Media All Around

OK, so who saw Iron Chef on Sunday? It was Morimoto vs Homaro Cantu of Moto in Chicago. Moto is one of the three famous copycat restaurants in the US preparing "postmoderne - molecular gastronomy" type food like that of Ferran Adria at El Bulli. The other two famous restaurants in the US are Grant Achatz's Alinea in Chicago and Wylie Dufresne's WD-50 in NYC. Moto is most famous for their edible menus as featured in Gourmet magazine.

I watched battle beets, and was utterly embarassed by the equipment and the "show" that this guy put on. He had a class 4 laser, digital camera, laptop, printer, edible paper, liquid nitrogen, a high school chemistry kit, and LED name tags. His dishes had very little of the featured ingredient, beets, and the judges called him on it. Yet, he somehow beat Morimoto whom the judges favored (or so it seemed) in terms of flavor, use of ingredient, and orginality. Cantu used the class 4 laser to caramelize powdered sugar on fried wonton skins - was this really necessary? He finished cooking a surf and turf in a polymer box that acted as an oven. Yumm, polymer! He printed a picture taken during the competition on the edible paper and served it - I sure want to eat a picture of the chef! It was all so gimmicky, it just made me sick. Even worse, he won! None of his food looked remotely appetizing. wtf is wrong with Iron Chef America? Did the PR people from Moto fix the "competition?" It's hard for me to believe Morimoto lost by 1 point since the judges seemed to enjoy his food more and imo, he made better use of the ingredient.

On to other TV news, my Bay Cafe show is finally available for viewing on the BAY CAFE website. I am in episode 06-21, parts 1-4, with total running time of about 22 minutes. If you haven't seen it yet, please check it out.

Staying in the media, I am currently looking for recipes of all kinds to be submitted for the NEW CCSF Cookbook. Send me your recipes or post them here and I will put them in the cookbook. If your recipe has a story, even better - PLEASE TELL! =)

To the rest of the people listed on the side bar who have not signed up yet, DO IT! Everything is setup, all you need to do is register and post. Let us know what is going on in your lives! And help me fill in the rest of the information with bakery/restaurant/company names, current titles, anything else you want.