Offal Good™

Do you have the guts to cook guts 4.0?

Chris — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:00:58 +0000

menu meeting

After each years head to tail I look back and say how can we top that, and each year its a challenge that I gladly welcome. With the past 3 year we have brought in stages to spend a week cooking with the Incanto team, and it has been alot of fun and a great experience. Each stage has come and left their mark, thank you to Derek & Omar 1st year , Michael & Jonah 2nd year, Kylie & Michael 3rd year. So to continue on in that spirit we shall do it again, its time for someone else to come and play. This is all about sharing, inspired by the constant requests for knowledge about how to cook offal. Now’s your chance to learn. I will be accepting 2 volunteers to help with the event this year. You get to come into my kitchen and help cook 2 nights of head to tail dinners. You will work your ass off, have some fun and learn a ton, but there are rules to this game. This offer is open to professional cooks only. You will be an unpaid volunteer. You must commit to working in my kitchen for 5 days, from Friday, March 23rd through Wednesday the 28th except for Tuesday, which you’ll have off to recover. But usually i take us all out to eat and do something fun. You must submit your resume and a short essay on why you should be one of the chosen ones. This is a busy time and I don’t have time to be baby sitting. The Head to Tail dinner is a multi-course menu with a shit load of detailed work..

Here is the pay out; you get all 4 of my t-shirts to take home and you will be able to sit down and enjoy the head to tail menu in the dinning room on the last night. And you have to write a story for me to share on this website after your time here to share with the world. hey Jonah I am still waiting for yours.

: working out the plating

Email your resume and brief essay to me at chris@incanto.biz by friday February 20th th. I will make a final decision and contact the 2 lucky winners on February 24th to confim your participation. This gives you 4 weeks to make travel arrangements. Ultimately, this is a fun opportunity to be a part of a great team for a week and learn how to cook some innards.

team photo

Mozo vs Zappos cook off Finale

Chris — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 20:56:04 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

This was so much fun, I hope they had as much fun as Aaron and I did. Who would have thought it would come down to that! Be sure to look to Zappos for our shoes, they cant be beat

Mozo vs Zappos cook off Part 1

Chris — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:41:49 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

Some how I got paired with the super forward thinking CEO of Zappos in a cooking competition I dont

know how, but I am not going to complain Tony is a true visionary.

This was a fun event we did at Zappos headquarters in Las Vegas with the entire staff watching on.

There is another video with part 2 coming to see who win take the crown so keep watching.

Eat my heart on The Feast!

Chris — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 06:35:42 +0000

View more videos at: http://www.thefeast.com.

This is a video I did for The Feast for valentines day, its a bit old but I thought I would share it anyways.I cant get enough of the heart tartare, but with the foie gras it’s over the top.

Restaurant trade panel on Twitter

Chris — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:34:32 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is the Amex Trade panel I did about social media in 2010 at Aspen Food and Wine classic. It was a fun panel to be on, what you cant see is I have a giant screen posting my twitter feed to the audience as you answered my questions. It was a great way to show the power of social media.

My rejected TV pilot Chef Unleashed

Chris — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 17:10:23 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

A lot of you have been asking me if “Chefs vs City’ was coming back and the answer is no! I have been trying to find a show that makes senses for me. This is a pilot project that I completed a few months ago that has been turned down, I am proud of this show check it out.

ABOUT CHEF UNLEASHED

People pitch me TV ideas all the time. Some are good, some not so good. Having done my fair share of TV, I’ve gotten to a place where I’m particular about the projects I choose to do. I’ve also watched how our celebrity-driven culture has infiltrated the food world, with some alarming side-effects. But I’m getting off-topic.

Last year, a couple of guys approached me about doing a food/adventure show called Chef Unleashed. One of them had written about me a couple of times in food magazines and the other was known for directing music videos and concert movies. I was intrigued. The approach they suggested was fresh and honest and, as it would turn out, envelope-pushing: They actually wanted to do a show that would challenge and excite me, a chef, and, in so doing, challenge and excite viewers.

The impulse behind the show was simple: Everybody onboard loves food, is fascinated by where it comes from, and is not squeamish about how to get it, whether it might be game hunted on open terrain or tuna hand-gaffed by blood-soaked Sicilian fisherman, a tradition that goes back 1,000 years. As the guys wrote in their proposal, “Chef Unleashed invites the viewer on a global eating exploration. It’s a new kind of reality show, about where good food really comes from—when it’s done right.”

I appreciated the directness and honesty, along with the prospect of traveling the world to explore how the very best food is raised, butchered, or farmed in its native habitat: Chef Unleashed would have me put on waders, pick up a rifle, wear a hardhat, don overalls, whatever it might take. Real stuff. Challenging and yet totally entertaining. No oohing and aahing studio audience. No eating of 40-pound omelettes or 9-foot hoagies. No races or contests.

We went to the Texas Hill Country in January and shot a pilot with one of my favorite purveyors: Broken Arrow Ranch. They’re the go-to guys for wild game in the US. We had a blast. I learned how to “field harvest” deer alongside their sharpshooters and, in turn, I taught them how to use the whole animal, including the heart, the kidneys, the liver. We had a huge feast at the end, outside, with the moon rising. Some of the ranch guys were pretty skeptical about a.) my hunting ability (well, honestly, I was skeptical about my hunting ability, too), and b.) my approach to cooking. But when it was all over, everyone was fast friends. We learned a ton from each other and it was, I have to say, one of the very best days I’ve ever experienced as a chef and easily my best experience doing TV.

The guys working on the show captured it all brilliantly: my excitement, my apprehension, my eyes opening – and my hosts’ too — to new ways of doing food. I have no doubt that the pilot will open more eyes, right down to the very frank, honest, and totally riveting footage of Texas deer – majestic, gorgeous animals — being hunted (and butchered) to provide food for our dinner tables.

Oops. Mistake. Yes, we were pretty aware that we were, to repeat the phrase, pushing the envelope with this. And I admit, it was pretty gory stuff. If you watch, you’ll see my very real reaction to it.

But this was not – at all – about shock value. This was all about getting down to the very source of the very best food and showing where it comes from. People who know me know I’ve been waging war against our Styrofoam-wrapped, hormone-pumped supermarket culture my entire career. Chef Unleashed allows me to continue that by other means, along with cracking some jokes, making new friends, and preparing some great food. But I suspect that some squeamishness – both the kind that I encounter occasionally in diners at Incanto, but, seriously, more often in TV executives who like to say they’re always looking for the next “new” thing, but in reality are pretty terrified when they ever really see anything new – got in the way of our show: The program made its way around the network that paid for it. And then just kind of petered out. Whatever. These things happen all the time and I refuse to take it personally. I’ve done other projects that didn’t get above the ground floor. Fair enough.

But this one is different. I think it’s a great opportunity for viewers and for a network game enough to break the boundaries of where food TV is right now. I’ve said way too much and yet I don’t think I’ve even given the best picture of what I think this show could become — something, I believe, that can inspire a lot of people in their own kitchens, in their own journeys. It’s part travel show, part cooking show, and total adventure. It’s a food and travel show that looks and feels like no other. I love it and, even in this roughed-out pilot form, I think you might, too.

Thanks for checking it out.

Aspen restaurant trade panel

Chris — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 19:58:23 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

To have the opportunity to speak on this panel with such amazingly talent hospitality professional was an honor. Each one had so much information to share, I hope the audience learned as much as I did.

Save The Ocean, Eat A Squid

Chris — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 03:55:29 +0000

To start this off, I don’t like going on boats anymore, which is ironic since I grew up on boats, sailing, fishing and working lobster boats in New England. About 10 years ago I was in a boating accident that makes me second guess being out there that far on a little boat in the big sea. But this was the opportunity for me to catch the big nasty giant squid, so I was in. What an adventure it was I caught the big one for the day at 75lb and 45 minutes of fighting to bring the squid in I got my monster. Click on the image above to read the story published in Mens Journal this May, and yes I barf!

Brains & Eggs video

Chris — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 06:54:09 +0000

My brother in law Michael Hearst and his band One Ring Zero made this great song out of a recipe I make here at the restaurant. Below is the video and song, but you should really check out his website which has all the info on all the chefs who have contributed recipes and interviews for the upcoming book and CD. Ok, I watched Solid Gold as a kid, but never said I was a professional dancer. That being said you wont see me on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ any time soon. Enjoy the video and song, I had a blast being a part of it.

Click here to view the embedded video.