I’m an ardent fan of Top Chef, the competitive cooking show on Bravo, but I’ve often wondered about the judges’ decisions. Was Hung’s sous vide duck breast truly unique and delicious? What about Harold’s duo of beef? And C.J.’s broccolini—was it really pack-your-knives disgusting? Finally, with the release of Top Chef: The Cookbook, ambitious cooks can now taste some of that as-seen-on-TV food in their own homes. The book offers over 100 recipes, including the aforementioned duck and beef dishes, as well as Casey’s coq au vin (but no mention of the rooster vs. hen controversy), Marcel’s hamachi poke, and much more. What you won’t find are any of the bad dishes—there’s no recipe for Ilan’s chocolate ganache with liver, for example.

Hungry Girl Lisa Lillien's diet includes Ooey Gooey Chili Cheese Nachos and Dreamy Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge. Photograph by Amanda Friedman.

Who: Calling all healthy eaters—but still lovers of delicious food.

What: Book signing for Hungry Girl: Recipes and Survival Strategies for Guilt-Free Eating in the Real World by Lisa Lillien. Get Lillien’s John Hancock while dining on free snacks (Vitalicious VitaTops and Fiber One bars) and asking the author which recipe she made last night.

Where: Tysons Corner Borders (8027 Leesburg Pike, Vienna)

When: Tonight (Monday) at 7:30

Why: In 2003, Lillien, a Los Angeles native, transformed her love of guilt-free foods into a free daily e-mail called Hungry Girl. The newsletter started out small, going to only 78 people; today it has more than 400,000 subscribers. Lillien has been a guest on Today and appears regularly on Extra. She also writes weekly columns on Yahoo! and WeightWatchers.com.

Her daily Hungry Girl emails include news, food finds, recipes, and weekend survival strategies. “I’m not a nutritionist; I’m just hungry,” says Lillien, who’s struggled with weight issues all her life. She’s a self-proclaimed “foodologist” on the lookout for foods that taste great but still allow you to zip up your jeans in the morning.
 

Earlier this year, author Missy Chase Lapine became more famous than her best-selling cookbook, The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favorite Meals, when she sued Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld. Lapine accused Jessica Seinfeld of copyright infringement—alleging that Seinfeld’s much-promoted, similarly minded Deceptively Delicious ripped off her squash-disguising kiddie recipes—and accused comic Jerry Seinfeld of defamation.

Tonight, though, she’s focusing on her followup cookbook, The Sneaky Chef: How to Cheat on Your Man (in the Kitchen!), which includes recipes for Doctor’s Choice Chili (with zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli, and spinach) and Barbell Burgers (with spinach and blueberry). And to dispel any notions that she’s a “nut job” (Jerry Seinfeld’s words, not ours), she’ll be bringing a plate of Brawny Brownies for the audience.

Missy Chase Lapine discusses and signs her book at Olsson’s, 418 Seventh St., NW, at 7 PM on Wednesday, April 9. Free. Click here for more.

For more posts on DC dining, restaurant news, and more, click here.
 

“I’m sorry to say I might be in love with you,” a woman says, leaning into the microphone. She’s the second (seemingly) rational person in ten minutes to publicly declare her affections to Anthony Bourdain, the silver-haired chef with the hips of a 13-year-old girl and the mouth of Keith Richards.

Despite his undying hatred of celebrity-chef culture, Bourdain, still affiliated with French bistro chainlet Les Halles, has reached Emeril-like levels of popularity. Tickets to what was essentially a book-promo talk on Wednesday night sold for $28 a pop, and most of the 1,490 seats at Lisner Auditorium were full. Known best for Kitchen Confidential, his best-selling 2001 exposé on the knife-flinging, drug-addled subculture of restaurant kitchens, Bourdain now eats his way around the world for Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, his show on the Travel Channel. (A picture-heavy book based on the series was just released.)

Though Bourdain has long given up heroin (“the most interesting thing about me”), recently kicked his chain-smoking habit (“Pardon me," he hacked. "My lungs are for s---”), and just became a new husband and dad (sorry, gals), he’s still a culinary badass who can coax whooping cheers from a roomful of buttoned-down foodies with proclamations like this: “Who is Cat Cora?! Did they grow her in a petri dish?” Read on for more of his musings.

In honor of her new memoir, The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food, 83-year-old Judith Jones visited the Library of Congress yesterday. The longtime Knopf cookbook editor—who was responsible for discovering Julia Child and worked with other authors such as John Updike—had no trouble making an audience of mostly middle-aged women giggle, especially when joking about imprecise cookbook language. The phrase “set aside” still confuses her: “What do you think I’m gonna do—throw it out?”

With the same visionary intuition that drew her to Anne Frank’s diary buried in a pile of rejected manuscripts, Jones helped Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking become a kitchen bible. She encouraged Child to use down-to-earth words like “plop” in explaining the formal techniques of French cuisine, and in her eyes the book is just as useful today. “One of these days,” she predicted, “we’re gonna get sick of Food Network.”

Professor and roving foodie Tyler Cowen releases his new book this week.

According to Tyler Cowen’s online Ethnic Dining Guide, “all food is ethnic.” But he’s not referring just to Chinese takeouts or neighborhood taquerias. No, this George Mason University economics professor spends his free time exploring the area’s holes in the wall, suburban strip malls, and upscale eateries for tastes of Argentina, West Africa, Bangladesh, Nepal—upward of 75 ethnic cuisines in all—and then writing about his findings online. His brief, straightforward reviews include notes on price range and ambiance, whether a restaurant is worth a trip on the Beltway, and whether a place’s collard greens are “blah.”

Journalist, author, and former fisherman Trevor Corson is making the rounds over the next couple days to talk about his new book The Zen of Fish. And if you have any interest in sushi--or seafood in general--he’s well worth seeing.

For this latest book, Corson, a DC resident who went to the Sidwell Friends school and spent years living in China and Japan, explores sushi from every angle. The fascinating, fast-moving narrative begins behind-the-scenes at an LA sushi training academy, then travels to Japan and beyond as Corson explores the history and science behind sushi and reveals how it’s morphed into an American food court staple, Philly rolls and all.  

Tonight, June 6, at 7 PM, Corson reads at Politics and Prose (5015 Connecticut Ave., NW; 202-364-1919).

Tomorrow night at 7:30, he’s at the Tysons Corner Borders (8027 Leesburg Pk., Vienna; 703-556-7766).

And if you miss him, Corson keeps up TrevorCorson.com, where you'll find his SushiBlog, video interviews with the book’s personalities, recipes for making sushi at home, a primer on sushi-eating etiquette, and even a call for sushi-eating clubs and meet-up groups to let him join in on dinner.