If you've been slightly overwhelmed with the Christmas season like most of us around here at Sugar HQ, I've got a few things to snap you out of your holi-daze:
Battlestar Galactica returns to your small screen on Friday, January 16, and is showing
ten new webisodes on SciFi.com right now to tide you over until the premiere.
I couldn't be more excited to check out
the last half of the final season, especially since it's been a
pretty painful seven months waiting to see what will happen next. Yesterday, I sat in on a conference call to chat with BSG producers Ron D.
A couple of weeks ago I had the wonderful opportunity to speak with Spanish chef,
José Andrés. From his recently opened Beverly Hills restaurant,
The Bazaar, at the
SLS Hotel to his
PBS television show to his new cookbook,
Made in Spain: Spanish Dishes For the American Kitchen, the chef has had a very busy end of 2008. He's opinionated, proud, and incredibly creative — Spanish master
Ferran Adriá was his mentor.
Although our greatest joys are cooking and entertaining, they're simply not as fun without inspiration from the outside world. I'm often spurred to mix up new flavor combinations or cooking techniques by the likes of cooking shows, restaurateurs, bartenders, and, of course, great restaurant chefs.
In 2008, we had the privilege of speaking with cutting-edge faces in the food industry and leaders who have had longtime influence on us.
On Tuesday night I was invited to the
Gorgeous and Green benefit in San Francisco.
The event was hosted by
Global Green, an environmental nonprofit that focuses on global climate change through green initiatives. Not only did I taste an amazing
eco-friendly wine, but I also got the chance to speak with the hostess of the night, actress
Kate Bosworth.
Last week I had the wonderful opportunity to sit down with
Dale DeGroff. If you've never heard of DeGroff, you'll be surprised to know that he has changed your life. Remember that basil gimlet you enjoyed at the bar last week?
Just two months shy of geeking out with Samantha Ronson at the
TechCrunch50/MySpace Party, I found myself at another fabulous MySpace party last night at the beautiful Old Mint building in San Francisco — hello?! Lionel Richie performed! This time, it was a MySpace 2.0 party celebrating MySpace Music and the latest partnership between Ashton Kutcher's production company, Katalyst Media, and MySpace.
Yesterday I had the lovely opportunity of speaking with cookbook author and burger queen
Katie Lee Joel over the phone. She was calling from New York City to set the record straight about her
Burger Bash win.
According to her critics, the
Logan County Burger, which won fair and square, is not a burger at all, but rather a popular sandwich known as a patty melt.
Last week I had the chance to speak with
Food Network's
Guy Fieri. He's the host of three shows —
Guy's Big Bite,
Diners, Drive-ins, Dives, and
Guy Off the Hook — and winner of the
Next Food Network Star season two. Filming keeps him incredibly busy, but in his spare time, the celebrity chef — who prefers hot dogs to hamburgers and mustard to ketchup — continues to experiment in the kitchen.
The big
TechCrunch50 Conference kicked off yesterday at the San Francisco Design Center Concourse, with the best new tech startups launching their companies in front of the public — yes
Ashton and Demi were there! And to celebrate the day one festivities was the big MySpace party last night at Mezzanine. I not only got to chat with Sean Parker, the cofounder of Napster, and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington — who said this year's turnout was much better than last year's — but I was able to catch up with the famous
Samantha Ronson, who was DJing at the event, and ask her some geeky questions!
On hand at this weekend's
Slow Food Nation was
Momofuku chef David Chang, whose self-described "vaguely Asian" New York restaurants have catapulted him to celebrity status in the past several years. In a guest appearance at the festival's Green Kitchen, Chang showed the audience Momofuku's twist on caprese salad. As he was prepping for his demonstration, he was kind enough to talk to me about
slow food, fast food (Chipotle and In-N-Out are his favorites), future plans, and his latest infatuation.
