Mario Batali Ripe for the Roasting
On November 7, Mario Batali will be “roasted, battered, and fried” at a celebrity roast at Capitale for charity (the Food Bank of New York). Will it be affectionate and reserved, with only a few broadsides about the chef’s legendary appetite? Or will they really let him have it? It’s hard to tell from the lineup, which mixes Batali buddies like Tony Bourdain and Stanley Tucci with celebrity roast specialists like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Sarah Silverman, and Artie Lange. But given some of the roastee’s recent antics, he could be in for a rough time. The big man can take it, we hope. For tickets, call 212-249-6188.
Back of the House
Foodies Flock to Networking Site; No Word If Any Have Dates
Food Candy is as simple as a baked potato: It’s the Foodie Friendster (or, as you cutting-edge types would probably prefer, MySpace). The strange thing about the site is how happy, normal, and attractive the people look. Can these really be the same hard-core geeks that we’ve eaten with? Or is this the food version of JDate, which for the longest time showed you pictures of one Sarah Silverman after another, only to deliver Golda Meirs? We appreciate how the site brings together established bloggers like Daisy Martinez with obscure but worthy writers we didn’t know about, like the farm-loving Pease Porridge and the admirably focused Burrito Blog. (Restaurant Girl and Famous Fat Dave had already made fans of us.) We just hope this social phenomenon reflects the foodie community’s increasing obsessiveness, not some attempt at reintegrating with normal human society.
