Chefs

It's a sign of the times: Anisette's Alain Giraud will be handing out free samples from a food truck on the Third Street Promenade. "I've never worked inside a truck so I don't want to get too ambitious," he says of the French delicacies he will prepare. That's not a permanent change of venue, of course. Giraud is one of five well-known Southern California chefs who will be participating in a promotion in advance of dineLA's first fall Restaurant Week, which will begin Oct. 4. But while Giraud may not be ambitious, that's certainly not the case with dineLA, which hit on the canny idea of tapping into the food truck fad that has taken the city's popular imagination by storm.

Veteran chef Yutaka Sasaki has a plan to remove the fear of eating one of the most poisonous fish on the planet: He wants to feed it to the emperor. The blowfish, known here as fugu, carries a deadly neurotoxin with no known antidote. An average-sized fugu is chock-full of the poison tetrodotoxin -- in its blood, liver and even its sex organs, Sasaki says. But he scoffs at the centuries-old ban on the Japanese monarch eating the delicacy, sought after by many Japanese as daring cuisine.

TASTING trips to Vienna, Tokyo and London. Late-night chats over homemade sourdough doughnuts and coffee ice cream with Julia Child. Red carpet snapshots with Hollywood stars toting a perfectly coiffed edible Oscar in one hand, a real one in the other. This is the life of pastry chef Sherry Yard. In her latest book, "Desserts by the Yard," the Los Angeles-based executive pastry chef for Wolfgang Puck Worldwide tells the story of her career through desserts.

Culinary students working the post-Oscars Governors Ball on Sunday night say there is only one star they are there to please, and it isn't George Clooney. More than 80 student chefs will be looking to Wolfgang Puck as they prepare food for 1,600 members of the Hollywood elite. In fact, star-gazing is strictly forbidden. "We have a ton of food to prepare!" Puck said from the main kitchen of his Hollywood & Highland Center base of operations.

Now Facebook's cooking. The social networking upstart has been poaching top talent from Google Inc. for months. The catch of the day is Executive Chef Josef Desimone, who is sure to win hearts and stomachs at Facebook by substituting its steam-heated buffets with the fresh, healthy gourmet fare for which Google became famous. "Joey has the chops," said Charlie Ayers, author of "Food 2.0: Secrets From the Chef Who Fed Google."

AN EMOTIONAL ovation greeted chef Grant Achatz of Chicago's Alinea restaurant when he was named outstanding chef for 2007 at Sunday night's James Beard Foundation Awards ceremony in New York City. Achatz, known for his avant-garde cuisine drawing on principles revealed by "molecular gastronomy," is also a cancer survivor, and his award lent poignancy to the annual event.

Cameron Cuisinier's dreams of a catering career led him to culinary school. Now he is unemployed and $43,000 in debt, and he is not alone. With the popularity of TV chefs and reality shows on which the winners get their own restaurants, it's a hot time to be in the kitchen. Record numbers of would-be chefs are enrolling in culinary schools, some of which charge $20,000 a year or more.

William Yosses has been chosen as the executive pastry chef for the White House, First Lady Laura Bush said. He will design and oversee the desserts for state dinners and other social events. Yosses already has some on-the-job training -- he served as the pastry chef for the 2006 White House holiday parties. "Chef Yosses has impressed us from the start with his original and delicious creations," the first lady said.

THINK of Italy, and wild and crazy exchanges of cooking ideas are not what come to mind first. This is a country where each and every region is a world apart; the Tuscans in the center might as well be on Mars for all the interaction with the Piemontese to the northwest. Which makes the frenzy of Identita Golose (literally "greedy identity") all the more extraordinary.

After revolutionizing our appreciation of artisan bread at her La Brea Bakery and earning awards for her pastry at Campanile restaurant, Nancy Silverton has turned her skills to America's favorite food: pizza. She opened Pizzeria Mozza in the fall with celebrity chef Mario Batali and other partners to rave reviews. Diners pack the tables at the Highland Avenue eatery seven days a week, savoring the rustic, rich flavors of her pizzas.