NY Girl Eats World

This is how rumors start...

 I answered my cell phone yesterday and a man with an English accent spoke my name. This isn’t an unusual occurrence; after all, my boyfriend is English. But he was standing just a few feet away from me, and while he’s certainly one for silly gags, this wasn’t one of his.

“Hi, Nicole? This is Alexander Hitchen with the National Enquirer,” the man said.

Luckily, I was actually expecting his call. See, just a few minutes earlier, my mother had phoned me, her voice strained with concern: “Nic, the National Enquirer just called looking for you!”

She didn’t know why they wanted me, and she didn’t give them my phone number. Of course, the latter didn’t matter — the mag was already several steps ahead of her. A quick glance at my missed-call log revealed three recent attempts from an “unknown” number. (I’d been down at the laundromat without my phone.) Like any good reporter who didn’t want to spook his prey, the caller hadn’t left any messages.

Now here was Hitchen speaking in my ear, summoning all the charm inherent to educated Englishmen (Prince Charles excluded, of course). He apologized for calling my parents' home.

Don’t try to soften me up, I thought, with the skepticism of a seasoned journalist.

Hitchen continued amiably: As you can imagine, we get lots of tips, he said, and many don’t amount to anything.

“Sure,” I said in a curt tone that I hoped conveyed how intimately familiar I was with the game we were playing.

“Well, we heard that you have a special relationship with Bobby Flay.”

[INSERT SOUND OF RECORD SKIPPING]

SPECIAL relationship?

Suddenly, I had a vision: I was standing in a grocery checkout line, pretending not to read the headlines glaring from the rack of gossip rags — “Oprah’s Cellulite Woes!” “Mariah Carey Loses 30 lbs on Twinkie Diet” — when I saw it: “Bobby Flay’s Secret Lover Revealed” Only it was written in Georgia 72-point. And just below was a photo of Bobby cuddling me in his left arm — a photo not unlike the one snapped after our taping of Throwdown and published on this blog. But of course in this one, Jorge, my friend and fellow judge, had been deviously cropped out.

“No, no, no,” I told Hitchen, trying to squelch the unreasonably nervous laughter rattling out my throat.  “I met him one time for a Throwdown episode we filmed but that was it…”

Hitchen cut me off here. I gulped, ready for him to pounce. I expected him to growl: “Where were you on the night of September 19…?”

Instead, he told me that what I’d said was exactly what he suspected, having read all about it right here, on NY GIRL EATS WORLD. He said he enjoyed my blog and I should keep up the good work. Finally, before we hung up, he gave me his number, adding, “in case you hear from anyone else.”

I had no idea what he could mean, but I dutifully scrawled the number on a scrap of paper nearby.

It turns out Mr. Alexander Hitchen is one of two NE reporters who caught John Edwards after a late-night rendezvous with his mistress, and literally chased him down until the unfortunate pol barricaded himself inside a public restroom. Hitchen, it seems, is a pit-bull reporter — the kind you certainly don’t want to find outside your hotel room if you’re indeed having a “special” relationship with someone else’s spouse.

As preposterous as it sounds, after learning this, I felt relieved that he let me off so easily. That Hitchen believed me. But my boyfriend — my real boyfriend — had the more rational response. An established journalist himself, he responded grumpily, “You shouldn’t have even talked with him.”

But that’s how tabloids work, right? They latch onto any semblance of guilt, denial or evasion. Then, next thing you know, your face is plastered on the cover of the National Enquirer and an Extra camera crew is waiting outside your house. All of us bloggers are especially susceptible, of course. We do what we do because we want to get some kind of attention for it — from strangers with common interests, from editors and potential employers. Unfortunately, our public ramblings can also reap the negative kind, and so can our photos. My best guess is that the tipster who accused me of a "special relationship" with Flay was some scummy person who saw how easily the above photo could be cropped.

So, I guess the moral of the story is this: Don't lean in too close when taking a photo with a married celebrity. Unless, of course, you come from the Lindsay Lohan school of self-promotion in which no publicity is bad publicity.

On a Personal Note

Hey everybody!

As the photo may or may not suggest, I'm  just back from Italy (that's the Tiber behind me). In addition to a quick stop in Rome, I spent some time exploring Puglia for the first time, then caught up with friends in one of my favorite cities, Naples, before soaking in some rays in Sorrento.  Oh yes, and there was a brief hop across the Med to Valencia, Spain.

OK, OK, I know — it's a rough life. But what this all means is that I've got lots of new stories to share: how mozzarella and ricotta are made old school-style in Brindisi (and, oh, how they taste!); how Pugliese chefs are kicking sushi up a notch; and even a fresh take on Persian food via an impromptu cooking session in Spain.

But first, and right now most importantly, I want to thank all of you who have sent such sweet comments and emails on my brief (thank God!) appearance on Throwdown. The Food Network debuted the episode tonight — earlier than I thought — and comments of encouragement have poured in. Thank you all for your kindness — and that goes to the television editors too. Some of the sound bites I most dreaded were generously left on the cutting room floor. And I think you would agree with me that Jorge absolutely rocked!  Bobby Flay's lovely contenders were also the picture of poise and a delight to watch.

But to answer a question sent to me from Zahra: which arepa was better?

Jorge and I took much longer to decide than the episode shows. One of our criteria was authenticity, and on that matter the Caracas Arepas ladies couldn't be touched. The combination of ingredients — shredded beef, sweet plantains, black beans and cheese — and the texture of the arepa were right on. BUT, on simply a matter of taste, butterless always bows to butter. Bobby added butter and milk to his arepa dough, making his corn cakes infinitely more flavorful and particularly moister (despite the fact that the girls thought they looked dry when he was shaping them).  To be fair, by the time we sat down to judge the arepas, they had cooled. Really, arepas are at their best when they're hot off the griddle. As they cool, the dough gets tougher. Bobby's, however, remained tender and delicious. In the end, though, authenticity tipped the balance against Flay.

Throwdown is, after all, a competition about making a dish that best typifies its species. Flay, to his credit, seems to know that he's not wired to cook in any ordinary or standard way — so he rarely tries. Sometimes his creativity actually pays off. But often it ends up being the one strike against him on the show. I have a hunch though that he'd rather lose on authenticity than follow the leader.
 

Food Network: My 15 Minutes of Shame

The first time I saw Bobby Flay in person, he didn’t see me. I was sitting with friends at a table outside a pastry shop in Taormina, Sicily. I looked up from the massive cannolo I was intent on devouring, and there he was in all his flame-haired glory. He was wearing a matching orange polo shirt and strolling hand-in-hand with a lithe blonde who serpentined across the cobblestones from shop window to shop window. I watched him go by, seemingly relaxed and unrecognized by passersby, until the May tourists obstructed my view.

The second time I encountered Bobby Flay, this time, I didn’t see him. (At first, anyway.) It was two years later, and just two months ago, here in New York. I’d walked up an impossibly long staircase and into a room where I was supposed to find the celeb-chef — just as the Food Network producer instructed me, and as the cameras were rolling. Climbing the interminable staircase, I was painfully conscious of the fact that I was trying not to smile too much. The waiting crowd clapped for me, and for Jorge – that’s right, our very own guest columnist and my dear friend, Chef Jorge Fortune. They clapped ardently for two absolute strangers. But they too were just doing what they were told.

Jorge and I were asked to be judges on the popular television series, “Throwdown with Bobby Flay,” in which Flay challenges a cook who is locally renowned for a particular dish. In this case, an arepa — a Venezuelan snack food consisting of a thick cornmeal cake, split open and stuffed with a variety of fillings. Flay’s competitors are always duped into thinking they’re filming some other Food Network show, and then Flay pops out and challenges them. Funny thing is though, the surprise is on the judges too.

There’s always two, and often they’re authors, critics or journalists. In our case, they had a bona fide Venezuelan chef on their hands. I was your token writer. We were told we’d be used as “experts” on an episode in a “new series.” We were to report at Essex Restaurant about midday, wearing casual clothing that was anything but busily patterned, striped or white. Except for Jorge — he was encouraged to come in his chef’s coat. (As you can see, I went for "thinning black.")

At first I was convinced our roles would consist of bits of commentary, 30 seconds of which would actually be used. Then, as the day grew closer, a little seed of thought began to germinate. I wondered if this could actually be a Throwdown we were walking into. Jorge and I sort of fit the profile.

Vanessa, the producer, met us at the door with a walkie-talkie in one hand and a headset over her ears. She was sweet but brisk. She led us into an adjacent market and spilled the beans there. Then came a barrage of instruction, none of which prepared us much for what we were walking into: We were to lay low until called. (Were we hungry? Thirsty? We could have anything.) Someone would be down to mic us when it was time. Then we’d walk into the room, shake the competitors’ hands, sit down at the judging table, and that was it. The director would take it from there.

Um. Thanks.

We waited, and waited, and waited some more. Two hours went by until my nerves were nearly buzzing. I went over the intricacies of an arepa for the eleventh time with Jorge and then the mic man appeared. He told me to put the mic down my bra and pin it there. Then we received our judging cards. Arepa “A” consisted of shredded beef, black beans and cheese, while arepa “B” was stuffed with fancy pants ceviche.

“Hm.” I smiled at Jorge. “I wonder which one’s Bobby’s.”

No self-respecting arepa guru who believed she was shooting a “how to make arepas” show would come prepared to stuff her corncakes with ceviche.

Then, suddenly, it was time. We were ushered into the restaurant and shooed up the stairwell. I could hear the blood pumping in my ears despite the enthusiastic welcome. I’d been told Flay’s competitors were two lovely Venezuelan ladies wearing bandanas. I spotted them front and center of the crowd. I shook their hands. Then, I looked for Bobby. And I looked. He wasn’t to their right. Not to their left. Not immediately behind.

Fifteen seconds on the set and I was already screwing up.

I turned around to Jorge and stepped toward my seat at the judge’s table, not knowing what else to do. But then the director spoke up: “Don’t you want to shake Bobby’s hand?”

That’s when Bobby stepped forward. He’d tucked himself somewhere within the crowd, in no logical place where a person with minimal instructions would spot him.

“Bobby!” I squealed like a little girl as I extended my hand.

Good grief.

What followed afterwards pains me more. To put it mildly: I ABSOLUTELY CHOKED. For a woman who has made her career from words, I couldn’t string a coherent thought together to save my 15 minutes of fame. I took one bite of the first arepa and said something like, “Mmm, it’s very flavorful.” Blink. Blink.

My favorite comment was after I bit into Flay’s masterpiece. I looked the arepa over and then turned to the camera and said, “This one’s more golden.”

There you have it, ladies and gentleman — my enlightened contribution to the Food Network. I can still see the director’s face staring back at me: expectancy melting into shock (perhaps a sprinkling of horror?). I’m sure she left the set that day, got back to headquarters and exploded: WHO FOUND THAT IDIOT?

Fortunately, Jorge was the epitome of eloquence. He spoke about the arepas as if he could decipher each and every ingredient incorporated. And that’s because he could.

When we were told to turn to each other and decide on the winner, that’s when I was able to compose myself. Because suddenly it was like Jorge and I were in his kitchen or mine, cooking together, my notebook not far out of reach. We were tasting one of our creations, figuring out how to describe the flavors and texture for you guys, our dear readers.

Unfortunately, all of that was a bunch of mumble-jumble, though, as we tried to keep our voices down and make the contenders sweat it out a little.

I won’t say whose arepa we chose, but frankly we were very torn. I’ll give you my thoughts — in coherent sentences, I promise — after the episode airs, June 24 at 9pm.

Please. Be kind.

Are you ready for a comeback?

STAY TUNED ...

Daytona 500

I have strong feelings about modern auto racing, which I will elaborate on in a future post. In a nutshell, though: I don't like NASCAR but I'm a total fanatic of open-wheel Formula One racing.

This said, I found myself in quite a quandary a few months ago when my favorite F1 driver, Juan Pablo Montoya of Columbia, announced he was leaving the most prestigious international division of motor sport to go to, ugh, NASCAR.

Yesterday was the Daytona 500. Previously, I had never watched the 500-mile, 200-lap race. The very prospect of watching a bunch of groaning so-called stock cars go round and round and round an oval track for two or three hours causes my head to leak brain cells. By the way, what exactly is "stock" about those cars? Can I go down to my local Dodge dealership and purchase a 750 horse-powered Intrepid? I think not. Oh, don't get me started.

But this was my Juan Pablo's coming-out party -- his first time participating in the Daytona 500. As a man who has won seven Formula 1 grands prix, the Indy 500, the Rolex 24-hour and a Champ car title, I wouldn't put it past him to blaze through the field on his first time out in NASCAR's "Super Bowl" race. So I tuned in.

Well, more often I tuned out. It was 200 bloody laps! But I always came back to check that JP was safe and still in the race. Ultimately, he finished 19th -- that's 17 places ahead of where he started, which was damn good for a rookie's first time out, let alone a man used to driving a very different kind of race car.

To celebrate the occasion Super Bowl-style, we made hot wings. The last time we attempted this was for the real Super Bowl about two weeks ago. We used a recipe we found on the internet involving Tabasco and it just didn't work. The sauce didn't stick and it was all heat and no flavor. So this time we used Frank's RedHot and the simple recipe on the side of the bottle. Basically, you cook the wings for an hour in a 425 degree oven and then drown them with a mixture of RedHot and melted butter. Yes, what's not to love?

Francesco's Italy: Top to Toe

Most of my TV-watching takes place between midnight and 3 a.m. The pickings are slim to be sure, but I can usually find reruns of one of my favorite shows, Samantha Brown's "Passport to Europe," on the Travel Channel. Samantha has a huge following and rightfully so. She has a vivacious, unpretentious way on camera and the perfect blend of both humorous and valuable travel insight. Most importantly, she's not afraid to make a fool of herself. We can all see ourselves as Samantha.

But I recently discovered a new charismatic Travel Channel host: Francesco da Mosto, a Venetian aristocrat and, as his Travel Channel bio says, former playboy (as an Italian man, isn't that a given?). With shaggy silver hair and a youthful face, he is certainly eye-catching, especially when he's whipping around the Italian countryside in his red Alfa Romeo Duetto Spider convertible. <sigh> But before you roll your eyes and think "over the top," there's more to his show, "Francesco's Italy: Top to Toe," than meets the glancing eye.

That's a rather dusty old convertible he's driving. And that's a kind of shabby sports jacket he's wearing. Francesco isn't some Gucci-clad, Versace-sunglassed "playboy," shooting each scene with a gorgeous donna on his arm. He's quite the opposite. He presents Italy with the infectious enthusiasm of a traveler instead of a native son. His insights into art, architecture, history and customs are shared with reverence, not smugness. He's funny, too, but not in a silly, goofy kind of Samantha way. Funny with a twinkle in his eye.

Perhaps my favorite part about the show is that the producers made the bold decision to use subtitles. As Francesco meets with vintners and automobile makers, opera singers and family friends, he speaks to them in their native tongue instead of translating for the viewer. The result is that there are no awkward turn-to-the-camera breaks, and the viewer gets to listen to the beautiful rhythm of the Italian language and experience the emotion with which Italians almost always speak. Language, after all, is not only about the meaning of words. A traveler can learn so much in the performance.

You can catch Francesco's show on the Travel Channel at 8 and 11 p.m. on Wednesdays, or, you can do what I do, of course, and catch him unexpectedly at 1, 2, 3... a.m.