Amuse Bouche(s)

I'd use a word that rhymes with "bouche", but I don't usually use that word because it falls in the whole "girly hygiene is the lowest of the low" arena of insults and this homie does not play that.

But rhymes-with-bouche is a favorite term on the show "Top Chef", perhaps even more popular than "amuse bouche" itself. This season seems overpopulated by the kind of people I'll call "penile implants". That's right, they aren't even real pricks, just embarrassing imitations. Aging Cowgirl has already covered this below, so I thought I would share a couple of not-so-terrible tidbits having to do with the show.

1. Coldickio being not so dicky, in last week's NYT article about civil rights issues in schmancy restaurants:

TOM COLICCHIO, whose restaurant Craft has been cited by the Restaurant Opportunities Center as exemplary in promoting people of color, offers English classes for his staff, but said he doesn’t spend a lot of extra time worrying about diversity.

“We feel that if someone is ready for promotion, they get promoted,” he said. “Simple as that.”

Sometimes it does take extra effort, though. Many Bangladeshi staff members at Gramercy Tavern, where Mr. Colicchio used to be the chef, had the potential to be excellent waiters, but were not familiar with wine because, as observant Muslims, they didn’t drink it.

Without extensive wine knowledge, they couldn’t be sent onto the floor. For one particularly promising person, though, Mr. Colicchio found a solution. He made him a captain in the private dining room, where all the wine is ordered in advance.

As for Mr. Boulud’s problem, Mr. Colicchio suggested more talking. He didn’t condone the tactics of the Restaurant Opportunities Center, but he said that Mr. Boulud needed to sit down and talk with its representatives again.

“There is no right or wrong here,” he said. “Daniel has a right to run his business the way he wants to run it. But sometimes we get so busy running our restaurants we don’t listen to people.

“What’s the alternative? Having a 12-foot cockroach in front of your restaurant?”

2. Michael Midgely's Chow magazine interview (audio), wherein he pretty much slams the production, Coldickio (wears flip-flops in the kitchen?!), and says Gail Simmons is awesome (I never would have thought!). For some reason he also hates Suzanne Goin, so that Cheeto/Snickers thing he made? really was supposed to resemble the anatomy we all thought it did. Pretty gross, Mikey. But aside from that the rest of the interview is kind of funny. Not as funny as the interviewer seems to think it is, but definitely an amusing -ouche.