Posted on May 11th, 2008
As today is Mother’s Day where better to go for a delicious and appropriate article than Epicurious …
That’s right recipes for Jamie Oliver’s mum’s Rhubarb Daisy Cake, Spain’s Jose Andres‘ delicious Beef with Cabrales “Mama Marisa”. Anthony Bourdain’s mom never taught him to eat those strange things, she taught him good stuff like Coquilles St.-Jacques. And there’s more, again just click the article link above.
And while we’re talking about Mom’s, there’s some good cookbooks out there that follow this line of thinking, such as: Behind Every Great Chef, There’s A Mom - More Than 125 Treasured Recipes From The Mothers Of Our Top Chefs which includes, Art Smith’s mom’s Pear and Cranberry Cobbler, Sara Moulton’s mom’s Meatball Stroganoff, Nigella Lawson’s mother’s Italian Sausages with Lentils, and Jacques Pepin’s mother’s Potato Lace to name just a few.
Posted on April 21st, 2008
Didn’t see this one coming! Food Network has decided on it’s replacement of Robert Irvine for the new host of Dinner: Impossible. And who is this new-comer stranger? That’s the surprise; it is apparently a familiar face instead, none other than Iron Chef Michael Symon.
That’s right, Symon is taking over the helm of the Food Network’s third highest-rated show.
From his home-town paper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer:
He begins shooting 10 “Dinner: Impossible” shows next week, finishing at the end of May. […] One episode of “Dinner: Impossible” will air in July, said (the show’s) executive producer Marc Summers, with the new season slated to start in September.
Symon, who won the network’s The Next Iron Chef competition in 2007 and appears on its Iron Chef America series, replaces Robert Irvine, who left last month following revelations that he’d exaggerated details of resume. Irvine had hosted the show for four seasons. Btw, new episodes of “Iron Chef America” will begin airing in November, Symon said.
The format of the show won’t change. Symon won’t know where he’s going until he gets to the airport and won’t know his cooking mission until he arrives at the site, and will have a set time to finish the mission. Past missions included catering a wedding for 200 and preparing an 18th-century meal for food historians in Colonial Williamsburg.
“This is my cup of tea,” Symon said. “Tell me something’s impossible, that gets me going to prove you wrong.” What will change is the length of the show — from 30 to 60 minutes. Symon says it’ll give viewers a chance to see more of how the mission unfolds
Posted on April 18th, 2008
With everything I cover here eventually and naturally I got to thinking … Exactly how much money do these celebrity chefs actually make? Funny thing, searching the web, the news articles, the periodicals, the blogs, etc … I found two things. One, almost all of the information was old (aka, one or two and often three years old). And the information I found, even when dates were similiar — aka, two seperate articles in October 2007 or two different articles from February 2006 — never agreed on the amounts. Sometimes they were within the same ball park as the other, sometimes they were off by over $40 million in one case.
To say the least: I find this extremely annoying! What I ended up finding for the purposes of posting it here was from three months ago. Part of the information has zero attribution at all, that is, there is no confirmation of the source they got it from. And the second part, which was attributed to a magazine, I could not find the same information at the magazine! (Again, grrrr! Majorly annoying.) Plus there were one or two things I know for certain are inaccurate — and which I mention in color below as I find them. So until someone actually does a good job — someone with more resources than little ol’ me — we’ll have to go with this for now. From Celebs Chef Net from January 2008:
1. Gordon Ramsay, £ 67m ($126m)
2. Jamie Oliver, £ 38m ($71m)
3. Rick Stein, £ 36m ($67m)
4. Delia Smith, £ 25m ($47m)
5. Anthony Worrall Thompson, £ 21m ($39m)
6. Marco Pierre White, £ 10m ($18m). The only chef on the list who doesn’t have a TV show.
Note: This is 100% wrong. He’s been doing the UK Hell’s Kitchen for a while now.
7. Gary Rhodes, £ 8m ($15m)
8. Raymond Blanc, £ 7m ($13m)
9. Nigella Lawson, £ 3m ($5.6m). Interestingly, she is the only chef who doesn’t have a restaurant.
10. Heston Blumenthal, £ 2m ($3.7m)
The following is from the same site and said to have been taken from the Forbes annual list ranked American chefs, which may be true, yet a search of Forbes so I could link directly to the original source did not turn this up on their site. Again, my comments in color below.
1. Wolfgang Puck, $16m (No. 89)
2. Emeril Lagasse, $10m (No. 94)
Note: In March Martha Stewart bought up Emeril’s franchise for $50 million.
3. Rachael Ray, $6m (No. 81)
4. Mario Batali, $5m (No. 98)
Again, if anyone has better statastics, or writes a better article, either let me know, or hopefully I’ll find it first and bring it to you. Meanwhile, these thoughts …
Can European chefs and cooks really be making that much money over the American ones? I mean Puck at a measly $16M? I don’t believe it.
And what about folks like Todd English who has more restaurants than even Gordon Ramsay?
What about the French chefs? What about chefs outside of America and England? How about Canada, Australia, Germany, South America, Japan?
We need better stats because — as said, these are the most recent ones I’ve found — and while they may give us an idea … I just don’t believe they are accurate.
Posted on April 13th, 2008
It appears the article in question was published on April 1st. While I wish I could take it as an April Fool’s joke I can’t. We’re talking about Forbes‘ bland version of the their ten best up-and-coming chefs for the year. I’m guessing they either have Food and Wine Magazine envy or figure to cash in on the $560 billion food industry. Either way, with five of their 10 chosen in or just outside of NYC, this is one Manhatten-based elistist article if I ever saw one.
Beyond those five, one chef is from Boston and another from D.C. That’s seven from the North East - Mid Atlantic coast area. And even with that second major slant, the normal NYC snub against “little” Philadelphia is ridicuously apparent. (If you’re going to slant everything between Boston and Washington, then only a true Manhattanite cabal such as this one would ensure Philadelphia chefs weren’t invited into the private club). This article and list is just one huge example of extreme laziness — with not even a veiled attempt at trying to actually cover the country or even the slightest appearance of going for a broad sampling. Probably took 10 minutes of naming names while swilling down martinis to make this article.
As said, I wish it were an April Fools joke, but the joke’s fully on Forbes. Not saying those they listed are without merit. While yes some of them no one ever heard before (seriously), there are others with their “accolades” listed are substantial. So again, nothing against the chefs chosen. It’s just when 50% listed are all from the the same place, in this case the Big Apple, it makes the entire list up for ridicule and derision. In fact I won’t even give the names here; you can go look at the article yourself if you’re interested. (With the recent Food and Wine list out and the James Beard’s finalists right before it, no one really needs this at all.)
There is a single interesting quote from one of the judges for this article worth sharing:
“Sooner or later, all this [celebrity] stuff wears out,” says Chef Roy Yamaguchi, who recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of Hawaiian-fusion restaurant Roy’s, with locations in 11 states. “By reaching stardom too fast, you might not have the chance to build a foundation. The most important element of being a successful chef is building a career that’s sustainable.”
Posted on April 9th, 2008
… that’s (essentially) the name of the article I found the other day over at Smart Money magazine.
First off there’s:
1. “I’m a celebrity first and a chef second.”
Take one part America’s obsession with celebrity, stir in a cup of our passion for all things culinary, marinate in a mix of specialty cable channels and BAM! You’ve got the perfect recipe for the celebrity chef phenomenon. It’s no surprise that more and more chefs are stepping into the media spotlight — “they’re the new most likable celebrities,” says Susan Ungaro, president of the James Beard Foundation — and they’ve grown in stature as America has fallen ever deeper in love with food.
Whoa! This is going to be interesting …
2. “There’s absolutely no reason to buy my cookbook.”
Ok, enough said. To read more details on these two items plus the other eight … definitely check out this article!
