Earth to Chicago: You Lost ‘Iron Chef’ Fair and SquareMonday’s Iron Chef, in which Chicago chef Graham Elliot Bowles lost to Bobby Flay, has occasioned a gale of protest from the Windy City. For proud Chicagoans, it’s just not possible that Bowles could have lost; as A.J. Liebling put it, the prevailing local belief is, simply stated, that “everybody in the world is trying to put one over on Chicago.”
The New York Diet
Raw Foodist Sarma Melngailis Drinks Grapefruit Sake Mojitos Before Noon
You may remember Sarma Melngailis as half of New York’s Most Beautiful Feuding Foodies (the other half being Matthew Kenney, her cookbook co-author, ex-boyfriend and former partner in raw-food restaurant Pure Food and Wine). Regardless of gossip tales that she stabbed angry notes into vegetables, she’s revered by raw foodists as a champion of organic eating. That’s why we were surprised when, recounting what she ate this week, she confessed to indulging not just in “weirdo shakes” and Master Cleanse martinis, but also venison carpaccio, and at least one lamb meatball.
the morning line
Parking Wars
• A riot is brewing — or, more likely, the tabloids are picking up some easy populist points — over Mayor Bloomberg’s failure to lift alternate-side parking rules during this week’s snowstorm. [NYDN, amNY]
• Guess which single mayoral action is “tragic and misguided”, and will “degrade societal standards” — the smoking ban, LES rezoning, the 2012 Olympic bid? Wrong: it’s those damnable free condoms, according to Cardinal Egan and Brooklyn Bishop DiMarzio. [NYP]
• We all know about the sex-offender registry, but what does one do with homeless sex offenders? Suffolk Country found one, vaguely medieval, solution: put them in trailers that are periodically rotated around the county. [Newsday]
• MoMA director Glenn D. Lowry is even richer than we (and the IRS) knew: In addition to a jaw-dropping salary of $1.28 million a year, Lowry has been getting millions through a murky tax-exempt trust set up by the Museum’s benefactors. [NYT]
• And in parting, this, from today’s OMG-straight-men-can-cook “trend” profile in the News : “I’m constantly bringing wild game back to my apartment, and my girlfriend and I sit outside and pluck it.” Don’t we all?[NYDN]
party town
Movie Screenings Keep Nightlife Off Life Support• Gray Matters screening. IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave., nr W. 3rd St. Stars Heather Graham, Tom Cavanagh, Bridget Moynahan, Alan Cumming, Molly Shannon, and Sissy Spacek are expected along with Parker Posey, Jane Krakowski, and Rachel Dratch. Gray Matters is a drama about solving perplexing brainteasers while bowling. (Note: Plot synopsis derived entirely from speculation based on this photo. It’s actually about siblings trying to find love.)
intel
Who Moved David Carr’s ‘Observer’?Take a walk with us through today’s headlines on Jim Romenesko’s invaluable media-news roundup, won’t you? It’s the day after the New York Observer introduced its drastically different, long-tabloid design, part of new owner and publisher Jared Kushner’s plan to turn the paper into something slightly different and perhaps even profitable. On Romenesko’s site, you’ve got Steve Rattner, once a Times reporter and now a gazillionaire financier, writing in The Wall Street Journal about how the news business must come up with new models if it is to survive and thrive. (New models, like the Observer is introducing!)
