Giada de Laurentiis joined Caryl Chinn for Easter
This is not an atypical text message from food festival doyenne Caryl Chinn, who recently joined sports and entertainment marketing firm Octagon as vice president of its new culinary division: "Are you free Sunday
curly wigs? Barbara got a pound of caviar and we're chowing down!"
While they say people who work at Ben & Jerry's don't eat ice cream, throwing this kind of crazy dinner party is what Chinn enjoys doing on her days off. It's the food-world version of Dre Day every day, with ballers like Chinn's meat-master pal Ed Murphy, who will wake up early on a Saturday and decide that barbecuing pork shoulder for 12 hours is the perfect way to spend his morning, afternoon and evening. Not surprisingly, Murphy, GM of Hollywood's Dolby Theatre, is often in charge of the proteins at these dinner parties.
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Caryl Chinn celebrated New Year's Eve with (clockwise from top left) Jet Tila, Betty Fraser, Barbara Brass, Ed Murphy, Mimi Mok, Aarti Sequiera, Manouschka Guerrier, Stef Kelly and Joe Moller.
These days, Chinn, whose recent credits include being executive director of Coastal Luxury Management's LA festival, often criss-crosses the country to develop events for Octagon. But when she's home in LA, she's sending out the most coveted invites in town, for 20-person gatherings much more exclusive and delicious than even the awards season parties where many members of Chinn's culinary club have cooked.
For Chinn's birthday, Giada De Laurentiis, the Food Network superstar who's now getting ready to open her first ever restaurant at the new Cromwell resort in Las Vegas, made three desserts while "The Next Food Network Star" champion Aarti Sequiera took care of the savory side with her gorgeous lamb palau.
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Ed Murphy's brisket is Texas-worthy.
But Chinn's core cooking crew is a group that became known as Hoodwinked Catering after the night that Chinn, Murphy, entrepreneur Mimi Mok (now in the process of creating a gourmet market in LA) and private chef/Food Network personality Manouschka Guerrier were invited to an '80s supermodel's mansion and quickly found themselves alone in the kitchen cooking dinner for two dozen revelers they did not know. As they did their prep, Chinn concluded that they had been hoodwinked
Natural stone, especially because the model's dinner guests thought the foursome were hired caterers.
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Zoe goes in for a New Year's Eve kiss.
Regulars at Hoodwinked Catering gatherings, often held in Chinn's West LA house or Murphy and Mok's Mid-City digs, also include Thai food expert and TV/radio personality Jet Tila, who just announced that he's taking over the kitchen at Pakpao Thai in Dallas; "Top Chef" alum Betty Fraser, who runs Hollywood's Grub restaurant and As You Like It Catering; Stef Kelly, who does double duty as the creator of chocolate treats including the award-winning Shmookie and as a big-hearted C-CAP cooking instructor for at-risk students; Joe Moller, an upper-tier event producer who recently ran the Downtown LA Art Walk; Barbara Brass, a Wolfgang Puck Catering executive who'll often arrive with the most extravagant wine and directions on how to pair it; and Zoe, Chinn's beloved French bulldog who is the sitting-in-your-lap star of many bashes.
Chinn moved to LA about three years ago. When she lived in Manhattan, she worked at Bon Appetit for a decade and collaborated with Lee Schrager to launch his New York festival. And at her home, there were, not surprisingly, dinner parties with Marcus Samuelsson and Tyler Florence cooking and Josh Wesson pouring wine. There was also the night Tom Colicchio, fresh off opening Craft, showed up late and started making himself a sandwich. Then Daniel Boulud asked Colicchio to make him one. A couple years later, Colicchio started slinging sandwiches at 'Wichcraft. We're going to believe that this was more than just a coincidence.
But often, it's chefs who don't cook for a living who make the food you will crave for all time.
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Ed Murphy's epic baked pasta for NYE.
While Murphy once worked in Boston restaurants, he doesn't consider himself a professional chef. But his food is legendary. Tila has said that Murphy's pork and 10-hour brisket is the best barbecue in LA. And the first time we met Murphy, it was at Chinn's New Year's Eve party, where he brought an eggplant incaciata: a pound of baked pasta, a pound of sausage, a pound of mozzarella, all wrapped in eggplant and baked. It was a big night indeed.
Next month, Murphy is planning weekly themed dinner parties during the World Cup: Think lots of beef and maybe even choripan if Argentina is playing. But given that Chinn and friends are involved
panamanian foundation, don't be shocked if it turns out to be yet another night of champagne wishes and caviar dreams.
Here are five of Chinn's most memorable parties:
The birthday bash: Two Food Network chefs, no waiting. After Sequiera's lamb palau, De Laurentiis' desserts included iced lemon cookies, a pumpkin cheesecake and an amaretto chocolate tart.
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Giada De Laurentiis piped apricot cream on her amaretto chocolate tart.
New Year's Eve: Tila brought over roasted Thai salmon with a green papaya salad, and Brass cooked four racks of lamb with herb butter. Moller made uni/caviar toasts, and we also remember having easy access to four containers of caviar (American hackleback, two Russian osetras, Chinese beluga). For dessert, Mok baked chocolate bouchons from a Thomas Keller recipe, and Fraser served strawberry and balsamic souffle with black pepper creme anglaise to guests including actor Chris Williams.
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Betty Fraser served dessert to Chris Williams.
Fireworks and snow cream: Tila, who runs Kuma Snow Cream in Las Vegas, brought over his snow cream machine and all the requisite toppings on July 4. The taro cream was a refreshing ending to a summer soiree that also featured a mixed grill of tri-tip and sausages.
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Jet Tila working on his Kuma Snow Cream machine at Chinn's.
Easter paella: Yes, this was Easter, so there was lamb, potatoes and green beans. But what everyone lucky enough to attend remembers most is actor Andoni Gracia's paella, overlowing with head-on shrimp, clams and mussels. Because every Easter should have soccarat. Mixologist Rich Andreoli (Harvard and Stone) added to the festivities with Moscow Mules.
Seafood-paella
Seafood paella should become a new Easter tradition.
The caviar party: Guerrier's Facebook post says it all: "Barbara asked me make to make cappellini with butter & lemon. So I made angel hair in a lemon butter sauce with chives & then she SLAPPED on alllll this caviar on top... yup."
Caviar-spaghetti
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