Seemingly Sober Individual Consumes Seven Pounds of Brother Jimmy’s Wings
We’re just back from Grand Central Terminal, where top-ranked American gurgitator Joey “Jaws” Chestnut has retained his title of chicken-wing-eating champion. Proving that he’s only getting stronger in his quest to return the coveted “mustard belt” to America when he faces champion Takeru Kobayashi in the Nathan’s hot-dog-eating contest this year. Jaws set a new record by decimating 7.105 pounds of medium-hot wings in twelve minutes, a good pound more than the visibly shaken onetime champ Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas. We don’t have photos yet, but trust us, the “wingtastic expression of chicken wings,” as emcee Keenan Thompson described it, wasn’t pretty — third-place finalist Tim “Eater X” Janus, wearing a beard of hot sauce in addition to his usual face paint, was reduced to picking chicken scraps out of his teeth with a MetroCard.
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World’s Biggest Cheese in Town Today
To say that we felt only excited at the prospect of seeing the world’s biggest cheese today would be an understatement. It was more like awe. Six-feet wide and weighing over 1,300 pounds, the Gouda-style cheese is the star of a special exhibit co-sponsored by Murray’s Cheese and the Beemster company of Holland. A bothersome case of gout will be keeping us from the cheese’s press conference, which we are told is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. But we’ve thought of some ways the milk monument might be put to use.
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Cesare Casella Jumps to Launch Bean Bar in Grand CentralCesare Casella of Maremma is known for his way with livestock (we’ve written of his specialty breed of pigs and his much-prized Chianina cattle herd). However the Tuscan-cooking guru made his first big product splash with his Republic of Beans import company, and he’s now looking to get back into the beans business. Casella is in negotiations to open Bean Bar, a carryout shop in Grand Central Station that will sell some of his signature Tuscan bean dishes as well as uncooked beans and possibly other Italian products. “The main idea is to have cooked beans,” Casella tells us. “They’re great and so healthy, but for many people, they are a pain in the ass to cook. I want them to be able to take home beans when they go home on the train.” Families around the tri-state area will definitely be thanking Casella for that.
Ask a Waiter
May Harrington of the Grand Central Oyster Bar Remembers 35-Cent Bivalves andMary Harrington, known to regulars as May, was a server at legendary chain restaurant Schraft’s when she received an invitation to work at the Oyster Bar in 1978. “I was kind of terrified,” Harrington says. “Those days it was crazy busy.” Harrington didn’t emigrate from Ireland to be a server; she planned to become a nurse. “Now here I am,” she says, “nursing oysters.” We asked her what has kept her on the job all these years, and she shucked open a small trove of salty stories.
