“Counter, Tagine — it isn’t really vegetarian, but it has great vegetarian dishes — Josie’s uptown, and Angelica Kitchen.” —Natalie Portman names her favorite vegetarian restaurants Monday night at the Gotham Independent Film Awards

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Last night at GQ’s Gentlemen’s Ball at the Empire Hotel, we finally had a chance to ask Adrian Grenier about the fact that, according to an office card that a tipster sent us, he seemingly only worked three shifts at the Park Slope Food Coop this year (according to the Coop’s FAQ, members are supposed to work thirteen two-and-a-half-hour shifts per year). Here’s what he had to say.

So is it true you served three of the required shifts?
The reason why I’m part of the co-op is that I don’t get special treatment. There isn’t a hierarchy. Everyone contributes. It’s a relaxed, sensible sharing of work that needs to get done. There’s no big corporate machine that’s taking a bunch of money and taking it out of your pockets so they can go on vacation. Everybody participates towards bringing the costs down for a community.

But they do require that you work a number of hours?
Yeah. I worked twice last month. Once for me and once for my housemates.

Do you feel a pressure to get all your shifts in?
It’s about three hours a month. I’m on a thing called F-Stop, which means since I’m in L.A. half the year, I can fulfill my work duties all in a row. So I don’t have to do a standard, every-month shift. And I know people like to gossip — people like to hate, more importantly. I tell you, the Food Coop is not a perfect system, but what is, you know? I derive a lot of enjoyment from the Food Coop. I like participating in something that doesn’t have airs, that’s just all about sharing and working. It’s not about the corporate-inflation/financial-gain bubble. It’s about people coming together to eat right, eat well, and contribute their effort and sweat equity towards bringing down prices for everybody.

But does it? I thought you had to be a member to shop there.
Look, I don’t shop there … honestly, I don’t shop there and I don’t work there because I can’t afford Whole Foods. I do it because of the sense of community. And I believe that that effort and that contribution toward something communal is healthy for somebody’s psyche.

And Whole Foods is getting boycotted anyway?
I think that’s ridiculous. I mean, people are entitled to have their own opinions. Even if they are wrong. Somehow people assume that Whole Foods, because of the name Whole Foods, it comes from some sort of grass-roots, righteous, democratic idea, but it’s really not. It’s just a bunch of people capitalizing on people who want to eat wholesomely. People are so easily seduced by marketing and even the influence of a brand name. I mean, I appreciate Whole Foods, but I think it’s way overpriced.

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Filed Under: adrian grenier, celebrity settings, the park slope food co-op, whole foods

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Yesterday, our friends at the Cut reported that Roberto Cavalli — the most Italian of all Italians — decided he didn’t feel like having the food at Serafina where he was then dining alfresco for lunch, but was instead craving Mexican. So he had Mañana (also owned by Serafina honcho Vittorio Assaf) deliver a feast of chicken tostaditos and enchiladas de mole. Not only that, but apparently Cavalli likes to sit in the back of Serafina and order guacamole from Mañana ALL THE TIME — a habit that Assaf, understandably, has been keeping under wraps from Serafina’s chef, lest he get a tad insulted and walk out. (Tip to Assaf: The best way to keep secrets is to NOT tell them to the press.)

Not long after the news broke, we ran into Eric Ripert at the Alzheimer’s Association’s 2009 Rita Hayworth Gala and asked if a customer ever ordered food from somewhere else while sitting at Le Bernardin. “It’s never happened,” said Ripert. “But I think Roberto Cavalli has a big ego to do that. On top of it, he is supposedly a friend of Vittorio! I find that in bad taste, and I don’t care who he is. It’s not something that he should be doing.” What would Ripert do if Cavalli had done that in his restaurant? “He wouldn’t have done that in my restaurant, because he wouldn’t have a table in my restaurant. I think he is disrespectful and it is just a way of … ” he paused a second to think of the right, outraged term in English, ” … FLASHING and it is unnecessary. He can eat very well at Vittorio’s restaurants — Serafina or Mañana — and he doesn’t have to do that. If he wants to eat Mexican, go to a Mexican place. If he wants to eat French, go to a French place, or Italian, or whatever.”

Ripert stopped short of declaring Cavalli a persona non grata in his establishments. “If he comes to Le Bernardin, it’s okay,” he said. “I have no problem to feed Mr. Cavalli. However, if he comes to Le Bernardin and he orders a pizza from another place, he is not going to eat at Le Bernardin. There is a lot of people who appreciate what we do, and we are very proud and passionate about what we do, and I would find that very insulting. And I won’t let him! It’s like me going to Roberto Cavalli and then asking the designer next door to bring a dress for my wife, and then dress her in his boutique. I would not do that. I would go to Hermès.”

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Filed Under: beef, eric ripert, manana, roberto cavalli, serafina

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Have you ever wondered why you can get fine Belgian abbey beer Corsendonk at Balthazar? As we found out Wednesday night, there is but one answer: Brooke Shields. We were hovering near Shields at the U.S. Launch of BlackBerry Tour for Sprint at the Thompson LES when we noticed a draft beer in her hands. It turned out to be a Duvel. If Shields is on Broadway, the restaurants she frequents after curtain call start stocking more Belgian beers. “They know I’m going to go there all the time and ask for it,” she explains. Balthazar carries her beer, as do theater district mainstays Marseille and Angus McIndoe.

“When she was doing Wonderful Town, she would come into Marseille one to two nights a week and sit at the bar or one of the tables by the bar and enjoy a big bottle of Duvel,” says Todd Cederholm, former assistant manager of Marseille. (He’s now the GM at Five Napkin Burger.) “I always made sure we had it in stock for her. Some nights we would open up a bunch of bottles of Belgian beer and do a tasting. She knew the different styles and how to describe it, whether something had a lot of hops or more malt. She got into it. When she left the show, I even gave her a whole case of Duvel glasses.”

Shields says she’ll cart Belgian beer on trains with her, and would take it on planes if she could. “I can’t drink wine anymore if I’m going to sing or do anything, so beer does the trick — and it’s like having a meal!” she says. “My favorites are Duvel, just because it’s crisper, and if I’m sort of hungry, then I drink Chimay Blue. I like it better than the Red and I don’t like the White at all.” She also likes La Fin Du Monde, which is brewed in Québec, but who’s keeping track? “I didn’t start seriously drinking until I was breast-feeding,” says Shields. “I know Guinness was what they used to give moms who were breast-feeding. So I started off with Guinness and then refined my taste. It’s the barley and the malt and the hops, so there’s justification for it. Plus it made me happy. Just one a day isn’t going to hurt you. But now,” she cackled, “One’s not the limit!”

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Hamburgers were on Eric Ripert’s mind last weekend at the Watermill Center benefit auction as he talked up the version he serves in his D.C. restaurant, Westend Bistro. Though in New York Ripert is revered for his fish, his is no dummy when it comes to America’s iconic food. “I know how to cook meat, too,” he says. Read on to see what Ripert learned from the fast-food industry about burgers.

What’s the best burger you’ve eaten lately?
I’m going to be self-promoting, because I think we have a great burger in Washington, D.C., at Westend. The reason why is because we went after McDonald [sic] and Burger King and all those brands, and we look at what was great about their burgers and what was bad about their burgers — what we think was not the strongest point. However, the strongest point is the way … the proportions are amazing. You can take a burger in your two hands and eat, and you don’t, have the burger all over. The way they cut the pickles, the way they cut the tomatoes, the way they slice the salad, and the size, obviously make those burgers perfect. Except the quality of meat. So what we have done is we went after them, we look at it, we study the proportions, and then of course did it with great meat.

What kind?
We’re using sirloin mostly. It’s the fat content. And I don’t give the proportions of that because I think that’s the secret of the burger, to be juicy, and to be tasty. So this is a secret. The only reason is, it makes the burger fantastic. And then the quality of the bread. We find a great baker and he understood exactly what we wanted and was very consistent on the size.

Is the bread a secret, too? Because we can’t all go to Washington to try a burger.
I know that. But I think what I’m saying is something for anyone thinking about burgers. Because I hate going to a place and having a burger I cannot handle. And I hate to have a pickle in the plate, because I’m looking at the pickle and I don’t know when I’m supposed to eat the pickle. Am I supposed to bite the pickle, then have the burger? What am I doing with that pickle? And then sometimes the onion is cut too thick and I am like, “I don’t want that.” So what I’m saying here is that maybe you cannot go to Washington, but I’m saying get inspired by what we have done and maybe someone can do even a better burger than we do. But I think proportions are the secret of a good burger.

Will we ever see it in New York?
No! [Laughs] No, no, no. Because in New York is Le Bernardin, and it will be the only one. And on top of that, we specialize in fish, as you know.

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Barber with girlfriend Aria Sloss.

Two weeks ago, Dan Barber cooked for the Obamas on their dinner date at Blue Hill, and it kind of changed his life. “My father takes my calls now. My girlfriend seems a tiny bit more psyched about me,” he joked at a L’Ecole dinner following a Quintessentially-sponsored screening of the documentary Food Inc. But as for what happened that fateful night, he can’t really talk about it. “Honestly, I’m not allowed to,” he told us. Barber said he had no warning they were coming. “They just walked in. They had a reservation under another name.” But he’s sworn to secrecy about what they ate. “It was just a private dinner to them, even though it was very public, and strangely, they want to keep some of it private. So my thing is no comment. I’m sorry.” He’s also staying mum about Frank Bruni’s assertion that Blue Hill was an overly PC, predictable place for the Obamas to dine. “My response is no comment, because it’s Bruni. The only no comments I have are Bruni and the Obamas.” Actually, we soon found out that Barber has three sacred cows: Bruni, the Obamas, and Alice Waters. We asked him what he thought of Waters saying she thought hot dogs should be made of beef from grass-fed cattle. “I never heard her say that,” he replied. “Can I do a ‘no comment’ on that, too?”

Luckily, Barber does comment on theoretical situations. He’d be into that mythical grass-fed-beef hot dog. “I think it would be the most delicious, juiciest hot dog imaginable. The dirty seventies street hot dog that I grew up on doesn’t make my mouth water anymore.” And he would plant tomatoes in the Obamas’ vegetable garden and take them to eat at Franny’s in Brooklyn. “Well, I’d like to take them to Brooklyn, get them away from it all. Also, I think Franny’s serves fantastic food, and it’s in this family style that I think the Obamas would both appreciate and really adore. I eat anything on their menu. Except for the pizzas. I think I’ve been in there and had pizza once. I just love all the other dishes. It’s my favorite restaurant.”

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Filed Under: alice waters, barack obama, blue hill, dan barber, frank bruni, franny’s, michelle obama, presidential eats

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David Carr and friend.

It all began with a typo. New York Times media columnist David Carr had been “doing some slimy self-promotion on Facebook” for the hardcover release of his memoir about addiction, The Night of the Gun, when he accidentally advertised “The Night of the Bun.” Among the friends who logged on to poke fun at him, Carr sensed a genuine hunger. For pork buns. For nearly a year, the typo haunted Carr, who considers pork buns a near-perfect food. “They’re starch and carbs and sugar and meat and something you can eat with a single hand,” he says. “Plus Chinese barbecued pork has that unusual sort of candy color to it. I’ve eaten a lot of it since I came to New York.” To celebrate the book’s paperback release last week, Carr didn’t think it was appropriate to throw a grand party — “Nobody’s getting rich selling books or making newspapers” — but he thought his colleagues could use a little revelry and set about planning something very low-budget. He got Chilean wine and Heineken from Costco, and a party space from a friend. As for the food, there was only one possibility: an actual Night of the Bun.

Carr’s wife, Jill, did web research and collected pork-bun suggestions from a pal — New Wonton Garden, Fay Da Bakery, Excellent Dumpling House, Grand Sichuan — and they picked Mothers’ Day for an epic taste test with their daughter Maddie. Using his Twitter, Carr tracked their progress and solicited suggestions. Rachel Sterne of GroundReport.com wrote in telling them to try Dim Sum Go Go. Doree Shafrir (late of the Observer) and Katherine Goldstein (of the Huffington Post) suggested Mei Li Wah Coffee House. “I’d say we sampled over twenty in all,” says Carr.

“I’m kind of a pork-bun traditionalist, so anything jazzy or gimmicky wasn’t going to make it,” Carr said. “There were some that the filling seemed, I don’t know, a little strange. I like my barbecued pork to taste like barbecued pork.” In the end, Grand Sichuan on Ninth Avenue won out for proximity to the event location, manufacturing capacity, and “heartiest innards.” “They seemed very durable,” said Carr, “and they were a good size. They were kind of the Big Mac of pork buns. Very large. It was weird. They didn’t seem one bit surprised. I thought it would be fun to say ‘We need 200 pork buns’ and watch their reaction. I said that, and they said, ‘Okay, what else?’”

At the party, though, Carr needed constant reassurance that he’d chosen correctly. “I wondered if in certain parts and certain batches, they were a little doughy,” he confessed. “You want a good portion of meat evenly distributed throughout the bun. You don’t want to take a bite and get all dough. But I liked their pork buns and I’m not about to complain. Grand Sichuan isn’t really known for their warm service. I don’t want to antagonize them further.” And his guests weren’t complaining, either: “More than a few people left with pork buns in their pockets.”

When we spoke to Carr via phone the next day, he had his eye on a different kind of “reddish meat with bread-y stuff.” “I’m in Chicago,” he said, “so as soon as I get off the phone with you, I’m getting a Vienna beef Chicago-style hot dog, because hot dogs in New York are atrocious. I’d be happy to eat another pork bun right now, but in Chicago there’s really no reason. I think of the pork bun as New York’s iconic food.”

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Filed Under: david carr, doree shafrir, excellent dumpling house, fay da bakery, grand sichuan, katherine goldstein, new wonton garden, new york times, pork buns, rachel sterne, the new york diet, the night of the gun

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You’d think that a Senegalese sex god with a rumored three wives who sings about his jail time would be into manly drinks. But at DoSomething.org’s 2009 Do Something Awards on June 4 at the Apollo, Akon told us he drinks one thing, and one thing only: Shirley Temples. “I drink Shirley Temples all the time,” he said. “That’s all I drink.” Why? As a devout Muslim, he’s a teetotaler. “I don’t drink alcohol, never have,” he explained via e-mail. “I don’t ever want to not be in control, so I just don’t go there.” Akon says he likes his Shirley Temples heavy on the grenadine, with at least two Maraschino cherries. “Some people use ginger ale, but Sprite or 7-Up is how I like to mix it up.” Mostly, though, he’s in it for the grenadine. “It gives you energy, but without the caffeine so you don’t get jittery,” he says. “Before a show I will do a hot water with lemon or cran-grape juice. But when I am out for the night, instead of drinking coffee or Red Bull, a Shirley Temple works to keep me up and going.” The singer likes the Shirley Temples at Tao and Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club, but thinks the W Times Square is tops, mainly because he often stays there: “I think they’ve perfected the Shirley Temple since I request it so much.” Friends don’t dare tease him about his drink choice (“Man, half of my crew doesn’t drink, so it’s never really an issue”), but to the haters who say it’s a girlie drink, he has one response: “Other than the name, what’s not manly about soda and grenadine?”

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Filed Under: akon, celebrity settings, cocktails, do something awards, mocktails

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Jada Yuan caught up with Stefan Richter at another Le Tourment tasting, and in addition to discovering that he likes his absinthe with Diet Coke, she confirmed what we suspected — that he hasn’t made much progress on his memoir. Instead he’s been eating burgers and pig ears at the Spotted Pig (“best burgers ever!” “best pig ears I’ve had in twenty years!”), having dinner with Ariane at Minetta Tavern, hanging with Leah at Centro Vinoteca, and crossing the country with his fellow Top Chefs. So are they traveling to learn the cuisines of the world? “No, they’re traveling for publicity,” he tells us. “What we all do.” Here’s more from the interview, including news of a new restaurant, his thoughts on Pino Luongo’s suspicions of thievery, and, as hoped for, his techniques for winning over a lesbian. It’s all about charm, folks.

What’s going on with your memoir?
I’m working on it. See, I’m so busy. And I’m the worst frickin’ speller.

Don’t you have spell-check?
I have spell-check, but I’m OCD. So I can’t type anything in small and little captions. So I have to type everything in big captions.

You mean big type?
Yeah, but spell-check doesn’t work in big type. Well, not for me. But mostly I need to write it and have somebody go over it and rewrite it. And I’m opening a restaurant. And all this stuff about the memoir came out and people called me. It’s a bit of a naughty book. A lot of people are like, oh God!

What’s your new restaurant going to be like?
It’s opening August 1 in Santa Monica. It’s going to be [called] Stefan’s plus the name that it used to be.

What’s the old name?
I can’t say it. The lease we sign on Wednesday. I’m not gonna jinx it. The place has been there for a long, long time.

Okay, so what’s the memoir about?
Shit-talking. What people want to say, but they don’t say. What the restaurant business is all about.

You mean, sex talk?
No, I’ve been in the restaurant [industry] since I was 13. My parents were in restaurants. Stuff about drugs. I don’t do them. I smoked pot once, seven years ago. I thought, “I’m gonna die!” I was bawling like a little girl for six hours. I’ve never done drugs. I don’t wanna do drugs. I booze a little bit. I have my Scotch or my absinthe. It’s fine. A couple beers, a glass of wine. But in the restaurant biz, a lot of drugs are going on all the time. Which we ought to change, because we should not be doing that. It kills your taste buds. And you end up being a druggie. I’ve seen a lot of good chefs going down on drugs. Also, as a rule, I don’t drink before seven o’clock at night.

So is it a memoir or a tell-all about the biz?
It’s mine. My stuff. What I’ve gone through. My parents. My stories. My funny stories about my move to America.

I thought there was a lawsuit about the name?
[Ed: No lawsuit was ever filed] Dirty Dishes? There’s no lawsuit! Oh, Pablo? Paulo?

Pino Luongo was [thinking about] suing you.
Oh, who gives a shit? Fucking go on Google and look up “Dirty Dishes.” There’s 25 titles out there called Dirty Dishes. Fucking sue me, dude. I’ll call it Stefan’s Dirty Dish. Then what the fuck are you going to do?

Did your charms ever work on Jamie?
Ask Jamie. Wouldn’t be the first one. No, you know, we all truly believe that as lesbians, they’re lesbians. I have friends that are gay. They’re gay. Lesbians are lesbians. But I truly believe that there’s a lot of men that are really piggish in America and I could truly understand why a woman would want to be with a woman instead of a man. I 100% get it. Because I’ve seen it with my friends. I’m like, “Dude, come on! Don’t be a pig!” Of course there’s something intriguing about lesbians. If you can’t get it, you want to have it.

And is there a technique that works?
It’s all about being charming. You can’t be a dick. You’ve got to be very loving. You’ve got to be sensitive to your feminine side. Then you’re going to work it out. That’s why I get mani-pedis every week.

How has that worked out for you? Do you have many lesbian lady loves?
I have lots of lesbian lady loves. Cat Cora, if you ever change your mind, call me.

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Filed Under: absinthe, ariane, cat cora, centro vinoteca, dirty dishes, le tourment, leah, lesbians, minetta tavern, pino luongo, spotted pig, stefan richter, top chef

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If that Intel item got you curious about Noah Tepperberg’s new Googleproof venture, Avenue, you might want to have a look at the place, and its full menu, below. The above is a photo, and just for fun, we also have a rendering to compare it to. Finally, we asked Tepperberg whether this whole “gastrolounge” thing wasn’t just an excuse to hop on the luxury-burger bandwagon.

How is it an ultralounge and a gastropub at the same time?
I guess it’s a gastrolounge. I don’t like the word “gastropub” because it’s very barlike. There’s a small bar here. It’s almost all couches, tables. It really is a mix of ottomans, found objects, table lamps. It’s not your typical sit-down restaurant with tablecloths and silverware. All food is brought to the table in this dinner box, kind of like a bento box. The tables aren’t your typical club height; they’re higher and taller and wider, so there’s room to put some food on the table as well as drinks.

Will people want a D.J. and fancy lights while they eat?
The music and the lighting is very dim, it’s very mellow, and then depending on the crowd, at midnight or later, we can raise the volume and change the lighting. Then there’s a second floor, which is a straight lounge. There’s fifteen tables in one room, and then on the second floor there’s six big tables that overlook it. [The music] is gonna be really lounge-y, eighties, soul, seventies.

Did you want a cabaret license?
No, I honestly wasn’t looking to open another club. I wanted to do something that was different, something that caters toward a crowd that doesn’t want to go clubbing every night.

Who’s your crowd?
Last night I had a friends-and-family tasting. We had good people here. A lot of people in the music business, record executives. I had fashion designers. I had other people in the hospitality and restaurant world. I had a little mix of fashion models, a couple actors. Our niche has always been the true New Yorkers. It’s also the location — we’re right at the elbow of the High Line. This neighborhood is really, really popular. You get a really cool mix of people in the meatpacking and art district.

Will you try to steal customers from 1Oak?
Not at all. Our business model starts at nine. We look at our prime time being ten to one. Their crowd shows up between one and two and stays late.

Are you sick of clubs?
No, I love it! I just felt like … I personally am 33. A lot of my friends, a lot of our clients, they don’t want to go to clubs. They want to go to places where they can hear people talk and they don’t want lots of flashing lights and they don’t have to buy bottles and they can just sit and have a drink.

Isn’t [partner] Danny a promoter?
Danny was a promoter ten years ago. He’s been an actor for the past three years, two years now. He’s made his own movie that’s about to get sold. He’s actually in L.A. right now, filming a movie with Adam Sandler.

How will the door work?
There’ll just be a door person with a reservation and guest list.

Can you just show up?
Ask us what to do, I guess. Or usually when people come to a chic place, they know to call in advance. They send a quick e-mail if they’re not on our guest list. But once we’re open, we’ll put together our permanent list that we’ve built for years that covers a lot of our friends.

How’s the food?
It’s comfort food. It’s not intimidating but it’s really well done. Everything has a couple fancy ingredients. Our chef is a real chef. He graduated from CIA and worked with some good people and really knows food well and understands flavors. He spent a lot of time really working on the dishes so they were comfortable, so you would eat something without having horrible breath or dripping on your nice dress.

How do you combat bad breath?
Oh, just avoiding garlic, avoiding certain things in recipes. You want people to have a bite, but also not feel like they gotta go home and brush their teeth.

Do you have a fancy burger?
It’s two-ounce Kobe beef. We use a little Worcestershire to give it that juicy feeling. A little soy. A little butter. It’s grilled over mesquite wood. The brioche bun is great, and the pickle. We had like four choices of pickle.

Are you hopping on the luxury-burger bandwagon?
I would say that we’re part of the luxury-burger trend. One of the first things that I remember talking about is “I want to have the best slider in town.” I want people to come here and be like, “We want to get those,” and it’s like, “Definitely.” Kobe-beef slider. There’s two in an order. They’re twelve bucks, and they’re good.

Any specialty drinks?
We did a really great list of all of the classic drinks and just did a better version. So we have an incredible Bellini, but it’s made with Dom Perignon. We did a Sex on the Beach, but besides using cranberry and orange and peach schnapps, we added some fresh orange juice, we added some peach purée, we added an infused Belvedere vodka that’s made with fruit.

What do you want to do in midtown? How close are you to getting it going?
I’m looking to do something in midtown. I think that the city needs a good house-music club, something in the European style. I’m in negotiations with a couple of spaces, nothing close to finished.

Rendering: Courtesy of Avenue

The Menu
Caprese Satay
Tomato, mozzarella, basil

Crudite
Carrot, cucumber, cherry tomato, asparagus, pepper, dressing

Vegetable Summer Roll
Papaya, cucumber, red pepper, red wine dressing

Asian Salad Wrap
Wrap of mizuna, shiitake mushrooms and carrot threads served with ginger-soy vinaigrette in a whole wheat sesame tortilla

Tuna Tartare
Sushi grade tuna, marinated carrot threads & miso-wasabi vinaigrette served in a dim sum spoon with chilled soy broth

Miso Glazed Chilean Sea Bass
Roasted Chilean sea bass served on a skewer with a sweet miso glaze

Vegetable Spring Roll
Traditional vegetable spring roll of napa cabbage, shiitake mushroom and carrot

Kobe Beef Sliders
w/ bacon
Mini Kobe beef burger served on a toasted brioche bun, 2 per order

Avenue Lobster Roll
each Served on a toasted brioche bun

Kung Pao Chicken Satay
Crispy spiced chicken with savory sesame-peanut sauce served on a bamboo skewer

Charred Angus Filet of Beef
Grilled angus filet tips served on a bamboo skewer

Free Range Chicken Samboussa
East African style chicken & basmati samosa with spicy mango drizzle

Crispy Coconut Prawn Lollipops
Crispy coconut crusted prawn served on a bamboo skewer with spiced mango sauce.

Pretzel Dog
A premium beef frankfurter wrapped in pretzel dough and toasted crisp and served with spicy brown mustard & sea salt

Grilled Cheese
White cheddar grilled cheese on hearty multigrain bread
Choice of adding apple smoked bacon

Waffle Frites
Waffle cut french fries, scented with white truffle oil and parmesan, served with ketchup

Avenue, 116 Tenth Ave., at 17th St.

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Filed Under: 1oak, avenue, marquee, nightlife, noah tepperberg, openings, west chelsea

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In this week’s magazine, Jada Yuan wrote about Mandy Moore’s cooking lesson at the Spotted Pig — just one of the singer’s many self-improvement projects this year, which include a shiny new indie-pop album, Amanda Leigh (out May 26), and that shiny new diamond ring on her finger, courtesy of now-husband Ryan Adams. At Moore’s request, New York managed to secure her a lesson at the Pig with chefs Peter Cho and Nate Smith (she also knows owner Ken Friedman), and she eagerly donned an apron and jacket for the part. But why, exactly, does Moore want to learn how to cook? “It’s always a goal I’ve had for myself,” she says. “I like food. I like eating. I admire people with that talent, you know, someone that can walk in, take ingredients out of the fridge and just sort of whip something up. Or just to innately know, like, how you hard-boil an egg. That’s something I would have to Google.”

Moore says she blames her mother for not instilling a love of cooking in her earlier. “My mom, God bless her, was not a great cook growing up, so I think that’s half the reason why I never had interest in cooking while I was a kid. She wasn’t, like, invested in cooking. It was just sort of, you know, making dinner because dinner had to get made.” Among the all-star dishes at the Moore house: “Chicken. Chicken in every shape and form. I think that’s why I don’t eat chicken to this day. I remember chicken with lots of gravy sort of stuff. Cap’n Crunch–breaded chicken. I did not like it. I was like, ‘You made this up!’ I was convinced my mom was just trying to figure out how to use the leftover cereal in the cupboard.”

Moore says friends have tried to convince her about the therapeutic nature of cooking, but she’s not buying it. She prefers cleaning the dishes and going to Bed Bath and Beyond to buy “kitchenlike implements.” “Anything that’s been on, like, an infomercial, I’m pretty sold on,” she says. So far she’s got a slicer, a Jack LaLanne Power Juicer, and a Sham Wow. “The Sham Wow is forever,” she says. “I bought, like, the imposter Sham Wows from Trader Joe’s first and they sucked, so then I got the real thing. I wouldn’t say ‘wow,’ but they’re pretty good.” Moore says Adams does most of their cooking at home. “I’m pretty lucky that I got a good situation in that sense,” she says. “My guy is a really excellent cook. He’s one of those people that innately just knows how to cook anything — eggs, stew, fish. So I could just stick to doing the dishes and I would be okay, but I would love to be able to reciprocate.”

The goal is to throw a dinner party for friends, and eventually host Thanksgiving for her family. She managed to bring Brussel sprouts to this past Thanksgiving (“they were actually a big hit”), and she’s slowly getting over her petrifying fear of knives. “I’m just a procrastinator,” she says. “Cooking hasn’t always been at the top of my list, but that doesn’t take away the desire to really want to learn.”

Click through to see Moore attempt to make the Spotted Pig’s sheep’s-milk ricotta gnudi and deviled eggs.

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Filed Under: cooking lessons, gnudi, ken friedman, mandy moore, nate smith, peter cho, ryan adams, slideshow, spotted pig

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The newly elected Barack Obama leaving Spiaggia with Michelle on November 8, 2008.

Before there was a White House chef, Missy Robbins cooked regularly for the Obamas at Spiaggia in Chicago. Now at A Voce, she spoke to Jada Yuan at last night’s Beard Awards.

Was it a big deal when the Obamas came into the restaurant?
Okay, I moved to Chicago and didn’t know who the hell Obama was. He was a senator when I got there. I mean, I didn’t pay attention.

You probably just thought he was a good-looking regular.
My God, he is beautiful.

What could you tell about them via the food they ate?
They have very sophisticated eating habits. Tasting menus. They’re very open. They let me cook for them one night. They didn’t want the last course, so they were open to changing it and they were very open to whatever I wanted to do. They’re very cool.

Read the complete interview on MenuPages: Chicago

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Filed Under: a voce, barack obama, food politics, james beard foundation awards, spiaggia

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