Word: batali
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They say success comes at a price, and for Mario Batali the price is this: despite his three always-booked restaurants in New York City, the breathless reviews from critics, a new Food Network show debuting next week (to complement his first, which is still airing), two cookbooks, a lovely family and a clean bill of health after surviving a brain aneurysm, Batali is always the other great American chef...
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...
...home! I can picture a stream of cameos in which I bring celebrity chefs resoundingly down to earth. I'd make Emeril Lagasse do the dishes. (What happens to the ones he dirties so exuberantly in the studio? Does he throw them all away? BAM!) When chef Mario Batali visits--that's "Molto Mario," of Food Network fame--he'd better bring a mop. I tried his advice to let food fall on a plate "like windblown Zen mastery," and it fell on the floor...