The cooler weather we’ve been experiencing lately seems to bring out the cooks among us, so let’s see if we can find some of the items sought by Taste of the Town readers:
Heidi Knapp Rinella
Unless you’re an Emeril Lagasse die-hard — Would that be an Emhead or maybe a Gasbag? — you probably remember the chef most from his salad days on the Food Network, where he was occupied not with salad but with bamming and kicking things up a notch and spreading the gospel of his updated version of the best of New Orleans’ Cajun/Creole cuisine. And then maybe you tasted the fruits of his labors at one of his restaurants in New Orleans or at Emeril’s New Orleans Fish House at the MGM Grand right here in Our Fair City.
The good news: We may have solved the mystery of the whereabouts of hot dog buns like Woolworth’s used to serve, which are being sought by Sandra Ashenmil. Mike O’Brien noted that they were the New England-style split-top buns so many readers are searching for, “grilled on both sides and then the hot dog was served in it.”
Talking with a chef about food trends recently, he confirmed what I’ve been seeing: exponential growth toward the casual-but-upscale in restaurants across the board, whether they’re celebrity-chef-driven, chain links or mom-and-pop ethnics.
No barbecue is complete without baked beans, and with our nearly year-round barbecue season in the valley, it’s fortunate there’s a ready source of Heinz Vegetarian Baked Beans for Sandra Gersh.
Here’s the thing that surprises me most about Brio Tuscan Grille: People are so impressed by the scale of the building, the very grandeur of the place — soaring ceilings and vaults, cozy passages — that they tend to assume it’s a one-off, a stand-alone restaurant raised in Town Square by the scion of a Tuscan winemaking family.
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