Grub StreetChicago

• New York
• Los Angeles
• San Francisco
• Chicago
• Philadelphia
• Boston

In flagrant violation of my new years resolutions, a roundup of all things Alinea-related that have popped up on my radar over the last two weeks:

• Carol Blymore of Alinea at Home cooked up "Skate, traditional flavors powdered" on Christmas eve, complete with a contextually relevant (yet still terrifying!) photograph of Jocelyn Wildenstein.

• What was that about Carol Blymire? Looks like there's another game in town — a dude named Martin has started Alineaphile, yet another cook-every-recipe-in-the-Alinea-cookbook site. Pretty pictures!

• Grant Achatz has a Facebook fan page! Now you too can pledge your internet allegiance to the puckishly handsome uber-chef.

• Under the Zagat banner, Mike Nagrant dug into the Achatz/Keller dynamic, right down to Grant's ingrained ability to interpret Keller's critical facial expressions and immediately change his own behavior. (Shoutout to our therapist!)

• Time magazine declared that Grant Achatz is #9 on their list of Top 10 Food Trends of 2008. Can a person really be a trend? Philosophical!

• The Reader's Julia Thiel and Decider's Emily Withrow made an appearance on WBEZ, along with Nick Kokonas's sons. They revisited the grade-schooler freres Kokonas pwnz0ring the profesh foodbloggers at cooking from Alinea.

• Flickrer biskuit made a New Year's Eve meal inspired by the French Laundry and Alinea cookbooks, and it looks so beautiful that I am sort of dying of personal inadequacy. (For my New Years Eve, I ate: vodka.)

If all this has lit your appetite aflame, Alinea has reopened from their holiday break and the delightful phone-answerers (honestly, in our experience the friendliest and most willing to answer our inane blog-related questions) are presumably standing by, ready to take your reservation. (Hint: Valentine's day!)

Alinea [MenuPages]
Alinea [Official Site]

[Photo via edseloh's Flickr]