Passionfruit Butter

1) Why haven’t I been to Brigtsen’s yet?
2) Why isn’t there a NOLA chef on the outstanding list? I guess I’ll pull for Dan Barber.
3) Wooo, Sue Zemanick! Yet another point for her.
4) Beth Biundo, pastry chef at Lilette and maker of some of my most favorite desserts ever, is a semifinalist for outstanding pastry chef. In fact, it was precisely when I was enthusiastically describing her particular chocolate bread pudding with orangey glazey reduction and Earl Grey ice cream (I said it was so good, I could wear it) that my dinner companions convinced me that I needed to start writing about food. I guess I have her to thank.
5) I grow more frustrated each day I don’t get to enjoy Le Bernardin. Hey, that’s not fair. I was enamored of it long before it appeared on Top Chef.
6) I will plan to eat at The Spotted Pig the night after I eat at Le Bernardin.
7) Awesome job, John Harris, Scott Boswell, Aaron Bargau. I love that one of you cooks a block away from me. Makes me feel ever so slightly divine by osmosis.

I’d provide more in-depth analysis if I wasn’t busy writing an article for the Blake Makes magazine. Also, it would help if I was an established food writer who had a nuanced knowledge and experience of names and restaurants and tastes and signatures beyond the sphere of my hometown. But that’ll happen in years to come. In fact, in a way, I’m more excited. There’s SO much to discover out there.