go nobuo!

well the valley takes a (hopefully temporary) step back in the culinary world standings with the departure of our one james beard award winner bradford thompson from mary elaine's at the phoenician. bradford resigned today but will stay on through april.

nobuo fukuda: omakase, bro. you're our only hope this year for a prize.

next year: kevin binkley.

debutante ball

uppity baseball food in scottsdale = wok fired soba noodles. kudos to this guy flaming up a storm at scottsdale stadium during the giants-cubs series this march. i can only judge from my own uppity principle standpoint, as i just can't bring myself to buy these dang things at a baseball game. call me closed-minded but my love of baseball was bred at camden yards and wrigley field.

here in the sand canyon state i see more of these chinese food boxes with chopsticks sticking out around the stadiums than mustard-stained mouths at giants home games. (except for when the cubbies are there, then there is at least some sense of normalcy to the place)... hence this shot:

i don't care if i ever get back...

in like a lion...

i like this guy. there is an article in the new yorker on gordon ramsay that i think really shovels through all his screaming and ranting and really hits on his food.

bruni gave him only two stars in the times; for the most part because he thought the food was boring... the interior of Gordon Ramsay in the London is white on white and the dishes had the slow-calm of walking through a cloud of dry ice, the complete opposite of the firey underworld of Hell's Kitchen that we all know and love/hate.

buford in the new yorker explains this quite incitefully, saying that for all of ramsay's torments, he finds solace on the plate and in the taste of his food, even though getting there is laced with so many vulgarities.... what matters is what goes into your mouth not what comes out of his.

hello? hello? *hiccup*

funny gift idea: it's a flask

radio arcadia

we finally have a little bit of word on what is going to be the next incarnation of la grande orange at 40th street and campbell - construction is well underway, the building has a series of stucco arches and the republic says the new place will be updated italian classics. the new name: Radio Milano.

i unfortunately haven't been back to see my favorite bartender Sander at postino's since the place has suddenly gone hip and inaccessible. we always used to go in monday nights for the pizza/wine deal there but we stopped at the beginning of football season.

Sander is the quintissential 'tender, who, only the second time we visited, would see us come in and before i could even set my bag on the back of a barchair, he had out two wine glasses and my favorite russian river pinot and without a word waits for my smile and nod. that's a bartender.

eat this book

new book on my nightstand... it's another book where putting it down, you feel as if you were just having a pleasant conversation with a good friend who knows your thoughts very intimately. she's very comfortable and a lot of her thoughts frighteningly feel like they are straight out of my own head, although i find myself judging her whims at the same time envying her adventures.

anyways i include it on a food blog because the book's first section is all about the goal of finding herself through the pleasures of eating and drinking in italy. it's light on the gastronomy and heavy on the sheer enjoyment of beautiful meals.