Season 3 finalist and all-around good sport Casey Thompson is leaving her position as executive chef at Dallas restaurant Shinsei. In what we promise will be the last time we use this excruciating pun, Casey was asked where she was going, but Shinsei. Good luck, bonne chance, and buena suerte, Beaver Boots. Vaya con Dios, or rather, con su cholo Jesus.
“Even Ricola commercials make me break into a cold sweat.”
—Anthony Bourdain
Possums, our search for a photie of Sam Talbot’s Colombian fiancée--the mysterious Paola Guerro, or is it Paola Guerra, or is it Paola Guerrero?--had proved fruitless and exasperating, the hunt for the elusive arepa. But then we came across a find by a commenter on Eater, namely the photo above, which, in its original state on Flickr, is labeled Paola Guerrero - Wilhelmina New York (as you may know, possums, Wilhelmina is a renowned modeling agency).
We're inclined to believe this might be the one. The future Mrs. Talbot is a model, sayeth Sam, and this Paola is a model. As we noted earlier, the announcement on People's website, written by someone Latino-deficient, couldn't decide if the woman's surname is Guerro (never come across it before) or Guerra (much more plausible). But if Paola's last name is really Guerrero, that would explain "Guerro" as a typo by someone Latino-deficient. And if this is the future Mrs. Talbot, pues ¡ay Dios mío!
However, we could not help but notice that there are a number of commenters on the Eater post who have a female friend who thought she was due to get the thumb-ring any day now. But surely Sam couldn't be such a cad? Right, possums? Right? Besides, whether her last name is Guerra ("war") or Guerrero ("warrior"), the future Mrs. T looks like she's quite a contender.
In what is quite possibly our favorite film of all time, Carol Reed's The Third Man, Orson Welles famously spoke these self-penned words about Switzerland:
Mind you, this was said while in Vienna, Austria.
And now, Anthony Bourdain seemingly wants to outdo Harry Lime himself. From Bourdain's blog:
Achtung, baby! We almost sensed a famous Austrian invitingly patting a leather couch in the great beyond and rubbing his hands at the prospect of such a field day.
We ought to know better, pace that famous Austrian, than to analyze a man's nightmares and jokes, but what the hell? So, Tony, possum, are you quite sure you have the right target in your sights? Because it seems to us that your story is, well, full of holes. (And Gruyère sucks? Really? Isn’t that what goes on the onion soup at your restaurant Les Halles?)
In your list, the only things that could be considered exclusively or prototypically Swiss are St. Bernards and possibly cuckoo clocks. Lederhosen are not exclusive to Switzerland; the Germans have them, and the Austrians have them. Ditto Alpine hats. Cross country skiing seems more Nordic than, say, Alpine skiing, and The Sound of Music, well, there you're just plain wrong. That's Austria, silly, and in the movie the Von Trapps were trying to escape to Switzerland. If we may go all Dr.-Drew-diagnosing-Tom-Cruise on you, we'd say you have a problem with Teutons.
And yet, what's this?
Why, it's you in the German capital. So, you'll go to Berlin but you won't set foot in der Schweiz? Tony, Tony, what gives? Show us on the doll where the bad barber touched you.
Yes, possums, it's true. Just as one fashion-world Colombian leaves the Bravo family, another comes in. In fact, as Miss XaXa points out, this might well be one of Newton's Laws. And so, as Nina Garcia leaves Bravo to follow Project Runway to Lifetime, People Magazine (yes, People!) has (exclusively!) received the announcement that inexplicable heterosexual heartthrob and diabetic elf Sam Talbot is marrying a Colombian named Paola Guerro. Or wait, is it Guerra? People seems (and people seem) to be confused.
At any rate, the not-for-much-longer señorita is, wait for it, a model and a teeshirt designer.
The groom and the bride are both 30, and met in Brazil. Though we have Google-imaged our little fingers to the bone, we've yet to come across a photo of the Talbot-described "stunning" bride.
The groom confides, "She takes care of me in many ways." Eeeew. Well, leave it to Sam Talbot to make love and Guerra.
Best of luck, kiddos.
A reminder, possums, that Uncle Ted Allen's new show, Food Detectives, officially premieres tonight on Food Network at 9 p.m.
On Saturday night, Miss XaXa, much like Marie Antoinette, girded her loins, stepped into her peep-toe Mary Janes, and headed for The Chopping Block. Fortunately, possums, she lived to tell us all about it.
The Chopping Block played host to a Top Chef cook-off between Season 3’s Dale Levitski and Season 2’s Josie Smith-Malave, with Ted Allen as a judge and Nick Verreos of Project Runway as master of ceremonies (Joel Grey has nothing on him). The cook-off was a fundraiser for a charity that is near and dear to our hearts, the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition, an organization devoted to ensuring that classrooms and workplaces are safe for people who don’t conform to gender type—and so that middle school boys don’t get murdered by their classmates.
Uncle Ted was impossibly svelte—wait, this man is a food critic?—and looked as though he’d just come from the spa. Uncle Nick had flawless skin—in fact, as Miss XaXa put it, “Bitch [the highest compliment we can pay] had the best skin of any man I’ve seen.” She suspects it’s that unbeatable genetic combo of Greek and Venezuelan ancestry, but we’re convinced there has to be more and want to know the name of the brujo who does his limpias, or the location of the pool where he does laps in Crème de la Mer. Josie was, as Miss XaXa, related, “a blast! Television did not do that woman justice.” As for Dale, you know all too well, possums, that we campaigned and lobbied for Dale as fan favorite, and dammit, he wuz robbed. We’re looking forward to trying his restaurant when it opens in Chicago, and for the record, he’s even brawnier and hunkier in the very solid flesh. As you can see from the pictures, a very good time indeed was had by all, and the entire evening was GenderPACked with fun.
A special thanks from Miss XaXa to Mark (pictured above with Ted Allen) for his chivalry and solicitude at the GenderPAC cook-off. Like many another blossom of the South created in the hothouse imagination of gay men, Miss XaXa has been known to depend on the kindness of strangers. Mark proved very kind indeed, squiring Miss XaXa around the reception and serving as her paparazzo. Smooches, Mark!
We had no idea, possums, when we put out our Doug Llewellyn call, that none other than “Marcel P” himself would answer, and to tell us about a lawsuit, no less. Spike Mendelsohn being sued? And not in the People’s Court? C’est dingue! At any rate, possums, here is the entry from possum Marcel’s own Goncourt Journal of culinary sorties:
I live in the DC area and [a few nights ago] I took three of my friends to Good Stuff Eatery, Spike’s DC Burger restaurant. It is within viewing distance of the Library of Congress, on a stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue that includes many small, cute restaurants, cafes and shops. It is in a relatively affordable and residential area of DC. The restaurant is small, with two floors and a plasma TV on the second floor. When I got there at around seven PM, the restaurant was loud and crowded as people formed a long line for burgers. There is very little in the way of decoration at Good Stuff Eatery, but there is some outdoor seating.
Spike’s dad stands at the door and loves to make conversation. His enthusiasm is a little excessive; he constantly asks you if you have a menu and makes sure you know to stand in the line. He likes to talk to everyone and told me and my friends that the restaurant is being sued by DC chain Five Guys since the burger “Spike’s Five Napkin Burger” sounds too much like something they have. Spike’s dad didn’t go into details, but he said that he was delighted to be sued and hoped it would bring in publicity. He also expressed a healthy disdain for Bush and Cheney. He looked normal enough, wearing a checkered blue collar shirt tucked into navy blue pants, but his shoes were white canvas low tops with bright orange elastic across them and no laces. He said it was a new style. My friend, who does not watch reality TV, asked him if his son runs the restaurant. He proudly responded that it is his son’s restaurant and that he, his wife, Spike’s sister and Spike’s brother help too. He said that they love Washington, DC, and all of their friends live in the area, and added that they would like to open another outpost of the restaurant in the Adams Morgan area. (This is confirmed on Capital Spice.)
Spike was working at the restaurant that night. He had a team of men cooking burgers (there seemed to be one female employee), but he was not among them. He seemed to be handing out bags of food and putting marshmallows on shakes, but I don’t want to sound mean, I’m not entirely sure what he was doing, and he did seem to be hard at work there. He was wearing one of his “asshats” from the show, a plaid black and white hat with black fringe around it. He had his scruffy beard and looked exactly as he did on the show, except his nose seemed to be a bit bigger and resembled his father’s. There is a picture of him smiling on the wall of the restaurant by a quote about how he remembers his grandfather making burgers. He was moving to the loud rock music as he worked. The restaurant has almost no atmosphere and the food is served in bags with plastic plates given to you. There may be some seating outside and on the second floor, but it is more of a take-out place. The grease of the food seeps through the white bags.
I ordered the “Blazin’ Barn,” a burger that includes Asian ingredients like daikon and Thai basil. It also had carrots, mint, and a spicy mayonnaise on it. It tasted fine, but the burgers Spike and his crew are making there are really not gourmet. The burgers are small and flat, not especially juicy and rather greasy. They are not different from what you would get at another burger place, but they are not bad. They are average burgers. The “Village Fries” with rosemary, thyme and pepper are pleasant, and the ordinary fries are fine. The milkshakes are quite good because they are thick enough. The only stand-out items on the menu are the Vidalia Onion Rings. They are unusual and mild in flavor, and nicely fried, excellent and uncommon in my view. I also enjoyed the mayonnaise bar which included sriracha, chipotle, Old Bay and mango mayonnaise. It was all good, especially the Old Bay, oddly enough.
I enjoyed my meal at “Good Stuff Eatery,” but I came away a tad disappointed. I thought the menu looked promising and hoped that Spike would do a riff on burgers, using his knowledge gained from the Culinary Institute of America and from other restaurants where he worked to make a fancier burger accessible to DC residents. But there were not many twists here – it’s just a burger joint, but with a chef who has been on TV. The twists – a mayo bar, a burger with daikon and carrots, sriracha at your table – are minor and not really innovative. Good Stuff Eatery is like Spike’s pork taco in the Rick Bayless Quickfire challenge; it’s good street food, but it isn’t anything more.
Our Miss XaXa cleaves to the ever-delightful Uncle Ted Allen at last night's Gender Public Advocacy Coalition event at the Chopping Block in Chicago. Details and loads more photographs to come.
Oh fie, possums. It's not what you think. We were being quite literal. We meant only that, as we write, Ryan Scott is competing at the world-famous Gilroy Garlic Festival. We'll let you know whether he wins, or whether he, well, stinks.
...as Asian-American.
(Hey, Antonia "Chinese Restaurant" Lofaso, you might want to watch this.)
Oh dear, possums.
We hasten to add that, aside from his annoying overuse of the phrase and concept of things being “a play on” other things, we like and admire Richard Blais and his creativity and maturity. This makes it all the more wince-inducing to come across this passage in an interview he did with the Phoenix, Az., East Valley Tribune:
For what it’s worth, possums, we don’t think that Blais, despite his unfortunate and poorly chosen words to that effect, actually believes civil rights are “crazy.” We get what he was trying to say, but oh what a way to say it. Is a touch of megalomania (comparing his signature bacon ice cream and the civil rights movement in the first place) a more forgivable sin? Does molecular gastronomy have a recipe for foot in mouth?
The Army of Possums is out there, possums, and not surprisingly, they have teeth. Possum "R." had the misfortune to happen upon the not so aptly named Good Stuff Eatery, the Washington, D.C., eatery recently opened by Spike Mendelsohn. This is R.'s account of the experience:
All we can say, possums, is that we’re not surprised by the asshattery. Our thanks to R. for sending in that report. At the risk of sounding a little Doug Llewellyn, we ask you, possums, to oblige us: if you happen to eat somewhere where a cheftestant has had a hand in the food, do like R. and send us a write-up of the experience.
Yes, possums, it’s a tad off-topic, but we wanted to let you know that, with our freshly grown claws, we are turning our attention to Project Runway as well.
Yes, it’s the final season, and yes, our mothers did tell us not to kick a man when he’s down.
Unless you’re wearing stilettos.
And this time we have company—the incomparably catty Hughman will join the fray for the season.
Do come join us at Pink Navy, possums. It ain’t the Love Boat, but we know you wouldn’t have it any other way.
Well, possums, we have now returned from the customary hiatus that follows the end of a Top Chef season, a time during which we attend to what, if we remember correctly, James Mason in The Shooting Party referred to as “death, disease and dentistry.” Mind you, we also use the time off to grow new claws, and new brain cells when we can manage it. This time around, though, we did a little something different. Foodie networking site FoodCandy kindly and unexpectedly asked us to sit down for an interview, and we—inspired by Padma Lakshmi’s penchant for self-exposure—couldn’t help but say yes. We won’t take off our top, but we will reveal the innermost depth of our shallowest thoughts.
So if you’re interested, possums, do go and have a LOOK.
Our thanks to dB of FoodCandy for a wonderful experience.
