A Life of Feasting, Drinking, and Entertaining

This year, holiday drama for food guru David Rosengarten has revolved around airports, but it has nothing to do with family flying in for a visit.In early December, a shipment of Sicilian olive oil, a type being sold in America for the first time, was held up in various Italian airports for a couple of weeks. Food lovers had already ordered the oil with an eye toward the season’s festivities from his subscription newsletter, the Rosengarten Report. In hopes of clearing up the mess, Mr. Rosengarten’s assistant hopped on a last-minute flight to Milan.Almost immediately after she returned, Mr. Rosengarten learned that two of the five European cheeses flown in for holiday gift baskets – for which other food enthusiasts had already paid and were waiting – had been held up stateside. Upon arrival, the Food and Drug Administration seized the cheeses and the ordeal ruined the delicacies’ flavor, because the FDA hadn’t stored them properly. Mr. Rosengarten alleviated the situation by locating some unimpaired cheese.“The thing that makes it so challenging all the time is that we’re just committed to doing the highest quality everything,” he said about the mail-order initiative. “In fact, the whole business collapses if we don’t.”Selling hard-to-find gourmet products is only the latest venture for Mr. Rosengarten, 54, who achieved his gastronomical fame through the Food Network. For years he hosted his own cooking show, “Taste,” as well as the network’s food news program. The Rockaway, Queens, native takes wine and dining seriously, but he’s quick to crack a goofy joke about food or earnestly profess his love for certain canned tuna. He’s done everything from write the “Dean & DeLuca Cookbook” to advise Delta Airlines on its in-flight meals, yet he’s never taken a cooking class. And this time of year, he’s bursting with entertainment tips for the holidays – many of which appear in his latest book, published in October, “David Rosengarten Entertains: Fabulous Parties for Food Lovers” (John Wiley & Sons).“The rules of parties have changed,” he explained. “You always want to please your guest and show your guest that you love him or her. It used to be that you did that by cooking food you were supposed to serve, like a Beef Wellington, which nobody ever liked. Now people know food much better than they ever did. They’re all connoisseurs. Seek quality.”He also recommends seeking out unusual ingredients, like a rare Spanish ham, and having them delivered, a method used by top chefs for years: “If you have someone who tells you that something is good, mail-order it,” he said.When it comes to garnishing tables with holiday dishes, Mr. Rosengarten sometimes veers away from typical holiday fare. Last year, he ditched the standard turkey, instead trussing up less well-known seasonal fowl, disseminating the results through the Rosengarten Report. The moist, dark meat, crisp skin, and meaty wings gave the guinea hen top honors, while the female muscovy duck secured second place. The goose placed third.Birds aside, his mind turns to a different type of delicacy this time of year.“White truffles are in season September to December, and black truffles come in December and go out in March,” Mr. Rosengarten said. “That is certain proof of the existence of God,” he laughed.Mr. Rosengarten mainly shares his advice for food lovers through his newsletter. Unlike food writers or television cooking personalities who are afraid of angering sponsors, he lauds certain products and pans others. This is a tradition he hopes to continue in a pilot program he shot with the producers of Saturday Night Live, who wanted a fast, modern cooking show. He plans on wrapping each episode up with a tasting panel of three or four witty, contentious people commenting on the dishes.In the meantime, Mr. Rosengarten has a contract to write an encyclopedia on American food and wine. He’s launched a cheese-raising venture and is working with an Icelandic friend to write a children’s fairytale peppered with food references and recipes.Although never formally trained, Mr. Rosengarten honed his cooking instinct by helping his father out in the kitchen.“Before there were foodies, there was my dad,” he said. “I grew up in a food-crazed family. Other kids were helping their dads with the car on the weekends, I was helping my dad make lobster cantonaise Friday nights.” Now his own children have followed suite: Mr. Rosengarten’s 12-year-old daughter’s favorite dish is Szechuan shrimp and his 14-year-old daughter loves her father’s homemade pasta.When his father’s restaurant venture soured, Mr. Rosengarten did not immediately commit to chopping, dicing, and roasting his way into a future with food. Instead, he followed his other passion, the stage, receiving a doctorate in dramatic literature from Cornell University and serving as assistant professor of theater at Skidmore College. But he always had culinary side projects, such as as working as a personal chef or teaching cooking classes.It wasn’t until his then-wife suggested moving to New York City that Mr. Rosengarten decided to leave academia for food writing. He penned an article about balsamic vinegar before it became ubiquitous and submitted it to Gourmet, where it was published. He then established himself as someone who could write about both food and wine in the early 1980s, when most of his competition specialized in one or the other.His theater background made him a natural for television, and through a series of fateful meetings, he landed the anchor job at Food News and Views, aired during Food Network’s first day of broadcasting in 1994.Roughly 2,500 Food Network episodes, a few cookbooks, and countless articles later, friends vie to attend Mr. Rosengarten’s enviable dinner parties. Judging by his packed wine cellar and the leftovers in his refrigerator, an invitation could be the perfect holiday gift for any of his friends who were hoping for that rare cheese.

A Life of Feasting, Drinking, and Entertaining

A Life of Feasting, Drinking, and Entertaining

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