Gift Ideas for Teachers and Grads: NBC 10 Philadelphia June 9, 2010
Posted by Eli in : Uncategorized , add a commentThank you to Leah Ingram from The Suddenly Frugal Blog : http://www.suddenlyfrugal.com/ for featuring our cookbook on NBC 10 Philadelphia!
Please check out her blog for amazing frugal living tips.
Max is alive! Out from the Breslin for a day off!! He…Cooks. June 3, 2010
Posted by Eli in : Uncategorized , 1 comment so farWith my one day off this week (falling on Memorial Day) I decided to cook up a storm and invite some people over to our new place in Park Slope as it has a backyard (a true rarity in NYC). Being a cook at a restaurant I don’t have much free time, and when I do, I’m often so burnt out that I don’t feel like cooking. But I still love doing it and so this past Monday, I went to Los Paisanos, a butcher in Carroll Gardens, to start my day. I got 3 kinds of sausage, their house-made burger mix, and a whole flank steak.
Once I got home I started in on marinating the flank with some crushed rosemary, garlic, lemon rind, and chilies. I lit the grill and roasted eggplant, tomatoes, and red peppers. Once they were cool, I chopped them with oregano, garlic and red wine vinegar to make a delicious caponata for the sausages. People started to arrive and I quickly chopped some parsley and mint for a chimichurri sauce for the flank. Burgers, sausages and flank went on the grill and we dug in to
the homemade guacamole. An hour later and we were stuffed to the top,
but there was still room for homemade rhubarb strawberry crisp.
The Pics:
burger with homemade caponata (roasted eggplant, pepper, and tomato)
and bacon cheddar potato salad
chimichurri sauce: mint, parsley, oregano, chilies
flank marinade: rosemary, chili, garlic
US! At the Pacific Wine and Food Festival! Max in LA! May 21, 2010
Posted by Eli in : Uncategorized , add a comment
Umm….AH-MAY-ZING.
So we got booked at this and we are totally honored to be a part of such a kick-ass culinary field.
Max is flying into LA so we hope to have at least one other event while he on the golden coast. We are already planning on where to eat when Max is out here. He’s here for 50 hrs and we have 12 restaurants already on a list. This is gonna get gross.
Some of the chefs who are going to be there at the PF&FF: Chefs Cora, Voltaggios (both), Malarky, Delcour, Pagancoss, Hoffman and many more! They are announcing new people all the time and it’s going to be a hell of a weekend. You can buy ticket starting in June but for big groups,media or random questioniess: http://www.pacificwineandfood.com/contact-us/
We are doing a 30 min demo on Sunday…time and place TBD but we will keep you posted as soon as we know more.
We don’t want to cause a scene or anything but there is some big name talent so we are putting together sort of a multi-faceted entertainment show featuring POSSIBLY some cooking.
Tentative game plan of attack for our PW&FF demo:
First off we are working on a SICK dance routine. I’m def doing at least 2 backflips during the demo. That one chick from DWTS’s has been working with me here in LA for months.My glutes are absolutely becoming maximised.Speaking of… Max has been training on weekends with the cast of that Broadway show where they do all that dancing. He’s approaching graceful Julliard status. At the demo there are going to be girls in sexy chef outfits shooting FITK branded pot holders and wine glasses out of cannons like at Pistons games,we’ve secured a lazer light show courtesy of VFX Light Tech Inc. (they do like every tight Bev Hills bar/bat mitzvah) and we are going to come out for our demo on white horse (max) and tamed tiger (eli). Also there will be live graffiti art by BANKSY but it WILL NOT be political at all so…don’t get all crazy and think we are going overboard or anything.
We hope to see you there. Tickets go on sale in June. Until then…have fun envisioning the above.
And follow Pacific Wine and food Festival on Twitter here for tons of updates on the REG: www.twitter.com/PacificWineFood
Website for pretty pics and more serious info: http://www.pacificwineandfood.com/
An Ego explosion during the dinner rush creates controversy and divides NYC May 13, 2010
Posted by Eli in : Uncategorized , 1 comment so farA controversy emerged this week after Ron Leiber was kicked out of Restaurant Marc Forgionein TriBeCa. Now, this wouldn’t have been such a massive deal except that Ron Leiber just happens to write for one of the most powerful news entities in the world – The NY Times. So it was with great fanfare and debate that we were virtually introduced to Chef Forgione, Mr. Leiber and the unique way in which they met.
“The event” can all be boiled down to these key points: Chef Forgione yelled at someone on his staff and people in the dining room could hear. It was bothering Mr. Leiber. He walked into the kitchen and had an exchange with the chef and then returned to his seat. The chef then came and kicked Mr. Leiber out of his restaurant.
Now Max and I have both worked in restaurants of varying degrees of quality. We have had our share of loud conversations that we didn’t care or didn’t bother to think if guests could hear, we’ve both been yelled at by superiors, owners and other workers and have even talked a fair amount of shit about guests not limited to – their orders, the general stupidity of diners lack of food knowledge and their lack of restaurant etiquette. Max is now a chef at The Breslin in NYC and works 12 hour shifts in one of the NYC’s most popular restaurants so when I first saw this post and starting see the controversy unfold over twitter, I immediately called Max on his cell to get his take. I am currently, a professional diner so I thought we’d maybe have completely different opinions on the situation.
Below are our first thoughts:
Max: I see both sides. I don’t think this Chef should be a dick to his cooks, but I also don’t think anybody should go in to the kitchen during service. Even non-kitchen staff who work at the Breslin don’t dare to come in to the kitchen during service. The kitchen is where the work gets done and a diner should respect that space. If people have a strong moral objection to people getting yelled at they probably shouldn’t go out to eat because it happens in every restaurant. Chefs yells at their staff. Although it is very unprofessional to yell so loudly that the customers can hear, since they’re there to have a nice meal and obviously somebody yelling takes away from that experience to say the least. But that doesn’t mean that Chefs don’t yell and that there isn’t a really good reason why they are yelling.
Eli: At first I thought Mr. Leiber was a serious badass and should be commended for telling the chef he was ruining all the diners experience with the loud yelling. Mr. Leiber was eating dinner out (for which he pays handsomely in NYC) and expects a certain level of service and quality. He most likely assumes that his experience won’t contain (or at least shouldn’t have) someone loudly being yelled at within earshot, so he does something about it by letting his own voice be heard. Up to this point, I am totally cool with Mr. Leiber standing up for what he believes in. You want to rep the little guy? Awesome. Go for it. Where he loses me is when he walks in the kitchen. That is just absolutely bonkers and I wonder at what point in his mind he thought “yep. I’m just gonna go back into the kitchen because this seems like the right way to handle this situation.” I mean, the wait staff takes your food when you send it back due to unhappiness, so they’d most likely be the proper conduit for voicing your concern about this issue as well. So at first I was totally on Mr. Leiber’s side. He wanted to remedy his own situation and make himself (and fellow diners) more comfortable. But I totally switched over to the chef’s side when Mr. Lieber went into the kitchen. The kitchen is the chef’s office. In there, he can treat his employees (within the law) as poorly or as wonderfully as he sees fit. If someone messes something up, the restaurant, chef and its employees can be severely damaged. So yelling may be at times, a necessary tool of the trade. Mr. Leiber overstepped his bounds and told a stranger how to do his job. This wasn’t a mom hitting a kid at a supermarket where you are like, holy shit I gotta say something. This was a full grown adult (Mr. Leiber) out of his element telling the chef ( fully immersed in his element), how to handle his own business. I think Mr. Leiber owes the chef a public apology for dragging his name through the mud via the NYtimes.
To close: I’m actually less interested in the interaction between Mr. Leiber and the chef than the ”fall-out” or controversy surrounding the event. I mean, without the NYT in the equation this happens the exact same way and maybe 20-50 people in Mr. Leiber’s circle of friends hear about it. It becomes a great story to tell the next time Mr. Leiber is out to dinner with friends and that’s about it.
The truly unique aspect of this story is that with the instant connection the web gives us along with the power of the NYT forum, this has becoming a legit newstory in the food community. Grubstreet and EATER both picked it up and as of the writing of this post there were 439 reader comments on Mr. Leiber’s original NYT article. That’s probably more than on any of the oil spill articles that have been dominating the news in the past few days.
The amazing thing is the amazing split of people taking each side. People are enraged that Mr. Leiber would take matters into his own hands. Others are livid that he was kicked out of the restaurant by the Chef. People have found certain aspects of the story that they find unbearable, annoying, terrible and despicable. It’s actually quite awesome that one event can elicit such a dizzying variety of emotions.
So max had to go and he closed the phone call with this: Obviously all this pr is good for this chef and his restaurant in the long run, I’m sure.I mean, I had never heard of this place until today. So maybe some people go into to check out the food and others go in to check out the ”psycho” chef. Let’s hope people don’t go in with the mindset of “getting tossed.” So I guess the old adage still rings true, all press is good press.
And all along you thought a person’s palate was the only way a restaurant could divide a room.
You can read Mr. Leiber’s article here: http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/why-i-got-kicked-out-of-a-restaurant-on-saturday-night/
Chef Forgione responds via Grubstreet here:http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2010/05/marc_forgione_flips_out.html
LA blogger Food Woolf’s (a 15 year restaurant veteran) take on the situation here: foodwoolf.com/2010/05/nyt-writer-in-forgione-kitchen.html
Taste of the Nation: Los Angeles – June 6th Media Park Culver City May 11, 2010
Posted by Eli in : Cooking, Events, Taste of the Nation , add a comment
For the past several months I have been working as part of the Taste of the Nation: Los Angeles Marketing Team. The event, held June 6th in Culver City at the Media Park (across from the Trader Joe’s) is the premiere chef event in the city. It’s really insane how many awesome restaurants come out for it. There will be a bunch of wineries, several incredible liquor sponsors, a live demo, a silent auction featuring amazing items (like having your script read by the Director of Development at Ratner Productions and 100’s of other things).
Some of my favorite places that are confirmed so far:
Animal, Akasha, Comme Ca,Hatfield’s, Grace,Mozza, AOC, Tavern,The Foundry… and dozens more to be confirmed soon.
