Happy St Patrick's Day From All Of Your Friends at CRN! We Love YOU!!!!
What's Cookin' Today Hour ONE:
Gabrielle Hamilton Talks to Us About Her Book, BLOOD, BONES, AND BUTTER - The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef!
BLOOD, BONES, AND BUTTER marks the debut of a tremendous literary talent. As intelligent and uncompromising as it is passionate and evocative, this is an unconventional story about food, purpose, and family—the profound moments of satisfaction in life when we have all three and the sharp emptiness we experience when none are within our reach.
Celebrity Chef Kevin Roberts recently opened his fourth San Diego area restaurant – North County Tavern & Bowl in Escondido. Kevin is also the Executive Chef at East Village Tavern & Bowl, PB Shore Club and East Lake Tavern & Bowl. In addition, he’s a national TV & radio personality and has previously appeared on Food Network’s “The Next Food Network Star,” THE TODAY SHOW, CBS The Early Show, BETTER TV and Sirius/XM Radio. He is recently appeared as national host of TLC’s BBQ Pitmasters Season II and in January travelled to the Super Bowl where he was invited to cook-up his signature wings served at his popular sports bars. Kevin is also the author of two cookbooks, Kissing in the Kitchen –Kissing with Passion and Munchies.
BLOOD, BONES, AND BUTTER marks the debut of a tremendous literary talent. As intelligent and uncompromising as it is passionate and evocative, this is an unconventional story about food, purpose, and family—the profound moments of satisfaction in life when we have all three and the sharp emptiness we experience when none are within our reach. Gabrielle’s childhood home in a burnt-out nineteenth-century silk mill in rural Pennsylvania was the lush setting for her parents’ elaborate parties, where pigeon pies were eaten and whole baby lambs were roasted over wood fires while beer and wine chilled in a nearby creek. Her father (a theatrical set designer) transformed their home with refrigerator-sized cartons of fake snow, dry ice machine fog, and stacks of Kilim rugs depending on the party's theme.
However, the magical childhood abruptly ended when her rigidly disciplined mother (a former ballerina who "spent the day in a good skirt, high heels, and an apron") announced to her Bohemian, dreamy husband that she was finished with the marriage. A hasty and slip-shod dismantling of the family of seven left a pre-adolescent Gabrielle and just one of her brothers alone in the empty house for the summer. Under sudden financial distress, outfitted in shoplifted clothes and "hastily grazing through the menu of adult behavior" she quickly took up smoking and walked a mile down the train tracks to the touristy town of New Hope to find a job in a restaurant.
The tumultuous years that followed included a move to Hell’s Kitchen at age sixteen and a job as a nightclub waitress where she cheated the owners out of tens of thousands of dollars, most of them spent on drugs. Between attempts to graduate college, Gabrielle traveled the world and during these money-strapped explorations learned the lessons that hunger can impart—among them, that being picked up and fed, often by strangers, when you are in a state of fear and hunger is the single most important and convincing food experience.
Upon her return to New York, she spent countless soulless hours working in catering factories, struggling between the impulse to break away from a food-centered life to do something “meaningful” and the pull of the satisfying and practical work of the kitchen. Readers accompany Gabrielle from her time in the Midwest getting an MFA to the launch of her celebrated East Village restaurant Prune and from an unlikely marriage to a somewhat incompatible Italian man to the annual trips with her children to her husband’s family’s seaside villa in Puglia.
While filled with gorgeous passages, Hamilton’s story is neither sweet nor acerbic, and does not, for a moment, glide over the difficulties of working in the food industry nor the profound disappointments of a flawed marriage. Instead, it simply offers these stories with unvarnished honesty, grit, and passion that are at once both epic and intimate, provoking us to consider how we approach our meals and our families—the ones we’re born into, the ones we make with our partners and children, and the ones that are born of work and sweat.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gabrielle Hamilton is the chef/owner of Prune restaurant in New York City’s East Village. She received an MFA in Fiction Writing from the University of Michigan and her work has appeared in the New Yorker, New York Times, GQ, Bon Appetit, Saveur magazine, and Food & Wine. She has also authored the 8-week Chef’s Column in the New York Times and her work has been anthologized in six volumes of Best Food Writing. She has appeared on Martha Stewart and the Food Network, among other television programs. She lives in Manhattan with her two sons.
Chef Kevin Roberts Tells Us About His Newest Restaurants and His New Book, Kissing in the Kitchen!
Celebrity Chef Kevin Roberts recently opened his fourth San Diego area restaurant – North County Tavern & Bowl in Escondido. Kevin is also the Executive Chef at East Village Tavern & Bowl, PB Shore Club and East Lake Tavern & Bowl. In addition, he’s a national TV & radio personality and has previously appeared on Food Network’s “The Next Food Network Star,” THE TODAY SHOW, CBS The Early Show, BETTER TV and Sirius/XM Radio. He is recently appeared as national host of TLC’s BBQ Pitmasters Season II and in January travelled to the Super Bowl where he was invited to cook-up his signature wings served at his popular sports bars. Kevin is also the author of two cookbooks, Kissing in the Kitchen –Kissing with Passion and Munchies.For more info on Kevin, check out munchiestv.com!
What's Cookin' Today Hour TWO:
Jim Lindquist Tells Us About St. Patty's Day at Los Angeles' Tam O'Shanter!
John Lindquist a graduate of the Cornell Hotel School came to Lawrys The Prime Rib 2 years ago as a restaurant manager at the BH locations. He transferred over to the Tam to become the general manager last March. He has been in the restaurant industry in various roles since he was 15 (17 years total) The Tam O’Shanter this is our 89th year in business. The oldest restaurant in LA owned by the same families and still in its original location. The first of many Lawry’s restaurants.
St. Pat’s at the Tam: Our biggest day of the year! This is our 7th year in the tent outside because we have out grown our bar space. It's a great party with live music starting at 2pm and going til Late.
For more info, go to www.lawrysonline.com/tamoshanter!
In honor of National Nutrition Month, Dr, Steven Nadler, Orthopaedic Surgeon, Gives Us Bone-Strengthening Food Ideas!
Those "Got Milk?" advertisements weren't lying - it's important to get calcium into your diet to keep your bones strong at every stage in life. But while milk may be the poster child for calcium and vitamin D-rich foods, it's far from the only way to work these important nutrients into your diet. In fact, there are some very surprising foods that give your bones a dose of healthy nutrients to keep your frame strong. For example, did you know eating fish can also help to keep your bones in better shape? Dr. Nadler treats a wide range of general orthopaedic conditions and specializes in sports injuries, shoulder and knee arthroscopies, fracture care and ACL reconstructive surgery. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Miami School of Medicine, Department of Orthopaedics. He is also a fellow of the American Academy of Othopaedic Surgeons. (Center For Bone And Joint Disease).
For more info, go to http://www.bradentoncardiology.com/!
General Manager Michael Galyen Takes Us on a Tour of Morimoto Restaurant in Beautiful Napa!
With over 22 years experience in the restaurant business, 13 of those in the Napa Valley, Michael has a background firmly rooted in food and wine. Michael began his career working for various restaurants throughout the Sacramento Valley while going through school. He moved to Napa in 1998 and began working at Bistro Don Giovanni. In 2003, he assumed the role of General Manager and Wine Buyer. During the next six years, he learned about Italian and local wines working with Giovanni Scala. During his time at Don Giovanni, Michael studied with the Court of Master Sommeliers in 2008 and was awarded wine buyer of the year for Napa by Tasting Panel Magazine in 2009. It was also in 2009 that Michael took a job as Manager and Assistant Wine Director at Bottega Ristorante under Chef Michael Chiarello. There he was reminded again of the importance of caring for the locals by way of the wine program. Later that year, he was recruited to be the General Manager of Cantinetta Piero in Yountville.
In May of 2010, Michael was contacted by celebrity chef, Masaharu Morimoto via Chef Chiarello. Chef Morimoto was in the hunt for a General Manager with an affinity for understanding local business. Michael quickly accepted the position and is currently the General Manager and wine buyer for one of Napa’s hottest restaurants. He was also recently certified as a Sake Specialist through John Gauntner’s Sake Professional Course.
For more info go to http://morimotonapa.com/!
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