All Hail Alfred Portale

By JULIETTE ROSSANT In an upcoming article entitled "Keep It Simple, Stupid," a major American magazine like Newsweek has raised the issue of the continued need for substance before hype among celebrity chefs and super chefs by hailing Alfred Portale, chef-owner of Gotham Bar & Grill. For those who have not had the pleasure of knowing him over the years, you may have known of him a long time, for Alfred Portale has been one of the chefs most famous for his complex, towering "architecture" -- hence the amusing irony in the title of his new cookbook from HarperCollins, Simple Pleasures, due out in November 2004. You may have read about him also in Super Chef, since Tom Colicchio worked for him at Gotham Bar & Grill (pp. 176, 178-179, 181, 187), while Charlie Palmer consciously created less architectural food, starting at The River Cafe (p. 56). Newsweek notes: While Emeril and Wolfgang Puck were turning themselves into brands with TV shows and eponymous restaurants, Portale, 50, stayed committed to Gotham and raising two daughters. But his elaborate cooking style drew increasingly less attention as Food Network-watching Americans came to favor simple fare they could recreate at home. Of course, the Food Network, in its quest for quantity (viewing eyeballs, thus advertising) over quality, has already pushed on past the Emeril phenomenon, in one direction with Wolfgang Puck and more recently Wolfgang II: The Next Generation (AKA Wolfgang Puck's Cooking Class, but also in another, more "popular" format with home cook (not even a chef) Rachel Ray and her show 30 Minute Meals. Now, HarperCollins has a lot of books on cooking , but they have a soft spot for Emeril Lagasse -- soft as in about ten titles deep. Emeril's current book is Emeril's Potluck. Fortunately for us all, HarperCollins publishes many cookbooks, and in a period when home or comfort cooking seems to reign in the marketplace, Simple Pleasures represents a refreshing take on "supermarket-friendly dishes" for home cooks -- a welcome addition to the subgenre by maestro Alfred Portale. Ironically, HarperCollins publishes widely enough in Cooking to include Fast Food Nation in paperback. So, you have your choice: you can read about "The Dark Side of the All-American Meal" in Fast Food Nation (which is an excellent read), you can read about a TV chef's happenstance, potluck selection, or you can read the recipes of one of America's finest chefs. Essence of Emeril, move over: now we have Essence of Alfred. Book Links: Publisher Amazon Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, newsweek, Newsweek blog link --> subscribe to superchefblog --> back to superchefblog