Great Chefs

---- THE KITCHEN is still a man's world. But that's changing, at least in Philadelphia. While women may do most of the cooking at home, in restaurant kitchens across America, more often than not, the top toque is a man. According to an industry report by the National Restaurant Association, women account for just 17 percent of the chefs and head cooks in professional kitchens today (about 1 in 5), with ownership of 25 percent of eating and drinking establishments nationwide.

Philadelphia's a city that awards the coin of celebrity quirkily. It's a city where television newspeople rank bizarrely high on the ladder of fame. It's a city that brings a loony intensity to the scorning of the sports heroes it once adored, but offers a fascinated indulgence to politicians who sin with a certain style. And now it's a city where a chef can make the front page for doing something klutzy in the kitchen. Georges Perrier is not just any chef, mind you, which is why the close encounter of the messy kind his fingers had Monday with a fish- mousse-filled food processor at Le Bec-Fin was front-page news.

Here are some Philadelphia chefs and the themed feasts they've made at James Beard's Greenwich Village townhouse over the past year or so. There are about 200 such dinners annually - multicourse meals, with wines, that cost $170 for nonmembers ($130 for members). Find out who's cooking next at www.jamesbeard.org or call 1-800-36-BEARD. _ A Taste of Spain: Garces Restaurant Group: Dave Conn (JG Domestic), Adam DeLosso (Garces Trading Co.), Jose Garces (Garces Restaurant Group), MacGregor Mann (Amada)

Who makes the most fabulous dessert in Philadelphia? If you're willing to go by the results of the Great Chefs of Philadelphia Dessert Competition, it's Eddie Hales of the Four Seasons Hotel. Hales took the top prize - a three-day trip to France - in the competition for professionals held Monday at the Rittenhouse Hotel. His Chocolate Kahlua Cake, served with a passion fruit custard and assorted other trimmings, topped a field of 29 entries, which came from as far away as State College.

The city of Philadelphia has announced some of the food events for its gala Memorial Day weekend exchange with the city of New Orleans. Several events highlighting the regional cuisine of both cities and sponsored by their tourist organizations will take place on May 24, 25 and 26. In Philadelphia, there will be a Jambalaya Jam, a New Orleans festival of food and music, at Penn's Landing between Walnut and Chestnut Streets, just north of the...

"Escoffier: King of Chefs," a one-man show written by and starring Owen S. Rackleff. Directed by Laurence Carr, set design by Robert Odorisio, lighting by Nina Chwast. Presented at Studio Theaters, Walnut Street Theater, 9th and Walnut sts. The people who are serving up this delicious evening of theater will tell you not to come on an empty stomach. I agree, unless your idea of haute cuisine is a cheeseburger and Dr. Pepper. Thankfully for most of us, there was and is "Escoffier," at least until its run ends on Jan. 18. For those who think Escoffier is merely a fancified bottled steak sauce, you should know that we're talking about the greatest chef of all time (sorry, Paul Bocuse)

STELLA , THE BUXOM host of "Saturday Night Dead" on KYW-TV from 1984 to 1990, was inducted into the HorrorHound Hall of Fame at the annual convention in Columbus, Ohio, over the weekend. Stella, the "Maneater from Manayunk" a/k/a Karen Scioli , was excited to meet fellow horror Elvira , Mistress of the Dark, and have what she called, "A meeting of the cleavage," but was disappointed that Elvira didn't show up in character and was inducted under her real name, Cassandra Peterson . Stella now works on "Goth Mothers of Transylvania," which can be found on YouTube.

Pierre Franey, the popular chef-author whose "Cuisine Rapide" debuted last month on PBS, cooked professionally for 50 years before he was coaxed into doing it on television. And when the cookbook world's 60-Minute Gourmet started taping the 26-part series, he had a problem typical to someone with no TV experience: he wasn't used to making eye contact with the camera as he worked. "The producer kept saying, 'Look at me, look up,' " Franey recounted in a telephone interview from his home in East Hampton, Long Island.

Great chefs have always garnered celebrity status among those who know their creme brulee and their goose liver pate. But it was an entirely different crowd that worshiped the culinary efforts of Showboat Hotel & Casino's executive chef Wolfgang Geckeler this week. In tattered coats and worn shoes, clutching green duffel bags stuffed with clothing, 300 homeless military veterans from across the region came to dine on a simple feast the chef had prepared for them. "I am a veteran myself," said Geckeler, 51. "And I have seen the plight of these people everywhere I go in this town, on the streets, on the Boardwalk, at the bus station.

When it came time to fete itself on the occasion of its first birthday, the Cadme Gallery, 2114 Locust St., decided to give itself a double-barreled blowout. First, they invited Texas-born Nina Beall to hang her huge and truly amazing landscapes on the gallery walls. Then they invited a handful of the great chefs of Philadelphia to enter their original works of confectionary art in the gallery's "Let 'Em Etch, Sketch, Sculpt and Paint Cake" contest. Winner Jackie Pluton, whose "Souvenir from France" cafe scene will be displayed along with the rest of the fattening masterpieces through Saturday, is a gracious 24-year-old who arrived from France nine months ago to supervise the nouvelle cuisine at La Truffe, 10 S. Front St. His impressionistic pastillage and chocolate winner depicts an angular old man sitting at a small table in a cafe with his bottle of wine and his cane.

STELLA , THE BUXOM host of "Saturday Night Dead" on KYW-TV from 1984 to 1990, was inducted into the HorrorHound Hall of Fame at the annual convention in Columbus, Ohio, over the weekend. Stella, the "Maneater from Manayunk" a/k/a Karen Scioli , was excited to meet fellow horror Elvira , Mistress of the Dark, and have what she called, "A meeting of the cleavage," but was disappointed that Elvira didn't show up in character and was inducted under her real name, Cassandra Peterson . Stella now works on "Goth Mothers of Transylvania," which can be found on YouTube.

Here are some Philadelphia chefs and the themed feasts they've made at James Beard's Greenwich Village townhouse over the past year or so. There are about 200 such dinners annually - multicourse meals, with wines, that cost $170 for nonmembers ($130 for members). Find out who's cooking next at www.jamesbeard.org or call 1-800-36-BEARD. _ A Taste of Spain: Garces Restaurant Group: Dave Conn (JG Domestic), Adam DeLosso (Garces Trading Co.), Jose Garces (Garces Restaurant Group), MacGregor Mann (Amada)

THINK GREAT American food towns and what comes to mind? Definitely San Francisco/Napa for wine and farm-to-table cuisine. Then there's New Orleans for eclectic Creole bites, Memphis, Tenn., for barbecue. And don't forget Boulder, Colo., home to an awesome farmer's market and a slew of innovative food companies. Or Portland, Maine, where craft beer and fresh seafood form a perfect union. New York? Natch. But aren't we forgetting something? How about our hometown? Philadelphia deserves much more than its connection to the cheesesteak when it comes to making a culinary splash.

---- THE KITCHEN is still a man's world. But that's changing, at least in Philadelphia. While women may do most of the cooking at home, in restaurant kitchens across America, more often than not, the top toque is a man. According to an industry report by the National Restaurant Association, women account for just 17 percent of the chefs and head cooks in professional kitchens today (about 1 in 5), with ownership of 25 percent of eating and drinking establishments nationwide.

A word to high school seniors who agonized over college scholarship applications: Folks, you could have cooked your way into college. Simple? Shrimp cocktail, chicken breast, broccoli and rice pilaf. Maybe not so simple. Yesterday, 10 high school seniors from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Virginia were in two of the kitchens of the Art Institute of Philadelphia on Market Street, across from the headquarters of Peco Energy. Two finalists each won a $2,000 scholarship to their choice of an AI culinary program, leading to a two-year associate degree or a four-year bachelor's degree.

Great chefs have always garnered celebrity status among those who know their creme brulee and their goose liver pate. But it was an entirely different crowd that worshiped the culinary efforts of Showboat Hotel & Casino's executive chef Wolfgang Geckeler this week. In tattered coats and worn shoes, clutching green duffel bags stuffed with clothing, 300 homeless military veterans from across the region came to dine on a simple feast the chef had prepared for them. "I am a veteran myself," said Geckeler, 51. "And I have seen the plight of these people everywhere I go in this town, on the streets, on the Boardwalk, at the bus station.

Philadelphia's a city that awards the coin of celebrity quirkily. It's a city where television newspeople rank bizarrely high on the ladder of fame. It's a city that brings a loony intensity to the scorning of the sports heroes it once adored, but offers a fascinated indulgence to politicians who sin with a certain style. And now it's a city where a chef can make the front page for doing something klutzy in the kitchen. Georges Perrier is not just any chef, mind you, which is why the close encounter of the messy kind his fingers had Monday with a fish- mousse-filled food processor at Le Bec-Fin was front-page news.

When the call went out for the Great Chefs of Philadelphia Dessert Competition, about 30 of the area's culinary elite gladly put their egos on the line and joined the contest. Their job was to wow the judges, some of whom came to town just for the special event, held at the Rittenhouse Hotel, and whose names could get the chocolate moving in the veins of most pastry chefs. There were Michael and Ariane Batterberry, publishers of Food Arts magazine; cookbook author Eileen Yin-Fei Lo; food historian William Woys Weaver; Diane Brown of the James Beard Foundation; Fred Ferretti, columnist for Gourmet magazine; Barbara Kafka, cookbook author and Vogue magazine writer; Louis Szathmary, founder of the Bakery Restaurant in Chicago; and Ann Amernick, an independent pastry chef.

Who makes the most fabulous dessert in Philadelphia? If you're willing to go by the results of the Great Chefs of Philadelphia Dessert Competition, it's Eddie Hales of the Four Seasons Hotel. Hales took the top prize - a three-day trip to France - in the competition for professionals held Monday at the Rittenhouse Hotel. His Chocolate Kahlua Cake, served with a passion fruit custard and assorted other trimmings, topped a field of 29 entries, which came from as far away as State College.

Food, like love, can bring us together. If there was any doubt of that, it was dispelled by our search for cooking classes to include in our annual guide. Consider the cooks who gathered in the kitchen of the Desmond Great Valley Hotel in Chester County on a recent Sunday afternoon for some hands-on cooking practice with the pros. From novice home cooks to food professionals, they donned chefs' whites and went to work with executive chef Sam Kenyon, banquet chef Dean O'Brien and backup chef Ed Robinson pounding veal, rolling out pasta and pie crust, filling ravioli, and generally prepping and plating - all the while watching, questioning, listening and learning.