While the usual suspects turned up in Slashfood’s top ten list of the hottest men in the food industry (Rocco, Jamie), Paula Deen lands in the ten spot on the women’s lineup. She does fit the criteria y’all: “A woman who isn’t afraid of fire, or knives, or licking her fingers.” [Slashfood/AOL]

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Filed Under: food tv, hottest men chefs, hottest women chefs, paula deen, top ten lists

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Boerum Hill: Mile End closed early today because it couldn’t keep up with Brooklyn’s demand for meat. The deli will try again tomorrow starting at 8 a.m. for brekkie, and noon for the beef. [Eater NY]
Clinton Hill: Behind metal gates and papered windows, a new café called NeroDoro soft-opened at 395 Classon Avenue, serving coffee and pastries early, and piadinas for lunch. [Brownstowner]
East Village: Ko serves a tortellini in an oxtail broth spiked with Amaro, perfect to sip on while preparing the recipe. [Moment/NYT]

Greenpoint: Chef Joseph Ogrodnek takes on the kitchen at Anella starting Wednesday. Preview his new menu here, along with the $45 Valentine’s Day menu. [Grub Street]
Tribeca: Try Japanese ingredients like surimi, wasabi, and saury pickles in French cuisine at Bouley during a series of special seafood lunches served February 8 to February 13. [Grub Street]
Upper West Side: Carmine’s celebrates its twentieth anniversary with a special menu of $20 entrées (linguine with clam sauce, spaghetti and meatballs, chicken cutlets) served Monday through Wednesday during lunch and dinner. [Grub Street]
West Village: On March 9, the brothers Voltaggio host a $165 dinner at the James Beard House that begins with foie-gras jelly doughnuts. [JBH]

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Filed Under: neighborhood watch, anella, boerum hill, clinton hill, east village, foodievents, greenpoint, james beard house, ko, menus, mile end, nerodoro, voltaggio, west village

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Gerald Jerky.

In the magazine this week, the Underground Gourmet unwinds at Greenpoint’s Eat: “It’s good, fresh, truly local food in a mellow, relaxing atmosphere, and the combination has an undeniably calming, salutary effect.” Seasonal food is also emphasized at Print, opening this week in the ink48 hotel. “For insight into his biggest influences, [Adam] Block flew his culinary team (chef Charles Rodriguez, a Sony Club alum, and his wife, pastry chef Heather Carlucci-Rodriguez) out West, to eat at Chez Panisse, Zuni Café, and, less predictably, Dynamo Donuts,” report Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld.

Rob and Robin also welcome the return of El Quinto Pino with an expanded menu of multiregional tapas. Snap into artisanal jerky this winter — Rob and Robin know where to find seven local sources. Buy some for your Super Bowl party, and then replicate Joaquin Baca’s Seven-Layer Dip.. It&#8217 not on his menu at Brooklyn Star, but Baca shared the recipe with New York. Finally, Andrew Carmellini will start a new Monday-night supper series on February 8. The inaugural meal is the Super Bowl: three-courses, including all-you-can-eat pasta, for $39.

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Filed Under: beef jerky, eat restaurant, el quinto pino, greenpoint, in season, openings, recipes, super bowl

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Chelsea: The Beer, Bourbon, and BBQ festival is happening tomorrow at 608 West 28th Street. [Bourbon Blog]

Flatiron: A new app helps you (cut) join friends in line at Shake Shake. [A Hamburger Today/Serious Eats]

Lower East Side: Czech-Austrian café Kinski reopened with a new menu and now sells dumplings. [Fork in the Road/VV]

Midtown West: Molyvos celebrates Clean Monday on February 15 before the beginning of Lent: “The term refers to the leaving behind of sinful attitudes and non-fasting foods. This day is celebrated as a National Holiday in Greece.” [Grub Street]

Park Slope: The Brooklyn Lyceum holds a food and craft market Saturday and Sunday, May 1 and 2 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. [Grub Street]

Soho: Kelly Cutrone loves Grand Street Deli. [Feed/TONY]

Upper West Side: Hundreds swarmed the Tavern on the Green tag sale today. [Diner’s Journal/NYT]

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Filed Under: neighborhood watch, chelsea, flatiron, grand street deli, kinski, midtown west, molyvos, shake shack, soho

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Chocolatier Jacques Torres lost twenty pounds last year by limiting exposure to red meat and rich foods — like the cookies he faces every day at his Hudson Street headquarters. Lucky for him, he doesn’t put chocolate in this category. Torres snacks on unsweetened cacao nibs and sticks to what he deems healthier candies: dark-chocolate bark and chocolate cereal. You can ask him for sweet diet tips at the 92Y on Wednesday when the FCI Pastry Dean joins Dorothy Hamilton and chef friends (Tom Coliccho, Dan Barber, Andre Soltner) for a panel called “Doing What You Love.” The subtitle of this week’s New York Diet could be “shed pounds while eating what you love.”

Saturday, January 23
Morning is usually pretty simple. I have a decaf Illy coffee when I wake up and just a slice of high-fiber bread, with a little bit of honey or fruit spread. I won’t have much before I go to work at 8:45, 9 a.m. Basically, I don’t want to put too much calories in and I don’t like eating much in the morning.

When I come to work, I certainly will have another decaf. But what I also do —
do you know about cacao bean? Cacao bean doesn’t contain any sugar. They have some fat, but they are high in energy … a lot of good things for you in the cacao bean, but not many people can snack on that; it has some nuttiness to it but it’s quite bitter. And it’s like espresso. If you get used to it, you crave it. That’s why I have decaf coffee because; otherwise, it’s too much.

I love to snack on that in the morning. I have a few of those. You can even put it in your pocket. It’s the center of the cacao bean, and when you roast it it’s called nibs. It doesn’t have much calorie. It’s a good and healthy thing.

I like to pack my lunch the day before. I will do, again, a couple of slices of that high-fiber bread and I will take maybe one slice of cheese — Gruyère or some other flavorful cheese. I will put some turkey, maybe some chicken … some protein in it. Maybe a couple of slices tomato. Maybe some lettuce. Another piece of bread on top. And I put that in a Teflon pan with a little bit of cooking spray; roast it on both sides; and then I wrap it; I take it to work; and I have it cold.

I’m of Spanish descendant, so I like my rice. But I like my rice a certain way. Saturday evening I made paella. And I love to do that on the weekend. I have a certain size paella pan for one to two people. I take a half-cup of rice, a little bit of squid, a little bit of fish, a little bit of tomato and onions. I sauté all that and put my rice in; I deglaze that with a little bit of fish stock, and I cook that with saffron, salt, a little bit of pepper, poivre d’espelette, and if I have a few shrimp or sea scallops to put on top, I do that.

I cannot have much wine because I want to lose some weight, so maybe a glass or two but no more than that. But the problem is that I love red wine, you know? I just love red wine.

So I kind of restrict myself. The diet works, you know, when you’re very serious about it, and you lose weight, and then you’re so happy that you slow down the diet and then you gain back some weight, and then you freak out so you go back on a diet, like everyone else. So I try to stick with it. It’s a lifestyle change. You have to work on it.

Sunday, January 24
I spend my time on a boat. I don’t know if you know that, but I have an apartment in Manhattan. But when my wife is not here — when she’s in California for her store — I live on my boat most of the time. Sunday morning is my day off. So in the morning when I wake up I have the beautiful view of Manhattan in front of me, I mean the whole island of Manhattan. The boat is next to the Statue of Liberty. There’s a marina there. So the view is just amazing. I get up in the morning; sit down; certainly put the French channel on the TV and listen to the news; have a good croissant or pan au chocolat with my coffee; and my neighbor is nice enough to drop off the New York Times. So I just enjoy my Sunday morning.

We make dark 60 percent cocoa-content chocolate with cereal in it, corn flakes. So I’ll always have at least one of those little bags on the boat. And that will be the snack on Sunday. I’ll allow myself a little bit more than cacao. And I love that because it’s kind of healthy. And I always have a lot of fruit on the boat. I don’t eat that much veg, but I eat a lot of fruit. A lot of citrus: oranges, some mandarins. I also like something you see it a lot in Chinatown … I don’t remember the name of that. I call it persimmon but it’s not. Persimmon has to be soft. Those you can eat hard, and they’re still sweet. It looks a little bit like a tomato. Blueberries are one of the things that I will have. Black grapes, I love to have grapes. Always a couple of apples and a couple of pears. So I always have a choice of fruits.

Lunch will certainly be something grilled, I love fish. That’s something that I just love to eat. I go to Citarella at get some fish on Saturday — usually striped bass, black sea bass — but I also fish a lot during the year and freeze some of my filets. All over, Sandy Hook to Long Island. You name it. When weather permits, every weekend I’m out. I love to cook the fish en papillote. I put it into some foil with fennel, and cover it with a little bit of olive oil, some spice, maybe a little bit of tomato and onions, and close the foil like a pocket. On my boat I have a grill, so I grill that inside the foil. A very slow grill.

For dinner, I went and bought some ground turkey and I did a bolognese with it. And I ate that with whole-wheat spaghetti. No dessert. Usually what I have is some bark. Bark is that chocolate that we spread into a sheet pan with hazelnut, pistachio, and almonds. It’s like the thickness of your pinky. So that’s one of the things I will have after dinner. It’s a little bit like having a coffee because it’s dark chocolate, but you have the nuttiness of all those nuts inside. It’s really good.

It’s funny, but a reporter came here and I gave her a tour of the whole factory. Maybe twenty minutes after starting the tour she asked me, “How many chocolates do you eat?” And I said, “Oh, I basically don’t eat any chocolate during the day. I work with it, so I don’t really eat much chocolate.” And she said to me, “You ate twelve different things since the time we started the tour.” It can be a tiny little piece of nuts or a tiny little piece of chocolate, but she said, “twelve times you put something in your mouth. So don’t tell me you don’t eat any chocolates.” And I tell her, “Listen, I don’t even realize that I eat chocolate.” So I cannot answer the question but I can tell you that I eat some chocolate during the day.

Monday, January 25
Monday morning, it’s a work day, so coffee and a piece of bread just to keep me going. Go to work, maybe some nibs, maybe some chocolates with corn flakes.

If I had time to make my sandwich the day before I would have had that, but I went to Sunrise Mart. It’s a Japanese store, and I went to the sushi counter and had some sushi. I love spicy tuna and the rice with smoked eel on top. It’s four or six pieces in a little package. I sit over there. It’s usually a lot of Asians there. I have a scooter that I got maybe six months ago, so I just park in front. If I go to a sushi restaurant, it takes too much time. If I go over there, it’s fast. In 20 minutes, it’s in and out.

Snacks are always something I have in the store. I try to stay on the healthy side of the chocolate that I have. So it can be the bark; it can be chocolate with cereal. I stay away from the cookies. I stay away from things a little bit richer, but they’re difficult to stay away from.

For dinner … do you know couscous? You basically cook some vegetables, but you don’t want to use too much water and lose too much flavor. Then you also cook some chicken or some lamb, but I usually stay with the white of the chicken. And then you add some couscous. I do that at the boat, and I put it in a couple of containers so I have a couple of dinners from that. This is a healthy, but also a hearty food. It really fills you up and this is one of the ways that I will have veg.

Tuesday, January 26
Tuesday morning, breakfast is the same.

Tuesday for dinner, I had my couscous. The same as Monday. That’s usually good for a couple of days.

Wednesday, January 27
Wednesday same breakfast. It’s a boring breakfast, but it’s what keeps me going. Snacking, nibs in the morning. I always have some of that in my pocket.

Wednesday, I had salad for lunch. That’s something that I like to do. Just a green salad and we have nuts here at the factory, so I add a little bit of pignoli, and little bit of pistachio. And I love to get a red pepper and put it directly on the flame on the stove so the skin is going to burn. Then I remove the skin and the flesh has that smokey flavor after that. I put that in the salad, warm, and add a little bit of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper. That’s it. From start to finish, it will take me maybe ten minutes.

Later, I went to the school, the French Cullinary Institute. So when I go there, I usually go a little bit further. There’s a place in Chinatown where I get lobster. And listen to this, lobster lately, you can get at $5 a pound! It’s unbelievable. So what I did, I bought two small lobsters, around a pound each. I take it on the boat, and boil it for four minutes. No more. Most people boil them for too long. This is the time now when you get them, in the winter. They’re really fresh and they’re really good. I put a little bit of butter on top of it, and that’s all. They are a little bit salty because the water who boil them in is salty, and you don’t need any spice on them. I put the carcass, they go back in the water [off the boat]. It’s natural like that.

Thursday, January 28
This morning, same thing: Slice of bread for breakfast and I had a sandwich.

I do go out to eat. Like tonight, I’m going to a little place called Socarrat. It’s a paella bar. It’s a Spanish place. The name of the owner is Lolo. He’s a friend of mine, and I usually tell Lolo that I’m coming. So he preps some small tapas; he has the most delicious tapas. So during the time that you enjoy your tapas, they cook a fish paella for you, or whatever paella you want. And they bring the paella for however many people you have. I get the fish paella. I think I used to be a fish in another life. My dad was full Spanish, my mom was half-Spanish. And I grew up in France. Ibiza, that’s the place that my family comes from. It’s a small island in the Méditerranée. And their diet is mostly fish, too. I cannot live too far from the water.

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Filed Under: the new york diet, jacques torres, sunrise mart

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As a local chef with a writing habit, frequent TV appearances, and a Time 100 honor, Dan Barber is working toward food-statesman status. He is the only chef invited to this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Yesterday, he joined a panel on “Groundbreaking Discoveries in Science & Technology”; today, Barber speaks about “Better Food for Better Health;” and Friday he discusses “Catalyzing a New Vision for Agriculture.”

For his main gig this today, Barber focused on how chefs lead change in America. “When you’re interested in flavorful food … a lot of good things fall into line: good farming, good ecological stewardship, good nutrition, good communities … Chefs, as arbiters of taste, lead the way in determining what’s fit for their kitchens, which means they do quite a lot to affect the way the world works,” he said in an e-mail. Chefs rarely speak at the event, and participants outside the business arena may hail from governments, NGOs, and academia. While Alice Waters attended a panel at the 2008 forum, she was also asked to cook.

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Filed Under: food politics, blue hill at stone barns, dan barber, world economic forum

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Cobble Hill: New wine shop Brooklyn Wine Exchange’s “Learning Center” annex will host free classes starting Saturday, February 20 at 4 p.m. with Wine 101. [Grub Street]

East Village: Chef Amanda Cohen collaborates on a honey-themed dinner with the founder of the Savannah Bee Company at Dirty Candy on February 18. The $65 five-course meal includes wine with seatings offered at 6 and 8 p.m. [Dirt Candy]

Hell’s Kitchen: Ardesia hosts its second Mangalitsa pig feast this Sunday night when a three-course pork fest goes for $30, with apple crumble for dessert and an optional $15 wine pairing. [Grub Street]

Midtown West: Newcomer Holey Cream makes ice-cream sandwiches out of fresh doughnuts and homemade ice cream. [UrbanDaddy]

West Village: All of the proceeds from Eric Hara’s Oak Room dinner at the James Beard House on February 4 go to the International Rescue Committee to benefit Haiti. The $165 dinner starts at 7 p.m. [James Beard]

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Filed Under: neighborhood watch, ardesia, brooklyn wine exchange, cobble hill, dirt candy, hell’s kitchen, midtown west, pinch n smac, upper west side

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East Village: Dunkin’ Donuts on Second Avenue near 11th Street closed. No more free Wi-Fi. [Let's Do This Instead via Eater NY]
Hell’s Kitchen: Kyotofu will host its second annual Anti–Super Bowl Party on February 7 from 5:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Expect a screening of Japanese foodie film Tampopo, half-off cocktails and sake, and dainty finger food. [Grub Street]
Tribeca: Duane Park features free opera performances — dubbed Theatre d’Orleans — the first Monday of every month. [Grub Street]
West Village: The Vintage Babbo wine dinner on February 22 features wines from Piedmontese producer “Cordero di Montezemolo,” dinner, tax, and tip for $595. E-mail VintageBabbo@gmail.com to book. [Grub Street]

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Filed Under: neighborhood watch, duane park, hell’s kitchen, kyotofu, tribeca

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In the magazine this week, Adam Platt lauds the Breslin, which outdoes the Spotted Pig with its excess: “There’s more booze (the wine list is seven pages long); more butter, salt, and pork (the three pillars of Bloomfield’s inspired brand of cooking); and much more attitude,” he writes. “When parceled out in smaller doses, however, many of Bloomfield’s meaty creations are worth the price of admission.” If you’re looking for a new way to warm up, Robin Raisfeld and Rob Patronite find eight hot, “stress-meltingly comforting” cocktails from Fort Defiance to PDT.

In openings, the West Village Bistro le Gare “marks the professional reunion of Maryann Terillo and Elisa Sarno, late of Jarnac and Babbo, respectively.” Sweet Maine shrimp are in season , and we’ve got a recipe for shrimp rolls from Luke’s lobster. Rob and Robin also profile up-and-coming snack-food mogul Amy Hamberry, who turns “kale, the entirely virtuous, dark-green-leafed vegetable, into an irresistible, only slightly less virtuous snack chip that’s poised to take over the health-food-store world.” Finally, the delicatessen Mile End settles into Boerum Hill to traffic in Montreal-style smoked meat.

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Filed Under: in the magazine, amy hamberry, bistro de la gare, boerum hill, cocktails, kale chips, mile end, openings, recipes, shrimp, the breslin

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Microsoft’s newish search engine Bing now helps users find recipes. Type in an ingredient and get recipes culled from food sites like Epicurious and Delish. We like that there are so many photos of actual dishes and that you can filter by cuisine, occasion, and convenience. The layout is similar to New York’s database, except we spotlight dishes created by our favorite chefs. Good luck finding Tom Colicchio’s bruschetta on Bing.

Cooking up a storm with Bing Recipes [Bing]

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Filed Under: recipes, bing

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Microsoft’s newish search engine Bing now helps users find recipes. Type in an ingredient and get recipes culled from food sites like Epicurious and Delish. We like that there are so many photos of actual dishes and that you can filter by cuisine, occasion, and convenience. The layout is similar to New York’s database, except we spotlight dishes created by our favorite chefs. Good luck finding Tom Colicchio’s bruschetta on Bing.

Cooking up a storm with Bing Recipes [Bing]

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Filed Under: recipes, bing

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Motorino Pizza

Now is the time for all good eaters to come to the aid of their restaurants. We must stop Mayor Bloomberg’s reckless campaign to reduce sodium in restaurant food by 20 percent over the next five years. Grub Street says, “Enough!” We don’t fear hypertension as much as we dread underseasoned vegetables. We must rise up to protect our cured meats and pungent pickle products! To help us imagine a world with reduced salt, we asked several chefs to I.D. the saltiest dishes on their menu. Read on through your salty tears and remember, these entrées may one day be gone.

Eric Ripert, Le Bernardin
Dish: Smoked Yellowfin Tuna “Prosciutto”
Why it needs salt: “The tuna is cut and seasoned and placed between two leaves of rehydrated kombu then sous-vide. It’s served topped with smoked salt, smoked trout roe, pickled Japanese vegetables, and a tuile of the kombu. The salt is essential in drawing out the moisture of the tuna and giving it a very meaty-mouth feel. Then the richness of the tuna is both highlighted and balanced by the salt-pickled vegetables.”

Bobby Helen, Resto
Dish: Chorizo, Lardo, Beets, and Brussels Sprouts
Why it needs salt: “We make our sausages here. For the chorizo, we need to up the salt because of the smokiness and the spices. A lot of people think salt is salt, but it’s a flavor amplifier. It would be really bland without it. You miss the layering of flavors. You won’t get cumin; you might get chili flakes; and you can lose the pork flavor.”

Amanda Freitag, the Harrison
Dish: Grilled Pork Chop with Cannellini Beans, Escarole, and Crispy Pancetta
Why it needs salt: “Pork on pork is not a crime. The pork chop is actually quite lean and it needs additional fat and salt, so the pancetta plays that role perfectly. It’s chopped finely with rosemary, thyme, and garlic, then melted and crisped in the pan. And it’s amazing.”

Mathieu Palombino, Motorino
Dish: Sopressata Pizza
Why it needs salt: “Sopressata and Pecorino contain a lot of salt to start — and that’s also why this pie is one of the favorites. Your mouth becomes very watery when it comes in contact with salt and it amplifies the reception of the flavors. The salt definitely makes your mouth fully aware. I think a 5-year-old could have come up with the combination. What pairs better than sausage and cheese? Do they plan on coming to my restaurant and measuring how much salt I put on my food?”

Andrew Carmellini, Locanda Verde
Dish: Cucumber and Radish in Tuna Dressing
Why it needs salt: “Cucumber and radish have tons of water in them, so you need to make them extra salty, because when you bite down, more liquid is released on your palate, thus watering down your seasonings. We dress them with housemade tuna belly, tons of anchovies, lemon, olive oil, garlic, and even more salinity in the form of bottarga.”

Carmellini issued this closing battle cry: “LONG LIVE SALT!”

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Filed Under: health concerns, le bernardin, locanda verde, motorino, resto, salt, the harrison

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