Battle of the Brands

Would you make this for your family?

Would you serve this to a guest to your home?

If you've been stuck in a media blackout bunker, trying to hide from the insanity that is the Republican primaries then you might have missed the ongoing bloody Battle of the Culinary Brands.

This current battle really started last August when Tony Bourdain gave an interview to TV Guide. In that interview he slammed Food Network's shiniest stars, Rachel Ray, Sandra Lee, Guy Fieri and Paula Deen. Of Deen he said "the worst, most dangerous person in America … plus, her food sucks”. This is nothing new for Father Tony, he's been bitch slapping Food Network stars for years now but Paula decided to answer back with the tired, old, I'm one with the real people trope. "You know, not everybody can afford to pay $58 for prime rib or $650 for a bottle of wine,” she said. “My friends and I cook for regular families who worry about feeding their kids and paying the bills.” (...and yet I don't see Tony pimping a 3 piece furniture set for $3,600 or a cheapest single ticket to her seven day cruise for $1,500). Frank Bruni, the food critic for the NY Times shoved his way into the conversation, siding with Deen and calling Bourdain elitist which is pretty freaking funny considering the paper he works for and the town he works in. Things settled down for a bit until....

Flash forward to January 17th and Paula Deen is confirming on NBC's Today show that, yes, she has Type 2 Diabetes, yes, she's now the spokesperson for Novo Nordisk and their injectable diabetes drug, Victoza and yes, she's known and has been treating her diabetes for three years. Victoza, which costs something like $500 a month, is not exactly cheap for the common folk Ms. Deen so loudly claims to champion. Mr. Bourdain, looking a bit like a modern day prophet, lobbed this Twitter pie directly at Team Deen's face, "Thinking of getting into the leg-breaking business, so I can profitably sell crutches later." Bruni, suddenly smelling which way the butter burns, also checked in with NY's opinion on this national story, saying "She had waited three long, greasy years since her diagnosis to come out. During that period, she promoted the deep-fried life without acknowledging her firsthand experience of how a person can be burned by it". Thanks Frank.

Since then it's been a constant tsunami of quotes and public relations web spinning. Paula's longtime publicist left Paula in December over the current direction of Team Deen, thinking she still had a job with her sons. She was quickly released from their employment. Food Network, also sensing bad juju, released their statement that they had no idea whatsoever that Ms. Deen had diabetes. Paula weakly defended herself, blathering something about not being educated enough to reveal her condition. Apparently she also felt a bit hurt that none of her brother and sister celebrity chefs are running to her defense but can you blame them? Actually I'm guessing that the only person happier about this Deen/Diabetes brouhaha is Ina Garten who can now officially come off the Internet Outrage pedestal after having refused a child's Make a Wish request and had her brand ripped up one side and down another.

The most amusing aspect of this whole charade is that those who strongly support Paula Deen's culinary empire (Smithfield Ham, Philadelphia Cream Cheese/Kraft Food, Nebraska Furniture Mart, magazines, restaurant, cookbooks, dvds, cookware and television shows) now claim that her food, her culinary output is only meant to entertain the masses. That she's always preached moderation. That's she's not responsible for what food you choose to put in your mouth. To this we must call Shenanigans! If Paula Deen is only on TV for entertainment purposes I'm guessing companies like Smithfield and Kraft are going to want their advertising and sponsorship dollars back. They are certainly not advertising on her show or on the Food Network as some sort of charitable donation. Hell no, they want Paula's viewers and fans to buy and keep buying their many processed food products. They don't care if Americans get diabetes, they have product to push and now with Victoza, you can keep eating their products and her food and all will be well.

The one thing I agree with out of all this is that no one forces you to eat or cook like a tv chef, food blogger, or newspaper critic. You have to be responsible for your own health and decisions. But there's a reason why the tv show Jackass has huge blazing warnings not to try their stunts on your own....because idiots do. There are thousands and thousands of Paula Deen fans that cook and eat her food with regularity. They find justification in the buzz words used to describe her food: comfort, rib sticking, southern, traditional, country and uncomplicated. Pointing out the unhealthy aspects of her dishes is translated into attacking the emotional resonance that food represents to her devoted fans. C'mon y'all, you'll feel better if you make yourself a big ole pile of my Mac and Cheese and some wonderful fried chicken, just like grandma used to make. That's a pretty powerful pitch. Let's all just remember that above everything thing else it is a pitch. Paula's not your girlfriend and she's not going to invite you into her house to cook you food, Tony's not your buddy, Frank Bruni doesn't really care about your opinions. They all represent Brands that must be fed and cared for. They all have an agenda to push and empires to maintain and salaries to pay. The team you should be most concerned with is YOU and your family. Use the common sense that the good lord gave you and use fresh food in dishes you make yourself, recipes full of vegetables, fruit and whole grains. You can only help yourself build a strong foundation to a healthy lifestyle and in the process make your own wonderful food memories.

All in the Family

There was a scene in the second season of The Sopranos where one of Tony's henchmen, after being served a formal meal in Italy, asks "Can I just get some macaroni and gravy?". The native Italians were not amused. I imagine it's how Fabio must of felt for this episode of Top Chef All Stars. Had Fabio remembered Jen's advice way back in episode two, he might have won the challenge. Cook for the judges, but really cook for Tom. Just as the fishing episode was Tom's baby, so was this episode. So I knew that once the episode was complete I had to see what explanation Tom had for why Mike got a hall pass for barely cooked pasta. To Tom's blog I went.


While this episode's theme might have been Inspiration, was it really was about was not eating. The Quickfire was only for looking, not eating. The Elimination challenge involved a restaurant 99.9% of the viewing audience will never eat at, Rao's. Ten tables, one seating a night and standing reservations that are passed down from generation to generation. Southern Italian cuisine but and that's an important but, made by Italian Americans. Here's how Tom describes his family's Sunday dinners: "We started with a salad of some sort, an antipasto. We'd next have gravy and macaroni (we never called it sauce and pasta), and we'd then have the meat that had been cooked in the gravy as our third course. We wouldn't deviate from that, be it spring, summer, fall or winter." OK, sounds like Tom's family was definitely set in their ways and those ways I think were felt in the judging. Tom's blog again: "The chefs were not asked to make Italian food , but, rather, to be inspired by what generations of Raos and Pellegrinos have done at Rao's, which is homey Italian-American food. When my father's family came over to the States from Italy, absolutely no one was importing Italian ingredients. His family had to incorporate into their cooking traditions the foods available to them here. As a result, the dishes have changed over time. People are invariably surprised when they go to Southern Italy and first sample the food, saying, "Oh, the foods very different!" Of course it is." So, if I understand what Tom is saying that while Antonia's mussels were more French than Italian the dish was still Italian-inspired enough to wow everyone at the table over Fabio's cacciatore and giving her the win. However it's the losing group that interests me more.

Mike, Dale and Tre and their pasta dishes make up the bottom three. Mike's pasta was severely undercooked, Dale's pasta did not come together and Tre's risotto was stiff. Tom says Tre's flavors were way way off and that may be but frankly Tom seems to coming down hard on Tre because of a restaurant trend that Tom doesn't particularly like. "Unfortunately for Tre, he wound up creating something that many people think risotto is supposed to be. About 15 years ago, for whatever reason, people tried to mold risotto into a ring stand. This is simply wrong. Risotto should be soupy. If you go to Italy, you'll be served it that way; ditto, a good Italian restaurant here. Tre's risotto wasn't even creamy. The starch should go into the stock and the risotto should run on a flat plate and not hold its form at all." Bourdain goes further in his explanation of a good risotto: " A good bowl of risotto is never overcomplicated with too many ingredients or garnishes. It is never buried in seafood or vegetables or mushrooms or even truffles. It is always -- and forever -- first -- about the rice. One of the most famous seafood risottos, from an island off Venice, has no seafood in it at all--just its extracted essence, delicately, delicately coaxed into broth. Attention must be paid constantly during the cooking process, first toasting the individual grains (in most cases) on the bottom of the pan, then slowly, gradually, feeding in small amounts of broth, stirring constantly to incorporate it. When finished it should be soft -- and almost porridgy, but with each distinct grain still possessing a bit of bite. It should lay flat on the plate. Never sit up in a mound. To cook Italian food well, one needs to have eaten good Italian food. And I can only guess that Tre has never eaten a good risotto. There is no shame in this -- as most risottos in most American restaurants -- even some well regarded ones -- are criminally screwed up. One of the most common transgressions is by the "genius" chef who sees risotto as a medium or delivery system for some clever and expensive garnishes -- and I suspect Tre has been subjected to more than a few of these both as a diner and during his training. His mentors did him a disservice here." So on the one hand, Tom and Tony applaud Antonia for serving a good tasting dish that was inspired by Italian cooking but auffs Tre for not adhering strictly to the Rules of Risotto? Here's my problem. I think someone who supposedly cooks pasta all the time, tells the audience about his Italian American upbringing in NJ, screws up his pasta for the Italian challenge should be going home instead of the guy from Dallas whose rice mounds instead of spreads and knows no better. I can eat stiff risotto, in fact I have eaten stiff risotto...


...Tre's risotto to be exact, back in September of 2007 when Ms. Xaxa (of the long lost and lamented blog, Amuse Biatch) and I took a little jaunt down to Dallas. As you can see, not much spreading happening and the rice is not the star, the lobster is. Was this dish popular at his restaurant? I have a feeling it was. Is it classic Italian risotto? No. But it's certainly better than what Bourdain described Mike's dish being: "It was hard, too tough and it didn't cook enough (I'm not convinced it ever could) -- as a result it never took in the sauce, and went down like a mouthful of bullets." I've tasted undercooked pasta and sent it back. It's spoils the whole dish and should be tolerated even less than stiff risotto. But what bugs me the most is Tom's insistence that Tre's culinary crime was more egregious than Mike's when Tom commits the same sort of culinary contortions. On that same trip to Dallas, Xaxa and I wanted to give Tom's Craft restaurant in Dallas a try but only had time left for Sunday brunch. Being a good southern girl, I ordered the grits to go along with my crab Benedict. What I hadn't ordered was a large glop of mozzarella cheese with the grits, having melted into a long stringy mass that sat on top like a wad of dried Elmer's glue. I realize grits hardly merit the Culinary Cross of Distinction that risotto has earned but I can think of no better way to mess with a Southerner than to mess with their grits. So perhaps Tom should get off his high Italian horse and realize most people would rather have dined on Tre's stiff risotto than Mike's bad pasta.


UPDATE: It appears that Tom heard the cries of his Southern customers and changed the Dallas Brunch menu to reflect something more appetizing. Check it.

Dang, if a stubborn old dude like Tom can change, maybe I can too. Now if Tom wants to come to Kansas City and teach me the right way to make a kick ass risotto, I'm game. It's not like there's nowhere to cook, I'm sure Lydia Bastianich wouldn't mind letting us in her restaurant for a little private lesson? Heck I bet we could even auction off some other spots for Tom's favorite charity? What say you Tom?

10 Hottest Men in the Food Industry

In fairness to the folks who enjoy the manly side of life, thought it was time to share Slashfood's Top 10 Hottest Men in the Food Industry. Number Two on the list:

Photo by Keith Farris

...the always popular Anthony Bourdain.

Curious to see who is Number One? Check out the list yourself at Slashfood.

Waste Not, Want Not

We've barely had time to shake out the sand from our shoes from the Beach Party challenge when we're whisked away to the most refined seafood restaurant in the country.


Eric Ripert's Little Temple of Seafood, Le Bernardin. Our lusty seafood adventure with the All Stars continues. Our Captain of the Quickfire, Anthony Bourdain, would like to introduce the chefs and the viewers to Justo Thomas.


Justo cuts up all the fish that's served at Le Bernardin. All of it. 700 to 1000 pounds of fish a day. Not like a 24 hour day....no, a 5 hour time slot. Not only is he efficient and steady, he has to butcher fish to the rigorous standards of Le Bernardin. We're not talking Red Lobster here, we're talking no stray bones, no bloodlines, and no scales in that mountain of fish. When you read about how many awards, stars and diamonds a restaurant receives, it's not just because of one superstar chef, it's because that chef recognizes you need to find the best of the best for every member of your kitchen team. Justo is the man who makes the most of fish delivered to his chop shop. Waste not, want not. So now our chefs face more fish cutting.


Easy right? Out of the ten chefs left, the top four will be chosen. The clock begins and they are OFF!


Tiffany, despite being the executive chef of a seafood restaurant, struggles. Fabio cuts his finger but refuses to pull a Jamie (as I am sure it will now be forever known on Top Chef) and pushes through. Carla can barely get through one fish before time is up.


Not so good. However she's got Fabio, Antonia, and Tiffany as company in the bottom rung of fish butchery. The top four include Dale, Richard, Mike and Marcel but surprisingly not Angelo. But we're not done yet. The top four have a make a dish with those fish they just butchered.


Not from the fillets but from the heads and carcasses which still have plenty of usable flesh. I love it, don't waste a thing. Use it all. It's at this point where we witness a little kerfluffle between Mike and Marcel. Mike needs a chinois and asks out loud where they are. Marcel tells him in the back. Mike takes a brief look in the back, doesn't immediately see one and comes back to ask if he can use the one Marcel has already set up. Marcel declines. Mike, still searching, asks if he can take out his super bag. Again, Marcel directs him to procure his own tools.


Finally Mike finds what he needs but the cut aways have Mike calling Marcel a dick and I'm thinking: 1) Does Mike have to have help from everyone else for the simplest of thing like straining a liquid and 2) Why the hell would Marcel help you in a non-team Quickfire with Immunity on the line? This is still a competition and Marcel's not your sous chef. Hell, he didn't have to help you out at all.

Dick, thy name is Mike Isabella.

Forty five minutes whips by and Tony and Justo are back to taste what the chefs have to offer.




For 45 minutes and fish carcasses it all looked good. Tony has almost all nice things to say except for Marcel's dish which he calls too texturally monochromatic which I think means to much soft on soft. However it is Tony, he could be experiencing an extreme pharmaceutical flashback for all we know. It was very close between all four dishes but you know that bacon dashi had to kick Dale into the winner's circle.

Immunity doesn't hurt either because it's time for Restaurant Wars!!!!!!!

Ghosts of Dishes Past

How utterly delicious. The Quickfire has just finished, Team Chicago is basking in the glory of Immunity when Top Chef Minions dressed head to toe in black (what is this, Top Chef All Stars, the Dark Side?) come bearing silver domed serving trays of food.

Every jaw muscle tightens, palms begin to sweat, eyes start to roll. What is under the dome? Wild boar? Rattlesnake? Live eels???
No, it's worse. In front of each chef are the ingredients that made up the dish that sent them packing their knives. So diabolical. Because you know that each one of them replayed that last dish in their heads over and over and over.

Playing the What If game until only large quantities of alcoholic beverages can ease their weary brains. They have three hours now and two hours the next day to put in play all the changes they plotted in their heads if they could have just had a do over. Not all eighteen chefs will find peace when finished with their do over dishes but someone will win $10,000. How sweet is Immunity looking right now for the four Chicago chefs? The luckiest of the four?

Asshat and his frozen scallops. Which if I remember, was par for the course for his season, timely immunity. (Serenity NOW!) I do have to admit, seeing Rick Tramonto smack Asshat down again at Judges Table was pretty sweet.

Apparently some folks didn't think their original dish was all that bad.

This is not a good strategy but some people just won't listen. The other person who has it really tough is Stephen. Unfortunately he doesn't have Immunity to fall back on.

You see Stephen wasn't sent home for making a bad dish, he was sent home because he didn't really make a dish at all. Instead he spent his last hours on Top Chef instructing the waitstaff which wine glasses to use. I doubt he's worried very much about those dishes once he left. He'll be starting from zero. Except for his lovely shirt and tie combination. He'll always have that to fall back on. Cooking is hot and heavy and those chefs who took the original criticisms of their dishes to heart seem to be doing well.
The presentation of the Do Over Dishes happens at the Russian Tea Room.

Why the Russian Tea Room? Not a clue but here we are. Now because there are so many chefs, they divide them up into two groups for two different services. When not cooking, you'll be eating and of course, critiquing the other chefs food. This little ploy has happened in the past and normally what happens is that the weaker chefs attack whatever chef they think is their strongest competition. Not necessarily the most honest critique of a dish but always highly entertaining to the viewer to see such blatant game playing.
The two cooking hours begins for the first group and the only person who seems to be a bit in the weeds is Stephen who has three dishes to make and plate. Tiffani, in a show of Season 1 solidarity, helps Stephen get his plates to the window.

With Tiff's help, Stephen makes it before time runs out but he's not happy with the presentation of his dishes. Then again, he could have taken the Richard Blaise approach to plating and the timer.
Just ignore it. Just keep plating, Tom's not here to tell you to stop, right? What's the old phrase, It's only cheating if they catch you? There's another old chestnut, It is what it is and the eight other chefs saw it as cheating and a leg up on $200,000. If Richard really thought no one else would rat him out he's not exactly the Super Genius he thinks he is.

No reason other reason for this photo other than I think Carla is a beautiful woman and beautiful women always have a place on this blog. Not that I would ever neglect my female readers....

...I give you Mr. Tony, a man who will quickly cut into the heart of your dish, usually with a sledgehammer. (Again in all black. Who is he supposed to be, Johnny Cash?) Gird Your Loins! Back in the kitchen, a loud TV has suddenly appeared. Now the chefs nightmare is complete as they will watch their competitors either love or hate their dish in High Def.

The highs first, Blaise, Angelo, and Dale T. all seem to redeem themselves. The lows are much more brutal than the praise was soaring. Fabio seems to come into the worst of it from both Bourdain and Colicchio however all Fabio hears is Bourdain saying he really hated his dish. The cute little charmer that all the ladies loved back during his season instantly disappears to be replaced with a guy who perhaps takes his work a little too seriously. Stephen and Elia also take a lot of criticism.

Next group takes to the kitchen for their two hour cooking time.

No reason other reason for this photo other than I think this pork belly is beautiful and beautiful pork bellies always have a place on this blog. Cooking and plating for this group is quietly uneventful and frankly so are their critiques. Jen, Dale L. and Marcel get some mild words. On the up side, Casey proves she can cook pork belly, Asshat proved he can hide frozen scallops under a plethora of other ingredients, Antonia gets a split decision, Jamie conquers a dish she still hates. Onto Judges Table or, if given his way, Fabio enters the Octagon with Tony for a little mixed martial arts action.

Your top four chefs for the night but first....

...Tom kicks Blaise out of the top four for cheating. Well, really for getting caught cheating on camera. Again, not too brilliant Professor Blaise. The winner of the first elimination and for conquering his own personal demon Do Over Dish is Angelo for his revamped Homemade Ramen with Sweet Glazed Pork Belly and Watermelon.

ChaChing$$

The bottom three hold no surprises.

They are probed and prodded as to why their dishes failed. Elia didn't realize her fish was nearly raw, Stephen seems really off with his cooking skills and Fabio is just plain angry. I have to point out that all three judges has issues with Fabio's dish, not just Bourdain. Not to be outdone by Fabio and his confrontational comments, Elia leaves the judges with her own admonishment not to eliminate her, she's got so much more to show them. And she really means it. The wise man of the group, Stephen keeps his mouth shut and in the end, lives to fight another day along with Fabio. Elia has the distinct dishonor of being the first Allstar going home first.

Probably never to be seen on Top Chef again. Can you smell the burning bridges?

Next Up....Can you guess what Elmo and Cookie Monster say A is For?

Top Chef All Stars - Not for the Faint of Heart

"...my mind was drifting back fondly to my last colonoscopy..."

If anyone had any doubt whether we'd see clashing egos and confrontational chefs, the first episode proved that everything is fair game. This season is going to be so delicious.

Top Chef All Stars - Clash of the Almost Titans

I've watched the previews, I've read the background. I am totally stoked for this Wednesday's beginning of Top Chef All Stars Season Eight. Eighteen chefs from seven past seasons clash for the title of All Star Top Chef. Are you ready for the lineup? Then RELEASE THE KRAKEN!

Season One in San Francisco gave us the delicious Tiffani and Stephen, two of the Originals. The chefs that made us love this thing we call Top Chef.

Season Two, L.A., The Cursed Season. Marcel and Elia.



Season Three, Miami, one of best seasons in terms of entertainment with Tre, the Fallen, Casey, the Black Widow and my Big Gay Boyfriend, Dale.

Season Four, Chicago. Holy Crap, does Season Four really warrant four chefs? What, they couldn't get Lee Anne from Season One to sign up so they yanked out a box Top Chef Helper and came up with Asshat and Dale to flesh out the cast?



Season Five, New York. The nearly unintelligible Fabio, Carla Hootie Hoo, one of my All Time top five Top Chef contestants and Jamie, who seems to be a bit of an odd choice here.



Season Six, Las Vegas. This season, in my opinion, was the most competitive when it came to the food which is odd considering the chefs that are participating. Jennifer I have no problem with but really who wants to see Mike when there could be Kevin Gillespie or Brian Voltagio knocking heads with Tiff or Marcel?



Season Seven, DC. Snoreapolloza as it's known in my house (Tiffany was the bright spot of that season).

That's the rundown with the regular lineup of judges of Tom, Gail and Padma. The extra special judging sauce?



That's right, the Bourdain. Let's hope it's not the pale Season Seven judge but the roaring Season Two and Three judge who compares bad broccolini to doll's hair.

So what can we expect from all this ego-crazed goodness? Probably some of the best challenges of all the past seven seasons to probe the known weaknesses of the chefs. Like say a Cooking for Kids challenge to see if Tiff has learned to dial in her love for children?



Perhaps the kids thing is still a sore spot for Tiff. How about something we've ALL been waiting to see, a head to head match up with Tom Colicchio.



Could be fun especially if things start dropping on the floor. How about guest judges?



Looks like Paula Deen pays a visit and she may or may not be bringing her Peanut Brittle Whole Smoked Ham Pie with her.



(I think this pie sends at least one chef to the hospital, maybe two.)

Who do I expect to do well when slaying the Kraken?



Of all the contestants I think Tiffani has the most Top Chef experience. She was second only to Harold in Season One and only because she did a dual menu. She was in the short one episode cookoff between Season One and Season Two at the beginning of Season Three. She won the Top Chef Christmas Special against some of the same chefs she's cooking against now. She also cooked in the strange little Fabio reunion show. So when it comes to competing Top Chef style, I'd say only Marcel has almost as much. She's completely dialed into what the judges tend to look for and she is fiercely competitive. Add to that she's been cooking non-stop when she's not doing the Top Chef gig. Who are her biggest competitors? Jennifer, Tre, Dale L., and Marcel. I expect the competition to be fierce but will it be entertaining. I have questions. For instance, will there be any bikini shots?





If not, why not?

Will the Four Assed Monkey make an appearance?



Will this little piggy squeal all the way home?




Does Casey still have the Kiss of the Spider Woman?




Will Stephen be giving advice on being a well dressed man to just about every other male cast member on set?




One can only hope.

Will Padma take any hints from Gail on style and taste as it applies to dressing for work?



I take it that's a no?

Will Carla....



...ever meet her doppelganger...



...Dramatic Prairie Dog?

Does Dale T. really think this lipstick is his color?



(Not photoshopped)

And finally, will someone, anyone tell me which chef for Season Three used this in their audition tape????



(I won't tell)