Beard and . . .

What would you do if you were a participating judge for the James Beard Awards this year? Let’s say you were a Twin Cities based adjudicator, fully versed in the work of the five nominees in our region. Three of those nominees are 112’s Isaac Becker, Alma’s and Brasa’s Alex Roberts, and Solera’s and LBV’s Tim McKee.

Do you vote for the kid from Milwaukee or Indianapolis? That would be a cop-out, and frankly, our three homeboys are all more deserving. Now the results don’t come out until June when the winners are announced in NYC, and for the umpteenth year in a row, I can’t make it because of a prior commitment, which bites. But I did have to vote for one of the lads, and I will be happy to share that with everyone at the last possible moment. But the question is, who would you vote for, and most importantly, why? Check out the James Beard website for all of the nominees in several categories.

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Want to see something hysterical? Check out the Deep End Dining website and the fun video that Eddie Lin and I made in Los Angeles last week.

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An finally, in what might be the most horrifying piece of news that has ever come across my desk, proving once again that there is no accounting for taste of any type. The Emmy nominations came out, and the she-devil of the Food Network garnered a nomination that I am sure she is so proud of:

Outstanding Achievement in Hairstyling: Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee, Food Network 


As my friend Dan Barreiro says, you just can’t make this stuff up.

Live Bodies and Corpse Flowers

LA Times writer Whitney Friedlander was a Minnesotan for awhile, and after she interviewed me for an upcoming story, she asked me if I had ever heard of Spaghetti In A Bucket drive-through eatery in Plymouth. She was a fan as a kid, and I told her it was before my time. Any ideas gang?

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While I was away, Paul Douglas was let go at WCCO. I read all the stuff on Lambert’s awesome new blog on our site, Jason DeRusha’s blog, and, of course, all the local stories online. I have some personal experience with this issue, and as a former local TV employee and current cable TV employee, I have a take on this to offer as well.

Everyone in this biz knows that the worm can turn at any minute, and any of the local anchors, weather folks, sports anchors, and other “job for life” types all know they can be out at any time. Don Shelby was quoted in Roxanne Battle’s MinnPost blog as telling her he was “shocked and never saw it coming.” I get what he meant, but he is feigning surprise.

Anytime there is an ownership, GM, or news director change or revenues fall, only the most entrenched employees, the most visible local symbols of the stations, have a shot at lasting. Everyone else endures the uncertain moments that precede the first confab with the new leadership or the next quarterly reports. Dave Dahl at 5, Sven at 11, and Ian at 9 are all simply the stewards of a grand tradition, the trusted, local weathercaster. We tune in to Belinda because she is a great talent, and we like her, we connect with her on a human level, not because she gets the snow totals any more accurate than the other guys. I think anyone in that job is safe, unless they make a big bucket of money and their stations ad sales are falling.

It’s simple. What keeps many of us in jobs is that if we work at one station, then we can’t work at another. Belinda, for example, is worth a fortune to 11 not only because the ad sales folks can sell around her on weekdays, weekends, daytime, nighttime, and with her special appearances but also because 9/5/4 would snap her up in a second and build plenty of equity around her if 11 let her go for some reason, which they won’t. Dahl is probably safe since 5 is family owned, and Sven or Ian are new and well-removed from Dahl’s salary range. Lambert is spot-on when he illuminates the move away from lifetime personality association on local news and a reliance on cheap marketing of “better, faster, news” with big sound effects and killer graphics.

The people scratching their heads on this one are those who are unaware that with 500 channels, online access points, editorial placement, and viral marketing campaigns, advertisers have more places to put their dough than ever before, and the broadcast networks are feeling the pinch the most. Consultants are telling GMs all the time to drop the high-priced talent unless they can quantifiably demonstrate that ad sales increase based on their show participation. Everyone will tell you that this is incorrect because they are news stations and don’t look at those numbers. They are lying. Anchors are a different story, but look at what 11 has done throughout the last year, bringing in cheaper younger talent to replace all the established superstar reporters. And Amy Hockert costs less contractually than Diana or Julie, and she is good at what she does. So do you tune in for Diana or Julie or for the Golden Glow brand that is KARE?

Now just to confuse you . . . On a personal-experience level, when I left FOX, they had offered me many incentives to stay. Weekend morning co-host stuff, etc., but the dollar offer was modest. Flattering but modest. They could only recoup so much in a competitive market. And the new news director was not drinking my Kool-Aid. No harm, no foul. They made the right decision, and so did I, but I guarantee you that the numbers on contracts will contract, not escalate, and we are seeing the same on national cable. Five years ago, I would have signed a larger deal for salary than I did last year with Travel Channel. These days in cable, you need to extend your brand many ways if you want to make a big score, but all in all, we still have the privilege of communicating in a medium that is exciting and offers great opportunities every day for us all. The milk and honey days are far behind us in commercial television, but look to your computer for the next wave of manna from heaven. Anyone can own a piece of the Web; it is the ultimate next frontier.

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An update from our pals at the Como Zoo and Marjorie McNeely Conservatory ”The Amorphophallus titanum, also known as the Corpse Flower from the smell it omits during bloom, has begun to send out it's signature scent.  Although not completely opened yet, the strong is very strong.  Nicknamed BOB, this endangered, rare Sumatran flower started to show signs a growth in early March but is a bit unusual. Experts around the world have being weighing in on BOB's characteristics.  The plant was one of the smallest known to bloom, as well as part of the spathe did not cover the entire spadix.  As of 2007, only 122 plants have known to bloom worldwide.The Corpse Flower is on display in the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory to see and smell. Como Park Zoo and Conservatory has a Gardener Blog, along with a web-cam with the help of the City of Saint Paul's Media Services. To follow along the growth and watch the progress, visit the Como Zoo website."

You should go today and check it out; this is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Television Stars and Goofballs

Dhani Jones is a star. The NFL stalwart (Cincy Bengals currently) has a new show on the Travel Channel called Tackling The World that begins airing soon; check out the Travel Channel website for details in your neck of the woods. But that’s not the whole story.

I met Jones last week at the Discovery Networks’ upfront presentations, where all the Discovery-owned or -affiliated networks present their existing and future programming to advertisers. Jones showed up at the Chicago event that I was at along with several hosts and stars from all the other channels. The LA Ink crew was there, the captains from Deadliest Catch, big cat guru Dave Simon from Animal Planet, and so on. Jones showed up, played a classical piece on a grand piano in front of a packed house of approximately 2,000 people, aired a clip of him kicking ass all over a professional rugby pitch, and showed me his killer bow tie that he designed himself. Check out his ties here.

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Last night, I would have thrown out both of the Top Chef goofballs who made the Vietnamese ‘summer rolls’ as Spike called them. I loved what Boulud had to say about technique defining a chef above all else and was shocked at how many of the chefs simply thought of knife skills when it came to choosing a technique to show off with.

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After seeing the new season premiere of one of my former fave shows (Hell’s Kitchen), I am convinced some exec producer made a decision that he or she will regret for the rest of his or her life. The idea that each year they should get contestants (I can’t even call them cooks or chefs anymore since many aren’t) with less and less experience and have them compete to win the job of executive chef in one of Ramsay’s flagship eateries is not just fantastical, it borders on ludicrous. In fact, it is a supreme piece of fakery since I can assure you that NO ONE ASSOCIATED WITH RAMSAY’S LA PROJECT would ever let one of those bumbling morons anywhere near the steering wheel of that restaurant. It would be suicide.

Furthermore, watching clueless non-talent cooking is boring in the extreme, especially in light of the fact that the Ramsay vitriol was fun for the first three seasons and is now stale beyond words. Making that staleness even less acceptable is that he is now abusive and disrespectful of people who he knows in his heart have no business being in the kitchen and have no hope of succeeding. It is like picking a knife fight with an armless man and then pulling out a gun when he starts shaking with fear.

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Speaking of TV talent, chef Chris Jacobson (chef “CJ”), who was featured in the third season of Bravo’s Top Chef, will join Asher Miller, 20.21 executive sous chef, to host a James Beard Foundation Celebrity Chef Tour dinner at 20.21 on Thursday, May 1. Tickets for this event, which benefits the James Beard Foundation, are open to the public. Tickets are available for $175. For more information, check out the event's website.
 

Top Chef(s)

The James Beard Award nominations came out Monday, and although I have not eaten at Bluestem, I have eaten at the other four JBA-nominated restaurants in our region. Alex deserves the nomination as does Isaac, both of who deserve the recognition, which is long overdue. But pound for pound, the cooking that Tim is doing at LBV outshines what anyone else has been doing in this town for the last two to three years. And what’s more, there are dozens of chefs more deserving than the guy at Bartolotta’s. I have eaten there several times, and it’s good bistro fare, but it is nothing that makes it Beard-worthy in my opinion. More on all the JBA news on Monday.

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Top Chef received two nods, and I have to say this show keeps getting better each season. Finally, a show that merges the challenges and evictions that reality TV junkies crave and the rigors of cooking that food fans hunger for.

Some observations so far:

Richard and Dale seem like potential winners to me, both will be there in the end.

Erik is a bozo. Perhaps the dumbest thing I have heard come out of a human being’s mouth regarding food was the insulting, ethnocentric, and ignorant drivel he hurled at Rick Bayless: “I don’t think fine dining and Mexican go together, so he can go screw himself.”  Erik came close to equaling that feat when he declared, after being tossed out, that, “I have a bright future ahead of me . . . .” Not with that attitude and talent level, you misguided idiot!

The only thing you need to know to be convinced that Padma neither enjoys nor understands food: She tried to eat a toasted marshmallow rolled in finely ground graham crackers and chocolate in two bites.

Someone please tell me who does not belong in this group of judges: Tony Bourdain, Rocco DiSpirito, Rick Bayless, and Ted Allen. I need to hear from anyone as to what qualifies this fella; although, he did a fine job explaining why it’s a bad idea to serve corn dogs two hours after they are fried. Then again, my three-year-old could have explained that one.

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According to yesterday’s DailyCandy that arrived in my box, there is an answer for all the folks out there who want to eat some of the world’s most obscure delicacies. Everything from croc, scorpions, civet coffee, and mopane worms can be found at the Edible website.

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Scott Pampuch sent me this great article: “The Revolution Will Not Be Pasteurized.” It is a piece as timely as it is relevant. Raw milk should be labeled as such and sold legally; it’s a no-brainer. In similar news, Rep. Michelle Bachman is pushing for a dismantling of the new legislation requiring incandescent bulbs to go the way of the horse and buggy in favor of the more environmentally friendly long life bulb. Again, a no-brainer. Except in this case, it’s Bachman that needs to have her cortex examined.

LA Nocturne

I love The Soup, previously called Talk Soup, and who knows, I might have that backward. For years, I have made it a must-look whenever I surf by it on TV. I have just learned that last week, Bizarre Foods Beijing was selected as the most disturbing clip of the week—of course it was the penis restaurant scene. Very cool.

And speaking of cool, check out Access Hollywood tonight. Maria Menounos and I sat down for lunch together at Spago last week and chatted about all things bizarre. She is 100 times hipper and sweeter in person than she usually comes across on camera.

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Here is some hot LA food news from my quick pit stop there last week:

Cut, in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, is still the hottest table in town. Lee Hefter and Wolfgang Puck’s steakhouse is now also open in Vegas. Lee is there all this week supervising the crew and showing everyone the ropes. When we arrived in LA, we stuck our heads in the kitchen since we were staying at the Bev Wilshire. We stayed for dinner, which was as good as ever. The tomato salad, tartare, strip sampler of Wagyu, American Kobe, and dry-aged NY sirloin are just phenomenal. If you want a real beef dinner, Cut is nearly perfect. Noah (our three-year-old) devoured the mini Kobe burgers.

The Boulevard restaurant on the other side of the property is a great restaurant as well, and during breakfast the next day, I sat next to Sidney Poitier. What a feeling. Lunch took us over to Spago for the shoot and some treats from the kitchen, such as basil pesto shrimp pizza— travesty elsewhere but amazing here—and a Greek salad. We shot with Maria and that night ate with friends at their house. For about the umpteenth time, we swung by Madeo and got some pasta and salads to go. I love that restaurant.

That night, we stopped by Cut to say thanks to Wolfgang for all his help with the Access Hollywood shoot, and Noah ran and jumped on him screaming, ‘Wolfy,’ as he gang tackled him. Puck, who has a bunch of little kids himself, was quite a sport about it all. And on May 16, you can see what a star the man is in person by buying tickets to CuisineArt at The Walker, one of the best food events of the year.

True Lies

I voted last weekend for the second phase of the Beard Awards. Anyone who wants to see the talent pool that my fellow judges and I had to work with can check it out at on the James Beard website or at NY Mag's site here.

I voted for a lot of hometown heroes during this winnowing phase of the process since we were allowed to vote for five nominees in most categories. There were a lot of head scratchers in some categories (more on that later next week), but I got to give some juice to some of the out-of-towners I have dined with throughout the last year. Lee Hefter, Mike Lata, Tony Mantuano, Gabe Rucker, Gavin Kaysen, etc. My old buddy Steve Hanson got one of my nods for Restaurateur of the Year as well.

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In Tuesday’s NYT, I read that Robert Irvine got fired. The Dinner Impossible star lied about his background in his CV and told the St. Petersburg Times that he lied because he felt pressure to keep up with the Joneses! Why? He was the anti-star, the mess hall cook. How crazy is this? He didn’t have to make anything up for gosh sakes; he works for the network that airs Sandy Lee, the Neelys, and the numbingly ridiculous Fieri guy.

In the same issue, Peggy Seltzer, who wrote Love and Consequences as Margaret Jones, admitted she fabricated her whole best-selling, critically acclaimed bio a la James Frey. Except, this lady could have written her book as fiction and not lost a damn bit of the story. What gives? Seltzer says she wanted to show readers how the other half lived. Irvine and she have one thing in common: They are full of it. They wanted the . . . and rather than admit that they thought they had to lie to keep it, they keep the spin spinning. He thought he had to be pedigreed to get it, she thought she couldn’t sell fiction. Sad.

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The Kathie Jenkins story keeps getting better and better. Friends who were at P & F on opening night spotted her there with a gal pal, so she bashed P & F in a first-peek style blurb, which is ridiculous in the first place since those types of notices should simply be alerts that a place is open along with a description of the look and feel of a joint. To not tell people you were there on opening night when you are lambasting the restaurant is disingenuous. Why do I care? Because I write about food, and I am shocked at the Pi Press editorial policy that allows this to be printed. I believe in transparency when it comes to these sorts of pieces, and Steven Brown is a friend of mine besides being a phenomenal talent. And it comes hot on the heels of her famous Chambers diatribe in last year’s Pi Press where it turned out that she had based some of her writing on a visit there during one of the pre-opening test dinners.

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Now, on to the ethics of customer expectations, a question raised by posters to my last blog.

First off to Tony: You are nuts. The idea is to blend art and commerce, especially in the dining world, which is different than the eating world. And if you have the stones, let us know where you work. I am curious. And as someone who attended Doug Flicker’s Beard dinner, all I can say is that not only was the food sublime, but the vibe in the room was indescribable, especially to see Doug’s staff, and their faces, when he was presented with his dream knife. Wow. That night in NYC was the reason I do what I do. It was performance art; you just had to be there.

If a restaurant is taking money for their food, a customer deserves to say what they want about the level of service and quality of food they eat. And it should be good; open means open. But take the Broadway show/restaurant metaphor one step further: When I see The Producers during the first week of its run, I get a less perfect product than I do when it is 100 nights into it. But the energy is amazing, and when I go to see it again, I can compare the performances. I like that, which is why I dine in restaurants early in their lifespan.

A restaurant is a growing, moving, and changing organism. It is thrilling to see, and I always experience less than ideal service early on and eat dishes in need of work regardless of the caliber of eatery. That is par for the course even though I might be paying the same dough for that early dinner as I do for a better one three months later. But that is the fun of seeing a place grow, morph, and become refined. Sometimes the other extreme is disheartening. I have seen The Producers 500 shows in and saw the stars sleepwalk through ‘yet another’ performance. I’ll take the opening week any day over that dud. And even worse, try going to a restaurant, a truly good one, 500 nights into its run. The chef might not even be there!

That’s why I like eating out in good restaurants. It’s about more than the food: It’s about the theater.

Mistaken Identity and a Brain Dead Moron

Thank God more people read this blog than peruse Kathie Jenkins’s column in the Pi Press because that way I can rest assured that one of my fave new eateries gets a fair shake. I know firsthand that it is possible to have a bad meal in a great restaurant; I have had several myself over the years, but her first peek at Porter & Frye puzzled me.

Jenkins railed on the food to a degree that I found laughable considering she must have gone there during the first three or four nights of opening to make her deadline.

Who would so harshly judge a restaurant so early on? I also found it puzzling that she ate so many items on the bar menu and failed to differentiate that tidbit of info in her abbreviated remarks. But mostly because I find her experiences in eating food (both at P & F and elsewhere) so remarkably different than mine, I just had to point out the obvious. Despite my respect for her personal opinion and emphatically stating I believe that she is simply writing her own ‘truth’ about her experience there, I am in shock. Anytime she wants to have dinner there, I would love to take her and give her a primer in what makes for great cooking. I adore the food at P & F. Steven Brown has assembled a fantastic brigade, and this group can really cook.

But don’t take my word for it. I had dinner there on Wednesday evening. I took Tony Mantuano from Spiaggia in Chicago, one of the best chefs in America and a legend in the business, winner of multiple Beard/IACP awards. I was also entertaining Lawrence Keogh from Roast in London’s Borough Market. Roast is one of the best restaurants in the world, and Keogh has helmed kitchens in two different two-star Michelin restaurants and has directed of one of the most forward thinking, organic, sustainable slow-food movements on the planet in his role on the board of Borough Market. Also in attendance was Robert Gadsby, chef at Soma in Houston and formerly of Noe in Houston and Los Angeles, a man who has worked all over the world with Alain Chapel, Thomas Keller, Joel Robuchon, and Alain Ducasse. Addlyn Thao and Nana Chen came from Beijing and Taiwan, local talent was also represented (Lenny Russo was there), and we ate on what I think was the fifth night the restaurant was opened. Porter & Frye BLEW THIS GROUP AWAY.

The food Brown is doing is entirely familiar to his fans, and if the restaurant management can warm up the room a tad, this restaurant is destined for greatness. The food is world-class. I find it unfathomable that Jenkins could have had such a dud of an experience there.

We began with a squash soup amuse with fried sage and truffle; wolfed down a stunner of a Greek salad that featured a garnish of tomato puree, which had been turned into a sunset-colored crisp of tomato candy; inhaled seared tuna with shishito peppers, sea salt, and lemon; devoured grilled swordfish with a sauce I though tasted like the delicious child of the illicit coupling of white anchovies and a tonnato sauce; and we greedily demolished what is easily the best reason in the five-state area to eat chicken in restaurants again: A chicken thigh boned out, stuffed, and cooked sous vide until it literally melted in your mouth and then crisped before being plated, so it ate like a lacquered Peking-style duck. It came over polenta with red-onion marmalade, a stunner. We had a sous vide lamb roulade of both loin and forcemeat over a shank or shoulder confit, which came on brilliantly braised pistachios. We finished the meal with mignardise and a warm, chocolate tart with nutmeg foam and carrots that were crisped and candied. Even local pastry legend Marjorie Johnson couldn’t contain her glee.

After dinner, when Brown came out to meet my out-of-town pals, he got the third degree from Tony, Lawrence, and Robert, all of whom were thrilled with their dinner, awed with Brown’s technique, and stunned at the level of cuisine that was being executed in the first week of P & F’s opening. When Gadsby and Keogh can’t figure out how a chef accomplished a level of finish on a dish (we are convinced Brown is keeping the secret to his swordfish a secret), you know you have really pulled a rabbit out of a hat. This is a must-go restaurant, and along with LBV, Porter & Frye is cooking at a level above and beyond what anyone else in town is doing.

BTW, Mantuano has a new book out in April that will be a huge hit. He is also opening up a Spiaggia in South Beach this summer. Gadsby is opening two new eateries this spring in Houston, where he is literally the hottest table in town. Don Cheadle is playing Gadsby in the new Will Smith project based on the life of a prison inmate to whom Robert gave a job and mentored in the food biz several years ago. Keogh has his hands full with all his activities and is working on a partnership between Borough Market and La Bouqeria in Barcelona while managing to earn every accolade that the European press can toss his way.

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Congressional hearings into the Westland/Hallmark meat packing company brouhaha could have spawned plenty of laughs and puzzled glances if it wasn’t so achingly sad and disturbing. Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schaefer, the pathetically disingenuous scumbag who runs the Ag Dept., actually said under oath on Thursday that “we do not believe this is a food safety issue” when commenting on the horrific conditions and his own agency’s ineffectual stupidity (the plant has five inspectors assigned there). How could those inspectors miss the obvious endemic abuse? And why not use digital cameras in all slaughterhouses that stream video to the USDA, FDA, and Ag. Dept. as Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl suggests? It is cheap, easy to do, and would save money to boot. And since our tax dollars fund those agencies, we deserve to see inside them, once and for all. Schaefer is a vile and pernicious man who is solidly in the pocket of BigAg. It is shameful that he, as the man charged with protecting our health interests, is the only one defending the process and the slaughterhouses. We need people running these agencies who will stand up and loudly decry the industry for its transgressions and work diligently to make our food-supply chain safe for all Americans. He is simply an apologist for the rule breakers.

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Hope you saw me on the Today Show this morning; I’ll be on Access Hollywood next Tuesday.

Miami Rhapsody

To whoever took my camera at the SoBe Food and Wine Festival on Saturday, please return it. There is a reward.

Everyone should make his or her plans now for next year’s SoBe FWF. It is an awesome event, and this was my first year working the fest. Michael Bloise (Wish Restaurant) and I took on Rocco DiSpirito and Clay Conley (Azul) in an Iron Chef contest live on the Target Stage, and we destroyed them. The Target folks did an amazing job down there, and those lime Popsicle bars are addictive in the extreme. Come down next year and hang with all of us, you will love it.

I think it is one of the top food fests in the country, and I got to hang with lots of old and new friends: Matt and Ted Lee are working on a new book proposal; Tim Love was taking his fans “to the mountain top” thanks to a never empty bottle of Patron; Michael Schwartz; Adam Perry Lang, who is the Daisy May BBQ honcho and the nicest man in the business; Emeril (he looks more exhausted than any human being I know; Rachel (cute dress); Paula (went through the motions); Geoff Zakarian from Town and Country in NYC (congrats on getting married and the new baby, my man); Jimmy Boyce, Giada, Jonathan Barnett (who reminded me of all the obnoxious crap I used to tell him back in NYC when we worked together); Jimmy Bradley from Red Cat and The Harrison, and loads of other great folks all cooked up a storm all weekend long.

My only regret is that I can’t post all my great behind the scenes pics because some a**hole lifted my camera along with my cool new shades.

The best thing I ate all weekend was the foie with black pepper marshmallow at Wish on Friday evening, second best was the carpaccio with white truffles and roasted coconut at Wish, third best thing was the cinnamon cured salmon that Bloise made during our demo. He is a talented young man.

I shot a commercial all night in the Everglades and got back in town hours late. I had planned on hitting the Bubble Q with Cat Cora but ended up missing it, and the folks at Wish blew me away with an awesome meal. South Beach also offers the best people watching in North America, not even close.

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To those of you who read the posts to this blog, here is some explanation to all the questions posed by readers on last Thursday’s blog:

NO, you do not have to advertise in the magazine to win awards at our Best Of event, especially not for Restaurateur of the Year.

YES, there were several other deserving candidates this year.

The Town Talk lads would have been a reasonable choice, and I was partial to the Solera/LBV crew simply because of all the accolades they earned this past year for their exceptional work. You also could have made a case for Alex Roberts and his two restaurants (Alma and Brasa), but because of the launch of Flame, the perseverance of Atlas, the re-energizing of Mission with the hiring of Doug Flicker, and the hugely successful opening of Via, the choice that the editors at the magazine made was Anoush, Hadi, and the folks at Hemisphere.

It is a group choice to suggest candidates for a pool that is ultimately decided on by our editor-in-chief, Brian Anderson. Some of us have Brian’s ear more than others, and lots of thought goes into the decision—and not every reader will agree on who is chosen. Of course, we are all aware of the ridiculousness of some of the choices over the years given the turn of events after the selections. Aqauvit wins and closes, and we gave them the award for changing the nature of dining in the city. Sam Ernst and his boys won for T of C and Red Fish Blue at a time when they seemed poised to do something big, and then they fizzled, and I could go on and on.

The confusion for our readers, I am thinking, is that there is no consistent criteria for picking winners from year to year, so some of the choices are made one year for food excellence (112 Eatery or Aquavit) and the next year for business acumen (Rick Webb), and some years there are some truly deserving candidates who are not selected. I do agree with several of the e-mailers and post-a-holics that the Solera/LBV team is sorely overdue an award from us, considering they have yet to win one, and they have twice created a restaurant that changes the culinary landscape in this town and have twice hit home runs.

I was also being somewhat rhetorical when I posited my ‘shock and outrage’ over the Readers Poll results. I get it, and I have said for years that to me, the Readers Poll is a conundrum, wrapped in a riddle, inside a puzzle . . . or is that Russia? Who cares about a Readers Poll? Any thoughts?

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Before it becomes an issue du jour, the critics’ picks list was divided among four of us. We picked fifty restaurants, and then Adam Platt divvied them up—otherwise, we would all have too much repetition with our selections.

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Zander is no more from what I gather. I returned from Thailand the other week, and several people told me the doors were shut. Is it true? If it is, I am not surprised in the least, despite the very nice meals I ate there throughout the years. The restaurant never recovered from the lunacy of the sale of the breakfast joint and the remodeling of the room next to the restaurant into a wine bar, all of which happened at the height of the popularity of the eatery—both created a confusion for the customer. It makes me sad that a restaurant that existed solely because of a talented man’s passion for good food (Alexander Dixon) failed to sustain a customer base, and passionless restaurants with mediocre food, such as Kincaid’s, keep winning our Reader’s Poll

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Speaking of mediocre, I have had several folks tell me that r.Norman’s is disappointing in the extreme. True or false?

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I had a delightful lunch last week at Red Stag with Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl. Our server seemed puzzled when two people ordered enough food for five. But hey, we were hungry. This place shows promise but lacks some attention to detail. As with many restaurants, with a little more effort and expertise, they could really be doing some cool stuff.

The room is comfy, and the map of the USA from the mid-eighteenth century is one that I have been looking to add to my collection for years; I was jealous. The chili was average, the food all needed salt, the lobster-studded mac and cheese was pretty good, the grits were good, the garlic-kissed Jo-Jo-style potato bats were killer, the egg-salad sandwich was fair and poorly constructed, and the bangers and mash could have been great had the sausages not been overcooked and made with too little fat to begin with. The red-velvet-style beetroot cake was inedible as was the grainy (frozen too slowly) ice cream that came with it. Someone needs to crack the whip in that place. How can you serve inedible cake that tastes like the fridge and ice cream that is made improperly? Crazy.

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I am dining at Porter & Frye this week, and all the early money says this will be a thrilling restaurant from a food standpoint; I am looking forward to it.

Seth, Lies, and Videotape

Seth Bixby Daugherty is making his national TV debut on Monday, March 3 on the Rachel Ray show all in support of his charitable efforts to change the way children eat in our school system. He’s a rock star.

Here is a nice segue: The following night, Season 2 of Bizarre Foods airs. And set your DVR for February 26 for another Bizarre Foods Best Of special with some previews of Season 2. A lot of folks have seen the new ad campaign for the show; if not, here is a sneak peek. These ads are hysterical and remind me of the SportsCenter ads from back in the day.

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Anyone see the NYT piece about the growing crop of "bloggers calling for fat acceptance" that is giving rise to "a virtual soapbox known as the fatosphere"?  Roni Caryn Rabin of The New York Times profiles these bloggers—who include both women and men— who "challenge just about everything conventional medical wisdom has to say about obesity” What a pack of lies!

According to Tim Manners’s Cool News, the message from the fatosphere is not just that big is beautiful.

Says the NYT article:

Many of the bloggers dismiss the “obesity epidemic” as hysteria. They argue that Americans are not that much larger than they used to be and that being fat in and of itself is not necessarily bad for you."

Kate Harding, whose blog is called Shapley Prose, starts by attacking the premise that being fat is a choice. "No fat acceptance advocate is saying you should sit around and wildly overeat," she acknowledges. "What we're saying is that exercise and a balanced diet do not make everyone thin." Others point to evidence that overweight people can be healthier than thin people. For example, "recent studies on heart patients and dialysis patients have also reported higher survival rates among heavier patients, suggesting that the link between body size and health may be more complex than generally acknowledged."

Others point to study of people over 60 that "found that being fit has more bearing on longevity than simply being thin." But the main argument "is that being fat is not a result of moral failure or a character flaw, or of gluttony, sloth or a lack of willpower," and that it may have more to do with genetics than anything else. "We accept that some people are short," says Rachel Richardson, whose blog is called The F-Word. "Yet we seem to think all people should be thin -- it just doesn't make sense." There's also a certain feminist streak at work, although at least one blogger, Red No. 3, specializes in the male perspective, and says: "See, I don't have a problem with fat ... My body is simply adorned, and I'll take that."

WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP! Being fat has physical, mental, and spiritual components to the disease. Obesity is a disease, and there is also a wellspring of available cures and treatments, and the people who think that being grossly and chronically overweight is in some way OK are in denial.

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The recent contretemps re the Humane Society videotape, its undercover work, the downer cattle going to slaughter, and the beef recall all bring to mind the shortsighted and ignorant citizens of our country who actually believe that the USDA and the other federal agencies charged with protecting our food pathways are doing a competent job. That idea would simply be crazy. The agencies, such as the USDA, FDA, and the like, are broken.

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The Mpls.St.Paul Magazine Best of the Best Party on Monday night was a rousing success. The Walker Art Center staff did an outstanding job! What a great place to have an event of any size, and 1,500 of you filled the rooms. The MSP people, most notably Adam Platt and his team, Natasha Freimark and her team, Deb Hopp, Stephanie Peterson, Kevin Dunn, Gary Johnson, Brian Anderson, and scores of other folks should be loudly applauded for creating such a compelling evening of food celebration. Also, congrats to Hadi and Anoush and all the folks at Hempisphere for winning our Restaurateur of the Year award.

Here are a couple of other observations:

Restaurants that are looking to impress 1,500 potential A-list customers should try to serve great food at an event like this, not mediocre food. Chopped sausage at a high-end tasting event is a cop-out. Saffron, Masa, Chambers, Solera, 20.21, and La Belle Vie did some great food that night as did the Puck catering people in the VIP room.

Speaking of La Belle Vie, that restaurant earned sixth place in our annual Readers Poll if I remember the presentation video correctly. WOW. How can you reconcile the Readers Poll with other accolades that LBV regularly acquires? Does LBV not resonate with your average Minnesotan? Gourmet magazine called them one of the fifty best restaurants in the country. I listed them on my judge’s ballots for Beard Awards and for the S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants award (there is a mandatory section for local restaurants in a judges given geographic zone).

I believe LBV is pound for pound the best restaurant in our state for food quality/service/beverage, program/ambiance/innovation, etc. So anyone who thinks that there is not some lingering provincialism in our DNA when it comes to our ability to recognize culinary greatness should be pointed in the direction of the Readers Poll and the disparities it points out between who is eating where and why. I would understand if LBV is not everyone’s cup of tea, but sixth?! C’mon now, people. And for the record, the bar at LBV is a low-key and casual place to enjoy great food without sitting at a table for two hours if that is more your speed. If you love great dining experiences, sit in the dining room for the full-frontal effect.

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Porter and Frye is now open. I finally ate at Red Stag (are you writing that down, Jeremy!?), and Zander closed. More on all that on Monday.

Illegalities

On a local news site last week, there was a lot of poutine chat going around. Here in Minnesota, the idea of French fries with cheese and gravy—with or without the foie gras supplement—is an easy thing to say yes to. In other parts of the country, there are some foods that inspire heart attack paranoia and are considered illegal to serve. I don’t know about you, but this seems pretty frickin’ awesome to me!

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What foods and other related matters should be illegal in Minnesota? Here is a list:

—Anyone writing a menu with yet another Caesar salad on it?
—Restaurants who make waiters introduce themselves.
—A Japanese restaurant with the same menu as the other twenty that are already open here.
—Another Kincaids.
—Food billed as homemade that isn’t, such as bread and desserts that are brought in the back door and sold as house-made. Happens all the time.
—Tuna sold table-side by servers as “sashimi quality.” It’s a misnomer and often is used to push inferior quality fish on unsuspecting consumers.
—A second Zahtar.

Oh, wait, there is a second one opening. I opened up my latest copy of Foodservice News, and there it was. The restaurant in the Grand Hotel that Life Time Fitness owns will soon become Zahtar number two, and it will be open to the public. Zahtar number one is located in the Eden Prairie Life Time Fitness and is available only to members. So let me get this straight: The restaurant and concept is so perfect, so finely honed that the company is going to open another one?! Wow. I am speechless. I heard through the rumor mill that the Zahtar GM only lasted six weeks before he quit.

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Set your DVR for February 26. We have a “best of” special for Bizarre Foods airing, and the following Monday, I am on the Today Show to kick off premier week. First show airing is Beijing on Tuesday, March 4, our new night.

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Did you know they do naked sushi at Temple Restaurant and Bar? As in eating sushi off a naked person. And, according to what my boss Brian Anderson said on the radio last week, not just off naked women. I don't think eating sushi off a naked man has the same intrinsic sex appeal. Hey, that's not a caterpillar roll! And is this the 2008 version of closing for lunch and offering half-price wine? Are these the death throes of a restaurant—when they copy a ten-year-old dining cliché that didn’t work for anyone back in 1997 let alone now?

Hot Stuff

Check out The Deal Hunter with Ian Grant, which is making its debut on December 21 at 8:30 p.m. on Travel Channel. Locally produced and featuring local talent, it should be a big hit. My pal John Kitchener wrote, produced, and directed the pilot. He and I worked on an HGTV series for years together, and he is now with Edelman Productions. Ian Grant owns a shop in Minneapolis that sells beautiful and exotic artifacts from around the world. Several times a year, Ian hops on a plane and travels to remote places, such as the rainforests of Southern India or the mountains of Northern Thailand, in search of unusual objects. He then ships these remarkable finds back to the States and sells them to high-end shops and designers throughout the US and around the world.

The show follows Ian on his travels, revealing the best places in the world to find cool stuff, what to avoid, and how to get the best deals. The pilot was shot in NYC; check out the details.

The cool part is that Travel Channel is going to air their first ever "Pilot Week," which begins December 17. After each new show airs, they want people to log on to the Travel Channel website and vote for the shows they like best. Check out Deal Hunter and all the new shows next week, and vote for your faves. I, of course, have a vested interest in all this, so I’ll be voting also. It would be cool if Ian’s show was a big, fat smash and got put on my new night when my second season debuts in March.

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John Besh, one of the best chefs in the country, had a really good year in 2007. New Orleans restaurant critic (and Minnesota born and bred) Brett Anderson recently named August one of the Top 10 Restaurants and picked Besh’s new restaurant, Lüke, an Alsatian-style brasserie, as one of his Best New Restaurants in The Times-Picayune. The December issue of New Orleans Magazine touted Besh as Chef of the Year, and Lüke was selected as Best New Restaurant. You might remember Besh as the guy who finished second on Iron Chef to Michael Symon from Cleveland’s Lola Bistro. Now I always thought MS would win since the day the lineup was announced; he completely has the Iron Chef vibe. But the food that Besh cooks in his restaurants and the depth of his organization are superb. Besh’s eateries offer top-notch dining. What’s my point? Well, for the folks who have everything and want something different for a gift this holiday season, Besh is now offering off-site catering available anywhere in the country. You heard it here first.

Chef News And Link Me

Who could be the new chef at Muffuletta now that J. D. Fratzke is leaving for The Strip Club? It is a great company to work for, fabulous high-profile job, restaurant on solid footing . . . who’s available, and who would be ready for the next step? (Any aspiring sous chefs out there?) Joan Ida is back in town from Hong Kong, but there are about a thousand people wooing her, including some Asian companies looking to woo her back. Marianne Miller, former culinatrix at Red and Bobino has now resurfaced and is running the cooking program at The Saga Hill Cooking School, above The Five Swans on Lake Street in Wayzata. The space is wonderful, and the town needs stuff like this. More than a cooking school, what the town needs is Marianne cooking private events and using the school as a lab for her next restaurant. Wouldn’t that be slick? Running Red and Bobino should be great experiences for a chef looking to figure out how to work with owners, run a kitchen, and make some great food. I am hoping Miller winds up somewhere other than a cooking school.

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In the recent Food & Wine, they riff on the new Julia Child movie, directed by Nora Ephron, which has Dame Julia being played by Meryl Streep.

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If you are trying to get your kids to eat their greens, here is a good article in Slate on hiding vegetables in kids' food. And here is the related article in Jessica Seinfeld's book Deceptively Delicious that many think has been plagiarized, but here’s the skinny. You can’t copyright a broad and roomy idea that is merely a tip (Seinfeld’s book is full of those). Additionally, the copyrighting of recipes is restricted to patent law. For example: The KFC batter is a patented process and not an intellectual property. Here’s a question for the legal eagles who read this blog: With all the dough wrapped up in recipes these days, will that change anytime soon?

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Talk about f***ed up!  The organic Batter Blaster (approved by the USDA) comes in a Cheez Wiz can, which brings up a couple of questions: Is this a bait-and-switch issue? And, is this one more reason we cannot trust the USDA to certify food as organic? Shouldn’t there be more stringent moral/ethical guidelines in the USDA approval system as well as more teeth into the technical guidelines? The idea that something is not 100 percent organic and can be labeled as such is one of the great tragedies of the modern food culture.

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I love cheese, check this out. 

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Beer might be just as good as a bottle of Gatorade (if not better) for the body after a workout.

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Here is Time magazine's slideshow of last-meal choices of famous chefs. Loving Mario's vegetal mullet. And Gary Danko's portrait in a Roman feast. The book will be out soon. Love this idea.

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Christopher Brosius (perfumer) has created a food series. Here's the report from New York magazine.

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Looking for a good guide on, which produce has the most pesticides? Here’s one.

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This is another good culinate article by Curt Ellis, one of the King Corn filmmakers, about eating corn and making November a no-corn month. Did anyone see Scott Goldberg’s KARE 11 Extra reports about ethanol? He gets it. The only reason so much corn is being grown and so much ethanol is being produced is because of government subsidies. No one buys it; no meaningful about of cars are made to support the fuel type; and if you do have a car that supports the fuel type, you are saving sixty cents a gallon, but the fuel miles per gallon rating is lower, so you actually get no meaningful ecological or financial benefit. Speaking of cars, here is a contest in which participants had to lick chocolate off the grill of a Jeep Liberty to win it. The world is ending.

The Last Week Show

Last week I was on the Today show. FUN! Here are the highlights:

I revisited some of my fave NYC haunts while shooting the taped package they ran right before my live segment with one of their correspondents. Jenna Wolfe and I went to Carnegie Deli, Jewel Bako, Bowery Congee, and several other hot spots that I adore. They did a nice job with the taped piece, but they played the “fear factor” card a bit too much, I thought. The day of the show, we arrived nice and early and hung in the green room with Chris Matthews and his entourage of brainy politicos. Matthews is a baseball nut, and we chatted about the Yanks, Twins, and the AL. Twinkle (Jenna Bush) arrived amidst a hailstorm of security. The First Family’s personal security detail is an awesome thing to see in action, especially up close. Originally I was going to be on the couch with Matt, but since Jenna did three segments inside with Anne, the producers thought I should be outside on the plaza with all four hosts. It was a difficult thing to pull off. Four minutes, five egos, ten plates of food . . . . I would have preferred to spend the time talking to one host about sharing food and experiencing other cultures, but I’ll have to wait until next time. Meredith and Matt are very kind and sincere people, very welcoming. Roker is a goofball. Curry is phenomenal. She is the most calm and inclusive host on the set.

My wife and I were staying at the Ritz, just a block away as the venerable Plaza Hotel turned a hundred years old. Matthew Broderick cut the cake. We ran downtown before the scene got too hectic and had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Da Silvano. This restaurant has been open since I was a young man, and it’s nothing fancy—a small little trattoria—but the food is great and the people-watching even better. We had thin buttery slices of prosciutto that come served on a sheet of thick butcher paper, a large bowl of steamed mussels, sautéed calf's liver with sage and brown butter, and some spaghetti puttanesca . . . but the stars of the night were the twelve truffle courses. The fresh white truffles of Alba are just now in markets, and the owner of the restaurant showered us with a few dishes that are part of their fall truffle menu. First we tried the creamy white polenta, topped with a quartet of perfectly fried quail eggs crowned with a small snowdrift of shaved white truffle. Next up was a small softball of milky and warm burrata with shaved bottarga and white truffle. Oh my lord, are white truffles good.

 

Plaza birthday cake.

Below: Tongue and brisket at the Carnegie; polenta with quail eggs and truffles.

 

Below: Yoshi at Jewel Bako sharpening his knives; shinso flowers; octopus sashimi with green tea salt, pickled cucumber, and shiso flowers at Jewel Bako.

 

And finally, everybody loves durian . . . !

Top Chef . . . and Many Links

After watching the Top Chef finale last night, I can assure you justice was served. Hung deserved to win. Casey and Dale both could have won, but in the finale meal, they underwhelmed. It also shows that ultimately, the best dish wins. Hung's sous vide duck was the best plate last night, according to those who ate it. Listening to Ted Allen and Padma Lakshmi talk food is a painful experience. Neither one is a legitimate opinion-maker or really knows what they are talking about. They are created characters, essentially. All you had to do was listen to Rocco, Todd, Michelle, Colicchio, et al. talking about the food throughout the finale to see that Allen and Lakshmi are devoid of any credibility. Congrats to all, especially our own Brian Malarkey, who very easily could have been in the final three. The New York Daily News has this exclusive web-interview with the producer of Top Chef about the show.

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So much to link to today.  For starters, David Bouley is opening a restaurant with Yoshiki Tsuji in New York. Tsuji is the president of Japan's largest professional cooking school. This merging of East and West is quite possibly the largest and most important food trend of the last fifty years.

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You may have already seen this, but Ruhlman and Bourdain are doing "The Golden Clog" awards.

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Frank Bruni writes about restaurant nomenclature in his blog.

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Want to help improve school foods? (Want to watch Jared from the Subway commercials talk policy on C-SPAN?)

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Check out this cool toy.

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My friends in Chicago all tell me mixed things about Grant Achatz's health (Achatz has mouth cancer). But along similar lines, a reader of Grub Street wrote in for suggestions on where he should eat before an operation that may take away his sense of taste. Grub Street enlists Eric Ripert to cook him a meal he'll never forget.

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I am a huge stickler for labels and info. Here is an awesome little video on PLU codes and how to read them. The skinny? Conventional: four digits. Organic: five digits beginning with a nine. Genetically modified: five digits beginning with an eight.

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Here is a NYT article on New Yorkers that eat outdoors—that is, suffer through eating outdoors just to be more European, even though eating outside sucks. I don't know about you, but it would be great to have more three-season outdoor-eating venues here in the Twin Cities.

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Do you remember all those bad boy chef stories that mentioned Mario Batali? Here is a wind-up Mario toy that flips pasta in one hand and has a bottle of scotch in the other. By the way, he looked physically worse on Jimmy Kimmel the other night than I have ever seen him. 

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Here's a food-on-stick that sounds awesome: tornado potato.

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Next week, I'll fill you in on my Today Show experience, with pictures.

TV Time

On November 26–27, Tony Bourdain will be in town promoting his new book, No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach. While he will be doing a lot of the usual press events and media visits during his book tour stopover in the Twin Cities, there is one event you will not want to miss. On November 27, Tony will be signing books and giving a talk at Solera, and Tim McKee told me yesterday that for $80, you get some vino, some tapas, a copy of the book, an opportunity to have TB sign it, and a seat for Tony’s chat. With only 200 seats, this is sure to sell out fast, and I can guarantee you that you will have the time of your life.

TB is a brilliant writer and an acid-tongued, keenly attuned observer of the food world. Need proof? Check out No Reservations on Travel Channel, or read one of his books. Or better yet, check out this little bon-bon. Funny stuff and absolutely spot-on. Who hasn’t had some of the same feelings looking at much of the abominable menu items in our city? Any particulars you can think of?

As good as he is on TV or on paper, he’s even funnier and more deliciously evil when you hear him speak in a setting like Solera. Call the restaurant for tix.

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Anyone see Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares last night on Fox? It’s the American ideation of Gordon Ramsay’s first big BBC hit. Set your TIVO—it’s the best food show on television, bar none. It has all the dysfunctional, reality-TV trainwreck characters I love to watch, plus it beautifully illustrates the day-to-day business of running a restaurant . . . a restaurant perilously perched on reality’s precipice, but a restaurant nevertheless. The newly added, saccharine twist in last night’s episode (gifting the restaurant with a new kitchen) is an element in the US version of the show that I’m not crazy about, but the program was too good to turn away from.

The second-best food show on TV gets a boost from Minneapolis Oceanaire alum and current San Diego Oceanaire chef Brian Malarkey, who made it to the final five on Bravo’s Top Chef. Anyone see last night’s episode? Watching Hung, Brian, Dale, Casey and Sara re-create Le Cirque’s classic papillote of bass—while Padma and LC owner Sirio Maccione looked on—was odd in the extreme. I think the one person who didn’t belong was Padma. She’s a poser. Is it just me or has she gotten more pretentious, haughtier, and more patrician with each season? I can’t wait to ask Brian about her when I talk to him on Friday on FM107. Sara got the boot last night, in case you missed it. Now the four finalists are off to Aspen, and Hung looks unstoppable.

P.S. A half-dozen people e-mailed to tell me that Steven Brown is gone from Harry’s and will be the new chef at the restaurant in the new Ivy development downtown. In response to several posters, I  guess I could have easily called Steven or e-mailed him, but it's so much more fun to ask all of you. Besides, why put him on the spot when he technically still works there (or did through last week)?

P.P.S. Phil Robert’s new steakhouse, Pittsburgh Blue, is open, and my northwest metro spies tell me it’s a huge hit already.

Flattery Will Get You . . .

I love the vitriol on this blog's comments page—nothing like real discourse on real issues. It is rare that someone’s post inspires me to respond within the context of the blog itself but a loyal community member took time from his day to ask me why I occasionally slip into political chat and made the point of looking elsewhere when I don't stick 100 percent to food fodder on this page. Look elsewhere, my friend. And a small reminder . . . a famous man once said all politics is local, and since we all grow where we are planted and we all eat where we live, and since all of our collective wisdom would say that we generally can agree that politics touches what we eat every day, I would say this is the best place to talk about real issues, even political ones. From who gets licensed to operate a restaurant, to who gets subsidized to grow corn, from minimum livable wages for single moms waitressing three shifts a week for extra dough to feed their kids to the import restrictions on unpasteurized cheese . . . need I go on?

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Today the website that I run, AndrewZimmern.com, debuts its newest feature, the Kitchen Table. I love it, let me know what you think.

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Mike Smith, the director of programming at KSTP, e-mailed me last week to see if I was interested in co-hosting the new Good Company–style TV show that KSTP-TV is producing. The 3 p.m. TV show for women “is about life and living in Minnesota. Not just the fashion, fun, and food. But, also, something to take away from it about money, or education, or politics, etc . . .” is how Mike described it to me. Did anyone go to the cattle-call auditions at Mall of America last month for this venture? What do you think about the revival of the old Steve and Sharon goldmine? I was on that show in 1992, and always thought it was the perfect vehicle for this market. Thoughts?

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Anyone heard of watermelon steak?  I love this kind of dish.

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In our police-blotter quip of the day, the New York Post reports that: "Last month's felony convictions could mean last call for the Ciprianis. The family could be forced to sell off crown jewels in their fine-dining and party empire after family corporations that run the Rainbow Room and the Ciprianis' downtown and Grand Central hot spots pleaded guilty to tax evasion."

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Also from the NYP: Kitchen Nightmares (the BBC version) is my fave food-related TV show. Based on Gordon Ramsay's current popularity, it seems that these days the measure of success you derive is directly proportional to the number of lawsuits you have pending against you.

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And speaking of Ramsay, how disappointing was last night’s Hell’s Kitchen finale? Neither one of these characters can run their own kitchen in the sense that the show intimates. One look at the winners from the last two seasons will show you where Rock is headed. I love this show for the train wreck of the personalities that collide each week, not to be told in the season’s conclusion that these two are ‘great chefs’ . . . annoying. I think for next season—and based on the boffo ratings there will be one—they need to pick the craziest kitchen psychopaths with the most talent. Sort of merge their content with the Top Chef concept and make everyone happy.

Trade Talk

The collapse of the 35W bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis is one of the most horrific local news stories in recent memory. Here at Chow & Again, our thoughts and prayers are with everyone whose lives have been touched by this tragedy. It's too soon to start asking certain types of questions, but road and highway safety continues to be a major concern for all Americans as our local and national surface-transport infrastructure ages. Be safe. Moving on . . .

Rumors flew last week that there would be a major shake-up in the local pastry world. If you know what I am talking about, good. If not, I feel your pain. Look to this page again tomorrow morning for the news that I learned on Monday and had to swear to secrecy over. Suffice to say that all parties and restaurants involved are going to be very happy . . . and that this tidbit involves the two most talented and awarded pastry queens in the Twin Cities. I am biting my lip I am so eager to spill this one . . . but a promise is a promise. Check back over coffee Friday morning—this one is bigger than the Wolves-Celtics deal.

Two weeks ago, I am on a plane flying back from LA with my wife, and who is sitting behind us but Wolves guard Ricky Davis? I am a huge sports geek, but I don’t recognize him. Despite his bigger-than-average size, guards are small, and so I don’t notice him on the plane, except that the flight attendants are making a big deal out of the dude, and he’s singing hip-hop tunes the whole flight home. I figure he’s a huge music star . . . besides the great voice, the fella’s wearing a ton of real diamonds and a killer watch. At one point, he leans between the seats and taps me on the shoulder and says, “Excuse me for interrupting you, but I am a huge fan, and we watch you all the time at my house. How did you eat that fish in Trinidad?”

Well, I flipped out when he introduced himself to Rishia and I, and then, when I asked him if the team would ever trade KG, he emphatically said no way, insisting that no team would be stupid enough to trade an NBA player of Kevin’s caliber without getting equal value in return. Guess Ricky forgot about Kevin McHale and Glenn Taylor’s deficient gene pool in the smarts department. How is it that Boston comes out looking like the team to beat in the East and the Wolves look like they are starting over again . . . for the ninth time? Ugh.

Hot stove-talk from the world of food TV . . . . The Next Iron Chef is a new series premiering October 7 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Food Network. Here’s the skinny: Food Network is looking to add one more Iron Chef America to the world’s most exclusive culinary club of Bobby, Mori, Mario, and Cat. But the contestants/finalists will each have at least ten years of culinary experience, including a minimum of five years at an executive chef level. Taping at a secret, decked-out “Chairman’s Lair” at the Culinary Institute of America, contestants will go head to head for the title of the Next Iron Chef through a series of battles determined by the Chairman to measure their culinary abilities. The six-part series will premiere October 7, with the first battle for the newly crowned Iron Chef premiering November 18 at 9 p.m. I am going to be interviewing the "loser" of the previous week’s show about his or her experience, what it was like competing against such a distinguished group of chefs, etc., as well as doing a series of interviews with the Chairman himself and host Alton Brown, highlighting the week’s events and the participating chef-competitors. Look for news on this as the months pass by.

The eight contestants include:

– John Besh (New Orleans, LA) Executive Chef, Restaurant August, Besh Steak, Lüke, and La Provence

– Chris Cosentino (San Francisco, CA) Executive Chef, Incanto

– Jill Davie (Santa Monica, CA) Executive Chef, JOSIE

– Traci Des Jardins (San Francisco, CA) Executive Chef & Co-owner, Jardinière, Mijita, and Acme Chophouse

– Gavin Kaysen (San Diego, CA) Chef de Cuisine, El Bizcocho at the Rancho Bernardo Inn

– Morou Ouattara (Washington, DC) Executive Chef & Owner, Farrah Olivia

– Aarón Sánchez (New York, NY) Executive Chef & Owner, Centrico and Paladar

– Michael Symon (Cleveland, OH) Executive Chef & Owner, Lola and Lolita

Here’s my take, the two chefs with the best chance of winning are Besh and Symon, both of whom have the skills and the personalities to handle the competition. Anyone local that you think could handle the Iron Chef pressure cooker and emerge victorious? I like Jack Reibel’s chances in stuff like this—a great cook and tough as a sledgehammer.

Shockwaves

As every loyal reader of this blog knows, I love watching Man vs. Wild on Discovery. I consider Bear Grylls one of my fave TV personalities, and having spent some time with him, I can assure you that he is as charming and self-effacing in real life as he is on camera. And he’s the real deal, a ballsy outdoorsman and survivalist.

But this story is disturbing: The Hollywood Reporter is sending shockwaves through the community that I swim in. I can tell you that we wrestle with the same issues as mentioned in the HR piece on our show, Bizarre Foods, and we have continued to hold fast to our commitment never to fake or stage a scene or to say we have eaten something that we haven’t or been somewhere we haven't been. M v. W only works because of the idea of ‘genuine jeopardy’ that the host is placed in at all times. If that notion is ever forsaken and M v. W is only wild some of the time, or even mostly wild, then it’s a piece of fakery, spun and marketed to achieve maximum exposure. I hope that Grylls turns out to be all wild, all the time, and that if anyone high-tailed it back to a warm tent somewhere it was his crew and not him. If this story goes anywhere, I’ll let you know.

No shock here. A few weeks ago I hosted a premiere party for No Reservations, the Catherine Zeta-Jones remake of a German film about an accomplished chef and her changing life-course when her orphaned niece comes to live with her. Mpls.St.Paul and FM 107 cohosted the event with me. We had some lengthy film discussion over the next few days here on this blog, with readers submitting some fabulous posts on food-friendly movies. Sara Dickerman is one of my favorite writers, and here’s her Slate take along with a slideshow!

Popular Science comes out with a shockingly cool gadget list every so often that I drool over. PS’s hot-gadgets list this month is no exception, and the mesh wi-fi system, the new JVC HD camcorder, and the GPS watch are high on my list of must-haves these days.

Looking to shock your friends with your awesome online digital skills? Animax Entertainment developed a user-generated mash-up contest for ice-cream maker Dippin' Dots. Users can go online and utilize a Flash-based tool to create a short featuring the Dippin' Dots mascot, Packy, for a chance to win cash and prizes. The deadline to enter is August 14.

Shocking food! Is it true that lamb brains are on the menu at Saffron?? Holy crap, that’s awesome!

Bad News, Good News

Bad: Grant Achatz says he has been diagnosed with an advanced-stage of carcinoma of the mouth. Grant is the chef at Chicago’s Alinea restaurant, an eatery that for the last two years has been, to my mind, the most important restaurant in the country. My meals at Alinea have been nothing short of revelatory, and Grant’s cuisine is, for me, the perfect blend of classical and experimental. Achatz, the winner of the James Beard Foundation's Best Chef award for the Great Lakes region this last year, also won the foundation's Rising Star Chef award in 2003. I am sure that everyone will send their good vibes to Grant and his family.

Good: Doug Flicker fans eager to sample something with more meat on the bone than the current menu fare at Mission American Kitchen can call or visit Mission's website to make reservations for Doug’s new chef’s dinners that are being offered on weekends. This is great news for the food obsessed . . . like me.

Sad and Bad: CNN International bureau reported last night that Mexican farmers are tilling under the agave cacti that they have planted in large quantities over the last three to five years to make high-end tequilas for the growing demand here and abroad (the cacti take six years to mature). And guess what? They are planting corn in those old cactus fields in order to supply ethanol plants, cashing in on the high prices on maize. And guess where they are selling most of it??? Right here in America, where we are subsidizing American farmers to grow corn at a staggering rate . . . but now our government will be double-dipping, and soon the American farmer will be getting hosed just like so many other subsidized American businesses who eventually get undercut by imports (aquaculture was one), proving once again that no one in Washington knows what they are doing.

Good and Glad: Some media inside stuff that I find fascinating . . . . CNN's YouTube debates brought in the intended younger 18–34 demo. A total of 407,000 young folks tuned in—a record for the demo for a debate televised on cable news. The telecast averaged 2.6 million viewers overall, according to Nielsen, placing it just behind CNN's June 3 Democratic debates in New Hampshire (which averaged 2.8 million viewers.) That’s a cool thing.

NBC Digital Entertainment announced new digital extensions for its fall line up of new and returning shows last week. Highlights include:

Bionic Woman – A weekly "anatomy of a scene" feature will go behind the scenes and show users how scenes are filmed using camera tricks, special effects, and other secrets. 

Chuck – Chuck's "brain" will host hotspots that reveal top-secret government information and bonus videos. NerdHerdHelp.com will host additional exclusive content.

Journeyman – Look for an interactive online video timeline, an online trivia quiz, and "then" and "now" photos.

Life – Fans will be able to further investigate Billy's conspiracy wall as he learns more about who put him behind bars. Users will also enjoy Billy's online "Zen Guide To Life."

30 Rock – Kenneth the Page will give users a tour of NBC and "TGS" ("The Girly Show").  Frank will also blog from the writer's room.

Deal or No Deal – Fans will catch up with their favorite winners and see how they spent their winnings through a web-exclusive series that follows up and tracks past contestants.

Las Vegas – A "making of" Production Video Diary that will give users a behind-the-scenes look at everything from the racy costume department to set design.

Why is this news, as any TV insider knows that everyone is creating massive video and film commitments available online? Because guys like Joost cofounder Niklas Zennstrom said at a press event in Estonia that the P2P TV-sharing service he owns has attracted more than one million beta testers. Joost will launch by December, and when it does, it will bring a flood of competition. By March 2008, you will be able to download TV and film with ease and watch TV from any PC with the right hardware/software, even from your own cable provider. The huge investments that traditional media companies are making is staggering.

Sad and Bad: Anyone wanting to read more about food and fuel issues and rising prices all across the board should check out this Texas NBC affiliate looking at supply issues and the rising cost of dairy.

With so many restaurants opening and closing, articles like this pop up all over the net. I know that Lessley was writing something fluffy and tongue-in-cheek on Chow, but it does raise some bigger issues.

I know it’s unpopular to many who think that we can ignore the obvious and shouldn’t talk about the 500-pound gorilla in the room, but many restaurants open and you know that it is just a matter of time before they close . . . sad, but true. For example, is anyone going to Temple to eat dinner these days? If they don’t get some bodies in there, it will simply cannibalize Pham's other restaurants from a cash standpoint. When the owner has to go into the kitchen because he fired the chef, it is never a good sign, I don’t care what anyone says. In a healthy restaurant he would hire another quality chef. Send in your suggestions for restaurants that are on life support in one way or another. I’d love to hear your view.

Inspiration

Hell’s Kitchen made the top ten in TV ratings the last few weeks. WOW! See ya later, Melissa—take your fake lashes and that weird thing on your chin and hit the road . . . . I’m feeling very Ramsay-ish today. And those ratings represent a TV miracle.

Ratatouille is a movie miracle, capturing the tone and tenor of a real kitchen in more ways than any food movie in recent memory. At the premiere of No Reservations, the new Cat Zeta-Jones remake of the German classic Mostly Martha, I was reminded just how tough it is to make a great food scene or food movie that rings true to culinistas. And this makes Pixar’s achievement all the more remarkable. Michael Ruhlman on his blog called it the “first movie ever to get the culture of the kitchen meaningfully and accurately into its story." And our mutual pal Anthony Bourdain, who worked on the film in its infancy as a consultant, called it “quite simply, the best food movie ever made.” The New York Times's A. O. Scott raved about it in glowing terms, declaring it a flawless "portrait of the artist."

A lot of high praise, and all true. No Reservations (the movie) is a mediocre film, with a great performance by Abigail Breslin, a wooden one from CZ-J, a foolish one from Aaron Eckhart, and a typical one from Bob Balaban, typecast as the shrink. The food scenes in the restaurant kitchen in No Reservations were as dismal as Ratatouille’s was inspired. All the details of the chef’s pursuit of perfecting a craft were spot-on, and the movie is a must-see for anyone working in the field or considering a career in food.

Speaking of inspired, Chow ranked the top ten root beers. And a top Chinese FDA official was executed yesterday for taking bribes and other tawdry behavior.

Someone should have offed Aaron Eckhart for the Jeremiah Tower–opera homage in No Reservations. But I digress. If we can do a Top Ten for root beer, how about a Top Ten Food Movies? But not just movies with food scenes . . . those don’t count.

Big Night
Tampopo
Eat Drink Man Woman
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
Babette’s Feast
Le Grande Bouffe
The Scent of Green Papaya
Like Water for Chocolate

What am I missing here—why can I only find eight? And actually, based on this quick list, several movies here rival Ratatouille for capturing the food zeitgeist, but that little rat is a top three, for sure.

And speaking of numbers . . . the Body Count from last night, all taken at 7:30 p.m. at four local eateries:

Tejas – 57

Edina Grill – 128

112 Eatery – 69

Saffron – 38

Self-Involved

All right, three things.

First: You need to click here to sign up for a premiere party that Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, FM107, and I are hosting for the Warner Brothers film No Reservations, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart. All you need to do is ask for the tix and they are yours. Seriously. It’s free, and it’s a food movie! We are going to have a donation bucket passed for the Retreat in Wayzata, with proceeds from our collection benefiting the scholarship fund that my wife and I set up to benefit those looking to access affordable recovery services—but the whole shebang is gratis.

Second: July 9 is the premiere of season 1B of Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel. Lock and load, baby.