Mouthing Off

Scrounging for a last-minute Halloween costume? Get inspiration from some of our favorite chefs’ ensembles in F&W's "Dress Like a Chef" slideshow, like Mario Batali's now-iconic look: red wig pulled in a low ponytail, baggy shorts and his signature orange clogs from Crocs.

It's not every day that a famous Austrian chef hand-feeds you a weisswurst, but that's what happened to me last night at New York City's Standard Hotel's Beer Garden.

Wearing lederhosen in honor of Oktoberfest and a jean jacket personally given to him by the fashion designer Helmut Lang, Kurt Gutenbrunner (The Upholstery Store, Café Sabarsky, Blaue Gans and Michelin-starred Wallsé) handed out huge rock-salt-encrusted pretzels baked by Amy's Bread to trendy New Yorkers and taught me the proper way to eat a weisswurst (peel off the skin, dip in sweet mustard and devour with or without utensils).

Gutenbrunner rang a bell behind the beer garden's sausage bar throughout the night ("In Germany we ring the bell to call people to eat," he said). But he was upstaged by a German street-cart favorite called curry wurst: a juicy grilled bratwurst topped with ketchup and curry powder and served in a bun on a bed of sauerkraut.

Hotelier André Balazs gave Gutenbrunner carte blanche to select the garden's Schaller & Weber sausages and German beers (the chef's favorite is the Bitburger Pils, which he describes as "a golden beer that tastes like Champagne, a slight bit of lemon and a touch of banana"). Balazs even named a sausage on the menu after the chef: the Cheddar "Kurt"wurst–a bratwurst oozing with the creamy cheese.

"I've never met anyone with a bigger vision than André, or anyone who cares so much about making the beer garden experience here as authentic as possible," said Gutenbrunner before leading patrons in a chant of a Bavarian drinking song that loosely translates to "One More Beer."

Here are 7 more amazing sausage recipes from the F&W archives, perfect for any Oktoberfest celebration.

Top Chef host, cookbook author and former model Padma Lakshmi kicked off New York City's fashion week by judging hors d'oeuvres created by six fashion celebs in a cook-off at Bergdorf Goodman's BG Restaurant. The contestants included designers Peter Som (panko-fried oysters with blood-orange gastrique and tartar sauce) and Naeem Khan (chicken with 26 Indian spices, wrapped in lettuce), but the hands-down winning dish, according to Padma (and F&W's omniscient Kate Krader), was Lela Rose's corn crepe topped with lobster and a cilantro–pine nut salsa. Midway through the competition, Anna Wintour, the editor in chief of Vogue, peeked into the room, threw her head back with a rarely captured laugh and exited into the fashion ether.

Later that night, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen served watermelon-and-candied-ginger martinis to a packed room of crazed fans in an effort to promote their clothing lines Elizabeth & James and The Row. A few minutes into the service, Ashley said, "Is there music?" and the staff turned on some beats. Any good bar patron knows that you should always tip the bartender, so I dropped a dollar on the bar (a move that confused Mary-Kate and made it into the next day's paper). After all, leaving a tip never goes out of style–even if it's for a couple of billionaires.

For the last two years, foodies have been talking about the exciting restaurant scene in Colombia’s capital city, Bogotá, particularly its hot food ‘hood, Zona G (which has restaurants from Peruvian star chefs Rafael Osterling and Gastón Acurio). I got to experience it for myself last March. I also spent a week eating around what I believe may be Colombia’s next great food city, Cartagena.

The historic walled city by the sea has finally started to get some excellent restaurants. The most recent addition, Vera, opens next month in Latin fashion designer Silvia Tcherassi’s amazing new seven-room boutique hotel. Vera means truth, as the food will be authentic coastal Italian prepared by chef Daniel Castaño, a Mario Batali protégé who is also the head chef at Bogotá’s popular Emilia Romagna and co-founder of the Brooklyn-based supper club social experiment A Razor, A Shiny Knife. Opening menus will include a classic seafood risotto loaded with clams, mussels and shrimp and pollo al peppe, black-pepper-crusted chicken breast served with confit thighs and a date, watercress and macadamia salad. Castaño's food will be complemented by a 100-plus-label wine list of bottles from Italy, Spain, Chile and California.

 

Marni Horwitz's company, Alive Structures, has spent the last three years greening buildings around New York City with garden roofs and walls. My favorite of its works: the East Village's Wild Project, a gallery and performance space where the rooftop has been transformed with ground covering, wild chives and mint. (There's even a blueberry bush!) The company has also been selling planters, each custom-designed and filled with an array of plants. This spring, they began mixing in edibles like purple cabbage, oregano and strawberries with the ornamentals. Delicious! You can buy these edible gardens at places like the Brooklyn Flea or at the company's Brooklyn offices.

Brooklyn-based designer Alyssa Ettinger has just introduced gorgeous lanterns made from translucent porcelain, which give off a firefly-like glow when a votive is added. The molds are hand-cast from antique mason jars; a thin wire handle makes them perfect for hanging at backyard barbecues. They're available on Etsy.

 

 

One of my favorite things to do when I travel is to wander through foreign grocery stores, seeing how people in other parts of the world (or the country, even) label, display and buy their food. That’s why I love the new book crEATe: Eating, Design, and Future Food. The writers, who are British trend analysts, scoured the earth to find the latest developments in everything from restaurant design to food packaging to fad diets. What makes me want to spend some quality time with the book, though, are the images—of cooking schools, kiosks and food innovators across the globe. Two ideas I fell for were the Illy Push Button House, which looks like a shipping container but turns into a gleaming white five-room house (complete with kitchen) at the push of a button, and a Japanese designer’s chocolate pencils, in a range of cocoa blends, that you sharpen over your dessert to get chocolate shavings.

 

Dream kitchen makeovers, complete with super-techy appliances, may need to be put on hold as we move into more frugal times. But just because we’re in a recession doesn’t mean you have to deal with an outdated kitchen for another year. In our December issue, interior designer extraordinaire Jeffrey Alan Marks shares his value-minded tips for transforming a kitchen. His trick: select one or two fabulous accent pieces that bring new personality to the room.

Marks’s mantra popped into my mind when I stopped by Anthropologie’s Rockefeller Plaza store earlier this week. The store’s gallery showcases the work of rising star artists from around the world on a rotating basis. The current exhibit featured Leslie Oschmann, Anthropologie’s former visual director who is now creating gorgeous vintage paintings and furniture in her Amsterdam-based studio named Swarm Home. Marks would love these quirky chairs, which Oschmann finds at flea markets and then paints or covers in needlepoint designs.
 
Just one of these funky seats could instantly up the style-factor of my tiny studio kitchen. Keith Johnson, Anthropologie’s gallery director and antiques buyer, agreed and was debating which pieces he wanted for his own apartment. These functional works of art start at $580—less than a state-of-the art range, but still pricey. Holly Becker, founder of one of my favorite design blogs, Décor8, suggests a DIY decoupage chair to get a look similar to Oschmann’s.

 

                      
  

In our December issue, we give a food-and-design-savvy insider’s guide to Miami’s Design District —a must-read for anyone headed to Art Basel Miami Beach. The sister fair to Art Basel Switzerland—and the most important art fair in the U.S.—kicks off tomorrow and runs through the weekend. Here, insider’s tips on where to eat and shop while navigating the art-filled weekend.

Retail design extraordinaire Murray Moss tells the New York Times which bars have the most incredible crowds.

F&W dishes on what Miami’s local art-and-design crowd orders at their favorite Design District hangout, Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink.

Nisi Berryman, cofounder of the incredible style store NiBa Home, e-mailed me today to say Senora Martinez, the new venture from Miami darling Michelle Bernstein, opened last night and has a stellar tapas menu. For shopping, Nisi says Marni just opened last night, Tomas Maier opened last week and En Avance recently moved locations from SoBe to the Design District—all are a couple of doors up from Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto’s boutique, Y-3, and close to Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink.

Stephanie Monserrat Laurent has plans for a Miami branch of Buzina Pop, her superstylish Brazilian restaurant on New York City’s Upper East Side. Tonight, she’s taking over Miami's Maison d’ Azur and will be serving Buzina Pop’s signature dishes (grilled prawns over honey-ginger coconut quinoa) and cachaca-spiked cocktails and debuting her new bikini collection.        

Le Tourment Vert, an authentic French absinthe, makes its South Florida debut this week with a special tasting tomorrow night at the Florida Room in the Delano Hotel featuring cocktail recipes created by master mixologist John Lermayer.      

      

                                                  

              

Madeline Weinrib, the superstylish rug and textile designer of ABC Carpet & Home fame, is launching a line of table linens featuring gorgeous hand-embroidered napkins and chevron patterned placemats and runners. The linens have an heirloom quality to them, much like her rugs.