At last weekend’s Restaurant Festival we rolled out a red carpet by the WC Dish booth to celebritize our local people, chefs and cuisine. All the flash photos left stars in our eyes and led me to dish about my fave food celebrities.
Anthony Bourdain
There’s something about a man who can travel. And drink. And eat. Bourdain’s travels to remote villages is swoon-inducing in itself, but what I like best about him is that, once he steps foot, he waves at the locals, slurps down a dish made with something you might find in your basement, and throws back a shot of fiery homemade grain alcohol. And he does it over and over again, until his canoe floats up to take him to his hotel. (Really, that’s paraphrasing one of his travel tales! He’s great!) Anthony (we’re on a first name basis) has a great New York, no-nonsense attitude that doesn’t seem to be just a TV personality — he’s almost like a real person. At least, that’s what his books and TV show make it look like.
Bobby Deen
I’m a sucker for Southern cookin’ — even butter beans (what you Northerner’s call lima beans, I think) and chitlins (deep-fried pigs intestines). Sweet potato casserole, black eyed peas, minute steak and gravy — yum! My grandparents are master Southern chefs, in my eyes, but they have the Deen family to watch out for. Paula Deen is a grandmotherly lady who has a show on the Food Network, but more importantly, she has two cutie sons that are in the restaurant business with her in Savannah, GA. But I can’t have too much of a crush on her son, Bobby — my mom swears up and down that he and my younger sister are going to accidentally/fatefully meet one day, get married, and have lots of little Southern children. Bless my heart.
Jeffrey Steingarten
Sure, he’s a few decades older than my father. Sure, he has a head full of thick, dreamy white hair… Anyway. We agree on so many things — Potato Gratin is possibly the most divine of all foods; lettuce is not a real meal and salads are secretly out to get us; wandering around Paris looking for the perfect baguette right off the plane is by no way weird! You may have seen him as a judge on Iron Chef America, where he minces no words when unhappy with a dish, and is quick to shoot the more egotistical chefs down (take that, Bobby Flay!) But most of all, it took him him two hours to bone a chicken — nevermind the best chefs can do it in a minute or so. Steingarten’s okay with that — and I am, too.
The Swedish Chef
There’s nothing more fun than imitating the Swedish Chef! He might be a parody of all television chefs, in particular real-life Swedish chef Lars Backman (who had a bad day on Good Morning America, which Muppets creator Jim Henson happened to catch). The Chef loved to cook Flappen-Jacken, Chicken in a Basket, Chocolate Moose, and Lobster-Bandidos. This beloved TV character even had a special cereal in the late 80s — Croonchy Stars! And to think, that year I was trying to convince my mom to buy me Cookie Crisp… I had no idea on what I was missing out on!
Ilan D. Hall
Aha! Finally, a celebrity-chef crush that seems to fit just right. Ilan Hall, the Top Chef Season 2 winner, is certainly a catch. He’s 24 (a birthday which I will be celebrating in a few months); he lives in New York (I was this close to moving to Brooklyn); he sports my favorite thick black specs (I love glasses so much I tried to fail my eye test once); he sort of resembles my boyfriend (I think my boyfriend is hot)… Okay, I also like a lot about his food-self, too, I guess. We both favor fresh ingredients — even though I’m sure I prepare them much more horrifically than he! I was reading an article about him in Food & Wine Magazine, and the one thing that cinched my crush-vibe on him were two things he said about working in a restaurant, one being that too many successful businesses run without a soul; and two being that there is always a positive way to make people work together. Well said, my friend, well said. But do you know what the absolute best thing about Ilan Hall is?
It’s that he’s was in Kennett Square last month. As the celebrity
judge for the Kennett Square Mushroom Festival.
Back off ladies.
He’s mine.
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