only risk is that you might enjoy yourself (cough) too much. Not that I'd know anything about that. It's a benefit for ChildHelp, a 39-y.o. org dedicated to helping victims of child abuse. And the price is a mere $79 -- which, as my dad said last night, "is less than I would expect." Be like The Knife and listen to her father. Tickets here. >> Currently, I am the proud owner of some of the most delicious coffee I've ever brewed at home (and yes, that includes LA Mill and Intelligentsia). It's got the random name of Blazing Raspberry, although it is NOT flavored. It is, however, supposedly rare, definitely...
More About: Drink , Merry

Brunch at Hungry Cat
2008-04-02 04:50:00
Yep, cell phone. We forgot the camera. Here we have a review of brunch at Hungry Cat, provided by guest blogger/erstwhile Knife partner D.R. Stewart. He was only too happy to help.Dana suggested brunch at The Hungry Cat. I said something about fish heads on toast. Get past thinking that seafood and early-morning weekend stomachs do not mix and you find that Hungry Cat doesn’t miss. From my lobster roll to her oyster po’ boy (and blueberry muffins with whipped cream and Meyer lemon curd), it was the kind of meal LA-haters claim you can’t get here. Smart, low on pretension, high on flavor.  We got there early, which means go over to the Borders (sorry, mom&pop book shops) and pick out Right-Wing books to secretly leave on the desks of screaming liberal co-workers. Then watch them really scream. [Ed. note: Huh?] 11AM finally came and we walked into Hungry Cat with way too many expensive hardcovers. We ate at the alternate bar, built in their expansion. Again, they co...
More About: Brunch

Fresh & Easy is airless & awkward, possibly doomed
2008-03-31 17:00:00
After opening 59 stores in which the consumer never has to touch anything that isn't plastic wrap (even an eggplant, because you never know when they might attack), British-based sorta-supermarket/Trader Joe's wannabe Fresh & Easy is halting its deathmarch into the U.S. to "smooth out any wrinkles." And by "wrinkles," they mean, "no one's going to our stores" and "smooth out," they mean, "and we're baffled as to why." BECAUSE NO ONE LIKES SHOPPING IN A GROCERY STORE THAT SMELLS LIKE THE INSIDE OF A STYROFOAM COOLER. You're welcome.
More About: Doomed

All' Angelo: Bragging rights
2008-03-27 03:46:00
So last Friday, our friends wanted to go somewhere new for dinner. And by somewhere new they mean, of course, somewhere they haven't been AND that most of their friends haven't been AND maybe a place that they hadn't even heard of but could brag about later because I'm a food blogger, RIGHT? Well, I could be a crap food blogger, which, the recent record will show, I may well be. (That's a crap food-blogger, not a crap-food blogger, despite my most recent post.) But All' Angelo did me proud. A word here: At this point, All' Angelo isn't exactly new. It's been open for a year and it's familiar enough to earn a best new restaurant slot in Esquire. But it's got a weird location (Melrose just east west of La Brea, where storefronts are easily overlooked) and a tough gig, since LA has something of a surfeit of Italian restaurants; like mice, they breed. So this is what happens when you go to All' Angelo and put the owners in charge: Spicy tuna tartare on crispy rice r...
More About: Rights

You may wish you'd never seen this.
2008-03-26 22:38:00
One of these things is not like the others. And here's an entire site dedicated to that premise, as viewed through the lens of German, prefab foodstuffs. [via Gawker via Funtasticus via Coudal] Hi. I'm back.

SXSW report: Lamberts Barbecue
2008-03-10 00:19:00
I questioned the wisdom of Lamberts' motto: Fancy Barbecue . I was wrong to do so. Lamberts is exactly as billed and, as such, I would like them to open a Los Angeles outlet as soon as possible. This is what we ate: Green-chili queso (Fancy defined: Velveeta free.) Fried green tomatoes topped with greens and crab remoulade. Pork ribs. Hanger steak with chili butter. Brisket with homemade barbecue sauce. Homemade jalapeno hot link. Green-chili cheese grits. There were also some smoky ranch beans and collard greens on the table, but by the time I got around to those, I was in no position to appreciate them. Also noted: A bottle of Pinot Meunier from Mendocino's Domaine St. Gregory.  Like a Pinot Noir (and it's related), but with a stronger fruit flavor. How good was it? We took a friend and said friend is returning this evening, solo. Plan to do likewise; as much as we ate, there's more to be had and the idea of waiting until SXSW next year is depressing. Lamberts Ba...
More About: Report

Your head, rendered in cheese.
2008-03-06 20:48:00
Wow, what a colossally bad idea. Says a press release alerting me to interview opportunities with the Cheese Lady, Sarah Kaufmann (not to be confused with LA's own the Cheese Impresario, Barrie Lynn Krich): "Her work has ranged from an artful violin to a six-foot long aircraft carrier, a 120-pound Mickey Mouse to a 300-pound gorilla...  She has carved likenesses of television personalities (including Jay Leno, Matt Lauer, Katie Couric, Al Roker and Ann Curry, and Marc Sommers), sports stars (Bret Favre and Mario Andretti), and a menagerie of sports mascots (for instance, an amazing six-foot-long Cheddar Gator for the University of Florida football team, many snarling Bucky Badgers, Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish and the Chicago Bears)."Apparently, her preferred medium is cheddar.
More About: Head

So I went to Palihouse and it was really nice
2008-03-06 17:20:00
Shortly my life and food will be all about Austin and SXSW, but first a quick word about The Hall at Palihouse: I likes. It's comfy, and when's the last time any LA restaurant has been able to claim that? The lounge area is particularly impressive -- if it were a layout, I'd say there was impressive use of white space -- and the location is swell as it's close to Beverly Hills and Sunset while residing in neither. That said, you'll also be forced to use Barney's Beanery as a location referent for the forseeable future: It's next door. Wine list is small and largely French; so's the menu, but it's a definitely a shade less fancy and pricey than, say, Comme Ca. The two-inch-thick pork chop was pretty divine, but its "sides" of truffled sunchokes and creamed peas were miniscule, as if their true purpose was to keep the chop glued to the plate. (The glue was delicious.) Wine comes in graduated tumblers, in keeping with the whole "No, we're really a brasserie&qu...
More About: Nice

Top 15 dining picks for Austin/SXSW, with photo gallery!
2008-03-06 03:39:00
Ask, and you shall receive. I got emails, I got comments, I got a lot of people sending me a lot of love for eating in Austin . I got a heart full of gratitude. And I got my top 15. I could have included another 15 without breaking a sweat, but 15 is all that I can contain in a single Variety.com photo gallery. Click away; it's a nice lineup. The goods are after the jump.Full disclosure: It's been a long time since I lived in Texas and when I did, it wasn't in Austin. However, over my 23 years in that state, the city became my kinda-Mecca. (Sacred, yes. Holy, no.) All of which is not a bad way to describe the perspective of the tens of thousands who converge on SXSW every year. If you're among them, you deserve to eat well. Or to put it another way: You're a fool if you don't. The best breakfasts in any city/state/country. Fantastic Tex-Mex. And, of course, the barbecue. With that in mind, I've assembled a top-10-plus-five list: Ten places I know, love and can vouch for; ...
More About: Photo , Gallery , Dining

Attack of the 50-Foot Cupcake
2008-01-17 04:35:00
Not that I'm complaining. It was delicious. This came courtesy of La Provence in Beverly Hills, eager to promote their HUGE HONKING CUPCAKES (Discovered! The bakery treat that frightens small children!) for Valentine's Day in particular. Even for cupcake burnouts like myself, it was impressive: Buttercream icing that tastes like chocolate and butter instead of powdered sugar. And while it's a French bakery, the chocolate cake was moist and crumbly-dense like a class-A Duncan Hines. Still. That thing's big. (Picture credit: Tom Sorenson)
More About: Foot , Attack , Atta

The secret to a $150 martini.
2008-01-15 17:00:00
Go to Nic's Beverly Hills. Waiter places beautiful, if oversized, martini glass on the table. Waiter removes bottle of Kauffman vodka from a nest of ice cubes. Waiter pours vodka into glass. Waiter continues pouring. And pouring. And pouring, until there is a scant cup's worth of pure vodka. Your martini is served. How'd it taste? Delicious; cold in the mouth, warm in the stomach and not even a suggestion of those butane fumes found in lesser vodkas, but what do you expect from a "single-vintage" vodka that's filtered 14 times through the silk stocking that once belonged to Marilyn Monroe* (or whatever it is that Kauffman does to differentiate itself from the hundreds of thousands of other luxury-brand vodkas)? It's a testament to my willpower (and desire to drive home) that I didn't come close finishing the thing. That said, was it even a martini? Nearly eight ounces (about four shots' worth) of unadulterated vodka, without so much as a spray of...
More About: The Secret , Secret , Martini

Tastes like a shoe? We should all be so lucky.
2008-01-11 22:02:00
Because this is LA, shoe stores can justify a full-scale blowout of an opening night. Especially when the store in question is Jimmy Choo, that synonym-as-footwear for power/wealth/Paris Hilton/Sex In The City. The new Rodeo Drive flagship operation opens in Beverly Hills tonight.  And, because this is LA, such events have two publicists: One for the shoes, another for the food. The latter will be provided by Patina and the menu "has been carefully prepared... to compliment the event."  I'm pretty sure they meant "complement," although a Patina menu generally brings compliments. However, that begs the question: What kind of food best complements $600 stilletto heels? That's a hell of a philosophical quandary. Judging by the menu, my best guess at Joachim Splichal's interpretation are small and costly things that don't drip.  Jimmy Choo Menu Square Brioche with Citrus Smoked Salmon and Vodka Crème FraîcheAmerican Black Caviar Pavé on B...
More About: Lucky , Shoe

"Mad Money" best movie (premiere) of the year: Food by Silverton, Tracht an
2008-01-08 17:43:00
Why my first premiere of 2008 will be tomorrow, Jan. 9, for "Mad Money ," the first feature released by new indie studio Overture Films: Like so many in Hollywood, I go to movie premieres for the food. And by "so many," I mean anyone who's not associated with the movie, not associated with someone who's associated with the movie or who isn't using the red carpet and its attendant photographers to help his/her career. Technically, "so many" probably refers to just me. But now that I'm not on the film beat, food does have a lot to do with whether or not I attend a premiere. And lest anyone condemn me for being a spoiled and iredeemable snob -- well, you're probably right, but first consider: There's a lot of bad movies made. A LOT. Then consider the experience of said movie starting 45 minutes late (because no one will stop schmoozing and being the first to sit down condemns you as less important than those still standing up) and turns out to be not just bad but twisting-...
More About: Movie , Food , Premiere , Mad Money

Bon Appetit returns to Sundance with Paris Hilton in tow
2008-01-07 17:32:00
I wrote about it in this weekend's Variety, but for those who didn't see it, Bon Appetit, Giada De Laurentiis et. al. plan to hold sway over the Sundance Film Festival once more. As last year, they pair chefs with Sundance movies for private dinners, with plenty of thick-necked bouncers to ensure that private means NOT YOU. I'll post the full lineup later, but it's, uh, eclectic. There's the SIR Ben Kingsley-Mary-Kate Olsen competition film (can't remember the title, but I'm recommending they change it to "No, That Is Not A Typo") and an American Spectrum selection, "Bottle Shock," the movie about the birth of the Napa wine scene that stars Alan Rickman and Bill Pullman. Bon Appetit has also chosen to honor "The Hottie and the Nottie," starring Paris Hilton , who has as much to do with Sundance and Park City as, say, avalanches. Here's the full list, although I expect they'll add more before they're done. o      ...

Top Five Things I should have written about in 2007
2008-01-04 02:56:00
Consider this a confessional new year's resolution: Worthiness slipped through the cracks. I like a clear conscience, so here's a handful of places and things that should have had their moment. Meadowood in Napa Valley. This one is the most egregiously overdue -- like, more than a year, even before I launched The Knife. In September 2006, I made a trip to Napa Valley for a feature article in Variety Weekend; when I got back, the VW section was killed and the story never happened. That was unfortunate because the trip had been terrific (Stony Hill Chardonnay; Havens, which makes the only Albarino in Napa) and I was really looking forward to writing about Meadowood. Not that it needs the press -- it's sort of the area country club -- but the rooms are better than "world class" and those other weird adjectives that suggest some kind of thread-count throwdown. The beds are big and warm, the ceilings are high and white and staying there feels like... well, when you're...
More About: Things , Written

The Kindest Cuts: Let the polling begin!
2007-12-26 04:40:00
Heartfelt thanks to the fellow food bloggers who have painted my fence over the last week with their edible bests. Now, as promised, here are my year-end polls for The Kindest Cuts . Vote early, vote often. (NOTE: Firefox doesn't like the polls; it won't let them load. I'm trying to fix the glitch, but in the meantime IE works fine.)
More About: Polling

The Kindest Cuts/Best of 2007: Eater LA has her say
2007-12-21 17:58:00
Arancini from Tasca. Photo by Eater LA's very talented photographer, Alen Lin. Finally, the foodie wisdom of of Eater LA's Lesley Balla: For me, 2007 was simplicity. I want things simple and pure. Give me a dish with too many sauces or towers -- oh, yes, still found -- and my disgust is quite audible. Every day I find a new favorite, so here goes: My favorite find in '07 (or what I'm happy to eat all the time but probably shouldn't): Arancini. Discovered the fried cheesy rice balls at Tasca, Dominick's, Mozza, and each place was just a little different but all delicious. What I'm craving right now: The lamb dish with homemade ricotta gnocchi at Fraiche. I went opening night and had it, and I haven't been able to make it back since (so many new restaurants, so little time). But I still think about it. The best open: Osteria Mozza. Not because it's Batali and Nancy, not because of the hype. But because we so desperately needed a restaurant that serves that caliber of fo...
More About: Cuts

The Kindest Cuts/Best of 2007, according to The Delicious Life
2007-12-20 19:26:00
Govind Armstrong made her cry: The infamous sandwich at Table 8. The delicious dozen of 2007, as experienced by Sarah J. Gim at The Delicious Life . 1. Grilled cheese: A short-rib grilled cheese sandwich at the bar at Table 8 made me weep. 2. Outdoor ambience: patio at The Foundry 3. Working dinner in the office: Joe's Pizza 4. Sushi: Kiriko 5. Cheese: The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills 6. Wine: The Wine House (with a recommendation from Mr. Todd) 7. New Overall: Rustic Canyon 8. Best celebrity-chef stalker Sighting: Mario Batali with REM, among others, at Mozza 9. Cupcakes that make a trend-hater think twice: Red velvet from Yummy Cupcakes 10. Best breakfast/brunch for the morning after: Toast 11. Best trashy Chinese food: Chow mein at Chinese Gourmet Express, extra Hot Cock on the side, please 12. Best cocktails with a view: The PenthouseTable 8 7661 Melrose Ave. (323) 782-8258The Foundry 7495 Melrose Ave. (32) 651-0915 Joe's Pizza 111 Broadway, Santa Monica. (310) ...
More About: Cuts , Cord , Accord

The Kindest Cuts/Best of 2007: What's to Eat LA
2007-12-19 17:30:00
This is not your Father's Office: What's To Eat LA's pick for best burger Aubrey Torres at What's to Eat LA offers his edible opinion: David Myers for chef of the year for his treatment of food as art at Sona and Comme Ca. Kings Road Cafe for best all-around cafe. The Burger Stand for best burger. A complex, simple beefy burger. Caffe Carrera for best Italian. Armando has been consistently impressing with his wonderful Sicilian home cooking for years. Sona 401 N. La Cienega Blvd. (310) 659-7708 Comme Ca 8479 Melrose Ave. (323) 782-1178 Kings Road Cafe 8361 Beverly Blvd. (323) 655-9044 The Burger Stand 3413 Crenshaw Blvd. (323) 733-3133 Caffe Carrera 235 S. La Cienega Blvd. (310) 652-5992
More About: Cuts

Veuve Clicquot and Porsche Design: A case of Champagne and one very big ref
2007-11-03 02:45:00
What the hell is this? It's the world's most expensive wine cooler, courtesy Porsche Design Studio and Veuve Clicquot. In what may have been the world's first refrigerator launch party, last night the Porsche Design store on Rodeo Drive hosted Los Angeles' introduction to the stainless-steel Vertical Limit. It runs $70,000, a price that includes a flight of 12 classic Veuve Clicquot magnums, starting with the 1955 vintage and ending with 1995. Only 15 were produced and Veuve Clicquot's plan is to distribute each one in a major city. Christian Navarro, partner at Wally's Wine (and one of the evening's hosts) may have a slightly different idea: He says he's found enough buyers for all of them.  Should you want to see it for yourself, it will remain on display at Porsche Design through the end of the month.(Photo credit: Claire Barrett)
More About: Champagne , Case , Champ

208 Rodeo: Tourist trap, defined
2007-11-02 23:25:00
It's no secret or surprise that Two Rodeo Drive is designed for the care and feeding of tourists, preferably those who might benefit from our weak dollar. However, it was startling to see that tourist status literally ingrained in the computer system at 208 Rodeo. Overlooking Rodeo Blvd., just off Wilshire, 208 Rodeo is a lot like a restaurant with an ocean view: Prime location trumps indifferent menu. No complaint there; it was convenient after a party (more on that later) and we wanted a competent, hunger-quelling meal, overpricing be damned. Mission accomplished. However, adding a 15% service charge to our two-person tab -- even building it into the subtotal, a potentially less distracting spot -- is tackier than a pair of Chanel-logo earrings. To be fair, at the bottom of the menu in small print it reads: However, that's not exactly true. In Europe, by law, a 15% gratuity is built into the menus' prices. And while I can sympathize, to a degree, with a resta...
More About: Trap , Defined , Tourist , Define

Comme Ca Monday night: Raise a beer to a record-breaking paddler
2007-11-02 21:49:00
Comme Ça wasted no time getting philanthropic. On Nov. 5, David Myers' new restaurant will team with Alaskan Brewing Co. for a prix-fixe, beer-pairing four-course dinner. Even the charity is charitable: Costal CODE (Clean Oceans Depend on Everyone) was the evening's original beneficiary, but they're now splitting the evening's take with the American Red Cross to aid Southern California wildfire victims. The evening also promises to be festive, as it's also celebrating Tom Jones' completion of his world record-breaking paddling expedition more than 1,250 miles down California's coast (he began Aug. 7 in Crescent City and is scheduled to end Nov. 4 on Imperial Beach, just south of San Diego). Here's the menu: Appetizers (Alaskan Amber) Mushroom risotto, duck confit, maitake mushrooms (Alaskan Winter Ale) Wild Alaskan salmon, roasted endive, gnocchi Parisienne (Alaskan IPA) Paleron of beef Bourguignon, horseradish pomme puree, braised carrots (Alaskan Stout) Brioche...
More About: Beer , Night , Record , Monday , Breaking

An interview with Ron Jeremy, chef.
2007-11-01 20:46:00
There's a new website dedicated to user-generated cooking videos, imcooked.com. What can you expect to find there? Among other things: Ron Jeremy , chef. His knives are crap, but does a fair job of flipping an omelet in the pan, a skill he learned from short-order cooks when he was a waiter in the Catskills. Also discussed: Food on porn sets, his ties to Barney Greengrass and evidence that food is better than sex. I reached Mr. Jeremy at the New York home of his 89-year-old father; Jeremy was in town to host the city's annual Halloween Parade. (Video credit: Brian Gross) My dad taught me how to cook. How did that happen? For your dad's generation, that wasn't a skill a lot of men had. My dad knew how to cook from the army. And my dad did it for us because my mom had Parkinson's. So he had to cook for five people. We all learned how to cook. What do you cook? I love chopping up salads. I learned to cook some pretty good fish. (Dad, inaudible) Yeah, I went...
More About: Interview , Chef , Ron Jeremy

BREAKING: Meryl Streep to play Julia Child
2007-11-01 00:25:00
Meryl Streep is going to star in "Julie/Julia ," the feature based on Julie Powell's memoir "Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen." That means Streep will get to attempt the ultimate accent. (YouTube won't let me embed, but it's worth clicking to hear her introduce the six chickens and declare, "We're roasting Miss Roaster on today's French Chef!") Variety's Tatiana Siegel has the story. Amy Adams, who got a supporting actress Oscar nomination last year for "Junebug," is in talks to play Julie. Nora Ephron is adapting the screenplay and will direct, which I would usually consider bad news ("Bewitched," "Lucky Numbers," "Mixed Nuts" -- "Sleepless in Seattle" was nearly 15 years ago) but Ephron was a foodie before just about everyone except Julia Child .
More About: Play , Breaking , Meryl Streep

Food Sectional: Silvertali wins, Bobby Flay confesses, Michelin chefs bolt
2007-10-31 20:35:00
Los Angeles still loves Osteria Mozza and hates its waiters, the New York Times comes up with a new high holy day and San Francisco gives humility a good name. All that and more in this week's edition of the Food Sectional. Los Angeles Times: Russ Parsons roasts in salt, Leslie Brenner embraces spinach, Charles Perry imbibes cocktail history with "Imbibe!" (and four recipes) and Irene S. Virbilia gives three stars to Osteria Mozza. There's a deluge of support for Brenner's piece last week, "Diners, stand up for your rights!" and a letter pointing out that service might improve if restaurants were more interested in hiring based on experience: "In Los Angeles, Paris Hilton and Zac Efron clones edge out those of us in the professional ranks nearly every time." Datebook rounds up Halloween-minded special events at Blue Velvet, Lacanda Del Lago and Vermont, while Regina Schrambling babbles about something or other. New York Times: William Grimes gets drunk on "Imbibe!" with an au...
More About: Bobby , Bolt , Wins , Michelin

Food Sectional: OH MY GOD.
2007-10-31 16:20:00
What in the hellfire was Regina Schrambling thinking with "You too -- yes, you! -- can be a food blogger: Cooking up a delicious blog is much easier than you might think." (Or as the LA Times' metatags put it, as I discovered while cutting and pasting, "Food Fake: In just a few hours, a new food blog was cooked up and launched as a demo using templates.") Getting into the cyber-kitchen used to take money, for every step from registering a domain name to contracting with a server to host a website. It also required expertise worthy of molecular gastronomy -- five years ago, I had to pay a designer who could write HTML code. Now anyone looking to unleash his inner A.J. Liebling can sign up for a free blogging program and start typing.Reggie! Stop it, please! You're better than this! Aren't you? (That goes double for the Food section's editors.) Of course anyone can be a food blogger -- anyone can be any kind of blogger and by now, most people are. We can also create our own radio s...

Amarone Kitchen + Wine review: You'll need the Mapquest
2007-10-30 17:11:00
Amarone's early reviews suggested something good, as did photos at Eater LA and Thrillist. It pays to advertise, because I would have never thought a restaurant in a location like this:     would produce something like this: To be clear: Amarone Kitchen + Wine is a cozy storefront of a space, across the street from a tattoo parlor (one that's a lot bigger than Amarone) and the Whisky and a few doors west of the Viper Room. And yes, this is LA, the city that makes some of its best restaurants live in strip malls, but the restaurant's owners deserve a medal for bravery in venturing so far from the comforting grasp of Sunset Plaza. And with a swordfish carpaccio like that, they also deserve your business. The fish was translucent, fresh and dotted with capers, olives, orange zest, pink peppercorns and drizzle of olive oil -- and for all that, was still more than the sum of its parts. A ricotta ravioli appetizer was nice, but not as impressive -- the homemade past...
More About: Review , Amaron , Amar

The newest cooking trend: Celebrity chef backlash
2007-10-29 17:16:00
Aren't Canadians supposed to be the nice ones? From Susan Schwartz, writer for Montreal newspaper The Gazette: ...Today, a coffee table book like "My Last Supper: 50 Great Chef s and Their Final Meals" (Bloomsbury, $49.95) creates all kinds of buzz and gets spreads in magazines and newspapers all over North America, even though it's in large measure a pretentious and banal work, to my mind, one full of contrived photographs of chefs - including one, incidentally, of  (Anthony) Bourdain, nude, holding a strategically placed bone.Today, a guy like Bourdain, who by his own admission did not have a particularly distinguished career in the kitchen in the many years he spent in one, fills a place like the 600-seat Corona Theatre at 6 p.m. on a Tuesday when theatre companies can't fill subscriptions. It amazes me. Each person there had bought a copy of "No Reservations," Bourdain's eighth and latest book, from Bon Appétit Cookbooks, which organized the event; ...
More About: Cooking , Celebrity , Trend , Cookin

Movies about food: Do you have reservations?
2007-06-14 04:26:00
Not to be all I heart New York, but that city has launched the first annual NYC Food FilmFestival. Food films can be annoying. For every "Big Night" or "Eat Drink Man Woman," there's a "Woman On Top" (A chef who becomes nauseous during sex can only control her motion sickness when... . This threatens her husband, who promptly cheats on her. She moves to San Francisco, launches a food TV show and falls for the producer) or a "Simply Irresistible" (Magical crab gives woman instant ability to cook, enchant, fill her kitchen with dry-ice fog). God willing, this summer will reverse the trend with "Ratatouille" (animated rat yearns to become a French chef) and "No Reserva tions " (Catherine Zeta Jones as Gordon Ramsey until Aaron Eckhart and Abigail Breslin teach her to become more like Rachael Ray). As for the FoodFilmFestival, it's dodged the braindead and the twee but may have fallen victim to the cutes. Titles screening include "Asparagus (A Stalk-u...
More About: Movies