Word: batali
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Which is too bad. Not because Batali cries into his pickled vegetable salad about his friend Lagasse's success. He doesn't. (When asked about Lagasse, Batali pauses and then begins, "He's the most famous chef of all time"--which, depending on how you think about it, isn't necessarily a compliment...
...comparison between the two is wrong because they are after completely different things. Lagasse is, as Batali puts it, "more of a showman," hollering "bam!" and cooking up "wicked peach cobbler" with diva Patti LaBelle, a recent guest on Emeril Live. On a typical installment of Molto Mario a couple of weeks ago, the only guests were three quiet friends of Batali's, who never once cheered but instead asked about the struffoli (drab Italian pastries), "Would you want to use powdered sugar on these?" To which Batali's answer was no, unless you want to depart from the simple...
...that Batali is boring. He's just shockingly down to earth for such a talented cook in this era of celebrity chefdom. He wears shorts and weird shoes (usually orange clogs or Chuck Taylors), doesn't get his madcap red hair cut often enough, talks about football a lot and includes more sausage in his recipes than a healthy person should consume...
...Batali cares deeply about something that many far-flung restaurant impresarios seem to discount: the food on the plate. Batali may have grown up in suburban Seattle and may extol the virtues of a 10 a.m. beer, but the shlubby act can't really disguise his seriousness about food. Not cooking techniques, mind you, but food. Batali's books and shows don't offer the most complicated recipes (though it will take you several hours to succeed with the gnocchi in his recent book Holiday Food). Rather, Batali proselytizes about using the freshest ingredients--only mozzarella that comes in whole...
Testa? That's headcheese, which Batali defines this way: "You take everything north of the shoulder on a pig--the eyebrows, a big hunk of nostril, all that good stuff--and put it in a pot." Boil and serve as an appetizer--for $10, at Batali's flagship restaurant, Babbo...