There were four huge bags of Sullivan Street Bakery ciabatta rolls. They were supposed to have been split at the restaurant before they began their journey to Joe Bastianich's cookout. They were not, and someone had to split those thousand rolls before the guests arrived in an hour. "Dude," Mario said, "you ready to split the rolls?" I believe this was the definition of a rhetorical question. More
I have eaten in Mario Batali's restaurants perhaps a hundred times (and had at least very good meals 95 times), but I was extremely skeptical when I heard he was putting his name, complete with photo, on a line of General Mills frozen pasta dinners called Mario Batali's Regional Recipes, which will be sold initially at club stores like Sam's, BJ's, and Costco. So when we received some samples at Serious Eats world headquarters I volunteered to be the first guinea pig.... More
Turns out our Megnut's secret celebrity crush, Jake Gyllenhaal, isn't just your run-of-the-mill movie star-turned-foodie—he's also a friend of Mario Batali! YumSugar just put up clips of him, his actress sister Maggie Gyllenhaal, and their screenwriter mom Naomi guesting on two episodes of Molto Mario from 2003. YumSugar's two favorite bits:... More
Seattleites and fans of cured meat everywhere: Armandino Batali has retired from his acclaimed retirement project Salumi, leaving day-to-day operations in the hands of his daughter Gina Batali and her husband Brian D'Amato, who've technically been running and making the meats since 2005. Since then, "she's trained more staff and tried to improve the efficiency and minimize the wait time in a line that often snakes around the corner of the building on Third Avenue South, between South Main and South Jackson streets. "Of course, we don't want to be too efficient," she said, "because then we wouldn't be able to talk to people." Hsiao-Ching Chou of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer says Armandino and his wife are sailing around the Caribbean... More
Chris Cosentino, executive chef of San Francisco's Incanto, is a well-known fan of offal: he serves dishes like pig’s trotter cake and salt-cured pork liver in his restaurant, is working on an offal cookbook, and runs a site called Offal Good, "a guide and informational source for proper handling and cooking techniques for working with these lost cuts of meat. You will find recipes, food porn, and places to buy and eat offal." On April 22, he'll be on Iron Chef battling Mario Batali, offal's most famous proponent and afficionado in America. Ladies and gentlemen, set your TiVos!... More
Exciting news: "New Zealand fishermen have caught what is expected to be a world-record-breaking colossal squid. Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton said the squid, weighing an estimated 450kg (990lb),took two hours to land in Antarctic waters. Local news said the Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni was about 10m (33ft) long, and was the first adult colossal squid landed intact. One expert said calamari rings made from it would be like tractor tyres." Wikipedia's Colossal Squid is fantastic, if you'd like to read more about the species. If you'd like to make dinner in honor of New Zealand's catch, Leite's Culinaria has Mario Batali's recipe for Stuffed Calamari on the Grill from his book Simple Italian Food: Recipes from My Two Villages.... More
Anthony Bourdain shares his thoughts on the Newer, Younger, More Male-Oriented, More Dumb-Ass Food Network over at Ruhlman's, a few choice bits excerpted here: On Mario Batali: "Oh, Mario! Oh great one! They shut down Molto Mario--only the smartest and best of the stand-up cooking shows." On Rachael Ray: "We KNOW she can’t cook. She shrewdly tells us so. So...what is she selling us? Really? She’s selling us satisfaction, the smug reassurance that mediocrity is quite enough." On Sandra Lee: "Pure evil." (His "IRON CHEF AMERICA match-ups I’d REALLY like to see" are pretty amazing, I'd watch them even on Pay Per View!) We've had a related question over in Talk for a few weeks, if you haven't chimed in... More
Mario Batali is in the kitchen at Otto, and I'm at a table waiting for him. There are two bottles of water in front of me: one flat, one sparkling. I'm offered coffee. I'm offered lemonade. I politely refuse, take out my notebook, and wait. And then he appears. More
I said as much in my longer piece in the Serious Eats features section, but the pizza pantheon definitely has a new member, Mozza in Los Angeles. Finally, the City of Angels has pizza worth a detour. MORE TO CHEW ON Pizzeria Mozza [official site] Mozza's Pizza is NOT Pizza! [Chowhound.com] The Greatest Pizza in the World (Maybe) [Serious Eats] Week in Review, Part 2: Can't Stop the Mozza [Eater L.A.] Hot spot? Mozza is on fire [L.A. Times; Grr: Registration required] MORE EDIBLES Quotations from Chairman Bruni [Tuesday, January 30, 2007] Jamba Juice [Monday, January 29, 2007] Sour Sunny Bears [Friday, January 26, 2007] Scarfin' the Scharffen Berger [Thursday, January 25, 2007] All Edibles... More
5:57 PM: Mario Batali is not nervous. 6:01 PM: Jean-Georges Vongerichten looking dapper as usual. 6:05 PM: Cokie Roberts is an extraordinarily gracious and charming host.... More
