Jamie Oliver Cooks in a Beenie, Naturally

Posted by Nina Lalli at 5:51 PM, January 3, 2008

Jamie Oliver returns to the Food Network on Sunday night, first to battle Mario Batali on Iron Chef America (9PM), and then with a "sneak preview" of his new show, Jamie at Home. We just watched a screener sent to us by some delightful PR person, and, if you like Jamie Oliver, you'll love it.

He is dressed like the Beastie Boys circa "Check your Head," grates cheese all over the table, says things like "I reckon it's about 3 tablespoons," and uses his hands a lot. The camerawork is of the food-porn variety, with sudden, extreme close-ups and intermittent blurriness that should come with a warning to the hung-over.

Each episode is about a different ingredient (Sunday will be peppers and chillies). The one we watched was pumpkin and squash, and he made an "Asian-style" duck and pumpkin salad, some muffins, and soup. We like his unfussiness, and the effort to talk about foods in-season and gardening is cool. This show is watchable, like the old days of Food TV. But what's a kilo?

Jamie at Home will be on at 9:30AM every Saturday starting January 12 on the Food Network.

Anthony Bourdain Makes us Feel Even Better about Foie Gras

Posted by Nina Lalli at 1:56 PM, December 11, 2007

Last night, on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations Holiday Special, we got a mixed bag: part educational, part foodie fantasy land, and part goofy, indulgent "cool guy" time-filler. This is to be expected, but also, as usual, the educational and the fantasy parts overlapped, and made up for the random stuff.

In particular, we were very pleased to see the force-feeding of ducks at Hudson Valley Foie Gras, where Bourdain chatted with a veterinarian who explained why it is perfectly un-cruel to eat their delicious, fatty livers. The birds don't choke when the tubes are inserted down their throats, because their windpipes are not obstructed, as ours would be. Also, he said that storing fat in the liver is normal for these guys, not a disease, as animal rights groups claim.

He even asserted that foie gras ducks live a less stressful existence than ducks in the wild! So basically, if you believe that guy, eating foie gras is no more wrong than eating any meat. Hooray.

More Top Chef! Rocco DiSpirito on Dale's Lobster: "It Tasted Like Indian Sewer Water"

Posted by Nina Lalli at 4:23 PM, October 4, 2007

I had a brief pow-wow with Rocco DiSpirito (who, for full disclosure, once again, was once my boss) about last night's Top Chef finale. Here are the highlights.

Rocco says he didn't go out to celebrate after the show, but "Those guys definitely did. I think Dale took everyone to Boy's Club. Maybe he converted a few."

He called Hung "by far the best cook on the show" and said "he's the sweetest, most deferential, well-valued, talented guy. I was really happy for him."

I told Rocco I was not buying the idea that their being paired up was a chance happening. "It felt pretty random to me," he said." I told him it was too perfect. "If that's their worst crime, it's OK," he said. I'm agreeing.

When is the Rocco/Hung restaurant opening? "Ha, I was kidding when I said that, but now people keep asking me about it. I would definitely help him out however I could, but I don't know how a restaurant could fit into my life right now."

Rocco said he thought Hung was poised for New York. "He's got the right drive. He's living the first generation immigrant dream right now."

He also raved about Top Chef, saying he thought last night's show was a spectacular feat in terms of production. "I had no idea who won until the last second, and I think half of Bravo didn't either. You even thought Casey could win until pretty close to the end."

What? He did? No, Rocco clarified. "I was there, I knew what happened, but watching the show, it still seemed possible." He added that the judges debated for six hours. No mention of how many producers were at that table. "Tom takes this stuff very seriously," he said. I told him I knew Hung had won when Colicchio said "I think we made the right decision." There was no way he could have gone for Dale with that ass-lobster. "None of us could," Rocco admitted. "It tasted like Indian sewer water." Ouch.

But two of Dale's other dishes were "pure genius." He's pretty hit-or-miss, I said. "Yes," Rocco agreed. "If he were as focused as Hung -- wow." Rocco says he's looking forward to Dale's restaurant, Town and Country, which will be in Chicago. (Cuisine = Americana).

So, what happened to Casey? Rocco said she suffered from not having a thought-out plan. It was a case of too much freedom, perhaps. "When Casey's third course arrived, we were all stunned at how different it was from all the good food she's served throughout this season. At this point it was clear that this was a two person competition."

Rocco loved being a sous chef apparently as much as we loved watching it. "When you're the guy in charge, sometimes you just wish you were the guy just chopping vegetables," he said.

Then I got sentimental and told Rocco how pleased I was to see him cooking and talking about food on television. He said, referring to the blog he writes for Bravo, too: "It's nice to be able to talk about the thing I like most. I think it's partly TV that has changed. People didn't used to want to hear from an honest chef. All the media training those guys get is about how not to be boring and just talk about food, but I think Bravo has the perfect balance -- eye candy and credible expertise, and drama... It's really remarkable."

Top Chef Upset: So Not Upsetting!

Posted by Nina Lalli at 9:06 AM, October 4, 2007

So, all has been revealed. Padma apparently wore the same Footloose dress for a full month while the final three bit their nails and Casey clutched to fame by a thin, thin thread, knowing she had blown it. Hung is the greatest immigrant hero of our time. Rocco grew some stubble and has perhaps managed a true come-back. Bravo, you have done us well. Sure, there may have been a few too many ingredients in this final dish (celebrity sous chefs = genius, Malarks at the table = whatever) but who cares?

Oh God! What will we do now that it's over? These "soulful" dinners we prepare every night will soon be nothing more than poor people slop. This wretched slum already looks more sad than "honest." Is there going to be a reality show about what the cast of a reality show does after the reality show is over?? When does that start? Help me.

Well, at least we will be back in a bit with sous chef Rocco's perspective on things...

More Top Chef Mania: Casey Speaks!

Posted by Nina Lalli at 6:02 PM, October 2, 2007

This is the last of the interviews from our beloved Top Chef finalists. After all is revealed, we will speak to guest judge Rocco DiSpirito so we can further analyze this cultural event to death before falling into a winter of aching pining. Although, that new show where couples teach each other to do their jobs and then criticize each other until they get divorced sounds pret-ty good.

Unsurprisingly, Casey was the cheftestant most careful with her words, and therefore, not quite the ball of laughs that Hung and Dale were, but that's women for ya. She spent a lot of time giggling to her boyfriend of six years, who was in the room with her. After six years, how can there be that much to giggle about?

Anyhoo, when I asked Casey how she was handling the suspense, she said "Well, it's been interesting." Apparently, her restaurant in Dallas has been flooded with Top Chef fans, who pose for photos with her whenever she makes an appearance in the dining room. "My cooks are just looking at me, like, 'We hate you.' I can't really go out in the dining room anymore, because it's like, I can't get away and back to the kitchen."

I told Casey that her buddy Dale had described her as a spitfire. She said "I do think it's true. I was telling a friend recently, I'm pretty proud of the way I came across. I wouldn't want to say anything my mother would be ashamed of."

She says that the people around her, especially her boyfriend, keep her grounded, and don't let her think she's hot shit or become too obsessed with the show. Her boyfriend says something in the background, inducing some aforementioned giggling. "He says he's OK with his K-Fed status," she reports. Cute.

Her favorite guest judge was Anthony Bourdain. "I just absolutely adore him."

Casey seems to be keeping a cool head about whether she wins or not. "I've been too busy working to be really upset," she said. "Of course it would be completely, totally awesome to win, but I know that success will come out of it either way."

If she does win, she says she'll be back at work on Monday, but would plan some trips. "I wanna eat everywhere. I really, really wanna go to Spain for some reason. I'm obsessing about Spain." But also, "Shoot, Oktoberfest would be cool," and she wants to visit Thailand as well, and to the Olympics in China. "I'm going to have to get a serious work-out plan."

So, how real is the tension between Hung and the others? It's hard to get a straight answer on this one, but Casey felt like Hung was a lot more "tightly-wound" in Miami than he was in Aspen. "He was asking me all these questions when we first got to Aspen, and I was like, he's sizing me up," she said. But as the taping went on, she says the two of them actually had fun hanging out, "talking about normal stuff. There's no serious tension. Just because the guy doesn't have the same social skills as I do doesn't make him a bad guy."

But then again, when Hung joked with her after the Eric Ripert-trout-challenge, about the fact that they had used some of the same ingredients in their dishes, she couldn't help but feel like he wasn't totally kidding. Whatever, Hung rules.

Hung Speaks: 'What Should I do, Make Sweet and Sour Chicken?'

Posted by Nina Lalli at 6:04 PM, October 1, 2007

Today, I got to talk with my favorite Top Chef, Hung, who proved to be even more entertaining on the phone. He spoke to me from Las Vegas, where it was 11 AM and he was very giggly. He had just woken up, and last night was a rough one. "I ate five tacos at 4 in morning," he said. Sounds like a plan.

The cheftestants find out the winner on Wednesday night, live. I asked how he was handling the suspense. "I'm dying right now. I can never get away from these thoughts." Hung said he would definitely be surprised if he didn't win, but "it's up to the judges, and Bravo. Mainly Bravo," he said, laughing.

When I asked him what he thought about the fact that the other chefs expected him to help them when he finished cooking early, he broke out the Hung-ness: "I didn't know this was chef camp, where we all hold hands and walk into the rainbow together. I didn't know that's what competition was. If I had known, I would have done much better."

He says it's ridiculous for the other chefs to claim Hung isn't a team player. "Every team challenge, I was on top. Except with Joey, because Joey decided not to be on the team."

Hung did not come to Top Chef to be popular (duh). "Fan's favorite doesn't get the grand prize," he said. "On the road to success, you might piss people off."

He said that when he saw that the audience had voted for him to be eliminated, he laughed. "I wasn't upset. Either way people are talking about me. I'm the most talked about character. So, it's good for me. It's good for Bravo." Laughing, he added "I'm such a nice guy."

We had to bring up the challenge in which Hung seemed to be peaking on some sort of magical mushroom trip, and crushed up Lucky Charms to create a Smurf Village. "Gimme ten dollars and 20 minutes with cereal and coffee, and it's like, I'm making the Smurf Village. I'm going for it. They didn't know what to say. They were like 'What the hell's wrong with this trippy montherfucker?'"

If Hung wins, he and his mom are going to donate a portion of the money to Buddhist temples, and he wants to go to Spain. "I want to experience life, learn, cook, be more technical!"

About that soul-cooking stuff: "When was the last time you walked out of a restaurant and said, 'that steak was so soulful, I'm definitely going back?' No. You say it was cooked perfectly, it was seasoned perfectly. The colors, the flavors, etc. Why am I getting dissed for having some technical skills? The word technique is related to the word craft, and guess who owns the restaurants called Craft?"

Hung says his strategy has been to play things safe as far as flavors, and try to execute his dishes with technical precision. "I could go crazy and the judges could be like 'We see you, but this tastes like shit.' You can't just have 'heart.' I'm not going to hire my grandma to run a 12 million-dollar business. You definitely need both to be a chef."

He also ranted about Casey saying he had used the sous vide method a few times. "I'm sorry, Casey. You heat up your meat in a saute pan every time."

Hung says he knew the other chefs would "turn around and stab me in the back" so he didn't bother making friends and "bullshitting."

I told Hung that Rocco DiSpirito had said he reminded him of himself, and Hung said the same about Rocco. "He's confident, he's cocky, he's good looking... his technique is on, his flavor profile is my kind of food. I respect him a lot."

I asked Hung if we were going to see his "soul" in the finale and he promised we would. "Oh yeah. Everything is going to make sense in the end, if they edit it right." About the judge's complaints that his cooking isn't expressive enough, he said "What does that mean, when [Colicchio] says 'We don't see Hung.'? What should I do, make sweet and sour chicken and wontons? I'm trained in French food. I love French food. That is me."

I asked if he was surprised by who ended up in the final three, and he said he was. "Dale has cruised by the whole time," he said. I asked him if he saw it as coming down to him and Casey, and he said "No. It seems that way, but I'm really confident. I wasn't really challenged much by the competition at all, except for Tre and CJ, but they're not there now. It's my show."

And if he doesn't win? "Even if I don't win, the people who know anything about food know I freaking killed it." Anthony Bourdain has been one of my biggest supporters, on the blogs and stuff. And not because I'm Asian. He's a chef. C'mon, he knows."

Top Chef Mania Begins with Dale

Posted by Nina Lalli at 4:24 PM, September 28, 2007

Welcome to Top Chef Mania. We spoke to Dale today, for a long, long time, and Casey's next. On Monday, our buddy Hung will make an appearance, and you'll be hearing from Padma and Rocco as well. It's fun to talk to people who are on reality TV.

What we saw this week in Aspen -- the trout, the elk, the tears -- happened a month ago. At this very moment, all the cooking has been done, and the judges have made their decision. Dale, Hung, and Casey are waiting, with the rest of us, to find out the winner live on Wednesday night. That sounds like torture, we said to Dale, who confirmed that it kinda was.

Here are some other highlights from our talk, which ended only when the Bravo PR woman told us to wrap it up. Gays are chatty!

Dale, who is from Chicago, where the finale will take place, has gotten lots of support and "Midwestern pride" from the locals. Cars honk, people take his picture. "It's great."

Of all the guest judges, Dale had the most fun with DiSpirito, who he says is "really funny and sarcastic. No matter what, he's an amazing chef. Nothing's gonna change that fact. I think he and I have a very similar sense of humor."

He said the Eric Ripert trout Quick-fire was "the most fucked up" of all. "It was like x-treme camping. It was a really terrible experience."

The Le Cirque challenge was "incredibly embarrassing" and "logically impossible." The Le Cirque method for making the potato-wrapped seared fish dish includes time in the freezer, which helps the fish set up and helps the potatoes brown. But the cheftestants didn't have time for that. "It was like, here, try it, because you can't." Being in the Le Cirque kitchen on a busy Friday night was a little bonus dose of shame. "I thrive on pressure, but I don't thrive on public humiliation."

On Hung: "Hung is a great guy. He's a fierce competitor and I'm humbled by his skill, but we're very different."

Casey, on the other hand, is a "friend for life, the ultimate class act," and, somewhat to our surprise, a "spit-fire and a bad-ass."

Apparently the two of them got real giddy during the taping of the final episode, when all the pressure induced a case of the giggles. "We broke the fart barrier," Dale told me. "And then all hell broke loose."

When Dale talked about the cast of the show, he practically sounded like a kid who misses his camp friends. He said that dealing with certain aspects of the reality TV process bonded the cheftestants. "What television entails really shocked us," he said. "We really banded together. Certain things made us really angry and frustrated. Very few of us were there to be a TV star, and the only hand you could hold was that of your fellow competitor." He even said that when the clock started during competitions, the chefs were relieved, because it meant they could do their thing.

Still, Dale says he wishes it was his job to be on Top Chef every season, and that it was "by far the best thing I've ever done."

Oh also, how does his mom feel about all his ball-references? "I've become, like, Captain Sound-byte. I keep saying things and then I'm like, oh God, I hope my mom doesn't hear that. But we're kindred spirits. She always says 'You were an asshole the day you were born, and you're an asshole now.'"

Top Chef: Not Live Blogging

Posted by Nina Lalli at 3:38 PM, September 27, 2007

Eric Ripert is kind of scary when you run into him in the woods with a trout and a cast iron skillet.

The producers seem to be focusing on making us like Hung, with all that immigrant talk, but then, for some reason, he's supposed to want to help his rivals cook? We love Hung, but the audience, or at least the freaks who actually take online polls at bravo.com, want him eliminated.

Did Padma really just hit a triangle and yell "Come and get it!"?

Aw, Malarks felt like he "really killed it". That's sad.

Is Dale crying? He's been reborn? He fucks cowboys? Ick.

Wow, the chefs are really beaming with love for these guys, except Malarks. Padma lied, as always. It was not a hard decision.

I can't wait to see Hung's Vietnamese soul.

Casey is still going to win, right?

And yes, Rocco is back next week! Holler.

Top Chef: No More Balls, Duets, For the Love of God

Posted by Nina Lalli at 1:40 PM, September 20, 2007

I know I’m supposed to hate Hung’s smug ass, and in real life I would, but I’m really feeling him. That said, they might as well crown Casey right now. I have officially returned to the prediction I started this season of Top Chef with – it’s time for a lady cook. Put me down for, uh, like a dollar? I bought milk with nickels and dimes yesterday, people. Shit is rough.

This week’s episode had some ups and downs. Up: real cooking. Down: painfully predictable outcome. I was ready for Dale to please pack his mo-hawk the first time he referred to his own balls (“I’m going balls out!”), but toward the end of the episode, when he said something about placing his testicles on a table before the judges, a little bit of vomit started to tickle the back of my throat. Not to mention the fact that I banned duets a long, long time ago. He might as well have served his stupid chicken in a shot glass. Jesus.

Anyway, as much as I love old Malarks, this battle is between the mean immigrant and the weepy girl with chunky highlights. Pure TV magic.

Top Chef: We Love the 90s!

Posted by Nina Lalli at 4:17 PM, September 13, 2007

I didn't hear a word that was said during the Continental kitchen portion of last night's Top Chef because I was weeping from laughing so hard at the shower caps. Padma fashioned hers like a beret, Hung pulled his down tight and frowned the whole time... Bra-vo indeed.

What's going on with Casey's hair? Every time the show cut to her interview, my companions and I sang the "Friends" theme song. Chunky streaks and shelf layers are no longer ignorable. Today, a friend pointed out that all the cheftestants seem to be stuck in the 90s. Malarky's soul patch and thumb ring are of the "Swingers" variety, though.

It seemed like Tom Colicchio broke out the extra nasty to impress his cool friend Tony. "The hash was gross," he told Dale. He tried to hide his grin and beaming admiration when Bourdain told Tall Guy that his broccolini wouldn't have been served in prison. We think the mean girl should just host it himself.

One last thing: the smell of airplane lasagne is enough to make me puke. The idea of recycled air post-sea bass is unimaginable.

Could it be Top Chef Sara?

Posted by Nina Lalli at 2:08 PM, August 23, 2007

Last night, Top Chef might have made up for the crimes of last week. Many guest appearances aided in this effort, like Madonna's brother, who also has a touch of an English accent, Steven the sommelier, our favorite Top Chef dick-head ever (Dale called him an "ostentatious chatterbox"), Lia, Camille, Joey, and one majorly-cleavaged Sarah.

But it was the quick-fire challenge that really won us over. Specifically, it was watching Casey's disastrous onion-chopping effort during the mise-en-place relay. First, she said "it's not brain surgery," and then she was lapped! Oh, wonderful, painful reality TV.

But here's the question were left with: could our theory of a women's movement within Top Chef come true after all? Sara really reminded us of, well, a chef, in terms of her decisiveness and focus...