snack

tvsnack: top chef season five new york? maybe not

For many months word on the street said Top Chef Season Five would be filmed in New York City. This was of particular glee to Gotham's bloggers, always up for a challenge of cracking intel security. Recently there's been rumblings that New York City is maybe too expensive, or too difficult a venue, to the point that producers are looking north. Toronto has long been the New York stand-in for television and film production, so why not reality TV too? Top Chef Season Five may well turn out to be the first Canadian version.

hotsnack: who is tending the bar at 202?

I've been a longtime fan of 202, the restaurant/Nichole Farhi clothing shop in the Chelsea Market, entirely due to the libations of Stephan Trummer. Recently I was planning to stop by to quaff my thirst, only to discover he has left the building. Stephan has decamped - permanently - for Washington D.C. where he plans to open  his own place. A bar or a restaurant I asked? He replied "Its going to be a fine dining restaurant, new American, sustainable efforts, 250 seat and a bar lounge on the first floor. Its a beautiful setting just like French Laundry. Its located in an old historic town." I wish him luck. And wish I'd know it was last call.

snackwire.international: world's top 50 tables

Restaurant Magazine announced today the list of the S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants. 

It is no surprise that El Bulli is in the #1 slot for the third year in a row. Americanos will be happy to know eight restaurants here made the list: French Laundry, Per Se, Jean-Geroges, Le Bernardin, Alinea, Chez Panisse, charlie Trotter's and Daniel.

Click through for the complete list and official press release. 

snack60: cool hunting video with hervé this

In my eagerness to take full advantage of my iPhone, I've recently discovered the video podcast. I've been a long time fan of the blog Cool Hunting, the international arbiter of all things cool in design. They cover everything from art to fashion to food. They have video posts that you can subscribe to as a video podcast for free in iTunes or on the site. They're usually about four minutes long, well produced, and always intriguing. Like this video of rad molecular gastronomist Hervé This in his laboratoire in Paris. Interesting to see the man in his home environment and hear his pearls of wisdom like "If you have a poor sandwich with very good friends, it is always good. And a very good meal with awful people is not good." Word.  

hotsnack: good news bad news

The good news is my first attempt at mobile blogging last week worked. It is fairly easy to snap a picture and post it to Snack. The bad news is that the iPhone does not take good pictures in low light, meaning all my party shots were dark and unrecognizable. The other bad news is that it takes a lot longer to recover from a gala event followed by Spotted Pig after-party than it used to. Lessons learned: photo mobile blogging has a lot of potential and always take a disco nap before you go to a party where Ken Friedman will be in attendance.

partysnack: live! at the gala

I'm getting ready to go to the Food Bank for NYC's gala, the Can-Do Awards Dinner. It will be a star studded evening, complete with some after party action. Seems like a good opportunity to activate my mobile blogging powers on the iphone. So I'm going to give it a try, but be warned this is my first attempt. So if you see posts with crazy photos with typo-ridden captions later tonight, you'll understand why. I can always fix them or delete them in the morning. 

snackwire.national: sex and the james beard awards

Kim Cattrall will be one of the celebrity hosts for this year's James Beard Awards. What does Miss Samantha Jones know about food? Well, she is dating a chef (and no it's not Dave Chang). Remember, you don't have to be invited or a part of the industry to go, you just have to buy a $450 ticket. Click on through for the full press release after the jump.

snack60: daniel boulud introduces the new chef of cafe boulud, gavin kaysen, a competitive young chef who has battled in both the bocuse d’or and the next iron chef

snackology: updated posts

Snackology is the category where I take care of Snack business, like announcing a new addition to the page. Note on the left column is a fairly new list titled Posts Recently Updated. Given how the blogoshpere is interactive and often creates a chain reaction, it seemed a practical thing to do.

Take the most recent addition: I posted last week that Alinea might open in New York City, which prompted a letter from Grant Achatz to Time Out New York explaining - yes he almost signed a space in Soho, and he loves the city, but he has no hard plans to open here anytime soon. So this epilogue and link get added to the original post, in case anyone should stumble upon it, they will now how the complete and current story.

This has been a Snack PSA.

hotsnack: crazy rumors on the street

I just heard the craziest rumor - that Alinea is opening in New York City (and I stress the 'crazy' and 'rumor'). I also just heard that Charlie Trotter signed his Manhattan lease, potentially opening in 2009 (not 'crazy' or 'rumor'). Who knows, maybe 2009 will be the year Chitown takes the Big Apple.

UPDATE 3.31.08: Time Out New York gets a letter from Grant Achatz who writes:

"The rumors started with good reason. We started aggressively looking for spaces in Manhattan about two months ago." Indeed they were close to signing a deal, when they decided not to sign the deal.

"New York carries that stigma of being the big pond. And of course chefs outside of the big pond, for whatever reason, feel they need to enter that arena to prove themselves. Basically that amounts to ego as the impetus for a New York opening. It didn’t take long to realize that wasn’t a good enough reason to open there. I kept asking myself what I had to prove, and to who."

But never say never. Achatz writes "I expect we will open in New York eventually. I love the city." 

snackwire.chicago: c-house opening april 26th

Chitown's wait for Marcus Samuelsson's new seafood restaurant C-House in the Affina Hotel is almost over. The opening date has been set for Saturday April 26, 2008. Mark it on your calendar and do click through to the press release for all the details.

UPDATE 4.1.08: The opening date has moved forward to sometime in May.

snackingaround: do you have time to join another community?

I've been getting a lot of emails from new foodie communities online. Create a profile! Post restaurant reviews! Make foodie friends around the world! Recent additions are Eats.com, TasteSpace, FoodBuzz, and FriendsEAT. Add these to the old guard of eGullet and Chowhound and the profile community interface on media sites like Zagat, Savory Cities, Chow, Serious Eats, and Gourmet.com and I wonder when or if we reach the point of maximum saturation? Do you have the time to join another online community?

snackstuff: artful cookies

I recently came across these Keith Haring cookies, made by Nuit Blanche Paris. They also have products for Robert Mapplethorpe, Tom Sachs, and The Guggenheim NY. Later this fall, they'll launch an Andy Warhol Confectionery Line. Leave it to the French to come up with a concept that combines sweets and contemporary art. Though it is an interesting exercise in branding. If an artist can brand a cookie, well that certainly opens up the possibilities to what a chef could brand beyond the culinary, like a luxury watch for example. That is much more interesting than pots and pans. Chef as lifestyle brand - it can't be too far away.

unsnack: working out 360 with ac

I was up in the gym working on my fitness the other day (because not all food bloggers and writers are big ya know) and wound up doing an extra 15 minutes on the elliptical machine. Not because I was feeling the burn, but because I was mesmerized by the sight of Anderson Cooper working out while the TV above his head played CNN. I was not 100% convinced it was him though. He looks a little different doing ab crunches in shorts than he does wearing Prada with a disaster behind him. (I'd say he's buff - but in desperate need of a tan.) The next time I saw him, he was on the weight machines working out with a trainer. I sat down in the machine next to him to hear his voice, figuring that would confirm it. Indeed it was AC. When he walked past me, I caught the back of his navy blue t-shirt which had the biggest US State Department logo I've ever seen, from Baghdad Iraq natch. Just a few machines away was Amanda Lepore working out with her posse. Then the DJ started up his live set. Just another Thursday night at the gym.