Jamie Oliver, a.k.a. the Naked Chef, Comes to Town

Yesterday was a good day. I had a meeting with my advisor that went fairly well and then I headed down to Union Square to stake out a seat in the Barnes & Noble so that I could listen to Jamie Oliver talk about his new book and his struggle to improve school lunches in England.

The bookstore staff was somewhat annoying and bossy. They seemed anxious that all the foodies in the audience might demand personalized autographs or storm the stage in all the excitement. In reality it was a very calm, sedated, even boring crowd, but I didn't care, I love Jamie Oliver. I love to read his books. The pictures are always fabulous and the recipes hold up to scrutiny as well.

In order to have a decent seat I had to sit down an hour before the event and wait. Not being good at waiting without entertainment I decided to enjoy two of my favorite hobbies at once, knitting and television. I pulled out some socks to knit on and tuned in my ipod to the TV guide podcast that Molly had told me about several months ago. I made some real progress on the socks while listening to 4 strangers talk about Lost, Grey's Anatomy, Borat, and more. It was the perfect antidote to all the serious grad-school type thinking I had been engaged with earlier in the day.

Eventually Jamie arrived and bounded up onto the stage. He turned out to be quite the camera ham, reminding me of Molly, but it was amusing to watch him lean against the table in a classicly jaunty fashion while mugging for the photographers. Unfortunately my seat was directly behind the photographers so I couldn't get any of these photos without standing up on my chair and given the unnecessarily uptight attitude of the B&N security staff, I was afraid of being thrown out of the event. While that would have made for a good story, I wanted my autograph. I had been looking forward to this all day damnit. But some other time I'll risk expulsion for the sake of the story, I promise. It will have to be an author that doesn't really interest me, however. I did manage to get some badly exposed and somewhat fuzzy pictures of Jamie.

He then took the podium and talked for a bit about his love for Italy and his desire to escape into that country and its food after 2 1/2 years of fighting with budgets and government administrators over school lunches. Sounds like the perfect escape to me and Jamie's Italy was the result. It is a gorgeous book. Jamie hopes we all take it to bed with us to read. Don't worry Jamie, all your books make my bedtime reading list. Cookbooks in general make for very nice bedtime reading. Matt and I already own several of Jamie's books, but I didn't have his first one so I decided to have him sign the original The Naked Chef, which he talked about haunting him to this day. There are worse things to be haunted by, believe me.

He also talked about how he finds the whole American author-talk/book signing rather odd, actually he said it was simply not normal. Apparently in England when you go to a book signing the author does not give a talk. You just get in line and get your book signed and then leave, none of that annoying listening to the author talk about their hopes and dreams for the future. Not that he was talking about either of those things. I liked listening to him actually, but it would have been nice to get a more personalized autograph. His little editor assistants were very efficient in moving the crowd along and checking every book to make sure that it was an official Jamie Oliver book and that no one took up more than a nano-second of Jamie's time. They seemed very concerned by the threat of the fake book, acutally. Still, it is a nice big signature with a lovely sharpie so I'm happy enough. Besides, I had on my Mexican football jersey for Cruz Azul, and that certainly got the Brit's attention, which of course was why I had it on.

Later in the evening it got me free beer from a bartender from Mexico City who was also delighted with my shirt. Then I came back to Jody's apartment and the good news about the election. It is a magical shirt. I must wear it more often.

Here is a picture of Jamie's first book with the socks I was knitting while at the event. Note the jaunty lean mentioned earlier.

And here is Jamie's autograph for which I braved the over-amped B&N security and the somewhat bitchy editor's assistants. It was worth it. Have to love a man who cooks and appreciates a good sharpie.