Chef Crush

excuse me everyone

i’m sorry. i know that google has said malware/badware is running through here.

i THINK i have it taken care of. cross your fingers.

however

i have to stop comments from being quite so freely made.

only registered members who are logged in will be able to comment. if you want to be a registered member, please write to:

crushgirl1 @ chefcrush . com

get rid of the gaps. i put them in because i’m anti-bot at the moment. i’ll try to get a “contact us” page put in soon. prove to the crush girl that you’re a person and not an evil bot, and i’m sure she will enter you as a member. then you’ll be able to comment.

if i unlinked from you, i apologize. let us know.
if i dropped a comment of yours incorrectly, i apologize.
and i really am sorry i had to delete members. just let us know and we’ll get you set up again.

i’m just trying to get the place clean and keep it that way.

sincerely,
uncrushed, hungry, anonymous tech person

Well Crushers and Crushettes, your Crush Girls have been ridiculously busy so far this year. CG2 is busting her cute butt in the kitchen of one of Portland’s top restaurants, and CG1 is immersed in her current performance project. However, we’ve been hankering to try the new places that have popped up recently and of course visiting our old favorites, so many crushes loom on the horizon. In other news…

CG1 will be on tour in Canada in July/August and is looking for Chef Crush recommendations in Winnipeg, Calgary, and Edmonton. If you know of any kitchen cuties in those cities making delicious vittles, please email CrushGirl1 with your suggestions so she doesn’t have to live on Denny’s and fast food. She thanks you. Her stomach thanks you.

We recently got a copy of Fed Up, the newest Gourmet Girl Mystery from our friends the authors, Susan Conant and Jessica Conant-Park. Thanks for remembering us, ladies! We cannot recommend enough this fun, fast, foodie read. And best of all, recipes for the tantalizing dishes described in the book are included! Yum! You should definitely check out the whole series if you enjoy mystery novels and good food.

And speaking of good food, our favorite foodie event of the year, Share our Strength’s Taste of the Nation: Portland, is coming up April 27, 2009. This is an excellent opportunity to sample food from a bunch of Portland’s top restaurants while contributing to a worthy charity at the same time. Please check out the website and consider indulging for a good cause. We’ll definitely be there…It’s Chef Crush heaven! All those hotties and all those vittles in one place…Swoon!

We’re signing off for now, but don’t forget to tell us if you know a crush-worthy cook out there…

Hello ChefCrushers! We’re long overdue for a little update and some holiday cheer, aren’t we? Forgive us for being AWOL for so long, but your Crush Girls actually do have day jobs. And of course we just had the mother of all eating holidays. Speaking of, here’s hoping you enjoyed your turkey and may your Christmas ham be plump and juicy. Both of us have been too busy to eat out as often as we’d like, but rest assured we do have a few cuties on the way, so keep your eyes peeled. As always, if you know of a dreamy chef whose food makes you swoon, please let us know!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

~The Crush Girls

Wow! Thanks for the awesome response, everyone! After sorting through a ton of entries, we decided to nix our silly preference for in-state chefs…There are just too many adorable chefs out there for us to ignore, plus we were overwhelmed (and pleased as punch!) by the number of chef crushers spread across the country! Someday, we hope to be able to actually eat the food that these two up-and-coming talents create, but for now we’ll settle for the eloquent words of our wonderful readers. Without further ado, we present to you the winning nominations/entries of our first ever chef crush contest…

JONATHON SAWYER (Cleveland, OH)

Why he’s dreamy:
“I have an unbelievable crush on this chef! Not only is he magnificent in the kitchen, but he is a great father and a friend of the environment. We are in the process of opening The Greenhouse Tavern, the first green restaurant in Cleveland, and Chef Sawyer is also the partner at Bar Cento, a Roman enoteca in downtown Cleveland. I know that you asked for entries close to Oregon, and we are the opposite of that. But we are close in spirit.” ~CrushGirlAZS

Well we think he’s a total hottie, along with the rest of his kitchen crew. Plus, this is not the first time that Chef Sawyer has been brought to our attention. Now we can finally take him off our Unrequited Crushes page! The menus at both restaurants make us salivate, and it’s also unbelievably sexy when a chef chooses environmentally responsible practices like recycling and organic/local/sustainable food sourcing. Thanks, CGAZS! Your autographed copy of Simmer Down, a Gourmet Girl Mystery by Susan Conant and Jessica Conant-Park, is on its way to you.

MATHIEU PALOMBINO (Brooklyn, NY)

Why he’s dreamy:
“He’s pretty far from Portland, but chef Mathieu Palombino is definitely my Number One Crush. Okay, he’s my husband, too, so I’m a little biased. Mathieu has worked in some serious kitchens in NYC- Bouley, Cello, Union Pacific, BLT Fish, etc.- and if you’re not much of a blinker, you may have seen him on “Iron Chef America” or (embarrassingly) “The Restaurant.” When it came time to open his own restaurant, though, he was set on doing some serious pizza- he’s also a trained pizzaiolo. Motorino will open in Williamsburg, Brooklyn next month, and I could not be more excited and happy for him. He’ll be cooking things other than Pizza Napoletana in his wood-fired oven, like eels, suckling pigs, and whole fish. My favorite part of the menu is, of course, his homemade gelato. He is also an amazing husband and father (that’s our son, Francesco, in the picture), and above anything else- culinary skills and all- THAT is why he’s my Chef Crush.” ~CrushGirlAP

So many things can give us a chef crush…Great food and a cute face are definitely the most obvious, but they’re certainly not the only reasons. Managing to be a good husband and father while maintaining chef’s hours is no small feat, and we salute all chef families for putting up with the craziness and keeping their cooking loved ones sane enough to feed us. We also hope that we’re going to be able to get a table at Motorino next time we’re back East, but based on the appeal of those menu items, we figure we might have to try and pull some strings. Hehehe. Thanks, CGAP! Your autographed copy of Turn Up The Heat, a Gourmet Girl Mystery by Susan Conant and Jessica Conant-Park, is on its way to you.

Thanks again to everyone who entered, and to authors Conant and Conant-Park for donating the prizes! Keep your eyes peeled for more cute cooks and fun contests in the future, and as always, keep those chef crush nominations coming!

DANI and SHANNON @ Moxie (509) 456-3594
W. 816 Sprague Avenue, Spokane, Washington, 99201

Why they’re dreamy:
Black pepper and sea salt cured yellowfin tuna with wasabi avocado mousse is one of the best raw seafood dishes we have ever encountered. As if that weren’t enough, grilled kalbi beef with asian slaw has the perfect balance of rich, tender meat and cruchy tang. Sassy and refreshing, just like this (at least when we were there) all-female kitchen. Hot babes totally in control and turning out crushworthy food like this? We’re smitten!

*special note*
We are still accepting submissions for our Chef Crush Contest, but don’t dawdle- we already have tons of cuties to choose from, and as soon as we narrow it down, we’ll be posting and notifying the winners.

That’s right, CrushGirls and CrushBoys, we are thrilled to announce our very first ever Chef Crush contest! How cool is that? Here are the details…

THE SCOOP: As most of you know, we are always on the look-out for adorable chefs to feature. All you have to do to enter this contest is email CrushGirl1 with your chef crush suggestion. Your entry has a much better chance of being chosen if the chef in question is within an hour’s driving distance of Chef Crush World Headquarters (Portland, Oregon) so that we can actually eat his/her food and get a snapshot, but if you send pictures we’ll definitely consider long-distance crushing.

THE PRIZES: Our two favorite entries will win an autographed copy of a Gourmet Girl Mystery, either Simmer Down or Turn Up The Heat.

These excellent mystery novels are fun foodie reads and are written by the mother-daughter team of Susan Conant and Jessica Conant-Park. Thanks to them both so much for donating the books for our prizes! Jessica is married to her very own adorable chef, William Park, and definitely knows the perils and privileges of having (as one of our readers so eloquently put it) an eternal chef crush.

THE FINE PRINT: Do we really need this? *sigh* There’s a reason this isn’t LawyerCrush.com. We’re giving some cool stuff away. We’ll be accepting entries until we get two super cuties, so hurry up! Our decisions are completely subjective and absolutely final. No cash value. Void where prohibited. Your mileage may vary.

Now send us your contest entries!

Hi CrushGirls and CrushBoys!

Cool news in CrushLand these days…

CG1 was just interviewed for Desperate Chefs’ Wives, a blog devoted to the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of people married to or in long-term relationships with chefs. Great idea, don’t you think? Doing the interview was tons of fun, and we think the article came out great. Plus, it’s nice to know that people like this silly blog enough to bother mentioning it elsewhere!

We’ve started getting more cute chef suggestions, and thanks to the aforementioned article, we even received some pictures. So without further ado, we give you our first reader-submitted chef crush…

GEORGE MENDES @ Aldea (NYC, opening this Winter)

Why he’s dreamy:
“I’m a proud chefwife, married to chef George Mendes, and will happily put up my chef for others to crush on, because I think he’s terribly sexy when he cooks. He is so assured and knows exactly what he’s doing, so he’s really fun to watch. I recently helped him out at an event where he served a classic tomato gazpacho with bacalao (which he cured himself) and a coconut foam. Initially when he told me what the dish would be, I wasn’t so sure about the bacalao with the gazpacho, or the coconut for that matter, but somehow it all worked together beautifully and I was surprised and impressed by him. It’s nice to still be surprised and impressed by someone you’ve been with for 7 years!” ~CrushGirlBT

Awwww! He sounds like a winner to us, and just look at that smile! *swoon* Plus, any man who cures his own meats and/or seafood is automatically crushtastic. CGBT, here’s to you and your chefhubby. Thanks for sharing him with us!

As always, please let us know if you’ve run across a crushable cook, and keep those pictures coming!

Hugs and Kisses,
The Crush Girls

We Crush Girls love us some Toro Bravo (503-281-4464, 120 NE Russell Street, Portland, Oregon, 97212), but we have been cruelly denied our multiple TB crushes due to a lack of flash on not one but two occasions. At the Taste of the Nation, the dim lighting kept CG1 from getting a good shot of head honcho Chef John, and then just last week what looked like a perfectly good photograph of Ryan turned into this…

*sigh* By our count there are at least four crushable cooks on duty in that teensy kitchen at any given time, including a couple of hot chicks who definitely qualify for bad girl chef crush status. Which means that we’ll just have to keep going back for paprika and manchego fritters, succulent seared scallops, and that addictive caramel panna cotta. Tsk, tsk, what a shame. How we suffer for our crushes! Hehehe.

We’re all atwitter in Crushland these days, because one of our favorite food events is just around the corner!  Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation: Portland is this-coming Monday, April 28, and we wouldn’t dare miss such a tremendously stupendously crushtastic night.  Where else can you crush on 70+ of the region’s dreamiest chefs, all in one place at one time?  Plus their website says, “100% of ticket sales and auction proceeds go toward the fight against hunger,” and we think giving to charity is super cute.  Like, totally.

If you’re a newbie to the Taste, here are our top three tips on getting the most crush for your charitable dollar…

Dress To Fill
Ok, there are gonna be a ton of cute chefs under one roof.  ~swoon~ You want to be rocking your own crushable style, so you pull the slinkiest dress or your hippest suit out of the closet, right?  Tsk tsk tsk.  Think again, Crushers.  In an hour, you’re going to have a food baby living in your tummy, and you dont want to be waddling around in too-tight duds.  Gentlemen, there should be elastic in your waistbands and at least three extra holes on your belt loop.  Ladies, loose kimono-style shirts and babydoll dresses are the hot trend.  For a fancier look, we suggest a flowy empire-waisted gown.

Be Cool
Go for the VIP ticket ($125 versus $75 general admission).  Yeah we know it maxes out your allowance, but VIP treatment is always super swanky.  Just remember: it’s for charity! If you’re a real big spender, you can spring for the ultra-fancy champagne reception, which is $200 per person and guarantees you a seat for the evening.   But we don’t see the appeal of sitting down when there are so many dreamy delights to sample. 

Don’t Dawdle
If you gawk and gulp too long at one booth, you’re missing the point.  Think crushette.  You’ve already been a smart cookie and got the VIP ticket (right!?), so you have an extra hour. But keep it short and sweet or you’ll never make it through all the tasty treats.

We’ll either have a full report here afterward, or we’ll be chef crush overdosing and too twitterpated to write at all. ~wink~

See you there!

  

Wow.  We’ve had great response, and we only just got started!  The word is out though, because we’ve already gotten three chef crush suggestions so far, including one hot chick!  (Yes, we crush on girls too.  Doesn’t everyone?)  We’re going to have to start eating out more.  Bummer.    Keep those chef crushes coming, and tell your friends.  Thanks!  *muah*

~CrushGirl1