Batali’s Celebrity Cookbook; Gisele Offends Football Fans With CabernetFor the second year in a row, Barilla has released a downloadable cookbook featuring Mario Batali’s recipes for cooking for celebs like Natalie Portman and Stanley Tucci. You may have to fill out a stupid survey to access it, but for every download Barilla is donating $1 to America’s Second Harvest. [Mouthing Off/Food & Wine]
Food Network chef Robert Irvine, whose bulging muscles put together meals on Dinner: Impossible, turns out to be huge liar, having fabricated a past that involves being a knight in England and being a full-fledged White House chef. [St. Petersburg Times via Gawker]
Irritable chef Gordon Ramsay likes to relax with a Sunday supper of roast beef, over which he likes to emphasize manners and social skills with his children. [WSJ]
Back of the House
Martha Stewart Acquires Emeril, Looks Around for Whom to Eat Next
In what can only be called a case of intra-celebrity-chef warfare, Martha Stewart Omnimedia has swallowed up Emeril Lagasse’s TV properties, including Emeril Live and The Essence of Emeril as well as Emeril’s various cookbooks and other assorted Emeril-related media. We’re glad to see that the diminutive chef is going to see a big payday for his shows, the production of which was recently canceled by the Food Network. (Old episodes should continue to fill the airwaves until the sun turns red.) This move signals a resurgence of the Martha juggernaut, however. Something tells us that this isn’t the last big acquisition she will be making. Watch out, Rachael Ray! Martha is back.
Martha Stewart to buy TV chef’s media properties: report [Reuters]
Mediavore
David Lee Roth Is a Shitty Tipper; Alan Richman Out at BloombergThe Shitty Tipper Database on bitterwaitress.com keeps track of people like David Lee Roth, who recently left a $20 tip for a $200 lunch. [NYP]
Alan Richman is out as Bloomberg’s food critic. [Eater]
The bhut jolokia chile pepper is 200 times hotter than a jalapeño and could potentially be used in pepper sprays, but people like eating it and U.S. sales are projected to increase 500 percent this year. [WSJ]
Mediavore
Rachael Ray Continues Food Network Domination; New Year’s Day BrunchesWith Batali and Emeril out of her way, “homegrown star” Rachael Ray has just inked a two-year deal for a new prime-time series on the Food Network. [Eater]
It’s nothing he hasn’t said before, but the wordiness of some menus gets on the Bruni’s nerves. [Diner’s Journal/NYT]
Forget turducken: British chef Phillip Corrick has created a monster that involves at least 48 birds of a dozen different species and feeds 125 people. [Daily Mail]
Mediavore
Huckabee Loves Salad and Bread Sticks; Domino’s Still Won’t Deliver in 30 orPresidential candidate Mike Huckabee chose T.G.I. Friday’s when a Times reporter offered to take him to lunch anywhere in the city, but Huck ultimately settled for the Olive Garden. [NYT via Serious Eats]
The Food Network’s ratings are hurting, which might help to explain why Emeril Live got canned. [NYT]
How do Thomas Keller and Mario Batali fare against McDonald’s when it comes to calories? Keller’s veal breast and polenta and Batali’s pork loin are worse for you than a Big Mac, but who cares? [WSJ
Beef
Martha Stewart Facilitates Batali, Food Network DétenteNow that the Food Network isn’t keeping him so busy, Molto Mario has loads of time to cook at his restaurants yuk it up on The Martha Stewart Show. And just why isn’t the Food Network keeping him busy? “Well, the Food Network has made the conscious decision to go a little more mass market than I would say that I appeal to,” said the dark rebel of chefs yesterday, “but I am still on Iron Chef and as a matter of fact, I am the number one Iron Chef! We are in the middle right now of a seventeen-match winning streak.” Hard-hitting Martha got more out of him, too: “There’s a lot of options out there, and the Food Network is a really cool thing — it is just they have decided to choose whatever they want to choose. I’m not mad at them.” How big of Mario! He better ring up Emeril and tell him how to work through the pain.
Back of the House
Emeril No Longer Live, But Still at Food NetworkThe Food Network reached out to us today about the fate of Emeril Lagasse. FishbowlNY reported — and we repeated — this morning that the Bamtastic One was leaving the Food Network. Not so, says the channel’s spokeswoman, Carrie Welch.
Back of the House
Food Network, Emeril No Longer Feeling the LoveFishbowlNY reports this morning that Emeril Lagasse has shouted a final “BAM!” at the Food Network. No more notches will be kicked up after December 11, the last day of production for Emeril Live. First Molto Mario, now Emeril. Is the Food Network putting all of its eggs in Rachael Ray’s basket, or will Iron Chef be the channel’s secret, all-encompassing ingredient?
Bam! Emeril Leaves Food Network [FishbowlNY/Mediabistro]
Earlier: Mario Batali Chopped from Food Network
Neighborhood Watch
Celebrity-Chef ‘Pop-Up’ Café Open in Midtown; Halloween RecipeAstoria: Freeze Peach is hosting a costume party Saturday at 8 p.m. and it’s BYO. [Joey in Astoria]
Boerum Hill: Balsamic vinegar is available as a topping at the new ecofriendly ice-cream parlor Blue Marble, on Atlantic Avenue near Bond Street. [Bergen Carroll]
Chelsea: Tekserv is hosting a Mac OS X Leopard release party tonight with free food and live jazz, and the winner of the leopard-themed costume contest gets an iPod. [Blog Chelsea]
Clinton Hill: New restaurant Mariam at 975 Fulton Street features cuisine from Senegal, Kenya, and Guinea, but even though okra was “cooked down to an indiscernible sludge,” it doesn’t feel overextended; the spot will soon add Jamaican food to the menu. [Eat for Victory/VV]
Flatiron: The Manhattan branch of Boerum Hill restaurant Lunetta opens Monday on Broadway at 21st Street. [Grub Street]
Lower East Side: Essex Street’s newest Shamalian bar may have opened for a night this week, but it’s closed now. [Eater] Just in time for Halloween house parties, the Stanton Social has provided a simple recipe for pumpkin croquettes. [Restaurant Girl]
Meatpacking District: The communal table at Los Dados is supposedly a hot singles scene. [Bottomless Dish/Citysearch]
Midtown West: Bon Appétit’s “Pop-Up” café opened yesterday and features sandwiches and salads designed by Emeril, Giada, Govind, and Pichet Ong, plus desserts from Will Goldfarb. [Midtown Lunch]
Related: Celebrity Chefs Flock to Former Home of Cheesy Celebrity Restaurant
Prospect-Lefferts-Gardens: Papas & Sons market was busted Wednesday. “Word on the street is that someone in there was running numbers,” but no one’s talking. [Across the Park]
Beef
Bourdain Body-Slams the Food Network AwardsSome highlights of Tony Bourdain’s lively excoriation of last night’s Food Network Awards, just posted on Ruhlman:
“Okay … so some brain dead douche bags from Ad Sales and ‘creative’ got together and cooked up this hybrid, fur-bearing catfish of a beast, this jackalope of a High Concept. Fine. That’s what they do. But who green lit this monstrosity?”
“The production itself — above and beyond the witless, ill-considered, just-plain stupid “concept” of an Awards show where most of the awards’ went to inanimate objects (accepting the award for Best Comfort Food is … Macaroni and Cheese!!), appliances or cities (Portland’s mayor wisely did not bother to show), — the production values — were lower than whale shit.”
“Did the network, upon realizing (as they surely did) that the whole thing was a hideous, stultifyingly boring cluster fuck — and a public slap to their talent — did they consider maybe having the good taste to just bury the whole thing in archives like a rotten bone? They reportedly had no trouble burying the Ripert and the Ramsay episodes of the excellent, critically acclaimed My Country My Kitchen. Have they no decency?
There’s a famous story where Robert Mitchum walks into studio head David O Selznick’s office, pulls down his pants and takes a crap on his white carpet. I hope Emeril is pinching a loaf right now.”
But honestly, Mr. Bourdain, what did you think of the program?
The Fabulous Food Network Awards!! [Ruhlman]