Spinach and Kale Quiche
Spinach and kale quiche for dinner. Fresh pineapples for dessert. It’s what was for dinner tonight. Everything was really good, if I do say so myself.
Category: Food
On being served last
Have you ever waited an hour to eat at a half-empty restaurant, when you had a reservation? We did. We were repeatedly asked to wait for a table, while the hostess seated dozens of people before us, including those without reservations. Were they incompetent? Yes. Were they racist? Possibly. Have we gone back? Nope.
Go Away With … Wolfgang Puck
Famed Spago chef Wolfgang Puck is the latest judge on the “Top Chef: Seattle.” Puck says he’s excited to be a part of the 10th season of the Emmy and James Beard Award-winning series. “The show is a lot of fun for me and I enjoy watching what the chefs come up with each week,” says the 63-year-old author and TV personality. “When I was starting out, I knew I found cooking to be interesting. But I never imagined that people would enjoy watching chefs on television competing in the kitchen. It’s wonderful.”
Go Away With … Masaharu Morimoto
Born in Hiroshima, Japan, Masaharu Morimoto is recognizable to “Iron Chef” fans as the serious chef who consistently creates artistic and delicious Asian fusion dishes. A star of the Japanese cooking competition that spawned “Iron Chef America,” Morimoto has been a dominant presence on both shows. The 56-year-old chef and restaurateur opened his first restaurant in Japan in 1980, before moving to the United States five years later. He owns restaurants in New York, Tokyo and Mumbai, has a line of sake and beer and is the author of “Morimoto: The New Art of Japanese Cooking.”
Go Away With … Sara Moulton
As a kid, Sara Moulton didn’t know she wanted to be a chef, but she says her mother did. “When my parents took me on a trip to Europe, I not only loved all the food we ate but I took notes about it,” says the New Yorker, who may be the only chef whose work has been name-checked by the Beastie Boys. “I even wrote about what I ate on the airplane. I was a typical teenager, but I guess I always was really interested in how food was made.”
Go Away With … Andrew Zimmern
To television viewers, Andrew Zimmern of “Bizarre Foods” fame is known as that guy who’ll eat anything. And he’d like Americans to give it a shot, too. “Open up and expand your horizons, people!” says the James Beard Award-winning chef and author. “My favorite mixed metaphor is, ‘Put on your big girl pants and man up!’ I am unable to comprehend a place on the planet where the food is ‘too different.’”
Go Away With … Emeril Lagasse
A bona-fide foodie, Emeril Lagasse picks New Orleans as one of the all-time great food destinations. “We have unbelievable food here in New Orleans,” says Lagasse, 51. “There is a season for everything down here — shrimp, oysters, strawberries, crabs. No other place has such a direct connection to the farms and fisheries. You can’t beat going to Jazz Fest and getting a soft-shell crab po’ boy, or jambalaya at Mardi Gras or making a big pot of seafood gumbo on football weekends.
Go Away With … Gail Simmons
“There is no difference between my job and my life,” says “Top Chef Just Desserts” host Gail Simmons. “It’s one big blur and it’s all delicious. I travel and seek out great food. That’s kind of how I plan my trips, and my life.” Born in Toronto and currently residing in New York City, the 35-year-old TV personality — who also handles special projects for Food and Wine magazine — studied at the Institute of Culinary Education and worked in the kitchens of the Vong restaurants and Le Cirque 2000. Her memoir, “Talking with My Mouth Full: My Life as a Professional Eater,” will hit stores next year.
Go Away With … Bobby Flay
People know who Bobby Flay is because he is everywhere. The celebrity restaurateur (Mesa Grill) is the Food Network’s face of grilling, an Iron Chef and host of the network’s biggest show “Food Network Star,” which premieres this season on Sunday, June 5. Though Flay loves traveling overseas, the 46-year-old culinary artist says if he were forced to pick between visiting domestic or international locales, he’d pick the United States.
Go Away With … Richard Blais
On “Blais Off,” chef Richard Blais takes a scientific approach to cooking. That’s fitting, since the series airs on the Science Channel. “I’m not a scientist so I have to do a lot of fact-checking to make sure everything’s correct,” says Blais, 38.