So I am watching Ratatouille for the umpteenth time with my son on my lap (half asleep) when I hear Gusteau whisper that above all, a great chef is "fearless." Well, get thee to Isaac Becker's 112 Eatery in a hurry, and check out his latest feat of derring-do, gizzards. Now that's a tough sell, but I am salivating despite the pejorative connotations. Becker says he boils them in vinegar and salt water for approximately ninety minutes, and then they are sautéed to order in butter; pan deglazed with good balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, tahini, green onions, and ground sesame seeds; and served over soft white bread. Sort of a soul food version of a North African-Japanese-Italian-Moorish snack that you dreamed about last night. Am I the only one who finds the sound of this dish awesomely attractive? And remember, this is the guy that made you fall in love with escarole and anchovies!

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Camera operators are focused on what they are shooting, and my A-cam operator is no exception. Scott's latest misstep was in Tokyo's Tsukiji Market, where he laid waste to a thousand dollars worth of rare shell fish by walking backward over the crate it was in, but this little gem from Tony's show tops that!

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Stone crab is in season. And while on a recent trip to another city, I stuffed myself silly on them. But besides Oceanaire, is there anyone serving fresh ones? Not frozen claws . . . fresh ones!?!?

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My buddy Aaron called me last Thursday to inform me that the day before on Open Table, the only restaurants that were not offering tables on Saturday evening at 7 p.m. were Manny's, La Belle Vie, and a handful of other smaller places. Now that's a great indication of the how bad things are out there. Go online, and play around with it for yourself. Shocking.

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I was at the Midtown Global Market yesterday, and I am praying that all its latest marketing efforts help to push the MGM back onto the front burner of our collective conscience. Events like the craft fair that was staged in the building last weekend resulted in 'best day ever' stats for several vendors cash registers, but the emptiness of the food court and the once-a-month big bang of a city-wide party are not a recipe for success. The concept is great, and the food in many of the kiosks is superb, but it needs traffic, and the building's residents and tenants are not enough critical mass to sustain many of the vendors there.

Weekly big-city events should be staged there, and as tax payers, it's in our vested interest to see that place succeed. The city needs to get behind the place in a big way. The Convention and Visitors Bureau, Meet Minneapolis, and every other agency, public and private, should throw as much attention in the direction of the MGM as they can, and so should you. The pastries at Michelle Geyer's Salty Tart (and those killer fleur de sel caramels) are reason enough for you to go if you haven't already seen her new venue.

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Just spent a weekend in NYC doing some SMT/RMT stuff for Pepto and the new Cherry Pepto, which rocks, I might add. Ate at Town, Craft, Carnegie Deli, Nobu, and Papaya King. Stayed at the W in Times Square. The lobby bar on the seventh floor is Sodom and Gomorrah if that is your thing. Dinner at Craft was oysters on the half shell, crisped squares of belly bacon with whole grain mustard and quince; an amuse of four teeny Nantucket Bay scallops with kaffir lime and argan oil; Wagyu beef carpaccio; a stunning beet salad composition; pigs trotter stuffed with sweetbreads and wrapped in bacon served with a fried egg; a devastatingly good partridge terrine dotted with sturdy yet melting partridge breasts cooked sous vide; a Four Story Farm thirty-day aged Cotes de boeuf served with  monstrous pillars of roasted marrow bones with parsley, lemon, and brown butter; roasted Scottish partridge; and Meyer lemon and Concord grape sorbets that put the rest of the versions of those simple meal-enders to shame. But the best item we ate was the new menu item of rolled, tied, and braised veal tongue, sliced paper thin and finished with a black truffle vinaigrette. OMG . . . heaven. The homemade pasta with white truffles at Town was as good as food gets, too. I love those two places. Dinner at Nobu was stellar as always, and we sat next to George Hamilton, who is bronzer than Nobu's signature miso cod dish.