Voices
5 Chefs Pick Their Favorite Summer Dishes
For Best Chefs America There are dishes that will always remind us of summer - a season when the days are long and hot, and the region is blooming with melons and squash, cucumbers and herbs. Below are some favorite summertime foods selected by professional chefs from across the U.S. for you to use as inspiration for your next picnic, pool party, or cookout. With the right foods this season can be endlessly scrumptious. 1. Jeremy Berlin of Los Angeles, CA (formerly of Church & State) - Heirloom Tomatoes with Fine Olive Oil, Fresh Herbs & Maldon Salt ..
We're Eating More Fish - Is it a good thing?
For Best Chefs America Is the word running out of fish? What is a foodie to do? Pesce crudo. Lobster rolls. Bouillabaise. Maguro Sashimi. Escabeche. Ceviche. Gravlax Salmon. It could all be gone, and soon. The lobster in the Lobster Rolls at Luke's is harvested using sustainable practices. Some chefs say fish is the most interesting protein. It is the most romantic to cook - the most delicate and flavor-packed, the most versatile. A..
Meet Brent Hopkins of Gravy & The Raleigh Times
For Best Chefs America In a global economy, chefs and home cooks alike can get any ingredient on demand at any time. It’s far more challenging to use what’s seasonal, like Brent Hopkins does at Gravy and The Raleigh Times in Raleigh, NC. Best Chef Hopkins remembers being 18-years-old and seeing an heirloom tomato for the first time or a shitake mushroom. The wild world of available ingredients drove him to start cooking, along with the adrenaline rush of being in the kitchen. He was able to experiment with creative combinations as a ..
15 Great Quotes About Food and Life
for Best Chefs America Food is a metaphor for the human condition. It is a reflection of what you do with what you have. To learn to eat is to learn to fully live. Let these 15 quotes from the great masters guide your dining adventures. 1. 2. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. - J.R.R. Tolken 3. To know how to eat well, one must first know how to wait. - Marco Pierre White 4. Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch. - Orson Welles 5. ..
Linda Rooney's One Woman Kitchen
Best Chef Linda Rooney is one independent lady. Since 1998, she’s run almost every edge of Linda’s Bistro in Aiken, SC. She’s the only cook in her kitchen, always. On a busy night, like one of her monthly wine dinners, she’ll have two servers max working the floor. Usually, it’s one, and that’s it. No host or hostess. No server assistants. No bartenders. “I have control of everything,” says Rooney. “I can see what is going on. Because I’ve been doing this for so long, I can work every station in the kitchen by myself, and that enables m..
Chicago's Even-Keeled Top Chef : Paul Kahan
Photo by Derek Richmond Name: Paul Kahan Born: 1962 Location: Chicago, IL Restaurants: The Publican, Blackbird, Big Star, Avec, Dove’s Luncheonette, Nico Osteria, Publican Quality Meats, Publican Quality Bread -- One Off Hospitality Group Education: No Culinary School / Background in Computer Science & Applied Math Beginnings My dad had a delicatessen. He also ran a smoked fish company called Village Fish Company. I worked in an organic food co-op in college. That was a food job. ..
Frank Bonanno's Ever-Expanding Empire
Frank Bonanno of Bonanno Concepts is the host and producer of the PBS series Chef Driven. He’s opened two bars, a pie shop, and seven original restaurant concepts in Denver, CO. The chef-owner keeps multiplying to feed customers, yes, and also employees. “When you have such great people who work with you, they need more money,” says Bonanno when asked the big question of why he does so much. “If you want to keep people with you, they need raises. You’ve gotta open more things to help pay the people who make you successful.” He could hav..
The Making of Summerland: Anne Quatrano's rise in the sustainable food scene
Best Chef Anne Quatrano of Star Provisions, Bacchanalia, Floataway Cafe, Little Bacch, Fish Camp and Summerland Anne Quatrano, the Atlanta-based farmer/chef, spent her summers as a young girl at Summerland, her family’s property in Cartersville, GA. Quatrano’s time at the farm taught her to appreciate ingredient-driven culinary commerce. It inspired her to cook. She would eventually open five restaurants. The local food scene had just begun in San Francisco when Quatrano met her husband and business partner Clifford Ha..
Charles Draghi's Discourse on Butter
Charles Draghi of Erbaluce - a contemporary Italian restaurant in Boston, MA Like many of our Best Chefs, Charles Draghi of Boston's Erbaluce is more than a cook. He moonlights as a playwright. He's a poet. And he cooks without butter. He may be one of the only chefs in America to so strictly do so. "Cooking and writing are very much opposite concentrations," says Draghi, who has found ways to lin..
The Colorful Karen Carrier of Memphis, TN
Name: Karen Carrier Location: Memphis, TN Restaurants: The Beauty Shop Restaurant / Bar DKDC / The Mollie Fontaine Lounge / Another Roadside Attraction Catering / Automatic Slims NYC History I started as a painter. I received my BFA from The Memphis Academy of Arts, then went to New York City to get my MFA in painting at Hunter College. I ended up going to the New York Restaurant School, since my scholarship didn’t afford me enough money to live in the city. T..