Foodie Interviews

Interviews with food professionals

Brian Lewis

I first met chef Brian Lewis when I was invited to dine at the elm, his former restaurant in New Canaan, though I had sampled his cooking prior to that. He was the executive chef at actor Richard Gere’s The Bedford Post Inn, a Relais & Chateaux property. I had been impressed with his unusual blend of flavors and textures and gladly followed him to his newly opened The Cottage in Westport. (A review of that meal will post later this month.) Brian was raised in New York (Westchester) and studied at the Culinary Institute of America and Johnson and Wales University. He, his wife Dana and their twin boys [...]

By |2017-09-03T11:59:38-04:00January 31st, 2016|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Marci Izard

I first met Marci Izard when she was a traffic reporter for WTNH in New Haven. She's come a long way since then with stops anchoring in Springfield (MA) and reporting and hosting cooking and mindfulness segments in Houston (TX). Marci currently writes her blog (Marci's Table) for the Houston Chronicle's chron.com, launched her own site (marciizard.com) and published her first cookbook, "Nourishing Your Whole Self: A Cookbook with Feelings" encouraging her readers to become more aware of how food makes them feel. We spoke to Marci recently, and asked her to respond to our Guest Foodie questions. - bonnie BonnieBOTB Follow @BonnieBOTB Which food product or gadget would you [...]

By |2017-09-03T11:58:37-04:00January 18th, 2016|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Sara Jenkins

I've known about Sara Jenkins since she was quite young, as her mom Nancy Harmon Jenkins — a noted food writer/authority and professional colleague — had boasted about her daughter as all mom's do. Following in Nancy's love of Italian food, Sara opened two restaurants in Manhattan. Porchetta, a storefront in the East Village focusing on the Italian roasted pork, typically sold as street food, and Porsena, a sit-down casual-style restaurant with a changing menu focusing on authentic Italian pastas. Sara grew up all over the Mediterranean — as her dad was a foreign correspondent — spending much of her time in Tuscany where her family still has a home. [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:01:09-04:00December 7th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Joanne Lamb Hayes

My two sons — Bryan and Eric — know how famous Joanne Lamb Hayes is for her gingerbread houses. When they were quite young, this dear friend — and cookbook co-author — orchestrated a workshop for one of each of their birthday parties. Their friends still talk about it. Joanne teaches these “Gingerbread House Workshops for Children" annually during the holiday season at the James Beard House and has for 22 years. At the class, the children go from dough to a completely constructed, frosted, decorated, candy-covered and cellophane-wrapped gingerbread house ready to travel in just 3 hours. This year she will be teaching her workshop twice on Saturday, December [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:02:59-04:00November 9th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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François Payard

François Payard has baking in his blood. He's third generation, as his maternal grandfather owned a pâtisserie, his dad took that over and both he and his brother are pastry chefs. François is the owner of FP Patisserie and François Bakery in NYC and a former pastry chef at Le Bernardin, Restaurant Daniel and Le Cirque. In 1995, he was named The James Beard Foundation “Pastry Chef of the Year.” Two years later, he opened his own bistro on Lexington Avenue, which is where I first met him. He closed that place after 12 years when the landlord doubled his rent when his lease ended. Speaking with him recently on the eve of [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:03:11-04:00October 26th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Karen MacNeil

I first met Karen MacNeil more than a decade ago when she was part of the teaching team at the Brown-Forman Center for Global Wine Education that I attended in Mendocino County, California. During the seminar, we learned to taste, building our own wine-tasting memory while understanding the subtleties of terroir, vineyard, and vintner. After tasting well over 100 different wines, we could identify wines by grape, country of origin and more. Karen had warned me that to continue to be able to do so, I needed to constantly train all the time, educating my palate by tasting a variety of wines all the time, as she does. Karen, who [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:05:14-04:00October 14th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Abigail Kirsch

When researching the first sous chef awards that Michael Anthony won in 2001, I discovered that that's where I met the amazing Abigail Kirsch. We were both judges along with Alain Sailhac, who was at the French Culinary Institute (now International Culinary Center) and Paul Barrett, who was Bertolli's communications manager. I knew of Abigail's eponymous catering company, but wasn't aware of how it began. She shared the story of her beginning by teaching cooking in her Chappaqua kitchen. Her neighbor complained about too many cars in her driveway, he told the town board and they told her to stop. Abigail took it to the New York Supreme Court who [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:06:21-04:00September 13th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Michael Anthony

When dining recently at Untitled at the new Whitney Museum of American Art, executive-chef and director Michael Anthony stopped by the table to say hi. I had met Mike long ago at the now defunct Bertolli Sous Chef awards. It was in 2001.  I was a judge; he was the first winner with his roulade of chicken stuffed with Swiss chard and mushrooms. That same year he was named one the “Best New Chefs” by Food & Wine magazine. From then on his awards and accolades haven't stopped! In 2003 under his leadership, Blue Hill at Stone Barns received a three-star review in The New York Times, and in 2005 [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:07:35-04:00August 17th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Jimmy Bradley

Earlier this summer, a friend took me to The Red Cat for my birthday, and owner Jimmy Bradley noticed us and came by to give my friend big hug. At the end of the meal, having heard about our celebration, Jimmy sent out a decadent chocolate dessert with a lit candle. Nice touch. I've learned that's Jimmy's style. Or I should say, The Red Cat's style. They work at making you feel special, so you'll return. I did so a week later with my visiting niece to discover the menu had changed. The fresh peas that were offered the week before, were no longer fresh enough for Jimmy to keep [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:08:10-04:00August 2nd, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Elizabeth Karmel

Elizabeth Karmel and I met as her grilling career caught fire. She was handling the PR efforts and culinary initiatives for Weber grills (actually for Weber-Stephen Products Co.).  In that position, she honed her skills at the grill and taught the rest of us food professionals to cook over charcoal or gas, too. She did that in our own backyards, or on press trips where she had other culinary experts demonstrating the art of the grill. Since Elizabeth went out on her own, she's been teaching grilling and barbecue 101 to anyone who would listen. She's been a cookbook author, food columnist, executive chef and TV authority on all things [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:10:02-04:00July 16th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Carolyn Wente

Carolyn Wente came to mind recently, as the wine I was served inflight was from Wente Vineyards. We had met decades ago when I was on the board of a professional culinary organization where we both belonged. I hadn't spoken to her in eons, even though she's a fellow Dame (that's a member of Les Dames d’Escoffier, a philanthropic society of professional women leaders in the food, wine and hospitality industry). I reached out to find out what Carolyn's been up to and ask whether I could feature her. She's currently the president of the California Wine Institute — the third member of her family to lead the organization that [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:10:31-04:00July 1st, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Gale Gand

When I first met Gale Gand umpteen years ago, she was the amazing pastry chef (and partner) at Chicago’s Tru. Her career was just beginning to skyrocket. Since then she’s been recognized as Outstanding Pastry Chef of the Year by The James Beard Foundation and by Bon Appetite magazine, been inducted into the Chicago Chefs Hall of Fame and for eight years hosted the Food Network series “Sweet Dreams,” the first nationally televised all-dessert show. Earlier this spring, I sat next to Gale at the 2015 James Beard Foundation media awards dinner at Pier 61 and got caught up on her amazing career. She has another Chicago restaurant — Spritzburger [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:11:27-04:00June 8th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Chris Jaeckle

I didn't know Chris Jaeckle until after I had dined at his Venetian /Asian restaurant All'onda in my hood. I had stopped Ai Fiori Restaurant back at the restaurant when writing my review as I had some questions about the preparations. His staff, who were amazingly helpful and welcoming, spoke to Chris to get me the info I needed. I asked to meet with him, which is when I decided to feature him here on BiteoftheBest.com as our Guest Foodie. Chris has worked for some of the very best during his burgeoning career — Larry Forgione,  Danny Meyer, Morimoto and Michael White. When Chris was Chef de Cuisine [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:13:21-04:00May 25th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Pat Mack

When I met Pat Mack umpteen years ago she was the food editor for The Record, New Jersey’s second largest daily newspaper, which was my hometown paper. Loving the rhythmic sound, I always refer to her as Pat Mack from Hackensack (as that's where The Record offices were located!). She was their food editor for 20 years. Pat is now Gayot.com’s regional editor for Greater New York Metro/Eastern Canada, New Jersey restaurant reviewer and an at-large travel writer for Gayot, and a cookbook author. Dividing her time between her homes in New Jersey and Florida, Pat wrote “Delicious Grapefruit" out of inspiration from an ancient grapefruit tree in her southern [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:14:29-04:00May 11th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|1 Comment
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Rick Smilow

I met Rick Smilow when serving on the board of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) soon after he got involved in the food business (just after he purchased Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School in 1995). Since that time, Rick's been an unstoppable force in the education of those wanting a culinary career. His school, the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) has launched more than 10,000 creative careers in food. ICE offers eight to 13-month career training programs in culinary arts, pastry & baking, and culinary and hospitality management. In both 2008 and 2015, the school won the  IACP's Award of Excellence for Culinary Schools; in 2011 Rick was [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:15:35-04:00April 26th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Joanna Pruess

Joanna Pruess, like many of us in the culinary world, has juggled many creative food projects. She created Kings Super SONY DSC Market (NJ) cooking school, she taught in under served schools and the prison system, she is a food and travel correspondent for “America Weekend with Ed Kalegi” on Envision Networks and is a regular contributor to Specialty Foods Magazine, where she develops recipes for gourmet retailers and food markets. I smiled when Joanna shared that she's always using her guests as testers, trying out the latest recipes on them — as I had done the same thing while writing my cookbooks and creating recipes for my [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:16:42-04:00April 13th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|3 Comments
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Karen Page

Karen Page is a prolific writer, who has penned many award-winning books with her husband Andrew Dorenburg, including Becoming a Chef, The Food Lover's Guide to Wine and The Flavor Bible. Forbes magazine named the latter "one of the 10 best cookbooks in the world of the past century." Karen's most recent book, The Vegetarian Flavor Bible (October 2014) has already received much acclaim. It appeared on many of 2014's best lists, specifically Bloomberg’s Peter Elliot (Top 5),  Chicago Tribune (Top 10), The Globe & Mail (Top 20) and Food & Wine (Top 40). Andrew Dornenburg provided the photographs for this book. Karen and I know each other mainly from [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:17:01-04:00March 31st, 2015|Foodie Interviews|4 Comments
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Virginia Willis

Virginia Willis and I befriended during a press trip to France more than a decade ago. It was an unusual trip that included only one other journalist. We three started in Dijon, trained to Paris and then were let let loose, basically with the company credit card. I recall us savoring a 5-hour multi-course lunch with matching wines at Le Grand Véfour. Since that time I've watched her career soar. She's authored Bon Appétit, Y'all; Basic to Brilliant, Y'all; Okra; Grits and — her just published — Lighten Up, Y'all. This most recent book celebrates the healthy and wholesome side of Southern fare. Virginia now practices what she's preaching.  By following [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:19:05-04:00March 16th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|2 Comments
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Prasad Chirnomula

Nutmeggers have had a love affair with the flavorful culinary creations of Prasad Chirnomula since 2001 when he started Thali, his first innovative Indian restaurant in Connecticut. He continued to change Americans opinion of Indian food by opening four more Thali restaurants each with a unique menu — one in Ridgefield, one in Westport and two in New Haven - an upscale one and Thali Too, a casual vegetarian one on the edge of Yale's campus. Prasad then stepped outside of India to create Oaxaca Kitchen, a Mexican restaurant downtown New Haven. As a local food writer who had become a friend of his, I had to ask why. This artist [...]

By |2017-09-03T13:12:15-04:00March 2nd, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Richard Grausman

I first became acquainted with Richard Grausman in the 80s when I worked as a copy editor on his first book, At Home With the French Classics (Workman Publishing, 1988), now in it's sixth printing. Like others in the food field, Richard and my paths have crossed more times than I could possibly count. Richard isn't known as much for his cookbooks as he is for C-CAP (Careers through Culinary Arts Program), the national non-profit organization he founded in 1990. This program works with public schools to prepare at-risk high school students for careers in the restaurant and hospitality industry. In 1997, Richard received the President's Service Award, the highest recognition given [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:22:02-04:00February 16th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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