TC News and Information 2.21.11

To start Presidents Day off on a, well, Presidential note, Just Desserts winner Yigit Pura recently made finger-lickin’ good pie for Obama. And TC Season 7’s Kelly Liken says on facebook she’s cooking for the First Lady.

If you have the day off, you might want to check out Fabio Viviani’s risotto cooking class, which will live-stream 12pm-2pm LA time. (The last time he did one of these, you could catch it later too.)

Angelo Sosa talks about the food at his soon-to-open Social Eatz in Part II of Fork in the Road’s exit interview: “We're going to take something like a sloppy joe, which I have great childhood memories of, and turn it into a Sloppy Ho Chi Minh. We do our own proprietary meat blend and infuse it with tamarind and some gochujang, which is a fermented Korean chili paste. So it's luscious and flavorful like a regular sloppy joe, but with an Asian twist. Our burgers are going to raise a couple eyebrows. And we'll do yuzu beignets for dessert.” You can find Part I here.

All-Star Mike Isabella is also working on a new restaurant, Graffiato, which he calls Italian-inspired, but not strictly Italian. Potential dishes include chicken wings with black-garlic Romesco and baby-back ribs crusted with Sicilian oregano and served with coriander yogurt and a small salad of blood oranges, sliced radishes and marinated onions, which you can read about in Part II of the Washington Post’s three-part story. Part I, which focuses on the build-out of the space, here.

Following his penchant for naming restaurant’s after fabrics (like Searsucker), Season 3’s Brian Malarkey is calling his new restaurant Burlap. It will feature “Cowboy Asian” cuisine, with a menu ranging from steaks, seafood, roast chicken, duck, and pork butt to sashimi, hamachi, salads, and stir-fry. "It's a protein house but we'll have subtle flavors like ginger butter, yuzu sauce, soys, pickled cactus and sage,” he says in this interview.

Season 7’s Amanda Baumgarten has been named Executive Chef at LA’s Water Grill.

Season 6 finalist Bryan Voltaggio (who happens to be an investor in Mike I.’s Graffiato) is slated to appear at DC’s “Savor: An American Craft Beer & Food Experience” in June.

All-Star Carla Hall cooks up a feast honoring Edna Lewis at Manassas Thursday night, with a menu featuring a salad of wild watercress with vinegar and oil, chicken with dumplings, glazed carrots, crusty yeast bread with butter and deep-dish apple pie with nutmeg sauce. More about the event, and Edna Lewis, Grande Dame of Southern Cooking, here. And on February 25, Carla will speak at the Green Matters Symposium on "Real Food Renaissance” at Brookside Gardens.

Season 4 winner Stephanie Izard will participate in Cochon 555 in Chicago March 20. For more about the porkapalooza that is Cochon 555, don’t miss the video here. Steph will also be part of the line-up of all women chefs at Hot Chocolate’s 6th anniversary party and benefit for Share Our Strength February 28 and another benefit, for TC Masters’ Art Smith’s Common Threads, on March 7.

As if that weren’t enough, Feast speculates an announcement may be forthcoming this week about Steph’s second restaurant.

Yigit Pura will be a celebrity judge at COOK Orlando March 27 to benefit the Human Rights Campaign.

And Top Chef Canada premieres April 11!