Friday, August 29, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
“Teddy Bear” Tom Colicchio Believes in Speaking Softly and Carrying a Big Stick
We suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that when asked by the Rocky Mountain News, "If you could prepare a meal for any president in history, who would it be? And what would you serve?," Ursus Major Tom Colicchio should have picked the original Teddy Bear, Theodore Roosevelt.
As Colicchio puts it, "He was such a great outdoorsman, and . . . the dinner conversation would just be amazing. I could see where he would eat for four to five hours nonstop and it would just be a great night." He would have served Teddy a meal based on game--no mention of bear meat--and truffles.
All well and good and delicious, but somehow--without, of course, any evidence--we had always figured Tom Colicchio for a Democrat.
“But Officer, It Was Just Beer Foam!”: Marcel Vigneron Arrested on Suspicion of Drunk Driving
Oh dear, possums.
Well, frankly, we're shocked that it took four seasons for anyone from Top Chef to be arrested, and even more shocked that it should have been Marcel Vigneron. We just assumed that it would be Ilan Hall.
Marcel had appeared at a gala for the Pageant of the Masters on Saturday and was arrested after midnight by the Laguna Beach police. Surprisingly, it seems he returned hours later to give a cooking demonstration at the Festival of Arts. It remains to be seen whether Marcel will take the (awkward) rap; we will keep you updated and supplied with bad puns.
Baileys Barnum: Is Richard Blais Losing His Fauxhawk?
Shiver our timbers, possums. What the Blaises is going on?
This is how we are used to seeing Richard Blais, with soft-serve whoosh atop his head. Whether intentional or not (we think intentional), this is a trademark of sorts, and a canny one at that, an instantly recognizable silhouette. Even if it’s not a becoming coiffure, it’s part of his “brand.”
So imagine our surprise when we came across this online ad in the Los Angeles Times for a Baileys promotion. Where, oh where, is the fauxhawk?
Don’t get us wrong; that’s a very flattering picture in the ad. The (new?) haircut is a good one, and either Richard has lost some weight, or we want to get ahold of the bitch who PhotoShopped that pic for Baileys, giving him a firm jawline and highlighting the cleft in his chin. We just wonder whether it diminishes his “brand” to get rid of the fauxhawk.
On the other hand, notice how the Top Chef connection is absent from the ad. Knowing how territorial NBC Universal/Bravo is, it may well be that they wouldn’t let him use the Top Chef association in connection with a non-approved product or brand. And yet, it seems canny and a step up to go from mere Top Chef finalist to “Celebrity Chef,” and in that light, perhaps the better haircut is part of the same strategy. Better to be a “Celebrity Chef” with a good haircut than a Top Chef finalist with an unflattering, gimmicky haircut that cannot in good conscience be maintained beyond 2008.
The “Grews” Had a Word for Them: While Cockteasing Raggaydy Andy, Spike “Asshat” Mendelsohn Confirms Jen and Zoi Are Kaput
Seriously, possums, this is a document for the ages. Spike:
* confirms that Jen Biesty and Zoi Antonitsas have broken up, that they had broken up by the time the reunion show came around, that Zoi was “more into the breakup” than Jen, and that, indeed, Zoi brought along a new girlfriend to the reunion! Quel scandale!
* says Ryan Scott has “quite a mouth on him”
* calls Lisa Fernandes “pretty miserable of a person.” He also says he “gave her [his] old restaurant.”
* does his best impression of a red-light district catamite, though Raggaydy Andy doesn’t rise to the bait, other than to say the Greeks are “AC/DC”; what could possibly have given him that idea, Spike? Surely not the pawing, the leering, the giggling, and the suggestive talk? Nah. Anyway, we simply figured that, unlike the blond Navy boy from The Bachelor, Spike simply wasn’t Andy’s type.
* says he hit on Padma during the show. Raggaydy Andy refuses to confirm that Padma is single. Very interesting.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Dispiriting News: Rocco Does the Rumba
Oh possums, somewhere in his babyproofed lair, Anthony Bourdain is having a very good laugh this morning. Yes, indeed.
Confirming not only that he has accepted his fall from three-starred grace into the muck and filth of "has-being" but also that he is positively rolling around in that same muck, our little Rocco DiSpirito has now picked up his tight(er) trousers and dance shoes to join Dancing with the Has-Beens, er, Stars.
His illustrious companions in this dance marathon straight out of They Shoot Has-Beens, Don't They? include Kim Kardashian, Ted McGinley and Lance Bass. (There had been talk that they might allow Lance to trip the light fantastic with a male partner--wouldn't Rocco have been ideal?--but it appears that is not the case.) On the plus side, Susan Lucci will also be on. Aging Star Collapse Watch begins in 28 days. ("Oh please," says Miss XaXa. "Susan Lucci would never pull a Marie Osmond. Ever.")
Wayward and Biatchstein Investigate: Mystery Man Revealed as Fabio Viviani
‘Tis true, possums, we had very nearly despaired of ever identifying the “goatee’d, vaguely toothsome lad” in the photo with Miss Universe, but last week another anonymous possum sent a tip our way, and we’re pretty sure we have our man, as it were.
Feast your eyes upon that splendid hunk of Italian beef. No, possums, no; look to your right. Eccolo. Now, the giovanotto standing next to the fine specimen is Fabio Viviani, owner and executive chef of Café Firenze, an “Italian Restaurant and Martini Lounge” in Moorpark, California, about 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
Granted, we’re not with the FBI or anything, but based on the comparison of a photo from Café Firenze’s website and the Miss Universe photo, we’d say it was positively the same guy.
As if by the grace of E.M. Forster himself, Fabio is a native of Florence, Italy.
But before you go all A Room with a View, cueing up “O mio babbino caro” and heading off to Porta Rossa to buy the ring, you ought to know that he’s married, to a certain Jessica (pictured below).
Lucky bitch.
(Rest assured, Signora Viviani, that we mean that in the nicest, most teeth-gnashingly congratulatory, does-he-have-a-brother way.)
From 2003 to 2005, Fabio cooked at a number of restaurants in Florence, such as “Central Park, Osteria Del Angolo, or Mariposa.” According to Fabio’s blog, in 2004 he won “the Best Steak Dish at the Sagra Della Bistecca in Cortona.” His “love of cooking Italian food…comes from [his] mother and…from watching [his] grandparents cook traditional Italian dishes made from the freshest herbs, vegetables, seafood, and meats, in a style of cooking that goes way beyond just the following of a recipe. [His] grandfather says you can have all the fancy tableware and the expensive kitchen, but if you don’t have a love and passion for your food and friends to enjoy it with, you have wasted your time.”
Viviani opened Café Firenze last year, and the local paper gave it quite a good write-up. Mind you, we were left speechless by another article about Viviani in the local paper bearing the headline, “Big Love to take on Firenze’s huge steak” and starting off with lines such as, “This won’t be Big Love’s first go at a major hunk of meat” and “‘I ate the whole thing and said, “Is that all you got?”’”
Not to worry, possums. The article merely informs us that, as befits the winner of the Sagra della Bistecca, Fabio “dry-ages his meats the old-school way.” Can you blame us, possums, for developing a taste for bistecca alla Fiorentina? We have but one prayer, though: Lord, please let him not be another Ryan Scott.
Wayward and Biatchstein Investigate: Baltimore’s Jill Snyder Identified as “Top Chef” Contestant
A little possum told us that one of the cheftestants competing on the next season of Top Chef is Jill Snyder, executive chef of Red Maple in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore. The same little possum told us that Ms. Snyder's audition video for Top Chef had been posted on YouTube, but that spoilsport Bravo had jacked Jill and made her take it down.
Naturally, we set to looking into this, and--wouldn't you know it--this video did indeed exist on YouTube on some point, but now has been mysteriously scrubbed clean from everywhere it was posted. This was all that we could find, this spoor, this tantalizing trace:
As you can see, it's rather difficult to get a close look at Ms. Snyder, but there is enough there for us to hazard a guess that the woman in the first picture on this post (from Red Maple's website, which does not identify the subject of the photo) is none other than the fair Jill. There are, to our eyes at any rate, suggestive similarities in the shape of the nose and mouth; likewise, the band in the hair is similar, and the earrings appear to be the same. This is by no means definitive, but we think it's a good hunch. Still, if you happen to have a photo of the telegenic Ms. Snyder, please feel free to send it in.
(We also discovered that Ms. Snyder's audition tape was put together by Marcus Morelli, who happens to have the following food-related video on Funny or Die, which itself has a Colicchio-sponsored, food-related partner site, Eat Drink or Die):
According to the restaurant's website, "[w]ith every seasonal menu update Executive Chef Jill Snyder and her staff consistently deliver gastronomic feng shui" (!!). Further, "[t]he Red Maple menu is focused on obtaining locally grown and raised foodstock while at the same time drawing upon globally influenced spicing, marinading, food prep and cooking techniques." On verra.
At any rate, possums, please keep the tips coming.
Amuse-Biatch Heterosexual Monday: Casey Thompson Gets “Horny” While Playing Peekaboob on the Beach
Oh, don’t mind the headline, possums. Season 3 finalist Casey Thompson, pictured here on a recent jaunt to the beach in the Hamptons, is, as we know all too well, nothing if not a good sport. Says she: “Hey, give a girl a break! I haven’t had a beach vacation in years…; it was a really fun time. As for the tattoo, we all had some college moments we would like to forget…”
