Amuse-Biatch Spelling Bee-atch: The Mistake That Wasn't

Loath though we are to admit it, possums, we are by no means infallible. We make mistakes aplenty. Fortunately, all the therapy has paid off, and we are able to acknowledge those errors.

As we have written about, last week’s episode was rife was spelling and other such mistakes. And so when we came across this—

—we said to ourselves, “Oh, another one. Poor guy! Look at how they mangled his name. Jawn?!?! Really?!?” Furthermore, his general demeanor and squeaky voice sent our gaydar to magenta-alert levels.

But we did a little checking, and possums, we were wrong. Jawn is, in fact, Jawn. As for the gay thing, it turns out he is married to renowned pastry chef Nicole Kaplan, with whom he has a couple of children.

And so, possums, we are suitably Chasteened.

Unbeknownst to Him, Mario Batali Finds Himself in the Clutches and the Cleavage of a Food Blogger

Miss XaXa with Molto Mario himself, at last night's book signing in the Chicago area.


From Mario's disquisition in Eater.com, "Why I Hate Food Bloggers":

I do not really HATE anything or anybody, it takes too much energy to hate, and I would rather dog someone/thing sotto voce to the large audience than spend a lot of time hating them/it. But blogs live by different rules. Many of the anonymous authors who vent on blogs rant their snarky vituperatives from behind the smoky curtain of the web.

Uh, er, uh, er....

Mario Batali to Play King Lear as His Own Children Metaphorically Stab Him with a Sharpie

Possums, it's time to dust off your Harold Bloom-approved editions of King Lear and turn to the bit that says, "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child."

Now imagine Mario Batali declaiming those lines while clad in flowing robes and orange Crocs (we'll leave it up to you to suggest who should play the Fool in this production) as he contemplates this situation:

In May, in a cri de coeur heard round the Blogosphere, Chef Batali told New York magazine, while discussing culinary plagiarism, "Hey, we watched Ilan [Hall] win [Top Chef] by taking the Casa Mono tasting menu and presenting it as his own..."

Imagine, then, the paternal horror he must have felt at the most recent Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, which he attended with his wife and his little male Goneril and Regan. According to BusinessWeek, as Ilan Hall, whose very presence there was one of the prizes for winning Top Chef, walked by Chef Batali, Molto Mario shouted at him, "My kids want your autograph, man!"

Our hearts bleed to read this. How much sharper than a serpent's tooth is an autograph seeker's Sharpie!

Special Mario Batali Disclaimer: Chef Batali, not that you'll ever read this, but just in case you do, please be advised that the preceding (though culled from the sources cited) was meant to be humorous.

The Wages of Fear: Has Ilan Hall Left the Monkey House?

We read an interesting rumor (Snack via Eater LA) that, as of today, Ilan Hall has quit his position as a line cook at the Mario Batali-owned Casa Mono. Do any of you possums have confirmation or further information?

"Wooden" Chef America: Mario Batali vs. Joël Robuchon

Well, possums, it seems we have a battle of the jerk-offs on our, er, hands.

From New York magazine, published January 15, 2007:

What was your favorite annoying Marcel moment?
Sam: There's no single moment, but he would switch into different alter egos in different places. On the beach he'd talk like a surfer, and other days he'd go gangster.

Ilan [Hall, line cook at Mario Batali's Casa Mono]: This didn't air, but he had to make this dish about lust and I told him that he's never lusted after a woman, all he does is go home and jerk off thinking about Joël Robuchon. And the only thing he could think of as a comeback was, "I don't jerk off to Joël Robuchon." That was it!

From the Las Vegas Weekly interview of Marcel Vigneron, published January 18, 2007:

According to a post attributed him, [Frank Terzoli] claimed you spent at least 40 minutes in the bathroom.
'That's just not true. I think it's sad that he has to resort to those kind of lies to save face. If anything, Ilan was the one that took 45 minutes in the bathroom. Probably a chronic masturbator.' He squeezes out the butt of his cigarette and lifts his hands in an open-palm gesture. 'Okay,' he says, 'enough of that!'

So, possums, which chef would you, er, raise your glass to?

On the left-hand side, we have Chef Robuchon, and on the right-hand side, Chef Batali. Closing our eyes and remembering the lardo pizza and olive oil gelato from Batali’s Otto (as opposed to any dishes from Babbo), and the lamb confit, truffled mashed potatoes, and Chartreuse soufflé from L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon (as opposed to any dishes from Joël Robuchon at the Mansion), we know which hand we’d pay tribute with.

Padma Lakshmi Continues to Defend Marcel Vigneron; Amuse-Biatch Continues to Defend the English Language

From the last, as-yet-uncorrected portion of Padma Lakshmi's Cogent™ Blog:

We've all had that kid in school who [sic] everyone loved to pick on and I do think somehow this group has decided that he's there [sic] bespectacled Piggy in their Lord of the Flies [sic] scenario. I felt bad for him watching the tape of the show. I saw what he said to Betty and he didn't snap at her, [sic] he just told her to wait firmly enough to get his point across. The voice you hear telling Marcel to "hold up" is the voice of our Assistant Director Sean [sic] who relays when the cameras are ready to film the one and only time that food is served to that bunch of live waiting dinner guests, and if Marcel hadn't waited of [sic] told Betty to wait loud [sic] enough, we would have missed the shot. And Betty and others know that. They just decided that whatever little thing he did was an excuse for them all to behave in that way. Whoever [sic] heard of kitchen folk being that thin-skinned? If you don't like being barked at now and again, you should really get out ot [sic] the kitchen. I do think they're a little frightened of him and his skills, where as [sic] they aren't threatened by, say, Mike -- who [sic] they seem to help along one [sic] more than one occasion. I'm not saying that Marcel is completely innocent, but watching tonight's episode, I was shocked by the level of aggression on everyone's part. I do hope this doesn't continue to be the case. This is supposed to be a professional environment, not one where personal attacks are commonplace.

Poor copy editing skills and grammar aside, we think Padma hit the nail right on the head. We thought it particularly interesting, when viewing the episode again, that part of Ilan Hall's tirade is an injunction to Marcel go to another school and to go to New York and have Ilan teach him how to cook. This was of interest because, at least according to the Bravo bios, both Marcel and Ilan attended the Culinary Institute of America (and we seem to remember reading somewhere that their tenure there overlapped). So is Ilan knocking the quality of his own education? As for teaching Marcel how to cook, Bravo's own bio says that Marcel was a teacher's assistant at CIA, so why would that be necessary? Furthermore, Marcel is a "master cook" at the U.S. flagship restaurant of international superstar chef Joël Robuchon, whereas Ilan is a "line cook" at Mario Batali's tapas joint. Padma, we think your analysis is spot-on. You done good, girl.

Bewitching, Bothered & Bespectacled

To obsessive “Top Chef” fans, no detail is too trivial, trite, or tangential. And so it is with not a whit of shame that we bring you this item from the Mexican daily El Universal, covering the wedding of Elia Aboumrad’s cousin, also named Elia (and did we mention our Elia’s mother is yet another Elia?).

The civil ceremony took place at the Mexico City spread of our Elia’s parents. Our bewitching, bothered and bespectacled Elia, then working at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, contributed her own spread. She catered the wedding, preparing “a delicious menu with predominantly Arab dishes” that was her gift to the happy couple. Given what we’ve seen of her talent and her taste in funky eyewear (and footwear), we certainly wouldn’t mind having her cater our wedding.

Speaking of funky eyewear, while reading Heat, Bill Buford’s superb memoir of kitchen slavery, we came across the story of how Casa Mono, Mario Batali’s Spanish tapas restaurant, came to be created. It is a gripping story in and of itself, but was of particular interest to us because Casa Mono is where cheftestant (yes, we have crumbled and adopted the term, if only temporarily) Ilan Hall works as a line cook. Since the menu features cockscombs (yes, those floppy red bits of millinery atop roosters’ heads), tripe and fried sweetbreads, we’re not surprised that Ilan wasn’t fazed by simple snails.