Celebrity Chefs

Christmas Menus: Mario’s Simple Italian Feast

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Next in line for Christmas menus to consider is Mario Batali’s, the Food Network’s, larger than life American-Italian chef. I must say though, that this menu is not typical-Mario, whose recipes I’ve found not to be the simplest to do in your average home kitchen.

This Christmas menu is actually pretty easy to pull off, in both availability of ingredients and procedure, unlike his Christmas Eve menu, the Seven Fish (also found in his cookbook Holiday Food, pictured above), which is what I would call, classic Mario – delicious, but not exactly easy peasy.
“This menu has all the ingredients for a superb holiday. The dishes indulge and comfort, and they incorporate a little bit of tradition and a lot of play. Best of all, none of these dishes is particularly complicated.

I love to cook for my family at the holidays; it’s a special way of showing love and affection. But there’s no point if all that cooking actually takes away from time spent with loved ones.

That’s why this menu is ideal. Certain components can be prepared ahead of time, and even the final preparations won’t leave you feeling as though you’ve spent the day handcuffed to the stove. It’s a celebratory dinner everyone, even the cook, will have energy and desire to enjoy.”

� Mario Batali

Mario’s Italian Christmas Dinner

Vongole Origanate
Clams with Oregano and Bread Crumbs

Crostini Napoletani
Fresh Ricotta, Anchovy, and Oregano Toasts

Broccoli Soffriti
Braised Broccoli

Tacchino Ripieno
Turkey Stuffed with Chestnuts and Prunes

Linguine alle Noci
Linguine with Walnut Sauce

Affogato al Caffe
Coffee Semifreddo “Drowned” in Coffee

For recipes, click HERE.

[tags]Christmas, Holidays, Christmas dinner, Mario Batali[/tags]

Originally posted on December 10, 2006 @ 2:36 pm

Emeril: There’s A Chef In My World

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Emeril cookbook.jpg

If you have kids at home and they are interested in cooking, here’s a cool gift to give them.�Titled Emeril: There’s A Chef In My World, this is celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse’s second children’s cookbook. He’ll have your kids saying “Bam!” and having a great time in the kitchen even as they�make delicious meals all of you will enjoy.

When interviewed about it, Chef Lagasse says that he thought of writing a kids cookbook in the first place because of the kids who would go to his show. There were also kids who wrote him by email asking questions with various questions about cooking. He realized after “A Chef’s In My Soup” was published that many parents were sneaking peeks into the book too. That inspired the creation of his second book.

Chef Lagasse says that cooking makes him happy because it makes people happy. He loves soup dishes�and pasta. he isn’t fond of desserts – though he does make delicious ones.

The book is published by Harper Collins.

[tags] Emeril Lagasse,cookbook,children,cooking [/tags]

Originally posted on January 6, 2007 @ 8:57 pm

Celebrity Pasta Lovers Cookbook

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celebrity pasta lovers cookbook.jpg
Everybody loves pasta. Pasta is an easy dish to make, flavorful and can be made in an endless number of ways. The limit of the dishes truly is in our imagination.

Mario Batali and Giada de Laurentiis worked together with 10 celebrities to bring forth, in authentic Italian style, pasta recipes that these celebrities absolutely love. Some of the recipes have been handed down in the families of these celebrities for generations. There are recipes from Pierce Brosnan, Harrison Ford and Tony Danza – just to name a few. Thanks to chef Batali and Giada de Laurentiis, everyone will now be able to make these well loved recipes with ease from the comfort of their own home.

Perhaps the best news is that anyone can download this special cookbook for free up to this February 2007. By downloading this cookbook, pasta lovers also help a charity because Barila – the publisher of the cookbook – is donating $1 for every copy of the cookbook downloaded, up to $100,000, to America’s Second Harvest – the food bank network of the United States. Anyone interested to get a copy can simply click here.

Originally posted on February 6, 2007 @ 4:56 am

Rachael Ray on $40 A Day

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When I saw this book written by 30-minute-meal-maker Rachael Ray, I immediately thought of those travel guides used by backpackers. When I lived in London in my college days, backpacking friends would pass through the city and stay at my flat, and every single time they came with a copy of “Europe on $20 a Day”.

So back to Rachael’s $40 take, which is less of a travel guide and more of a companion to her tv show of the same name. In the show, Rachael packs her bags and bids goodbye to her sunny kitchens at the Food Network and travels in search of the best eats for $40 a day.

Although Rachael travels the world in search of gourmet meals on a tight budget, most of the venues are in the southern Atlantic coast and Northeastern parts of the US. Abroad, she does visit obvious foodie countries like France and Italy.
There are a few recipes of pretty basic recipes (think clam chowder and french toast), and although the book does not have an index (my other bone of contention with her “30 Minute Meals” cookbook), the restaurants are grouped geographically which makes things somewhat simpler.

In general, this book picked up mixed reviews. Most of the people who bought it were fans of the show (or of Rachael) anyway and thought the tips and photos to be great – but if you were expecting a recipe-worthy cookbook or a concise travel guide to restaurants, you’d probably be disappointed.

Originally posted on September 18, 2006 @ 6:47 pm

More Alton, Questions and Answers

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Since the poularity and almost cultish status of his television show “Good Eats“, Alton Brown’s succeeding projects have been met with even more acclaim, with his cookbooks “I�m Just Here for the Food” and “I�m Just Here for More Food“, and cookware book “Alton Brown�s Gear for Your Kitchen” getting to the New York Times Bestseller list and winning the coveted James Beard Foundation Book awards. And of course, his job as emcee for Iron Chef America.

His latest project is the Food Network‘s first ever film, Feasting on Asphalt, which is based on Alton’s food adventures on a motorcycle travelling through America and exploring its roadside food culture.

How on earth does he turn the science of food into entertainment? Read on in this recent interview where Alton gives some answers on his new film, cooking, and the food culture of America:

How did you come up with the concept for Feasting On Asphalt?

Yeah, I think I�ve been working on the concept since about 1969 and uh�I was born in California, my parents were from Georgia and, um, they moved back the summer of 1969 and we drove mostly on back roads across America, and it really put the wham on my head because I was this West Coast, North Hollywood kid who, all of the sudden, was seeing what appeared to be a different country a day, and, um, each day was new food, new people, new everything, and for me there were two connection points: There was actually the road itself and the food we were eating every time we stopped.


When did you realise you could cook?

College. I had a pathetic social life, and I couldn�t get dates very easily — at all — and I found that if I offered to cook for a girl, my odds improved radically over simply asking a girl out. Through my efforts to attract the opposite sex, I found that not only did cooking work, but that it was actually fun.

I worked in restaurants all through high school and college. I had always been in a kitchen with my mom and grandma and relatives and then, yeah, I watched cooking shows, although I found them to be uniformly unsatisfying, which is why I ended up where I ended up.

To become a successful chef, which is more important: receiving professional schooling or learning the ropes “on the street”?

I would say that it is like anything else: Professional schooling can get in the way as much as it can help. So I would have to say: the street. Life is always the best teacher, no matter what you�re doing.

When you were on the road filming Feasting on Asphalt, what did you learn about American food culture?

We�re losing it like the rainforest. We�re losing it every day. Oh yeah. Because the problem now is that even the really great little mom-and-pop places are trying to make themselves more like the thing that�s trying to kill them. You know, “I own a little hamburger stand but because the standard for hamburgers is McDonald�s, I�m going to make my hamburgers more like McDonald’s does so you�ll like me.” So smaller places are losing their identity by attempting to conform in order to survive.

[tags]Alton Brown,Motorcycle,Road Trip,Interview[/tags]

Originally posted on October 24, 2006 @ 9:29 pm