As I chow on last night’s leftovers, my mouth tingles in memory of chef Danny Bowien’s Sichuan pepper-heavy dishes that he serves at the new Mission Chinese Food on the Lower East Side. Now, here is a man who not only knows how to play with traditional Asian spices, but has also figured out a way to make take-out Chinese hip. But don’t tell him that. “A lot of people have labeled us that way, but we are working away from that,” the long-haired chef says. “We are tying to make something at appeals to us, and is something we want to go to our day off.”

Chris Cosentino doesn’t think there is anything funny about offal, and he wishes you didn’t either. I caught up with the executive chef of San Francisco’s Incanto during his whirlwind book tour promoting Beginnings: My Way to Start a Meal, his first book that ironically doesn’t deal with offal, but instead consists of recipes for starters and small plates. Of course, the meal at DBGB Kitchen & Bar couldn’t go by without a little offal, and though Cosentino ordered the Frenchie burger, it wasn’t long before the kitchen sent out an iron-rich boudin basque, also known as blood and pigs head sausage, and pied de cochon pane, or crispy pigs feet. We ate it all as Cosentino chatted about his past as a hardcore skier, getting saved by chef Chris Santos during a bar brawl in Rhode Island, and his upcoming stint on the fourth season of Top Chef Masters.

Whoever said that hell is other people had clearly never been in an airport. It’s airports that are the real hell, whether they’re filled with other people or not (and they always are, too, crammed with a teeming crush of unwashed masses). Adding insult to injury, we have to spend seemingly ever-expanding amounts of time in these places, required to arrive an hour, then two, and now three before our international flights. And that’s before the invariable delay. No quantity of duty free Champagne and cigarettes will ever make that okay.

Within 10 minutes of ordering a beer and munching on some introductory kale salad at Jack's Wife Freda with Andrew Steinthal and Chris Stang, it was easy to forget just how well-known the two guys really are.

By now, you’re probably quite familiar with the story of Julie & Julia, the ambitious project of blogger Julie Powell to go through the entire culinary oeuvre of the great Julia Child that was eventually made into a major motion picture starring Amy Adams as Julie and a lauded Meryl Streep as Julia.

Chris Santos might not have hair, but his hair metal cred is authentic enough that hot sauce maker and heavy metal cookbook author Steve Seabury thought it was time Santos create a rocking hot sauce. It just so happened Stephen Pearcy from the ‘80s band Ratt also wanted to craft a hot sauce, so Seabury introduced the pair via email in which he wrote to Pearcy that, “Chris is a brother of the metal.” Subsequently, also a chef.

No matter what anyone tells you, being different is a good thing, especially in the culinary world. With the opening of Singapura—a Malaysian, Hakka Chinese, and Thai restaurant in Curry Hill—a new niche is born in the land of chicken masala that looks like lamb curry that could be rogan josh. Far away from Indian cuisine, and too unique for the mere term “Asian fusion,” Singapura finds a very happy home in being different and delicious.

It says more about New York’s reputation than it slights the West Coast that two beloved Asian outfits, Portland’s Pok Pok and Frisco’s Mission Chinese, have taken their talents eastward. Pok Pok NY, the Thai standout from notably un-Thai chef Andy Ricker (of Vermont), opened last month on the Columbia Street Waterfront (the original Pok Pok will continue its tenure as a Stumptown establishment). Ricker made a soft debut in March with Pok Pok Wing, a dorm room-sized munchie spot on Rivington.

When was the last time you had a meal in Los Angeles inspired by the World War One era? Unless your aunt tucked in the hills of West Virginia is still sending you greasy parcels on your birthday, it's probably been a long time. Or never. Well, the guys behind Eat.Drink.Americano in the Arts District downtown have designed their gastropub's menu to reflect the days when American food came from all over: Africa, Asia, Europe, Peru and everywhere else. That doesn't sound bad at all, now does it?

Most people aren’t aware of the small cooking school nestled next to the swimsuit department on the eighth floor of Macy’s Herald Square. It’s there I found myself last Saturday afternoon, sipping cool Rieslings while most of my food-focused brethren sweated, and waited it out for bite and beer at GoogaMooga.