Chef

COMFORT FOOD isn't just an option for Eagles fans these days, it's a necessity. With the Birds lame 3-8 record, even die-hard fans are eating to forget. And it takes more than the usual wings and nachos to get the job done. "After a loss or really tough game, at least we can say we ate good," said lifelong Eagles fan Michael DeLone, a season-ticket holder and rabid tailgater. DeLone, who is executive chef at the swanky Italian restaurant Le Castagne off Rittenhouse Square, typically shows up at the Linc around 6 a.m. for a 1 p.m. kickoff.

Greg Vernick has opened restaurants from Vancouver to Qatar for superstar chef Jean Georges Vongerichten. And while cooking at that French chef's Manhattan namesake on Columbus Circle, along the route of the Thanksgiving Day parade, he routinely roasted 50 turkeys on that holiday. But when we asked Vernick to create a menu for a home-cooked Thanksgiving, the chef took inspiration from the annual turkey dinner his mother made when he was growing up in Cherry Hill. "It was always a great day with family and friends and simple, home-style cooking from Mom," said Vernick, 31, who moved back to the area last summer with his wife, Julie, to open Vernick Food and Drink near Rittenhouse Square.

TERENCE FEURY can't stop staring at the spot. Most people would be unable to make out the thing, an off-white smudge the size of a fingernail on a rippled red-and-black chair in Tavro 13, his 2-week-old restaurant in 374-year-old Swedesboro, N.J. But Feury, who's always had a rep as a hands-on guy, sees it, and it's bugging him. He begins wiping it away gently as he talks guinea hens and Jersey peppers with David Katz, a fellow chef and friend who's...

Like all fashions, trends in restaurant cuisine have a life cycle. But how does a must-try dish become the played-out aftertaste of boredom? Whither the sundried tomato, the powdered mayonnaise, the deconstructed shortcake? When David Katz started offering fried chicken at the now-shuttered Mémé, it was half a joke, to see how the down-home special that included a Miller Lite would fly in Rittenhouse, and half an homage to his childhood in Cape May, where fried chicken was a staple food.

Ricotta is having its moment. Until recently, it was that bland, one-note, workhorse cheese, bought in supermarkets by the tub, mostly used as the paste that held together layers of lasagna. But that was before it got the fresh-local-artisan makeover. Now, ricotta - along with that other fresh Italian cheese, mozzarella - is stealing the spotlight from its more complex, aged curds-and-whey cousins at restaurants around the city. And for good reason. When made by hand, with premier ingredients, the airy textures and delicate flavors can stand on their own. Cheese this good needs only a pinch of flaked sea salt and a slice of oiled toast to make for a memorable bite.

One day, instead of "Rodeo," his current nickname, he might answer to "Chef. " Renz Compton, a two-way standout for Frankford High's football team, is studying culinary arts and hopes it might eventually become his profession. Could he whip up, say, an awesome crème brûlée? "I can make anything," the 18-year-old said. "You give me the ingredients and I can make it. " At Frankford, Compton is learning the ins and outs of the trade under the watchful eye of longtime teacher Wilma Stephenson, who each year helps future chefs land scholarship money to culinary arts schools across the country.

THE LAST time you saw Jen Carroll on national TV, she was standing in front of the judges on "Top Chef All-Stars. " Carroll, a Somerton native, faced down Tom Colicchio, Padma Lakshmi, Gail Simmons and Anthony Bourdain. The "cheftestant" stared at them. Hard. She also shared her feelings. Strongly. She was, in a word, displeased. Angry. Frustrated. Pissed off. After winning challenge after challenge on season 6 of "Top Chef" in 2009, and earning a spot in the finals that season, Carroll had come back to Bravo the next year to compete against other top non-winners from previous seasons.

LOS ANGELES - A chef who told police he boiled his wife's body for four days to hide evidence of her death was convicted Thursday of second-degree murder. David Viens showed no reaction as the verdict was read. The sister of his victim burst out sobbing. In a recorded interrogation presented by prosecutors during the trial, Viens, 49, can be heard saying that he cooked the body of his wife, Dawn , 39, in late 2009 until little was left but her skull. "He treated her like a piece of meat and got rid of her," said Karen Patterson, the couple's best friend who spoke with reporters outside court.

There's another Garces in this town. Her name is Beatriz, and she's usually an addendum to news items about her husband, the famed Iron Chef-restaurateur Jose. But Beatriz Mirabal Garces, who calls her megastar hubby "Big G" and is known, in turn, as "Little G," is quietly making her own mark in Philadelphia - as a dentist committed to quality dental care for underserved immigrants and as cocreator with Jose of the new Garces Family Foundation with even bigger goals. "We both felt we've been in Philadelphia for more than 10 years, we've been very fortunate with the restaurants doing so well, and it was time to give back to a cause near to our hearts," says Beatriz, 36, who grew up in Cuba, emigrated to the U.S. in 1994, and became a citizen in 1999.

LOS ANGELES - A chef on trial Tuesday for his wife's murder told sheriff's investigators that they couldn't find his wife's body because he had cooked it for four days in boiling water until little was left but her skull. Los Angeles Superior Court jurors heard David Viens make the statements in a recorded interview with sheriff's investigators that was played in court during his murder trial. "I just slowly cooked it and I ended up cooking her for four days," Viens could be heard saying on the recording, according to the Los Angeles Times . Viens gave detectives the interview as he lay in a hospital bed in March 2011, after leaping off an 80-foot cliff in Rancho Palos Verdes when he learned that he was a suspect in the late-2009 disappearance of his wife, Dawn, 39, whose body was never found.