snack

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.

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." 

hotsnack: food porn for philanthropy

There are four days left to bid online at the Photography for Philanthropy: An Art Auction to Benefit City Harvest, consisting of 18 color photos of dishes from star chefs like Lidia Bastianich, Johnny Iuzzini, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Francois Payard, Eric Ripert and Laurent Tourondel. Each print, like Daniel Boulud's "culinary masterpiece" pictured here with a current bid of $600, is 27"x 33", archive framed, and autographed by the chef.

hotsnack: hacking the james beard awards

This week the intrepid and resourceful folks over at Grub Street Eater had a Big Coup. They published the long list of the James Beard Award Nominees They published the long list of the James Beard Award Nominees, which is a first in the 18 year history of the awards. Bravo!

The way the process works is last fall there was an open and public call for nominations. This pool of candidates was culled down to about 10-12 nominees in each category. This long list was put onto the JBF website and the 400+ national judges were given a password to go in and vote electronically. The votes on the long list will be tallied to arrive at the final five contenders in each category.

I'd guess the JBF is taking this in a good news/bad news kind of way. Good news is all of the critics and perpetual complainers who grouse that the same people are always nominated, can now see how many chefs and restaurants are actually considered. Indeed the Eater post is getting beaucoup traction online everywhere. The bad news is one of the official judges, while skilled in turning a web-page into a pdf file, is less proficient at keeping a secret.

And what about hacking the long list for the journalism awards? Well there is no long list or on-line voting. The judges for the journalism awards simply have to slog through reading every one of the 700+ entries that were submitted.

For the final list of nominees, there will be a petit déjeuner and announcement on March 23rd at the James Beard House.

Download jbeardnominees.pdf

4PM UPDATE: The strikeouts above were added when I realized Eater had not in fact published the list. Hacking and breaking news accolades rightfully go to Grub Street. Apologies Josh! My bad. Though I guess now you get to swap spots on the blacklist with Ben and Lock.

UPDATE 3.10.08: The JBF release the list of semi-finialist and awards protocal. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Download james_beard_foundation_awards_2008_semifinalists_release_final.doc

hotsnack: happy valentine's day to me

Now I know what I'm getting later tonight. Woo hoo!

hotsnack: couples banned from restaurants on valentine's day!

As I've mentioned before, Valentine's Day is not the industry's favorite holiday. Today's New Zealand Herald (or tomorrow's actually as it is already Thursday down under) reports Tetsuya's and a few other restaurants in New Zealand and Australia have decided to combat couples and ban them from their restaurants on the 14th. I doubt that would work here, though it is an interesting strategy and a different story angle from the usual holiday fare.

A top Sydney restaurant, Tetsuya's, has refused to take bookings for tables for two tonight and will instead seat couples with at least four strangers.

Another reportedly considered a "couples ban".

Restaurateurs complain of a 30 per cent drop in takings because love-lorn couples stay for hours, drinking just a single bottle of wine or Champagne.

In Auckland, one of the country's top chefs, Simon Gault, sympathises with his Sydney counterparts.

"Valentine's Day is something restaurants have to deal with - it's like customers being late and customers being early," said Gault, executive chef at several leading eateries, including Euro on Princes Wharf.

Love is in the Air, NZ Herald

Related: Florist Refusing to Sell Valentine's Roses

hotsnack: 1st annual golden clog awards sold out!

The 1st Annual Golden Clog Awards. It started out as a good excuse to get everyone together for a beach side fiesta at the Raleigh during the downtime between events at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival. Normal logic says 1+1=2, but in the case of Tony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlman things tend to get out of hand snowball quickly. It is now an official event on the Friday Trade Day roster. Note to the publicists who have valiantly submitted their chef-clients for consideration, that despite the event's listing on the official program, there is no entry process, voting or protocol of any kind. There will be a last-minute assembly of nominees and advisory committee members followed by a spontaneous may-lay presentation of the illustriously cheesy statues, all fueled by what I expect to be frenzied audience participation. When it posted on the festival website yesterday, it was already sold out.    

hotsnack: speed dial monday

Monday is January 14th. Just an ordinary day - unless you're expected to deliver a fabulous dinner on Valentine's Day. Most restaurants open the reservation book 30 days in advance, thus Monday will be your first crack at a table on February 14th. Valentine's Day is a bittersweet, love-hate kind of holiday for restaurants. They are almost sure to be sold out (sweet!) And people buy lots of champagne and don't mind paying the special prix fixe d'amour. But it takes some wrangling to convert the entire restaurant into a room full of deuces (industry talk for 'table for two') and keep to the reservations time-table as lovebirds tend to linger. Generally I avoid restaurants altogether on Valentine's Day, plus Mr. Snack is usually working anyway. Actually we avoid restaurants on most holidays, preferring to cook and eat at home. Which might be something to consider if you can't get that resy. Afterall, you have 30 days to plan.

hotsnack: galette des rois

Here at Snack we love all things Français - particularly buttery pastry with frangipane like la galette des rois - literally the cake of kings - but actually the twelfth night or Epiphany cake. The galettes are eaten on January 6th and tradition dictates that a 'lucky bean' is baked into the cake, which can be an actual bean or something fancy like a figurine or small porcelain plates made for this purpose. The person who finds the bean is the king or queen for the evening and has the pleasure of wearing the gold paper crown the pâtisserie provides along with the cake.

Downtown pâtisserie Ceci Cela (one of my personal favorites and perhaps the bestest and cheapest - $1.50 - cafe au lait in the city) has them for $29, as a special order a day in advance.

I am certain there are many other shops around Gotham baking the kings cake for Sunday night, so I invite you to add them to this post via comments. Helpful details are the name of the shop, phone number or website, price of the cake and if it requires an advanced order. One listing per comment s'il vous plaît.

hotsnack: last word for 2007

I had grand plans for a plethora of witty year end posts. Then I started getting all the January magazine issues that had features like 100 tastes to try in 2008. Add many parties, plane rides and glasses of Champagne, and I rationalized that it was, already, too late to wrap it up. I did put my two cents into the kitty for The Year in Eater, though I did have to page through my calendar to recall what opened and closed and when. My 2008 calendar is already in action. Do you need to read another reminiscence of the year that was? Probably not. Better to have another glass of Champagne bid adieu to 2007 and say bonjour deux mille huit.