Monday, December 17, 2007

Q: Do you love or hate chef Mario Batali?

A: Let's see. On the one hand, he tends to say provocative and possibly untrue things—"Mr. Batali said '[the Food Network doesn't] need me. They have decided they are mass market and they are going after the Wal-Mart crowd,' which he said was 'a smart business decision. So they don’t need someone who uses polysyllabic words from other languages.'"—without explaining exactly how that's worse than going after the NASCAR crowd.

Yet. There's this: "I’m not so much about these blogs by anonymous people saying nasty things about you." Me too! "I think it’s getting pretty stupid. If there’s something interesting, and there’s somebody editing it and taking care of it, I’m down with it. But some of those people are just bit with vituperative anger and just want to rail on you." Yes! Vituperative anger—who needs it?

Verdict: Love him.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pound for pound, no Iron Chef sweats more. He’s a hit in this household.

Irene Done said...

Yes -- although I enjoy the matinee idol good-looks of, say, Tyler Florence or Michael Chiarello, Mario is a favorite of mine too. I love that he so completely embraces the hard work, the food, the drink and God knows what else. His raw emotion/faulty logic is just as genuinely endearing. He's like an opera character.

Anonymous said...

But to be fair, Mark Dacascos as the Chairman will bring the pain to “Tonight’s secret ingredient: CRANBERRIES!” as he sees fit. It’s that martial arts background thing that Batali might have benefited from earlier in his career.