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Celebs in the Kitchen
April 17, 2012
Aaron Franklin to judge "BBQ Pitmasters"
Aaron Franklin, who owns the nationally acclaimed barbecue restaurant Franklin’s BBQ and even has a parody Twitter account @BarbecueJesus, is set to host “BBQ Pitmasters,” a reality TV competition that started on TLC but has moved to a new channel called Destination America.
The new channel replaces Plant Green and will debut on Memorial Day, and the third season of “BBQ Pitmasters” premieres on June 3.
Fellow Austinite Paul Petersen of Vivo Lake Creek appeared in the first season of the show, but as a contestant. Franklin joins fellow judges Tuffy Stone and Myron Mixon.
Photo by Rodolfo Gonzalez for the Austin American-Statesman.
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April 5, 2012
Paul Qui celebrating 'Paul Qui Day' on Friday, going to White House for Easter event on Monday
More on the Monday event, which includes Marcus Samuelsson, who will be in Austin later this month for the food and wine festival, and other “Top Chef” alums Carla Hall and Richard Blais, here and here.
UPDATE: As if going to the White House next week wasn’t exciting enough, the humble Qui will be celebrating “Paul Qui Day” at City Hall on Friday with Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell and City Council Member (and “Top Chef” fan) Mike Martinez, who are issuing the proclamation in honor of the Uchiko chef.
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March 12, 2012
Nice guys do finish first: Out and About chats with Paul Qui
The orders spilled out from the ticket printer onto the sushi bar, where Uchiko guests waited noisily for six precious words.
Then, just before 10 p.m. on Feb. 29, “Top Chef Texas” host Padma Lakshmi said, following a requisite pause: “Paul … you are the Top Chef.”
Uchiko’s sushi chefs raised their fists in a mighty, unified cheer. Then, they instantly dropped their eyes and returned to their knives. After all, scores of delirious Paul Qui fans waited for service.
“Every kitchen has drama,” a calm Qui told me the following Saturday in the cool, empty Uchiko dining room, hours before opening. “I tell my line cooks, `Just keep your head down and cook.’ That’s what this industry is about. Keep your head down and you will be successful.”
Barnes is one of our most talented writers, and he really captures what it is about Qui that makes him stand out from just about every chef I’ve ever met. Click here to read the full story.
Photo by Laura Skelding for the Austin American-Statesman.
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February 29, 2012
Uchiko's Paul Qui becomes first Texan to win "Top Chef"
And his boss, Uchi’s Tyson Cole was as excited as anybody who packed into Uchiko on North Lamar Boulevard to watch the finale.
You can get a feel for the episode by scrolling through the live chat restaurant critic Matthew Odam hosted during the show, and here’s a story that is running in tomorrow’s paper with a few more details about Qui, the show, his prize and what several die-hard fans (who hadn’t missed a single watch party at his restaurant) had to say about their favorite chef.
Another late tidbit of news: Austin City Council member Mike Martinez posted on his Facebook page that the city will issue a proclamation for Qui on April 5.
Tyson Cole photo by Laura Skelding for the Austin American-Statesman.
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Will Paul Qui win "Top Chef: Texas"? Join us for live chat during the finale
Tonight’s the big night, “Top Chef” fans.
Austin’s Paul Qui will either win “Top Chef: Texas” or, in what would be the biggest upset in “Top Chef” history, come in second to Chicago chef Sarah Grueneberg.
On last week’s episode, Qui of Uchiko made it into the finale with his king crab with sunchoke chips, lobster broth and lemon snow and the Pan Am cocktail of kaffir lime, Thai chiles and rum, and tonight, we’ll see if the judges think he has earned the title of “Top Chef.”
We’ll be hosting a live chat during the finale tonight from 9 to 10 p.m. on Bravo, and you can join us here or by putting #topchefatx in your tweets, which will feed into the live chat here.
Both Uchi and Uchiko will host viewing parties, as they have every Wednesday night for the past few months, starting at 9 with a special “Sake Social” menu.
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February 23, 2012
As "Top Chef Texas" finale nears, is there any stopping Paul Qui?
Next week, Wednesday, February 29, Austin’s Paul Qui will either win “Top Chef Texas” or, in what would be the biggest upset in “Top Chef” history, come in second to Chicago chef Sarah Grueneberg.
On last night’s episode, Qui of Uchiko made it into the finale with his king crab with sunchoke chips, lobster broth and lemon snow and the Pan Am cocktail of kaffir lime, Thai chiles and rum.
Qui competes against Grueneberg in the finale, which was filmed not in Texas but in British Columbia, and that episode airs on Wednesday at 9 p.m. on Bravo.
It’s been a big week for Qui. In addition to being honored by StarChefs.com at a gala in Austin on Tuesday, he was named a semi-finalist for Best Chef: Southwest by the James Beard Foundation.
Does anyone think Paul isn’t going to win this thing? If he does, what does that mean for Austin’s food scene and for one of the most humble, talented chefs in the city?
Photo from BravoTV.com.
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November 30, 2011
"Top Chef: Texas": Are Texas and San Antonio getting their money's worth?
Another winner from the business desk today: Reporter Gary Dinges got his hands on the once top-secret “brand integration agreement” that the “Top Chef” production company, Magical Elves, made with state’s Economic Development and Tourism Division and the San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau.
We already knew that the state gave Magical Elves $400,000 to bring the show to Texas and that San Antonio coughed up $200,000 to be prominently featured, but Dinges’ story reveals all the juicy details: “Top Chef” producers estimated that they’d spend $80,000 on rental cars and $197,227 on per-diems for travelers. The state also insisted that the series wouldn’t show underage drinking, gambling and illegal drug use by its hosts and judges and that it would limit “explicit negative statements about the state.” (I wonder if that means they’ll have to edit out all the griping from the judges and contestants about how f%*#$ing hot it was during filming this summer.)
Dinges reported that the state estimates it will receive $15 million in exposure in exchange for the $400,000 payment and San Antonio predicts in excess of $9 million in “positive media value” for the $200,000 deal. Three episodes were taped in the Austin area, but the Austin Convetion and Visitors Bureau declined requests from Magical Elves to pay to be featured.
Lucy Nashed, the spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry who earlier this year denied to more than one reporter, including this one, that any sort of money had exchanged hands, said that so far, the state is “pleased with the outcome of our brand integration agreement thus far.” The San Antonio CVS is also happy with what they’ve gotten so far, especially that first scene in front of the Alamo.
Do you think the state and San Antonio are getting their money’s worth for “Top Chef: Texas”?
It seems to me that San Antonio is really getting the best deal here. Without that $200,000 payment, “Top Chef: Texas” likely would have passed over the city altogether, and now, for a couple of thousand dollars, the Alamo City is home base for the entire season.
The next episode of “Top Chef: Texas” airs tonight at 9 on Bravo. We’ll have a recap up in the morning. (Apologies for missing last week. Let’s blame the turkey.)
Photos from BravoTV.com.
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November 17, 2011
"Top Chef: Texas" recap: Snakes, plates and quinceaneras
Who knew Padma had such a sense of humor?
Well, the best line of last night’s “Top Chef: Texas” episode, edited slightly for sensitive readers — “I better see some mothereffing snakes on some mothereffing plates” — was probably written by the producers, but Padma said it with such conviction that it was easily the highlight of the third episode.
This was the first episode with all 16 contestants competing in the traditional “Top Chef” format. (The first two episodes were dedicated to whittling down 29 contestants to the top 16, which included Uchiko’s Paul Qui. Andrew Curren of 24 Diner was among the 13 who lost in the first round, but he managed to hang on by a thread in the Last Chance Kitchen. More on that below.)
La Gloria chef Johnny Hernandez helped introduce the quickfire challenge to use snake meat. Qui produced a Asian barbecue snake that I thought easily looked the best of the bunch, but Hernandez didn’t like it. Dakota’s dish of beer-battered tempura snake ended up winning her immunity from elimination and a cash prize of $5,000. Not too shabby for the first quickfire, I’d say.
Snake was an interesting choice as the first quickfire, but it makes sense. Even though snake isn’t as prevalent in the Texas diet as its presence on the show might suggest, rattlesnake round-ups (and the subsequent dishes made from the harvested meat) are one of the fun, quirky things that happen in our great state, but they aren’t nearly as common as the focus of the main challenge: quinceañeras, the 15th birthday party celebrations that are a rite of passage for most girls in almost all Latin cultures.
The contestants had to cater for the quinceañera of sweet girl named Blanca. She told them what kinds of food she liked, and the teams tried to create a menu that appealed to her and her family.
It didn’t look good for contestant Keith as soon as he picked out precooked shrimp at the store. Adding insult to injury, his team served enchiladas made with premade flour tortillas, which clearly put them in the bottom of the heap.
Keith complained at the judge’s table that his teammates turned on him, using the old “they are throwing me under the bus” excuse, but they judges had no problem sending him home, or rather, to the new Last Chance Kitchen webisode series, which gives chefs who lose another chance to get back in the competition.
Clams were among the ingredients they had to use in a single dish, and though Andrew thought he had a strong dish, head judge Tom Colicchio ended up picking Keith’s dish as the winner, which officially ends Andrew’s stint on “Top Chef: Texas.” (Or so we think. They are always changing the game, so who knows if he’s really out for good.)
Photos from BravoTV.com.
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November 10, 2011
'Top Chef: Texas' recap: Qui advances and so does Curren, kind of
“Top Chef: Texas” finally got interesting last night, if only for the fact that we finally got to see Austin chefs Paul Qui of Uchiko and Andrew Curren of 24 Diner.
The show, which was filmed in several Texas cities, including Austin, this summer, started with 29 contestants and within the first two episodes, the judges whittled them down to 16 by having them cook in groups and sending the “maybes” into a kind-of purgatory called the bubble.
Qui and Curren were among 10 chefs who cooked for the first time last night. Qui appeared to be cool and relatively calm, soaring past the first round of judging with a grilled trout with southeast Asian tomato salad. He makes the whole thing look so easy, it’s no wonder he’s an early favorite.
Curren roasted mushrooms, but tripped up on a poached egg. Miraculously, even though the judges called the dish “greasy” and “gritty,” they sent him to the bubble, which meant he had to cook again in the second half of the show.
When the bubble contestants went head to head, Curren tried to impress the judges with mussels and panna cotta, an odd choice that ultimately sunk him. He wasn’t one of the two bubble chefs who earned a spot in the top 16, but don’t count Curren out just yet.
This is the first season that “Top Chef” has offered an online-only web series called Last Chance Kitchen, where the defeated chefs get to cook one more time to try to stay in the running.
After failing to advance past the “bubble,” Curren and Janine, another “bubble” chef who didn’t make the top 16, went head to head in a pizza challenge, judged solely by Tom Colicchio.
Curren cooked a grilled Mediterranean pizza and took the risk of not using cheese, but Colicchio liked it enough to make him the winner of the first Last Chance Kitchen challenge.
The loser’s bracket, as Curren called it, is a long road: In order to really get back in the challenge, you have to defeat every defeated chef, but Curren is ready for the challenge. It keeps him in the challenge, but out of the spotlight of the primetime episodes. I’m not sure how they timed the Last Chance Kitchen challenges, but if every contest happens directly after a contestant is kicked out, Curren will definitely have an advantage of having fresh legs and a fresh mind instead of his just-defeated opponent.
Even though we’re two episodes in already, it doesn’t really feel like the show has started until now. The producers took a risk with starting with so many contestants, and I’m not sure they are going to repeat it. With so many names, backgrounds and personalities to keep straight in these first episodes, it’s hard to feel invested in the series just yet.
As always, the producers are packing more entertainment than information in the hour-long show, which might or might not be hurting an entire generation of young cooks, but it’s a formula that seems to work for Bravo.
UPDATE: I forgot to add another tidbit of Curren info. Just before “Top Chef: Texas” started last night, Curren beat Alamo Drafthouse chef John Bullington an Iron Chef-style contest at the Drafthouse on South lamar. The chefs created a four-course menu paired with “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” I was one of the three judges, and we agreed that Curren’s dishes were better than Bullington’s in three of the four courses. Bullington had won three of these Iron Chef contests in a row, but Curren easily defeated him this time around.
What do you think of these first episodes and the Austin contestants so far? Any early favorites that you’ll be rooting for?
Photo from BravoTV.com.
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November 9, 2011
'Top Chef: Texas' episode 2 live chat
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November 7, 2011
Snagging a bite and a quick chat with Andrew Zimmern
Even with “Top Chef: Texas” premiering and “Eat St.” filming around Austin, Andrew Zimmern managed to capture quite a bit of Austin’s social media attention last week when he was here with his crew filming an Austin episode of “Bizarre Foods America,” a one-season spin-off of his popular “Bizarre Foods” show on the Travel Channel.
He was tweeting from (and spotted at) everywhere from Lamberts Downtown Barbecue, Uchiko, the downtown farmers’ market and a number of food trailers to the barbecue hotspots in Lockhart and even a UT tailgate.
I caught up with him at Foreign and Domestic, where he was there to taste some of Ned Elliott’s unusual eats: scrambled eggs and pig brains, beef heart tartare and crispy beef tongue.
“I tried to get here the last few seasons,” he said, but when you have 24 episodes with only a few domestic locations each season, it’s hard to make it to many U.S. cities, which is what gave them the idea to do an entire season of weird eating in our own proverbial backyard.
The Austin food scene had been on his radar for a while, but this was his first time to really explore the city and surrounding area. He spent most of the week in Austin, but by late Saturday, he was on his way to New Mexico for the next adventure in eating.
He knows that his show isn’t so much as a travel guide as a voyeuristic experience for viewers who can’t just hop on a plane and explore a new city every week.
“We have a real yearning to see and feel what other people are doing in this country,” he said as his camera crew was setting up a shot and Elliott was preparing the first dish. And not just on TV. He cites this desire to learn more about the other people who inhabit this planet as the driving force behind the popularity behind all the diverse media outlets out there, including personal blogs. “We see ourselves in a different way.”
Zimmern recently added another job title, Food & Wine magazine editor, which means he’s already planning on coming back to Austin in April for the Austin Food & Wine Festival, which grew out of the longtime Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival earlier this year.
When I mentioned that the primary concern of just about everyone I’ve talked to about the new festival is that it will lose its Austin identity, Zimmern said it will be just the opposite. “Food & Wine is a curator and custodian for food and culture, and they don’t want to trample all over something.”
By then, Elliott had finished a not-so-bizarre plate of roasted acorn squash topped with curried coconut milk, pumpkin seeds and grapes, which they thankfully offered me a few bites of. (No one wants to show up famished to a food interview, but then again, no one wants to show up late because she grabbed a taco.)
The new season premieres on Jan. 24, and Zimmern said the Austin episode is the 10th of 16, so it will probably air sometime in late March or early April.
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November 2, 2011
'Top Chef: Texas' premiere live chat
After months of rumors, hype, hurt feelings, lawsuits and speculation about what the upcoming season of “Top Chef: Texas” will hold, the Emmy-winning reality TV competition that was filmed in Austin, San Antonio, Dallas and Fort Worth this summer premieres tonight at 9 on Bravo with not one, but two Austin contestants.
Paul Qui of Uchiko and Andrew Curren of 24 Diner aren’t just the only contestants from Austin, they are the only chefs from Texas who made it onto the show, which has caused more controversy leading up to its premiere than any of the previous eight seasons.
In a conference call last week, judges Padma Lakshmi and Tom Colicchio were frank about why the producers lumped together four cities that, arguably, would be worthy of hosting the series on their own and why they’ve relied on so many stereotypes (cowboy boots, ribs, rodeos, etc.) in the promotional material and, presumably, the episodes themselves.
You can read more from Lakshmi, Colicchio, Qui and Curren in the story that ran in today’s food section.
Join us for even more speculation, a little bit of snark and some interactive TV watching during a live chat here on Relish Austin at 9 p.m. tonight.
Production still from Bravo TV.
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September 7, 2011
Famed Mexican chef to speak, teach in Austin next week
She’s hosting a slew of cooking classes next week, starting with a 3:30 p.m. class on Monday at El Meson, 2038 S. Lamar Blvd. ($65, including dinner and drinks. Call 442-4441 for tickets.) She’s also hosting cooking classes at noon on Tuesday at Whole Foods’ Lamar Culinary Center ($20) and on Thursday, Sept. 15 at 6:30 p.m. at Central Market ($65).
Photo from Central Market.
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Escoffier name isn't only change at Culinary Academy of Austin
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Michel Escoffier, the great-grandson of Auguste Escoffier, the French chef who, at the turn of the 20th century, created the standard by which we now judge chefs. His 5,000-plus-recipe “Le Guide Culinaire” is still a textbook in many cooking schools and is the book that Congress chef David Bull had Michel Escoffier sign when he was in Austin last month to tour the new Escoffier School of Culinary Arts.
You can click here to read the full story about Michel’s visit and what changes have taken place at the Culinary Academy of Austin now that it has become the Escoffier School of Culinary Arts.
Photo by Alberto Martínez for the Austin American-Statesman.
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August 29, 2011
'Next Food Network Star' casting in Austin on Sept. 10
The life of a reality TV casting producer must be full of déjà vu.
Two years ago, “The Next Food Network Star” hosted a casting call at the Hyatt Regency on Barton Springs Road, and from that audition came two contestants who made it onto the show: Dzintra Dzenis, who now runs Plate by Dzintra out near the Hill Country Galleria, and Brad Sorenson, who is working on opening his own restaurant in Austin.
Now the producers are coming back to Austin. (Check out the video above for an idea of what to expect if you go.) Same place, same time of year, same requirements, same show. The casting call is from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 10. Bring a completed application, two photos of yourself and your resume. Email fns8austin@gmail.com with questions.
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August 23, 2011
With book launch, 'Today' show, it's a big week for Austin's Casserole Queens
(Updated with ‘Today’ show clip below.)
It’s a big week for Crystal Cook and Sandy Pollock, the Austinites behind the Casserole Queens delivery company.
The pair — who are a not a couple, in case you were wondering — are headed to New York for an appearance Tuesday morning on the “Today” show to promote their first cookbook, “The Casserole Queens Cookbook.”
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
It’s their biggest national TV spot since Bobby Flay challenged them to a chicken pot pie contest in his “Throwdown” show on the Food Network three years ago. Ever since the episode started airing in early 2009, the Queens have been busier than ever, especially since Pollock now splits her time between Austin and Washington D.C.
The book doesn’t come out until tomorrow, but it’s already in its second printing, proof that the people just can’t get enough of the Casserole Queens brand they’ve carefully built up over the past few years.
How these delightful women built a successful food business is the focus of a big article that comes out in Wednesday’s food section. The story, which includes their recipes for chicken pot pie, peanut butter pie and cream of mushroom soup, won’t appear online until tomorrow afternoon, but I wanted to give you a heads up today so you could catch or record them on the “Today” show tomorrow morning. Their website says 8 a.m. (CST), but you know how willy nilly those morning shows can be. Looks like they will be on between 9:45 and 10 a.m.
Also worth putting on your calendar: The Queens’ cookbook release party from 7 to 9 p.m. on Thursday at BookPeople.
Better catch them while you can. Cook and Pollock have a TV pilot that’s already in the can, and who knows where this cookbook will take them…
Photos by Ashley Landis for the Austin American-Statesman and from the Casserole Queens.
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May 11, 2011
As 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' turns 50, a look through Julia Child's letters at the Ransom Center
It’s hard to imagine writing a book in the pre-Internet era, much less writing one while living an ocean away from your editor.
Julia Child’s story has been told hundreds of times, most memorably in “Julie and Julia,” the 2009 movie starring Meryl Streep that was based on Austin native Julie Powell’s bestselling book.
But one of the reasons this fascinating character in American history lives on so vividly is because she was such an avid letter writer. During the many years she spent abroad, she kept in contact with family and friends by exchanging letters with them from whatever corner of the world she and her husband, Paul, happened to be living at the time.
When Judith Jones, an editor at Alfred A. Knopf, convinced her bosses to publish Julia’s 10-year-in-the-making “big French cookbook,” she and Julia had to correspond via snail mail for more than a year before Child moved back to the United States.
Many of the letters are part of a collection of papers from Knopf that the Harry Ransom Center has acquired over the years.
Last week, I had a chance to look through some of the dozen or so manila folders that hold more than 10 years’ worth of paperwork connected to Julia. It took me three hours to get through only a year and a half of the letters, so the story I wrote for today’s paper captures just the beginning of Julia’s long career in food, which happened exactly 50 years ago.
(The Ransom Center currently doesn’t have any plans to display the papers in an exhibit, but members of the International Association of Culinary Professionals will get a chance to look at them in early June when the group hosts its annual conference here.)
I tried to capture the humor, frustration, excitement and anticipation contained in those letters, but it’s hard to describe the feeling of reading page after page of such intimate correspondence between these women.
(You can click here to see a gallery of some of the letters of more photos of Julia.)
Jones, though not a household name, was responsible for getting Child’s book published in the first place, just 11 years after rescuing “The Diary of Anne Frank” from a reject pile. (John Updike was another of her authors.)
Julia was nearly 49, having already lived an envious life traveling around the world and experiencing the wonderful people and food she eventually wrote about in “My Life in France.”
All the back-and-forth it takes to assemble, edit, illustrate, market and publish a cookbook had to be done one letter at a time. No emails, phone calls or instant messaging, but just like today, each letter had to contain very clear information about the progress and next steps.
How will people in 50 years go through our correspondence to find the back story of how a certain project came to be?
Technology makes it easier to catalog and search documents, but there’s a certain nostalgia in holding a letter that Julia Child once typed on a piece of wispy onion skin paper, signed with a pen and slid into an envelope to mail across the Atlantic.
Images courtesy of Harry Ransom Center, with permission from the Julia Child Foundation.
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April 14, 2011
Will you watch 'The Chew'?
ABC is canceling daytime dynasties “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” and is replacing them with a “View”-like roundtable show called “The Chew,” hosted by Mario Batali and a handful of other experts in the food world (but none with the name recognition of Mr. Orange Crocs.)
Batali will co-host along with chef Michael Symon, Carla Hall of “Top Chef,” Clinton Kelly of “What Not to Wear” and nutrition expert Daphne Oz, daughter of that other daytime TV personality with the last name Oz.
The show will premiere in September.
“As food has become the center of everyone’s life, ‘The Chew’ will focus on food from every angle — as a source of joy, health, family ritual, friendship, breaking news, dating, fitness, weight loss, travel adventures and life’s moments,” the press release said.
I’m not at all surprised that food is getting even more time on the airwaves. Yes, we have at least two channels dedicated to cooking and food trends, but all the programming feels sluggish compared to the fast-paced kitchen in which we spend our days, tracking the latest food news faster than my Twitter stream can keep up.
Will you be tuning in?
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March 19, 2011
SXSW Eats: Talking with Rachael Ray, Jimmy Kimmel at Feedback party at Stubb's
It wasn’t just the weather at this year’s Rachael Ray’s Feedback party that was better.
By most accounts, the food and music also trumped last year’s party at Stubb’s, held on one of the coldest days of SXSW on record.
Margarita weather graced Ray’s fourth annual SXSW Feedback party, and everyone seemed to be enjoying the free booze, tacos, sliders, chili and “tost-achos” (click here for the recipe that we ran in Wednesday’s paper) that Stubb’s employees served during the duration of the day party.
(Even though more than 20,000 people were said to have RSVP’d in the weeks ahead of the event, organizers for a brief time opened up admission to just about anyone who showed up. After the venue filled to capacity, a line formed and people at the door instituted a standard one-in-one-out policy.)
Click here for more photos from the event.
Most of the people I talked to favored the jalapeño popper sliders, but my favorite was the pork taco and the “tost-achos”, essentially chili-topped tostadas.
Hour-long lines for food crisscrossed through the middle of Stubb’s outdoor venue for the first half of the party, but by the second half of the event, the wait was down to about 20 minutes.
But because you could hear both outdoor stages from just about anywhere in the venue — not to mention that drink lines were far shorter than the food lines — no one seemed to mind the wait.
Toward the end of The Cringe’s set — led by Ray’s husband, John Cusimano — ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons took over lead guitar while Cusimano jumped on keyboard. Ray, with a nice digital camera in hand, set up shop in the middle of the photo pit, snapping as many pictures as many of the photojournalists around her. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel was also on hand to help introduce bands, including Free Sol, who get gold stars for loosening up the crowd early on.
Eli “Paperboy” Reed, Tapes ‘n’ Tapes, Fitz and the Tantrums, The Bravery and Wanda Jackson showed that the line-up was as diverse as any in the Red River district on Saturday afternoon.
Ray introduced many of the bands herself, each time enthusiastically — and authentically, it seemed — saying how humble and honored she felt to be able to feature them in what she calls her favorite city in America, “because it best exemplifies what it means to be an American. Individuality, acceptance of everyone, everything, every animal, every time of music,” she said later in an interview.
(A shameless plug: Before our interview, she said that at her hotel this morning, staff offered the New York Times, but she insisted on getting the Statesman to read.)
Unlike previous years, Ray’s team expanded the SXSW parties this year to include a three-day party in East Austin called Greenhouse, located in Big Red Sun on East Cesar Chavez Street. The parties featured performances by the Civil Wars, Those Darlins, Amy Cook and G Love, with trailers like Peached Tortillas, Mmmmmpanadas and Me So Hungry providing the food.
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March 16, 2011
Two top-tier chefs, two very different memoirs
In “Life, on the Line: A Chef’s Story of Chasing Greatness, Facing Death, and Redefining the Way We Eat,” (Gotham, $27.50) Achatz tells the story of how he worked up the ranks of high-end restaurants and culinary school to become the country’s foremost molecular gastronomist only to be diagnosed with tongue cancer and lose his sense of taste.
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March 8, 2011
At new B&B, go shopping, cook dinner with chef featured on 'Food Network'
When Blaise Bahara and Bess Giannakakis were looking to move from Minneapolis to Austin to open a bed and breakfast, better weather was certainly a factor, but food is what sealed the deal.
For more than five years, Giannakakis had been running the Colossal Cafe, a 500-square-foot cafe that was featured on Guy Fieri’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” but she and Bahara were ready to channel their love of food into a less hectic venture.
They bought a house on Riverside Drive less than a mile from downtown Austin and transformed it into Gateway Guesthouse, a five-room inn where guests can sign up to go shopping at local farmers markets with the couple and come back to the house for one-on-one cooking classes.
Don’t feel like cooking? Lounge in the pool and let Giannakakis cook for you.
While Giannakakis is in charge of the food, Bahara takes care of just about everything else, including putting together a cookbook filled with recipes and lively stories from their food adventures with guests. She says she hopes to create a new cookbook every year so that guests can buy as a useful memento from their stay.
These savory scones, one of a handful of dishes Fieri highlighted during the DDD show last year, is one of Giannakakis’ most requested recipes.
Savory Scones
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. baking powder
12 Tbsp. (6 oz.) butter, frozen
2/3 cup (about 4 oz.) blue cheese crumbs
1/3 cup chopped fresh spinach
2 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley leaves
1/3 cup chopped green onion
3 eggs, beaten
2 cups to 3 cups buttermilk, divided
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add all the dry ingredients into a large bowl and stir to combine. Grate the frozen butter into the dry ingredients. Mix in the blue cheese, spinach, parsley and green onions. Make a well in the center of the mixture
Add the eggs and half the buttermilk. Fold until just holding together, adding more buttermilk as needed. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Scoop one-third cup portions of batter onto the paper. Bake for 22 minutes or until light golden brown.
— Bess Giannakakis
Photos by Ricardo B. Brazziell.
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Cooking, Playing with your food
February 3, 2011
'Top Chef,' 'Top Chef Just Desserts' to host casting call in Austin
If you’ve always wanted to have a cat fight in a kitchen on national TV, now is your chance.
“Top Chef” and “Top Chef Just Desserts” will be hosting a casting call in Austin from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesday, March 2, at Olivia.
They are looking for “bold, ingenious pastry chefs who can build visually stunning pieces and impress the judges’ palates” and, my favorite, chefs with “oodles of charisma.”
This is the ninth season of “Top Chef” and the second season of “Top Chef Just Desserts.” Click here for casting information and to download the application.
Good luck!
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen
February 1, 2011
'Next Food Network Star' contestant opens restaurant, cooking class venue
Dzintra Dzenis didn’t win last season’s “Next Food Network Star,” but she’s getting to fulfill her chef dreams anyway.
The New Jersey-born chef, who spent 20 years cooking in Paris before moving to Austin a few years ago, has recently opened Plates by Dzintra, a hybrid space in the Shops at the Galleria at the intersection of Texas 71 and RM 620 in Bee Cave that serves as a place for cooking classes, supper clubs and a restaurant.
Dzenis says she learned a lot during her stint on the Food Network reality show, but the ultimate prize is having a space where she can have total creative freedom. Dzenis and husband Allen Eudy have turned the former ice cream shop into a brightly colored, art-covered room that is as suited for a quick lunch meeting as a Saturday evening cooking class.
The lunch menu, offered five days a week, is limited to a salad, soup, entree and dessert, but it rotates nearly every day so Dzenis can prepare different dishes, including seafood pot pie, split pea soup and a French bistro salad with a perfectly poached eggs on top.
Dzenis has recently added Friday evening hours for wine and small plates and might expand to dinner service eventually, but right now, she’s having fun hosting supper clubs and cooking classes on the weekends and on special occasions like Valentine’s Day. (The schedule and lunch menus are available online.) Open for lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Photos by Ralph Barrera for the Austin American-Statesman.
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Eating out, Playing with your food
December 8, 2010
Rachael Ray talks school lunches, puppies and why hunger isn't a partisan issue
How did Rachael Ray spend her summer vacation?
Lobbying for six cents.
Every five years, Congress revises the Child Nutrition Act, which, among other things, determines how much money schools get reimbursed for the lunches they provide students. Until this year, it had been almost three decades since Congress had increased above inflation the amount that schools would get per child.
Ray met face-to-face with dozens of lawmakers and held press conferences to help bring attention to the bill. In the end, both the House and the Senate agreed to provide an additional six cents per student to schools.
“It’s not as much as we wanted, but it’s something,” Ray said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “Every penny makes a big difference in the quality of food” schools can provide to kids not just during the school year, but after school and during the summer.
“It’s important that the public schools offer something on a year round basis,” she said. “For children who are at risk for hunger, these are the only options they’ve got.”
Even though she would have liked to see even more funding going to schools, she’s “thrilled” that the bill is on its way to President Obama’s desk.
She emphasizes that making sure that kids have access to healthy food isn’t just something that parents in America should be concerned about. “I don’t have kids,” she says. “I have a dog,” but the impact that poor diets are having on the nation’s children “should be insulting to everybody.”
“Young children are having to take grown-up pills that aren’t even formulated for them.” Eight- and 9-year-olds shouldn’t have to take cholesterol medication. If we continue to let things spiral out of control, we’re looking at “catastrophic health care costs,” she says.
“We cannot afford to pay for this generation’s health care,” she says. “Do we really want to raise a nation of dull-minded, sickly kids? It’s our responsibility as a nation. Everyone should demand change.”
If you’re a gardener, why don’t you plant and help maintain a garden at a school, she suggests. Take your kids or nieces and nephews grocery shopping. Take them to a farm instead of an amusement park.
One thing Ray says she was surprised at was how both Republicans and Democrats seemed concerned about helping kids get access to better foods. “This is one issue that everyone can get behind,” she says.
But no matter how you slice it, politics aren’t near as fun as planning her annual South by Southwest party. Ray says they are just beginning to plan the big bash in March that combines her love of food and music. “We just want to try to match last year because, for me, it was spot on perfect,” she says.
Except for the weather.
She and friend Bob Schneider are still talking about how cold it was that blustery day in the middle of the music festival when everyone from Matthew McConaughey to Neko Case and Jakob Dylan bundled up to take the stage.
Ray might not be able to do anything about the weather at this year’s party (no word on the date, venue or lineup yet), but she is watching out for local dogs and cats that need adoption. At each stop on her “Look + Cook” book tour, Ray is pairing up with a local pet adoption agency.
At Tuesday’s event at BookPeople, Austin Pets Alive will be hosting an Adopt-A-Thon starting at 5:30 p.m. outside the bookstore, 603 N. Lamar Blvd.
Photos by David Hartzler, Evan Vucci for the Associated Press and Jay Janner for the Austin American-Statesman.
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Chewing the fat, Food in the news
December 7, 2010
Rachael Ray coming to Austin to promote new photo-filled book
Or a cookbook, for that matter.
Showing how to prepare food, after all, is her specialty. The host of “30 Minute Meals” and the eponymous daytime show is in her 10th year on the Food Network, and her new book, “Look + Cook” (Clarkson Potter, $24.99) is Ray’s 20th. Not too bad for a self-taught cook who started out working the candy counter at Macy’s. The new book features step-by-step photos for more than 170 new recipes (she also demonstrates 30 of them on her website, www.rachaelray.com). Like many of her books, chapters are devoted to kids, comfort food and faux take-out.
Ray will be in Austin on Tuesday, Dec. 14, for an event at 7:30 p.m. at BookPeople. She’ll be signing books for people who’ve received a wristband by buying the new book at BookPeople, but you can come hear her speak beforehand for free.
Pimiento Mac ’n’ Cheese
Salt
1 lb. cavatappi pasta (hollow, fat corkscrew-shaped pasta) or pasta elbows
1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
3 Tbsp. butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
Black pepper
3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. sweet paprika, plus additional for garnish
2 cups whole milk
2 tsp. hot sauce
3 cups grated sharp yellow Cheddar cheese
2 (4-oz.) jars pimientos, drained
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf or curly parsley
Bring a large pot of water to a boil for the pasta. Salt the water and cook the pasta to just shy of al dente. Heat a large pot over medium heat with the olive oil and butter. When the butter melts, add the onions, garlic, and salt and pepper and cook until the onions are softened, about 5 minutes. Add the flour and cook for another minute. Stir in the paprika. Whisk in the milk and hot sauce and bring up to a bubble, then cook to thicken for a minute or two.
Turn off the heat and stir in half of the cheese in a figure-eight motion until melted. Add the pimentos. Preheat the broiler. When the pasta is nearly al dente, drain it well and add it to the pot with the cheese sauce. Toss to combine. Then pour the pasta into a baking dish, top with the remaining cheese, and brown it under the broiler, 2 to 3 minutes. Garnish with the chopped parsley and a generous sprinkle of sweet paprika. Serves 6.
— From ‘Look + Cook’ by Rachael Ray (Clarkson Potter, $24.99)
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Playing with your food
October 22, 2010
The Candy Girl: Dylan Lauren
Her father Ralph Lauren has affirmed his status as an icon in the world of fiercely fashionable fabrics and designs, but daughter Dylan Lauren has her own candy land full of colorful gumballs, chewy gumdrops, and creamy chocolate.
As the owner of the world’s largest candy store, Dylan’s Candy Bar in New York City, Lauren is always looking for innovative tastes and flavors to incorporate into her candy mecca.
Now, Lauren is releasing a book, “Dylan’s Candy Bar: Unwrap Your Sweet Life” ($35, Clarkson Potter) that touches on how to use candy in designing, cooking, and entertaining.
“I just love the colors and the array of tastes you get when you bite into candy,” Lauren said. “I consider what I do an art form. I love what I do.”
Lauren said her passion for the sweet treats came from a childhood that was exposed to worldly travel and exposure to the arts.
“My whole family is full of artists,” she said. “When I traveled I always loved to see the different colors, packaging, and collections of candy. I wanted this book to be an artistic book for lifestyle, entertaining, and cooking. [The book is] for the hip woman in her twenties or thirties.”
So in the 5,000 different candies and chocolates she carries in her store, what is the one that Lauren can’t resist?
“I love Marshmallow Fluffs and Swedish Fish,” she said. “Candy Corn is my favorite Halloween candy.”
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Cookbooks, Desserts
September 29, 2010
"Meat & Potatoes"
For all the carnivores and carb lovers out there, a new Food Network show, “Meat & Potatoes” will be featuring a stop in Austin this Friday, Oct. 1 at 9 p.m. on the network. The show recently premiered Sept. 24.
On this Friday’s episode, appropriately entitled “BBQ Madness,” host and chef Rahm Fama will be stopping at Austin barbecue restaurant, Lambert’s Downtown Barbeque on 401 West 2nd Street. The episode will feature the restaurant’s fancy brisket and their Frito pie.
Following this week’s Austin episode, Fama will continue on to two Forth Worth restaurants, Bonnell’s Fine Texas Cuisine and Cowtown Diner, in two separate episodes on Oct. 8 and Oct 15 at 9 p.m. For more information about the show and Fama, visit the Food Network online.
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Eating out, On the road
August 24, 2010
Meet and greet with 'Next Food Network Star' contestant Brad Sorenson
Brad Sorenson didn’t win this season’s “Next Food Network Star,” but he got pretty close to the finals, winning millions of fans along the way.
Make reservations online or by calling 451-1218.
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Eating out
July 27, 2010
Watch Austin shine on 'No Reservations' segment with Anthony Bourdain
Thanks to the YouTube gods, here are Austin’s 7 minutes of “No Reservations” glory from the episode that premiered a few weeks ago.
By the number of times Anthony Bourdain drops the f-bomb in reference to our cuisine, I think it’s safe to say that he likes it. (Mike Sutter has a much more detailed — not to mention entertaining — review of Bourdain’s Austin segment over on Forklore.)
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen
June 29, 2010
Monica Pope to teach in Austin as part of tour for online cookbook
The book, Eat Where Your Food Lives (available online only, $35), features more than 100 recipes and reflects Pope’s signature style of cooking in-season, locally grown produce that she’s featured in her Houston restaurant t’afia since it opened more than six years ago. (She’s so committed to promoting local farmers and seasonal produce that the restaurant is the site of a weekly farmers market.)
And just because the new book is only available online doesn’t mean she’s not out on tour to promote it. She’ll be in Austin on Wednesday to teach a class at 6:30 p.m. at Central Market North. (Tickets $65.)
Pope’s cookbook is published by the Austin-based company, Keeper Collection, which has published digital cookbooks from fellow Texas chefs David Bull and Paul Petersen.
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Cooking, Eating locally
June 28, 2010
Where have the Anthony Bourdain stalkers gone?
Maybe Austinites are distracted with the World Cup, or maybe the heat has sent everyone scattering out of town on vacation, but there hasn’t been near as much Bourdain-stalking online as when he was here in April. During that Austin visit, every other tweet I read over a two-day period was dedicated to either the whereabouts of him or his crew, which we’ve confirmed was shooting not for a full episode of “No Reservations” dedicated to our fair city but for a multi-city episode about food in the heartland that will premiere on July 12 on the Travel Channel.
But just a few hours before his appearance tonight at the Paramount, the Interwebs have been strangely quiet about Mr. Bourdain, whose book I found both fascinating and fickle. (All in all, I liked “Medium Raw,” but the parts I didn’t like, I really didn’t like. If you’ve had a chance to pick it up, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the book.)
I’m sure tweet-happy Bourdain fans are just holding back until the sold-out Q&A at the Paramount Theatre tonight and a book signing at BookPeople tomorrow at 7 p.m. The BookPeople event is free, but starting at 9 a.m. Tuesday, the store will be handing out wristbands for the book-signing line for those who have purchased the book from the store.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Chewing the fat
June 21, 2010
Ahead of 'Inedible to Incredible' premiere, John Besh talks seafood, oil and frumpy shoes
It’s a crazy time to be John Besh.
The New Orleans chef and James Beard-winning cookbook author has spent much the past two months being the unofficial spokesman for the Gulf coast as the oil spill has threatened an entire way of life for people in his native Louisiana.
When he’s not traveling with Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal or telling anyone who will listen about the gravity of the situation, he’s running a family, including four boys, and a family of restaurants, which within a few months will include a restaurant in San Antonio, his first outside Louisiana.
On top of it all, Besh is the host of a new series on TLC that premieres tonight at 9 p.m. “Inedible to Incredible” has been billed as the “What Not to Wear” of food, and, having been made over on national TV on the long-running fashion show, I can tell you that the comparison is spot on.
For the show, Besh ambushes seemingly hopeless home cooks, who don’t see anything wrong with dishes like adult baby food and strawberry cereal-laced hamburgers, shows them how awful their cooking really is and then walks them step-by-step on how to make it better.
“I had to be the bad cop and that galled me to death,” he says. “That one sound byte sounds crass, but it is for their good.” He says it was a life-changing experience for almost every person he worked with during this season.
Life-changing, indeed.
With the “What Not to Wear” cameras rolling in late 2007, hosts Stacy London and Clinton Kelly ambushed me at a downtown concert venue to tell me that I was a horrible dresser. It was humiliating to have a stranger have to break the news, but the truth was that I needed to hear it.
Watching the first few episodes of “Inedible to Incredible,” I empathized with the embarrassment, defensiveness and ultimate eagerness to learn that many of the “contestants” showed. It was a smart move by TLC to take the “What Not to Wear” format and apply it (almost identically) to food.
“(Food) is such a personal thing,” Besh says. “People don’t want to go there. I would never say to my wife that she dresses poorly or that she cooks poorly.” He says that after watching a few episodes of “What Not to Wear” with his wife, Jennifer, he thinks twice before walking out the door. “It’s made me conscious, and I think to myself, ‘OK, I can’t look like a slob. I can’t wear frumpy shoes’.”
I told him that his show will undoubtedly have the same effect on home cooks.
The former “Top Chef Masters” contestant is no stranger to television, but he says he is relieved that his TV appearances now aren’t limited to chef competitions. “People are looking at food on TV now as a sport, and that’s not why I cook,” he says. “So I stopped doing them. This is a show that can really make a difference” because ultimately, it’s about teaching people how to be connected with their food and how to cook with passion. “The show isn’t, ‘Hey, look at what I can do.’ It’s ‘Hey, look at what you can do’.”
He sees a connection between his work educating the public about what’s really going on in the Gulf — 60 percent of Louisiana’s coast is still open for fishing, he notes — and the impact he has with the new show.
Traveling around the country with TLC and stepping into other people’s kitchens, he says he quickly realized that few people are connected with the food traditions of where they grew up. “We’re all required to be stewards of where we are from,” he says. “I’m a product of these coastal communities. This is where I come from and this is who I am. It just happens that the problems of my city and region make front-page news.”
People come to New Orleans for the culture, and the food is a big part of that, he says. “After Katrina, New Orleans bounced back in a remarkable way…But right now, the oil itself isn’t affecting the daily life in New Orleans other than the psyche of the people that we’re up against a wall in another disaster.”
The biggest battle ahead for the Gulf is the perception, even many years in the future, that seafood from that region is tainted. “It’s more than the seafood; It’s more than the shrimp. It’s a culture,” he says.
And he knows he owes everything he has, including this show, to that culture. “If it weren’t for this seafood, this culture, nobody would know who John Besh was,” he says. “What I do wouldn’t have the allure.”
“We have a civic responsibility to do the best we can with the talents that we have. I’m not doing any more than what’s expected of anyone else.”
Photos from TLC, Judi Bottoni for the Associated Press and Lori Waselchuk for the New York Times.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Food in the news
June 7, 2010
Austin(-ish) band Vega to appear on 'Dinner with the Band'
If you need proof of how connected music and food are, just look at what’s happened to South by Southwest.
Not only are the thousands of people who come to Austin for the technology, film and music festivals on the prowl for something good to eat, food is the subject of dozens of panels, movies and parties during the March cultural bonanza.
At this year’s music festival, the Independent Film Channel brought in chef and TV host Sam Mason to shake cocktails at the channel’s IFC Crossroads House downtown
Now, Austin is going to Mason.
Vega, a disco pop band whose frontman Alan Palomo — who also performs as Neon Indian — is based in Austin, will appear on Mason’s “Dinner with the Band” at 9:30 p.m. on IFC on Tuesday (June 15).
The episode features Mason preparing a menu of seared snapper, apricot salad and micheladas with the band, which performs songs between courses.
The folks at IFC were happy to pass along Mason’s recipes, including for the crazy complicated michelada, which doesn’t have to be that hard to make:
Vivid Snapper
2 whole snappers, about 2 lbs each
2 Tbsp. olive oil
Cumin granola (see recipe below)
Edamame puree (see recipe below)
Apricot garden salad (see recipe below)
For cumin granola:
1 1/2 cup oats 2 tsp. cumin seed 1/4 cup honey 3 Tbsp. canola oil 1 tsp. salt
Preheat oven to 325 degress. In a large bowl, toss all ingredients well and spread onto baking sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes until golden brown, mixing every few minutes to brown evenly. Let cool and put aside.
For apricot salad:
1/2 cup dried apricots 1 cup apricot nectar 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar 1 Tbsp. olive oil 1 cup edamame, blanched 1/2 cup dried apricots, sliced thin
In a small saucepan, bring dried apricots and nectar to a boil and simmer until apricots are tender. Transfer to blender and puree smooth adding oil and rice wine vinegar to taste. Let cool. In a small bowl, toss raw edamame and dried apricots with 1/4 cup of apricot emulsion. Set aside.
For edamame puree:
2 cups frozen shelled edamame 1/3 cup mirin 1 tsp. Thai fish sauce 1 Tbsp. shiro dashi 1/2 cup olive oil 2 tsp. rice wine vinegar Salt and pepper to taste
Boil frozen, shelled edamame until tender. Puree edamame and the rest of the ingredients in a blender until smooth. Set aside and keep warm.
For snapper, scale whole snapper and remove both fillets from each. Season fillets with salt and pepper.
Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan. Add the snapper skin-side down, pressing lightly to form crust. Cook 5 minutes on skin side until crisp, flip snapper and cook 2 minutes more. Transfer the fish to a plate.
Place spoon full of edamame puree onto plate, top with snapper filet, then apricot salad and cumin granola. Drizzle more apricot emulsion on plate for garnish. Serves 4-6 people.
— Sam Mason
Michelada
1 1/2 ounces mole Worcestershire (see recipe below) 2 dashes mole bitters 3 dashes maggi seasoning 1/2 ounces lemon juice Pinch of cayenne 12 ounces beer, preferably light Mexican beer Ancho-chili salt for rim (see recipe below)
For mole Worcestershire:
2 ancho chiles, dried 3 ounces pomegranate molasses 2 ounces lime juice 6 ounces orange juice 40 dashes mole bitters 2 tsp. magi seasoning 1 tsp. kosher salt
Toast ancho chiles over medium-low open flame. In a small saucepan, add toasted ancho chiles, pomegranate molasses, lime juice, orange juice and bring to boil, stirring until it reaches a syrupy consistency. Remove from heat. Let cool and pour into another container, removing ancho chiles. Add mole bitters, maggi seasoning and kosher salt. Makes 1/2 quart. Keep whatever you don’t use in the fridge for up to a month.
For ancho-chili salt:
2 Tbsp. ancho chili powder 1 Tbsp. kosher salt
Mix ancho chili power and salt and pour onto plate wide enough for rim of a pint glass.
To make the michelada, rim chilled pint glass with ancho chili salt. Add mole Worcestershire, bitters, maggi seasoning, lemon juice and cayenne to glass. Finish by pouring beer over ingredients. Garnish with lime wedge.
— Sam Mason
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Cooking
May 24, 2010
Getting to know 'Splendid Table' host Lynne Rossetto Kasper
Kasper and the show are based in St. Paul, Minn., and Austin is one of almost 260 markets where the show can be heard. The affable host doesn’t just know how to eat; she was a cooking instructor in Colorado and New York City before moving to Europe in 1985, where she researched and wrote her first cookbook. Kasper and “Splendid Table” producer Sally Swift are in the middle of finishing their second book together, a followup to 2008’s “The Splendid Table: How To Eat Supper” that is set to come out in fall of 2011. Kasper took a break from the book last week to talk with me about how the show came to be, how food blogging has expanded our consciousness about food and why there’s so much more to a dish than its recipe.
Because ‘Splendid Table is new to so many Austinites, give us a quick introduction to you and how you got into food.
I was born and raised just outside New York City, when I reached the age of reason, I moved into the city. I started a cooking school in Denver in the 1970s, and it grew into the biggest teaching school in the state. I loved starting something from nothing, and it was the right moment to do it. I also taught Chinese cooking in New York City before we moved to in Brussels in 1985, where my husband was based and I was writing about food. I vowed I would never teach again, but I ended up teaching all the new things I was discovering.
I wanted to do a book that looked at the origins of Italian food. What is it about this food that makes it so beloved around the world? It’s just about everyone’s favorite foreign food. “The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland or Northern Italian Food” came out in 1992 (and won awards from both the James Beard Foundation and the International Association of Culinary Professionals.) about Emilia-Romagna, the only place that can produce Parmesan, balsamic vinegar and Parma ham. It’s about 500 years of eating, and it asked the question, “Why this food in this place?” You can say the land is rich and all that business, but I realized that there was so much more going on there.
The second book, “The Italian Country Table: Home Cooking from Italy’s Farmhouse Kitchens,” came out in 1999 just when agritourism was beginning. It was the perfect entre to be able to sit down with a family and in an environment to see how the land was worked. You have to understand agricultural systems to understand what the food is about.
Tell me about how the radio show came to be.
We started the radio show in 1993 right after the first book came out and had gotten a lot of attention. I got a call from a woman who says, “You don’t know me, but I’ve worked in radio and television, and I have your book and I think you could do a great radio show.” I had written a book that was filled with stories, history and folklore. Food has so much more to say than its recipe. Everyone had told me, “No one’s going to fund a book or a show that involves history and storytelling.” But the woman who called, Sally Swift (who is still the show’s producer), knew you could do both. We created the show together. We did a six-week pilot in 1993 and then went national in 1995.
The show has a nice balance of cooking and eating out, the history of food as well as current issues. As food has become so political, how do you tackle such a serious subject?
We keep trying to find that balance between taking the subject seriously but without taking ourselves too seriously. We were talking about these issues 15 years ago. You go to any kind of editorial meeting and people are asking, “What’s going to be the trend?” A decade ago, I said, “You will be hearing, sustainable, organic and local.” People smiled, but they didn’t believe me. I had been working in the organics field and had a sense of what was coming. It was obvious to me that we would be looking for alternative sources for our food. We are a small team, so we often illustrate these big picture problems through guests like Paul Roberts (author of “The End of Food”) and Raj Patel (author of “Stuffed and Starved”)
One big realization has been that if something is going to be sustainable, it must be sustainable across the economic spectrum. One of the major flaws we have is that most of what is accessible in terms of food choices is accessible to a fortunate few. A significant percent of the population doesn’t have this access. It’s a big issue. We’re talking about changing the world. You’re talking about changing subsidies, changing how commodities work, etc.
What have been some of the other big developments you’ve seen in recent years?
One of the trends that’s not new but I’m interested in is this world of food blogging, where you can find amazing information about food from every point of view. There are some people doing some incredible things. One of the blogs I thoroughly enjoy is Eating Asia, and we’ve had (the author Robyn Eckhardt) on the show. She’s writing about the life she leads and is looking at the food, culture and people with a background of history and anthropology.
We’re beginning to have a vague understanding that Southeast Asian food isn’t all the same. It’s nook-and-cranny eating. We’re no longer thinking solely in terms of Chinese, Italian, Spanish or South American, and we’re looking at the cultural microcosms in our own country. For instance, we’re discovering the differences between northern and southern New Mexico. That kind of awareness and curiosity has been a huge change. Our lexicon about food has changed dramatically. It’s become far more challenging and confusing as well, but the overall awareness about food has grown so much.
So what do you think about celebrity chefs on TV?
The Gordon Ramsey model — the chef as pure personality — is interesting in its popularity. You look at a Jamie Oliver, who at 24 was doing a restaurant in London. His whole appeal was young and charming, but now as a man is attempting to change the world. I think we’re seeing people reinvent themselves and the models being played with. Rachael Ray has a talk show that’s not necessarily about food, for instance.
I’ve always had this fantasy about doing a theatrical show about food. Turn it into a performance with sounds, light, dance and music. If I could tap dance a cookbook for you (laughs). Food is about all of the senses and all of the sensibilities. It’s pure theater. I really am waiting for people in media to get that. On TV, it’s still that business of standing in a kitchen and cooking. I’m a firm believer that everyone needs to know how to feed themselves, but food takes on a meaning far beyond that.
Have you eaten your way through Texas yet?
I have barely begun to explore Texas, and I am looking forward to coming and exploring. I’ve spent some time in San Antonio, and what’s not not to like. I’m intrigued by the state’s cultural mix. I’m excited to be in the Austin market because I got the sense from reading the (“The Soup Peddler’s Slow and Difficult Soups” by David Ansel) and being around cooking teachers from Austin that it’s one of the neatest parts of the country.
Do you call yourself a foodie?
I don’t like the word “foodie,” but I haven’t found an alternative. It diminishes the importance of food. Eating is the single most important thing that we have to do on a day to day basis. We have to breathe, and we have to nourish ourselves to stay alive. “Foodie” makes it seem like it’s a private society.
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Chewing the fat
May 3, 2010
Diana Kennedy on Oaxacan chiles, cookbooks and why tamales aren't tamales without lard
Diana Kennedy must cringe every time someone calls her the Julia Child of Mexican cuisine.
Kennedy, who was born in England, has been living in Mexico almost as long as Rick Bayless has been alive, and for almost 40 years, she’s been writing definitive cookbooks on Mexican cuisine. A vocal advocate for preserving Mexico’s culinary traditions, she travels the country dispelling myths about what is and what is not Mexican food.
“I wish more people who went to Mexico could try some of these unique things,” Kennedy told a packed auditorium on Thursday night. The spry and energetic author flipped through photographs of her travels through her adopted homeland, explaining regional specialties such as cheese-filled epazote and tamales made with corn silk, bean or pollen. (One thing that all tamales have in common: “You can’t make tamales with anything but lard,” she said.)
“Markets are disappearing,” she said, “or they are importing cheap things like coffee that are making indigenous groups even poorer.” Imported ingredients such as corn, garlic and hibiscus force farmers to have to look for work elsewhere, including the United States. She’s also worried that they will become markets for knock-off CDs and DVDs instead of traditional ingredients.
She encouraged people who are buying Mexican ingredients in stores in the U.S. to pay attention to where they are grown. If you do go to Mexico, “when you go to local markets, you should drop as much money as you can to support the local economies.”
When cooking from cookbooks like hers that call for exotic chiles and other ingredients, use the Internet to seek out producers rather than just substituting with something more commonly available. “Create a market. Your neighbors need it.”
Talking to audiences like the one in Austin is only one way she’s preserving the culinary history of Mexico. After “Oaxaca” is published, she’s going to spend the majority of her time working on a foundation that will preserve the biodiversity of the region.
She left the audience with one final note about cookbooks: “I want you to be reminded of this: A good, well-researched cookbook that tells a real story is not expensive,” she says. “A novel you might read two or three times, but a cookbook is on your shelf for 30 years.”
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Cookbooks
March 22, 2010
Jamie Oliver leads an uprising in ABC's 'Food Revolution'
Jamie Oliver’s eyes might be bigger than his stomach.
In a new show on ABC, the British chef moves to Huntington, W. Va., a city the government has deemed the unhealthiest city in America, to try to change how people in the town think about food. This would be mighty task anywhere in the country, considering that two-thirds of the population is overweight and diet-related diseases including high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes could mean that for the first time in U.S. history, hildren might have a shorter average life expectancy than their parents.
“Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” premieres on Friday, but ABC broadcast an hourlong preview last night that gave a glimpse of what Oliver is up against, and viewers quickly find out that picky kids are the least of Oliver’s troubles.
Stubborn school cooks don’t see anything wrong with serving breakfast pizza and balk at the idea of making anything from scratch. (“The future of America is sitting here, having pizza for breakfast,” he says as he walks among the cafeteria tables. “If you’re a parent, it should piss you off.”) Bureaucratic school officials refuse to count brown rice as a serving of bread or grain but allow pizza (served the day after the students had breakfast pizza) to count as two servings. Students, some of whom identify a tomato as a potato, admit to eating chicken nuggets for both lunch and dinner on many days.
For the past seven years, Oliver has been working on similar project with schools and families in England. Just last month, he gave an impassioned speech seen by millions online about food education when accepting the TED Prize, a $100,000 award from the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference in California.
But now he has an opportunity to speak from a much bigger stage: A six-episode primetime series on a major TV network. That’s a lot for anyone to chew, even for a chef who made a name for himself on cable television.
In recent years, NBC has brought the obesity epidemic to life in “The Biggest Loser,” but that show is focused more on how much a dozen contestants sweat than how the majority of the country relies on processed, nutritionally deficient food.
Never have we had such an up-close view of how Americans eat and, more important, someone asking bluntly, in the kitchen of an overweight family brought to tears when faced with a week’s worth of junk food, “Why are you doing this to yourselves?”
So far, Oliver’s show combines a heroes-versus-villains storyline with the do-good feel of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” another ABC hit, but not everyone is hooked. In a preview for the Washington Post, former Statesman writer Hank Stuever says the show “has all the problems of most network reality pap” and fails to acknowledge how politicized food has become:
“Red state, blue state; I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of trying to get the nation to eat right,” he writes. “It’s tempting to just let folks keel over in a puddle of kountry gravy if they like, dead from clogged arteries or scurvy (or both)….And it has a certain hectoring quality, a la ‘SuperNanny,’ that obscures its educational aim. In its zeal to show America to itself, it helps America make fun of itself.”
If breakfast pizza leaves a bad taste in Oliver’s mouth, it’s cynicism like this that leaves a bad taste in mine.
I can’t be the only parent that has learned a lesson or two from shows like “SuperNanny,” and I have a feeling “Food Revolution” will make us all think twice about serving processed food in our own homes and turning the other cheek when our kids’ schools do the same.
The show might also force us to take responsibility for our kids’ refusal to eat anything but chicken nuggets. Oliver has to face this fact when the students pick the same-old pizza over his roasted chicken and, at the end of the meal, throw away whole fruit and untouched salads. (If you’ve ever been in an elementary school cafeteria, you know how real this scene is.)
How do you make kids choose to eat what’s food for them when their palates are accustomed to eating sodium- and fat-filled foods that are chemically engineered to taste good? We’ll see what happens on Friday when Oliver removes the choice part of that equation.
Oliver is starting off with schoolchildren, but it will be interesting in future episodes to see how he handles adults, who are often even more stubborn in their eating habits than their kids.
Apparently, grim statistics and a growing waistline alone aren’t going to change their minds.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Food in the news
March 20, 2010
Blustery weather can't stop food, fans at Rachael Ray's Feedback
With temperatures in the low 40s and wind gusts up to 30 miles per hour, the weather didn’t exactly cooperate for Mr and Mrs T and Rachael Ray’s Feedback Festival at Stubb’s on Saturday, but a little thing like the weather couldn’t get the chirpy TV host down.
For the past three years, Ray — whose food empire now includes not only a magazine, a daytime talk show, a brand of cookware and a handful of shows on the Food Network but also a nonprofit to encourage kids to eat healthfully and a line of dog food — has thrown a big blow-out party on the Saturday of the South by Southwest Music Festival. (It was sunny and darn near hot at last year’s party at Maggie Mae’s.)
This year’s music line-up was considered one of the best of any of the big-name parties, featuring Jakob Dylan, Neko Case and indie darlings Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward together as She and Him. Ray’s husband’s band The Cringe and her Austin favorite Bob Schneider also played. (Here is a gallery of more photos from the party.)
But food earns a spot at the top of this bill. During an interview between sets, Ray told me that of all the menus she develops in a year, she puts the most thought and effort into this one. She knows Austin is full of foodies who won’t accept just any old Tex-Mex knock-off.
The albóndigas sub (recipe here) and Swiss cheese and chicken quesadillas were crowd favorites at this year’s party, even though guests had to wait in lines for up to an hour for food. (For some reason, there was no wait for free Bloody Marys, frozen daiquiris and piña coladas made with Mr and Mrs T drink mix, which meant people were drinking considerably more than they were eating.)
Students from the Texas Culinary Academy, dressed in white chef’s attire, didn’t seem frazzled by the cold or the crowds as they handed out the free food.
By noon, there was a line down Red River Street to get in, and even though the weather showed no signs of improving, people inside — including Matthew McConaughey and John Popper — seemed content to sip on free drinks, eat food (even if Ray herself didn’t make it) and listen to the music.
It seems most fans showed up for the music and free grub, but there were plenty who were there for Ray. One woman, who drove an hour and a half to Austin with her husband to be at the party, spent the past three weeks making a handful of colorful necklaces to give to Ray. Ray’s assistants passed along the jewelry, and Ray was so touched by the gesture that she sought out the woman, who was visibly overwhelmed upon meeting her.
When I talked to Ray a few minutes later, she said it’s the heartfelt exchange that’s important, no matter if she’s the one giving food to fans or getting gifts like handmade jewelry from them.
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, SXSW
October 22, 2009
Sandra Bullock loves Austin-made Maine Root
Matt and Mark Seiler, the guys behind the Austin soda company Maine Root, tell me that Sandra Bullock has been special ordering their fabulous fizz at her restaurants across the country.
The Seiler brothers say they was surprised to find out last week that Bullock had given this short ribs recipe that just so happens to use their soda to People magazine. Apparently, she served the ribs at her sister’s book release party at Walton’s Fancy and Staple last month.
I also found out that they are tinkering with some alternative sweeteners to create a low calorie soda for those Diet Coke fans looking for a little more excitement.
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen
September 25, 2009
"The Winemakers," with Austin's Ross Outon, premieres tomorrow
From Liquid Austin’s Patrick Beach:
Austin’s latest reality show contestant is preparing for his moment in the spotlight, and the show’s a real corker: PBS’ “The Winemakers” debuts at 12:30 p.m. Saturday and features Twin Liquors wine expert Ross Outon as one of 12 people competing for a shot at launching their own national wine label. To celebrate, Twin Liquors Marketplace at 1000 E. 41st St. is having a reception from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday . They’ll also be showing the broadcast in the store. Appropriately enough, the series begins its run during California Wine Month. Six episodes are scheduled to run through mid-November on Austin’s PBS affiliate, KLRU.
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Playing with your food
August 9, 2009
Hudson's chef Jeff Blank: Julia Child kissed me
I got an e-mail this weekend from Hudson’s on the Bend chef Jeff Blank with a sweet story about Julia Child:
I got a kiss on the cheek from the real Julia.
It was at the Fancy food show about 1994. We had a booth selling our sauces. To entice the passers-by I was serving wild boar tamales with our Mango Jalapeno sauce. She liked the flavor so much I got a “great flavor Chef” and “kiss on the cheek” from her. I was surprised she stopped…so down to earth. Her handler/protector was her Grand Niece. She was there to promote a new book and do a book signing.
It didn’t seem like a big deal then, but after watching the movie it did.
At a dinner last night, Paula Lambert, owner of the Mozzarella Company in Dallas was telling me about a time when she stayed with Julia at her Cambridge house, and en route somewhere, they were stuck in traffic near the Big Dig construction site. A construction worker saw Julia sitting in the passenger seat (“Julia always sat in the front seat,” Lambert says.), went back down in the manhole, then a few minutes later, a group of workers popped their heads out to wave at the chef.
Seems as though the Julia — and because author of the book on which the movie is based has deep roots in Austin — and Julie stories are swirling this weekend.
Please share your Julie or Julia story in the comments below…
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen
July 27, 2009
Dreamy lunch in a treehouse at Chez Panisse
Halfway through our road trip from Portland to San Diego, we passed through the Bay Area on Saturday. A month before, I’d made reservations at Chez Panisse Cafe, the lunchtime version of Alice Waters’ famed Berkeley restaurant. Thing is, Chez Panisse isn’t so much a restaurant as an institution.
Waters opened the place in 1971, at the forefront of what we now know as the Slow Food movement. Seasonal dishes showcase the ingredients, not fancy chef magic. If I wanted that, I would have stayed up the road in Yountville and dropped a few weeks’ worth of day care at Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry. Both Panisse and Laundry are among the top restaurants in the U.S., but my mission on this trip is to do it on the cheap. Clearly, a pizza purchased across the street from Panisse at Cheeseboard would have saved us some cash, but being a food writer who’s never eaten at Chez Panisse is like being an arts writer who’s never strolled through the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
So we opted for lunch at Cafe at Chez Panisse, which has been open above the main dining room since 1980. Unlike dinner, which is always a three or four course, fixed-price meal ($75 per person, not including wine), lunch is a la carte. My friend Emily, who went to college up the hill from Chez Panisse, came up to the Bay Area from Los Angeles to join us.
(When I made reservations a month ago — you have to call exactly a month ahead to get a seat at the cafe, two months for dinner — I made them for four, hoping I could convince a friend or two to join us. Emily flew up from L.A. for lunch. Chez Panisse has that effect on people.)
We weren’t disappointed.
First off, we sat among the trees in a small room off to the side of the main dining room upstairs. Surrounded by green leaves, we ordered courses of fragrant salads, solid entrees and ended with a delicate blackberry ice cream and cobbler. I’ll let the pictures do the talking, but I’ll note that I didn’t get a photo of my favorite dish, which — to my surprise — ended up being the cheapest: A frisee with green beans with anchovy, garlic and egg ($9) that our fourth dining companion, Kyle, ordered.
Blue Heron Farm Little Gems lettuce with smoked Alaskan salmon, creme fraiche and tarragon ($11)
Terra Firma tomato and fennel salad with anise hyssop ($10)
Liberty Farm duck confit with sweet peppers, kale and almond salsa ($22)
Californian sea bass with romano beans, beets, roasted potatoes and aioli ($23)
Grilled James Ranch lamb leg with spinach, fried new onions and olive relish ($22)
Peach and blackberry cobbler with blackberry ice cream ($9.75)
We spent more than $200 for the four of us (including a bottle of wine), but it was well worth it for the experience. Friendly, not-too-formal service, memorable food in a spectacular setting.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Eating out, On the road
July 21, 2009
'Next Food Network Star' casting call in Austin
It wasn’t a full as the “American Idol” audition that packed the Hyatt Regency Austin a few years ago, but “The Next Food Network Star” casting call at the Hyatt last week brought in several hundred folks from all over Texas who were vying for their shot at celebrity chef stardom.
The first round of auditions was on Friday, with several dozen people getting callbacks to return on Saturday or Sunday. We won’t know if any of the energetic and talented Austin hopefuls made the final cut for several more weeks, but this video will give you an idea of the kind of folks who tried out.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Cooking
June 22, 2009
"Next Food Network Star" is casting in Austin
Will the Next Food Network Star be an Austinite? Producers from the show will be holding a casting call in Austin next month for the 2010 season.
The Craigslist ad says “chefs, line cooks, home cooks, caterers or culinary enthusiasts” are invited to audition at the Hyatt Regency Downtown, 208 Barton Springs Road, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on July 17.
Bring a copy of your resume, a completed application and (most telling) not one, but two recent photos.
E-mail this person with questions.
Permalink | | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen
May 13, 2009
My two cents on 'Julie & Julia'
Sure “Star Trek” just came out and wowed everybody, even the non Trekkies, and there will probably be another four “X-Men” movies released by the end of summer, but by all the talk in the food community, you’d think there was only one movie coming out this year that matters.
“Julie & Julia” won’t be released until August 7, but foodies have been buzzing about it since they found out former Austinite Julie Powell’s blog-turned-book would be adapted for the big screen by Nora Ephron and that no less than Meryl Streep herself would play Julia Child. Rising star Amy Adams was booked as Powell, and the hysteria began.
A little more about the movie: Powell hated her job in New York, and as a way to give herself a purpose, she started a blog to chronicle cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in one year. After a lot of cursing and aspic, Powell finished her task and eventually got a book deal, which then made its way to Hollywood and into the hands of Ephron.
Journalist-turned-chef Michael Ruhlman has seen is and says he loves Streep’s performance as Julia. They are already preselling a copy of Powell’s book with the actors on the cover. Director Nora Ephron apparently ran into Streep on the street and told her she was working on the script; Streep launched into her Julia Child impression and the deal was sealed.
I haven’t seen the movie, but as part of a book club earlier this year, I read the book, and much to my surprise, I was one of the only people in the club who actually liked it. Powell, who grew up in Austin and whose family still lives here, started this project in 2002, when blogs weren’t quite the universal force they are now. The idea of cooking every recipe from Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in a year and blogging about it wasn’t as gimmicky as it would be if started today because no one was doing that kind of thing way back then.
Her strong blogging voice didn’t translate into the book, my fellow book clubbers said. It wasn’t the best written book I’d ever read, but it certainly wasn’t the worst. Women authors, especially those who start as bloggers, don’t get near the respect of their male counterparts. Instead of being “witty” or “edgy,” Powell was “annoying” or “contrived.”
From the looks of it, Amy Adams won’t have quite the sailor’s mouth or affinity for gin vodka gimlets that Powell does/did in the book, but the way Ephron appears to be weaving the two storylines together seems fantastic. Eat Me Daily is upset because now Julia Child has to share the screen with some lowly blogger and won’t get her own full-length feature. This echoes some of the criticism during the book club meeting: Child is too grand, too great a character to be the subject of such a frivolous project, book and now movie.
I couldn’t disagree more. Child was an institution for decades in the form of both her cookbooks and her shows, but where is Child now? She passed away while Powell was writing her book and never officially chimed in on what she thought of the blog project. Her shows aren’t airing a hundred times a week on television. She doesn’t have new cookbooks coming out. Think all that Jacques Pepin and Auguste Escoffier did for cooking, but how many of them will be a household name in ten years?
I think that Powell’s experience in many ways embodies what Child set out to accomplish. Wasn’t Child preaching empowerment in the kitchen? Then why would she have any objection to a depressed worker bee rediscovering herself by learning to make French food that no one eats anymore? Wasn’t the love of food what saved Child, too?
Powell’s “year of cooking dangerously” has reinvigorated Child’s legacy so it can inspire a new generation of cooks. What better way to honor such an extraordinary woman.
(Photo from Columbia Pictures)
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen, Chewing the fat
March 16, 2009
Tyler Florence wants baby food, not cat food
Tyler Florence doesn’t want you to feed your baby cat food. Or baby food that tastes like cat food. Pureed baby food has baggage, he told a crowd of about 60 people, including plenty of babies and toddlers, at Central Market on North Lamar on Monday morning, and why would you feed your baby something you wouldn’t eat yourself?
He pointed out that babies have 10,000 receptors on their tongues, while adults only have 3,000. “Every little thing in their world is out of their control, except when they can spit out what they don’t like,” he said. For four years, he has been developing Sprout, a line of organic shelf-stable baby food that just came out three weeks ago. Butternut squash, blueberries, apples, sweet potatoes are just some of the fruits and vegetables they harvest from Southern California, which is then packaged in San Antonio. He said it takes about two weeks from when the food is harvested to when it hits the shelves.
Florence, who is in his 14th year on Food Network (which explains why I remember learning how to cook from him, back in the days before I could drive and was stuck at home), calls Austin, specifically Guero’s where he had dinner on Sunday, the “center of the universe,” and spoke highly of Uchi’s Tyson Cole in an interview before his talk.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Celebs in the Kitchen
