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Got to enjoy Anthony Bourdain at The Paramount for the second time last night.  This time he was here with Eric Ripert, another famous chef and friend in the business.  We saw him come to town with Mario Batali a couple years ago in 2009 (brief crowd video from that here), that talk was moderated by Luke Burbank (of Tbtl and NPR fame) and was very entertaining.  This time was just mano-a-mano, just the two of them.

They started by having Bourdain ‘cross-examine’ Ripert on a folding chair at the front about his restaurant, some of his career past, his interactions with other chefs and industry people, and some choice anecdotes obviously meant to skewer him in a friendly way.

Then Ripert becamse the ‘cross-examiner’ and started peppering Bourdain with questions – and here there was much more to skewer, as Mr. Bourdain’s mouth often proceeds him in the public venue.  But to his credit, he’s honest (sometimes brutally so) and isn’t above accepting a few shots based on his past statements where people disagree with him.  But naturally the recent ‘Paula Deen scandal’ was fairly amusing to hear retold – and I have to agree with him – while she seems to have managed the situation pretty well, she’s a pretty big hypocrite when the whole story is told, even if he’s over the top about it.  Ripert pressed his advantage on this one and similar stories, trying to determine if Bourdain was a ‘hater’ or not – fairly entertaining to see the answers here.

There was also a later anecdote where Bourdain told a story of his wife being annoyed with him for maligning Grant Achatz’ Alinea restaurant in Chicago – he said she then bought a plane ticket to Chicago, dined there, loved it and said so publicly – he said to ultimately ‘give him the middle finger’ 🙂

After the sessions with the folding chair – they retired to a couple lounge chairs and debated other topics of note – Sustainability (Bourdain largely played devil’s advocate on this one, especially with his largely hyperbolic Bluefin Tuna example); GMOs (was very glad they brought this up) and the subject of which has the most adverse impact on the food industry – chicken or foie gras.  After some more chat, they opened it up to the floor for questions for about half an hour until they called it a night.

Like before, there’s a definite contrast between Bourdain, who to me is very knowledgable on many levels but also relishes his public role as industry curmudgeon – in some ways he’s a sort of Howard Cosell – just ‘telling it like it is‘.  Ripert by contrast seems to be one of the nicest guys out there – although Bourdain did skewer him on the topic of Gordon Ramsay – and seems more an ambassador of the profession (think Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, etc. – willing to share their knowledge and help nearly anyone).  They took definite pains to show Ripert’s efforts to make the profession ‘nicer’ in the kitchen, believing that the old-school way of chef training via abuse and humiliation has become obsolete and is counter-productive.  It was also interesting to hear how intimidated AB was by Martha Stewart – too funny.

All in all, a great show – as we already get our regular quota of A.B. via his TV shows, it’s nice to see him in a somewhat different situation where he’s not controlling *all* the dialog, and getting to see him debate other equally (if not more) respected industry people like Ripert.

Had a celebratory dinner for Kerewin at Lecosho last night. It’s located downtown on The Harbor Steps (in between the two high-rise apartment buildings on the steps themselves), about midway down on the south side.

Mm, Mm, good! We had the rillettes and and green salad for starters, and split the ribeye and cauliflower for our entree. Washed it down with wine, Dixie and a topper of Chartreuse – boo-ya! Our friend Matt Janke opened his new place a short while ago with his business partner Jill Buchanan, and it was definitely worth the wait 🙂

Got to get back there for the happy-hour menu veddy soon, too – here’s some additional press about them:

Seattle Times

Seattlest – with pics!

Matt’s Lecosho blog:

Nancy Leson in the Seattle Times earlier this summer

and Jason Sheehan in the Seattle Weekly.

Lunch, Dinner, Happy Hour or just for drinks – as their site and menus say – it’s ‘food WE like’ too. Congrats to Matt and Jill for a great new addition to the downtown eating scene and can’t wait to get back there :).

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Saw Manooghi Hi at The High Dive last night – another great show! They also played a few new ones that aren’t on CD yet – should be good. It was kind of weird since we got there WAY too early – around 8pm – it looked at first like no one was going to be there – it was us, bartenders and M.H. hanging out.

But then people started filtering in (including the opening band, who seemed to be showing up a wee bit on the late side). The openers – can’t remember their name and they never actually SAID it out loud – played some forgettable stuff for about 45 min-one hour, then M.H. played not long after, getting done around 1130 or so. Despite being a Sunday night show, it was pretty packed out, and it looked like there were more than a few M.H. family members in attendance – veddy cool!

This show came on the heels of eating at Delancey over in Ballard (finally) – also very good, it’s a gourmet pizza joint – basically Seattle’s version of A Pizza Scholls in Portland. While my personal fave here is still the nearby Crash Landing (because ‘grease is the word’) and in portland – Escape from New York – this was damn good. And *this* came on the heels of a wedding the night before that was catered by Via Tribunali! Between friends, family, relatives, music and pizza – it doesn’t get much better than that. 🙂

I will upload some abbreviated, way-too-dark videos from my phone/the show shortly, but in the meantime, SEE THIS BAND!

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we were at a family reunion in Southern Oregon this past weekend. There were many highlights, but the first one was a blast down the Rogue River on one of the “Hellsgate” jetboats. The one we were on had 3(!) 454-V8 engines in it, each powering a single jet. It’s basically a flat-bottom metal (steel or aluminum, not sure which), shallow box with bench seats across – then a raised podium deck at the back for the pilot. Our boat could hold up to 81 people (it was their biggest one, they have several) and it was all but full. Apparently these things can get up to about 55mph on the river – I truly believe that’s likely NOT the top end, but may be the ‘safe’ top end.

So, they get you in there, and you start blasting down the river. Then the guy starts talking up how wet you’re going to get – and then slams on the brakes, which makes the boat all but nosedive into the water and raises a huge wave over the front of the boat. Hence, water. Not unlike getting doused while whitewater rafting, but we weren’t in any rapids (at the first one, anyway). So on you blast down the river, and the guy does 360’s a few times, and alternatively tries to douse the entire boat through a series of maneuvers – none really crazy, all very fun. Then you get to a narrow canyon and the boat idles through that while he talks about your surroundings – the boat then turns around and heads back a short distance to a shore facility where you eat a big dinner – then you zoom back up the river (while your pilot and usually at least one other boat try to alternate at crossing each other’s wake and dousing each others boat from side to side, etc.).

It was great – our clan had about 34 people, the rest of the boat was filled with others – what’s also cool about this is that it’s truly an all-ages activity (unlike whitewater rafting!) where you have fairly old people on there all the way down to kids. And everybody is having a ball.

Besides the blasting around like crazy people, there was a lot of wildlife (several osprey, blue herons, ducks, swans and a bald eagle) around to see, and many people waving from the shore (I’m sure the residents who live along the top part of the journey aren’t near as ‘enthused’ about the jet boats as we were :)). There was also a couple risque ‘floor show’ events that I won’t discuss here, but were pretty funny. The food feast was bbq chicken and pork with salad, beer/wine and some basic antipasti. Not fine dining, but definitely did the job.

it was a GREAT way to start the weekend – if you are ever in Grants Pass (or Gold Beach, for the one that comes up the river from there) – don’t miss out!

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kerewin sent me this today – I am not sure what to think, save that the Four Horsemen have to be galloping around the corner not long from now…

Beef Bacon Hot Dog Turtle

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It’s no secret Pixar makes great movies. Even their ‘mediocre‘ movies (by Pixar standards) are still a notch above regular theater fare these days. But there are a few that really stand out – both of Brad Bird‘s movies – The Incredibles and Ratatouille, certainly qualify.

Just watched Ratatouille again last night – what an enjoyable movie. The animation is yet again excellent (witness the ‘Remy goes down the sewage pipe on the cookbook’ sequence) – the characters are well-developed, and as per usual, there are a few surprises along the way.

As everyone likely knows by now, Ratatouille is the story of Remy the (country) rat in France who dreams of being a foodie and cook, despite the challenge of (in reality) being a garbage-eating rat. He makes it to Paris by virtue of a local kerfuffle created by himself and his brother Emile, and shortly connects with a poor ‘garbage boy’ simply trying to survive as a janitor in a formerly 4-star restaurant on its downhill slide. The result is a great story, with all the typical Pixar goodness to go with it.

Fave scenes and actors/characters – Peter O’Toole as the kingmaking, snobby food critic Anton Ego; Janeane Garafolo/Colette explaining (through the expert use of BIG knives) how to get ahead as a female French chef; the method used to prep Remy’s rat clan to help in the kitchen; and most of all, when Anton Ego tastes the ratatouille served him (special mention: his review of the food the next morning).

Like all Pixar movies, there are so many little nice touches along the way, it would be tough to list them all (and that’s part of the fun of rewatching them anyway). But one comes to mind, anyway – the ridiculous amount of old Citroen’s and 2CV’s driving around on the streets – I’m sure there are still a lot of them, but like vintage Beetles in the USA – they are getting a lot fewer and far between these days – sad…

One last comment – something I also really like about Pixar is that they aren’t afraid to have true emotion in their movies. The recent Up being a classic example – the montage where Ed Asner’s character’s life is shown in fast-forward review – VERY sad! Or in both Toy Story movies, there are nostalgic looks back via Randy Newman music in the background – again, definitely a human perspective. In Ratatouille, the scene with Remy’s dad showing him WHY humans are a dangerous lot to tangle with – pretty disturbing – but also why these movies are for the whole family, not just kids and not just adults. Well done, guys.

Anyway, watch and enjoy!

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Love it! Mr. Gyro in greenwood, north Seattle – Love at First Bite, indeed. Mediterranean Kitchen in downtown Bellevue – better bring your appetite (and you’ll still take stuff home!).

And if you are downtown, don’t forget Mr. D’s in the Pike Place Market (actually across the street from the main market building) – excellent Gyros and spanikopita, baklava……[drool]….

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