Unfiltered

How to get a date with Teri Hatcher and spend time with a shirtless chef

Posted: April 13, 2005

• Wine, women and a walk-on: Former Disney Studios president and Frank Family Vineyards owner Rich Frank has teamed up with his friend and ABC Television president Steve McPherson to produce Promise, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc from Frank's Winston Hill property in Rutherford. "The name alludes to a promise to produce more wine together, and a promise Steve made to his wife that he'd follow up on his desire to make wine," Frank says. Though the wine won't be released until 2007, Frank and McPherson will sell the first case for charity at Auction Napa Valley this June. But the real draw of their lot is dinner with Teri Hatcher, star of ABC's Desperate Housewives, at chef Norman Van Aken's eponymous restaurant in Hollywood. The winner also gets a walk-on in Desperate Housewives--although casting in a romantic dalliance is not guaranteed.

Ludo Lefebvre goes the "food porn" route with his new cookbook

• Not every cookbook is graced with an image shot by a Playboy photographer. But Crave: The Feast of the Five Senses (ReganBooks, $49.95), the sexy new book from Bastide executive chef Ludo Lefebvre, plays up the hunky chef as much as it does his sensual cuisine. Not only does Lefebvre stare alluringly out from the cover, holding a papaya filled with pomegranate seeds, no less, he also appears inside the book shirtless, strolling through the ocean, his tattooed arms holding two huge fish. (No, it's not gratuitous; the French-born chef, when not in his L.A. kitchen, loves to surf the California coast.) The book goes on sale April 26, and once (if?) you get past the pictures, there's the text--in which Lefebvre shares his passion for cooking and explains his techniques in such a way that spending hours in the kitchen has never sounded more appealing. ("Listen to the meat as it sizzles on the grill--it's singing to you!…Pay attention to the textures of the cod as you bite into it, wonderfully crispy on the outside and soft and succulent within, and understand how your sense of touch enhances your enjoyment.) Oh, and the recipes. Those, unlike the married chef, are at least available (if not easy). There are more than 100, divided up by the five senses--from red wine-poached beef with star anise, long pepper and cardamom infusion (under the chapter "Smell") to potatoes with clams (under "Hear") to lemon sorbet with saffron ("Taste"). We're sure we'll get to those eventually.

• Attention fashionistas: Red is the new white. Last year, red wine outsold white in the United States for the first time since the early 1980s, according to ACNielsen retail sales data released by the Wine Institute. Reds eked out a 40.5 percent market share, just a tenth of a percent more than white wine's 40.4 percent share. (Blush wine accounted for the rest). "I think this is the result of increasing consumer sophistication," said Wine Institute spokeswoman Gladys Horiuchi. "People are becoming more wine knowledgeable and want to try more classic wines, and a lot of them happen to be red." This is a giant leap for red wine, compared to its numbers less than 15 years ago. (In 1991, red had a 17 percent share and white a 49 percent share). Chardonnay remains the most popular varietal, followed by Merlot, white Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon. I guess we can't pin this one on the Sideways effect.