During a discussion at the Food Network's recent New York City Wine and Food Festival, author, "No Reservations" host and professional leather jacket wearer Anthony Bourdain asked his fellow panelist, culinary wunderkind Chef David Chang, "Who chaps your ass?" Chang was quick to rake Guy Fieri over the coals, citing his "douche glasses," and "stupid f***ing armband," and went on to ask a gleefully obliging Bourdain to "catch me and kick me in the ass" should he ever find him similarly adorned. Chang went on to add, "I'm sure he's a swell fella." The crowd went wild.
Not 24 hours later, a "Saturday Night Live" skit portrayed the "Next Food Network Star" winner being pecked to death by birds.
So why are the cool kids picking on Guy?
I want to go to a party at Food TV superstar Guy Fieri's house. I imagine pyramids of glistening pork ribs and snow shovels full of hush puppies. I dream of patiently standing in line by the pool waiting for margaritas to be blasted into my open mouth by a fire hose while AC/DC blares over the loudspeaker.
You know what you're going to get with this dude. He's fun, entertaining and totally lacking in subtlety -- a one-man tailgate upon which nary a Michelin star shines. His contribution to the tired fusion trend was to awkwardly pair barbecue with sushi. He is who he is; now buy a book.
Martha Stewart says her five-month prison sentence cost her $1 billion.
Speaking with "Nightline," Stewart says the "legal mess" was devastating to her personal worth.
"Oh, it's inestimable -- probably more than a billion dollars, of course, and if you add in what the company was worth, absolutely," Stewart says. "And I'm a major shareholder in the company. When you are prosecuted in such a way and a great portion of wealth is dissipated, all I could think so much is 'What I could have done with all of that for the good of mankind?'"
"Nightline" followed Stewart for a day in a news piece that aired Thursday. In it, Stewart dishes on Rachael Ray as well as her 2004 legal troubles.
"I knew we had a really good thing going, and I really knew that I was not guilty of anything that could possibly harm my company," Stewart tells Cynthia McFadden. "I was pissed, OK? Pissed that something could actually affect that. The company had nothing to do with anything, but yet because I am the face and the brand -- my person -- it certainly had a harmful effect."
She says she's put that period of her life behind her.
"How can I kick myself?" she says. "There are other people to be kicked. Enough. Let's get on with the future."
Martha Stewart draws a stark contrast between her kitchen skills and those of Rachael Ray and surprisingly, Ray completely agrees.
Speaking with ABC's "Nightline" in an interview to air Thursday night, Stewart says what Ray does isn't good enough for her.
"To me she professed that she cannot bake," Stewart says of Ray. "She just did a new cookbook which is just a re-edit of a lot of her old recipes, and that's not good enough for me. I really want to write a book that is a unique and lasting thing -- something that will fulfill a need in someone's library. So she's different, she's more of an entertainer than she is -- with a bubbly personality -- than she is a teacher like me. That's not what she's professing to be."
When asked about Stewart's comments, Ray says "It's true. It's 100 percent true," but adds the criticism doesn't upset her.
"Why would it make me mad?" Ray says. "When it comes to producing a beautiful, perfect, high quality meal, I'd rather eat Martha's than mine too."
Who do you like better? Martha or Rachael? Spill it in the comments.
Emile DeFelice and Tom Colicchio and a country ham at historic Anson Mills. Photo: Courtesy of Tom Colicchio
What, like you thought the host of "Top Chef" was gonna haul his cookies cross-country in a Kia? Porsche handed Tom Colicchio the keys to a brand new Panamera 4S -- into which he promptly stuffed his assistant Liz and Craft's executive chef Damon Wise. The trio set off on a 1,200-mile, six day food odyssey stretching from Atlanta to Columbia, Charleston, Chapel Hill, the Chesapeake, Washington D.C., rural Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and back home to New York.
Said Colicchio in the inaugural post of his six-day stint on Food & Wine's 'Mouthing Off' blog, "It was about paying visits to some of the food producers who make my restaurants what they are, and discovering new ones the old-fashioned way. On this trip, the stops were the destination."
Yo, Tom? Next time, we call shotgun. The ham is welcome to sit on our lap.
Julia Child certainly could make a mean boeuf bourguignon, but did you know she could also whip up the building blocks of life?
It's kind of scary watching her describe scientific diagrams using her chef's knife as a pointer. But it's helpful for all us home cooks that she converts grams into teaspoons. Bon appetit!
In the arena of giant food, the record for the world's largest meatball doesn't last long.
It was just this September that Jimmy Kimmel and crew bested a Mexican meatball to take back the prize of world's largest meatball for America. But just five weeks later, the late-night funnyman's large lunch was bested by an Italian eatery in New Hampshire.
Nonni's Italian Eatery crafted a meatball on Sunday at a Holiday Inn in Concord, N.H., that decimated Kimmel's 198.6-pound meatball by about 25 pounds.
Emeril Lagasse is expanding his culinary empire this month with his first hamburger joint.
Burgers and More by Emeril will bring the world-famous chef's signature flair to the basic burger. It's slated to open Nov. 22 at the Sands Casino Resort in Bethlehem, Pa.
"I really want to be the real thing," Emeril told Slashfood at the restaurant's unveiling at New York City's famed Carnegie Deli. "This is not going to be the dollar menu here."
Hot-headed celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay is finally waking up from his kitchen nightmare.
The reality show "Kitchen Nightmares" put Ramsay in failing restaurants across America for one week so the tell-it-like-it-is chef can try to turn the struggling businesses around. But the show proved too troublesome for the salty U.K. chef, who says he's through with it.
The foul-mouthed Brit admits the show's title is a little too fitting: "If the restaurants succeed, there's no praise," Ramsay told The Sun. "If they're screwed, we're blamed and get lawyers' letters."
More than two-thirds of the restaurants Ramsay "helped" ending up being sold or shut down, the paper said.
Slashfood attempted to contact the production company, Granada Entertainment, to clarify if both the American and British versions of the "Kitchen Nightmares" are canceled -- our calls were not returned.
There was nothing Yum-O about the cockroach that dropped in on Rachael Ray's lunch earlier this week.
The Food Network star was serving up some "sizzling soft tacos" to a group of sixth graders at New York City's Public School 89 when the uninvited guest crashed the party. A reporter for the New York Daily News noticed the six-legged bug scrambling across the table, and then watched as Charlie Dougiello, Ray's publicist, swatted the vermin away.
Ray, who was at the school to introduce her new healthy lunch menu, told the Daily News that she missed the whole thing. "I did not see that. It's unfortunate if there was [a bug]. I think that these schools strive to be the best across the board; I'm sure that includes cleanliness."
Soupy Sales, the comedian responsible for 20,000 pies to the face, has died at the age of 83.
Sales, who built his comedic reputation with characters like White Fang and Black Tooth on children's TV shows in Detroit and New York, took his first cream pie to the face in 1951, the Associated Press reports. He died Thursday in a hospice in the Bronx, N.Y., after battling health problems.
"I'll probably be remembered for the pies, and that's all right," Sales said in 1985.
Have any Soupy pie memories? Let us know in the comments below.
In a welcome respite from subpar airport fare, "Iron Chef" Masaharu Morimoto is partnering with hospitality and food service company Delaware North to provide fast-casual eateries serving Japanese bar food in airports across the country.
The bistros, appropriately titled Skewers, will serve an assortment of yakitori -- skewered grilled or deep-fried meats and vegetables -- served with rice bowls for portable consumption, as well as soups and salads. The restaurants' settings would take the form of two different models -- a take-out counter and a traditional sit-down approach -- and both would feature open kitchens.
According to Vito Buscemi, director of Concept Portfolio for Delaware North, the line has "great menu variety and great presentation -- all the meats and vegetables are grilled right in front of you. It's very quick, convenient and healthy, and we think it's going to have mass appeal."
In retrospect, it all sounds like something out of one of those strange dreams where everyone you watched on TV during the day converge into one subliminal place -- and Bret Michaels was there, and so was Rod Blagojevich! And Sinbad was taking Al Roker's drink order while Joan Rivers recommended the $100 burger. Oh Auntie Em, there's no place like home!
In reality, it was just another day in the life of a "Celebrity Apprentice."
When Slashfood received word through the grapevine that our very own "Star Chef" Curtis Stone was serving up gourmet cheeseburgers for charity at Burger Heaven on Monday, we had to go and root for the home team.
If you're a fan of Curtis Stone and happen to be in New York, it's your lucky day.
The chef is currently filming a reality TV show with a bunch of other celebs and will be at Burger Heaven at 9 E. 53rd St. from 10:45 a.m. to 2 p.m. serving gourmet hamburgers for the charity Feeding America. It's not cheap -- $100 a burger -- but it's not every day that you can buy a burger from Curtis Stone.
Todd English and Erica Wang.
Photo: David X Prutting,
PatrickMcMullan.com
Todd English is speaking out for the first time since calling off his wedding to Erica Wang.
"I couldn't go through with it," the 49-year-old chef of Olives told People. "I thought I'd met my partner, but as things progressed [it] went down hill."
English has appeared on "Iron Chef America" and PBS's "Cooking Under Fire."
In the People interview, English accused his jilted fiancee of "physical and verbal abuse" and allegedly hitting him in the eye in September. The New York Post reports Thursday that English visited a New York City police precinct to report the allegations.
But she denied the abuse allegations to the New York Post earlier this week, telling the paper that English has left her without a job (she was his personal assistant) and an apartment, and forced her to pay $12,000 for wedding expenses.
"An animal wouldn't treat another animal the way he has treated me," Wang told the Post. "He is forgetting I am human. I don't deserve this. He has caused me, my friends and family so much pain."
Slashfood reported on Oct. 5 that Wang had thrown a party despite the nuptials being called off.
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