Continuing on the tear I was on yesterday, here's another spot to bookmark, recommended to me recently by photographer Sean McNeil, known to many three8sixers:

MONKEYSEE

And here's an appropriate video for Memorial Day weekend:

I've been taking a brief break from Unapologetic Foodie, but I have been keeping track of the local phenom known as Chef Danny Veltri.

He's now the winner of the Fox reality show "Hell's Kitchen" and seems happier 'n hell every time you see him on TV, which is a lot lately. One of the oddest match-ups, I think, was his appearance opposite Regis Philbin on "Live! With Regis and Kelly" the morning after the win was made known on Fox-TV.

Danny gave a shout-out to the New Smyrna Beach restaurant where he's been working while trying to keep the results quiet for months, Flip Flops Grill and Chill in New Smyrna Beach. I have to say, though, the rumors were all over town, to the point that I thought it was some kind of strategy to mask the real winner's identity.

I'm glad it all played out in Danny's favor, though. He grew up where I grew up, Sarasota, and wound up living in my current neck of the woods, so if I was ever going to cheer for a home-town boy, Danny was it.

It's a safe bet hiss new digs at the Borgata Resortl in Atlantic City won't have any of the decor Danny wanted -- no mounted fish or distressed wood floors. But the new place, Forneletto, will be a fine showcase for the Italian cooking Danny began practicing in his youth.

If you haven't yet seen the finale, Fox.com has a new player for full episodes that will make it super easy to view. His emotions were really all out there; the producers couldn't have hoped for anything better. Watch it and you'll see what I mean.



Danny celebrates in this photo from FOX-TV.
If you missed the recipe he made with Regis the next day, it's below.

Our own Danny Veltri of Edgewater, executive chef at Flip Flops Grill and Chill in New Smyrna Beach, will be among the final two in Chef Gordon Ramsay's own personal hell on May 7.

The other finalist is "Paula" a slow-pulsed sous chef from Pompano Beach.

Tonight, the final three, which included "Andrea," battled it out on Fox-TV's Hell's Kitchen, and this was Danny's take, going in:



    

Since another episode of "Hell's Kitchen," featuring Edgewater's own Danny Veltri as one of the final four contestants, will be broadcast on Fox-TV at 9 tonight, I have to get this out of my system:

Someone should stab star/host Gordon Ramsay's chef's coat with a hook, set his picture on fire and tell him he has to go home. He is just intolerably mean and has really gone 'round the bend in the last couple of episodes. I'm not sure if the finalists simply can't manage to finish a dinner service in good order at this point, or if they're just so flustered they can't cope.

Anyway, I've been holding on to this video from Fox for  a while. It explains a lot about the dread tyrant Ramsay:

Last week, chief Chef Gordon Ramsay twisted the knife a couple of times on a crucial episode of "Hell's Kitchen."

In the end, Giovanni was axed on the basis of a bad attitude during a punishment session and one evening's bad service, it seemed, although Chef Ramsay toyed with two of the most irritating remaining contestants, Andrea and Ben, at the beginning of the show.

Contestant Danny Veltri of Edgewater, executive chef at Flip Flops Grill and Chill in New Smyrna Beach, is still in the running, and that's the important thing. He was a close second during last week's opening challenge, and I'm looking forward to seeing him begin his end game tonight at 9 on the Fox network.

So far, I haven't been too great at predicting who would be the next chef out this season, but I will hazard a guess: Ben. Not only is he Danny's least favorite competitor, this windbag is becoming the one I dislike most, as well.

Heads up: Tonight's the night when my current least favorite chef/contestant, "Lacey," may go down in flames on "Hell's Kitchen" (Fox-TV, 9 p.m.)

I have to apologize to our guy, Danny Veltri of Edgewater. In my last blog entry, I said he was something of a whiner, but he was positively positive in last week's show, compared to Lacey.  I can't believe she threatened to quit again! The fact that her teammate "Ben" was shown up on the meat station during the dinner service was bad, but Lacey's continued terrorism and, as Danny puts it, "pi**-poor attitude" are unforgivable.

Both Ben and Lacey were lucky Chef Gordon Ramsay sent "J" packing during dinner service and decided to spare their chef's coats.

"Robert," who can be really sweet, said his tapas dish in the show's opening challenge was inspired by his mom, but then he destroyed the soft spot he has made in my heart by calling Lacey a fat bitch. I mean, I don't like her either, but that's uncalled for.

"LA" had it right when she said it couldn't happen in the real world after Ramsay called her "a silly cow." She said, "In the real world, if someone called you a cow or a bitch, you would walk up to 'im and sock 'im in the face."

A very low but funny point from the show? When Robert tells Lacey, "If you win this, I will hang up my coat and become a crack whore." I have an idea that won't be necessary -- or possible, for that matter.

Danny's shiniest -- not whiniest -- moment? When he made a filet mignon with wild mushroom ragout tapa that Ramsay thought was "absolutely delicious." In his honor, here's one of his  recipes from the fox.com Web site   

Yes, Chef Gordon Ramsay finally cut through the haze of attitude and sacked "Colleen," the cooking school teacher who couldn't cook, on tonight's episode of "Hell's Kitchen."

Local contestant Danny Veltri, who lives in Edgewater and cooks at Flip Flops Grill and Chill in New Smyrna Beach, mostly flew under the radar again, neither sorry enough to gain notice from Ramsay nor good enough to be chosen to pick a nominee for elimination.

Danny did get together with "Robert," the lovable roly-poly chef, to create a successful East-West fusion dish -- a barbecued chicken -- in tonight's first challenge, but Robert was later disgraced in dinner service. He wasn't quite bad enough to merit elimination, but Ramsay has noticed him, and not in a good way.

"Andrea" and "J" were both named to go home because of dismal service on the meat station. But Colleen was the one who got her coat shish-kebabed. Thank you, Gordon!

I'll share a video befor the the end of the week that shows why Colleen was so unforgivable, and forgettable.

What will save the men if they should lose again on tonight's episode of "Hell's Kitchen"? Maybe it will be the fact that "Lacey," one of the weaker members of the women's team, has been reassigned to the Blue Team so it's no longer strictly men.

The women have lost only one player so far, the injured "Ji," in the very first episode. The men are dropping like flies, which would seem to be an ill omen for local guy Danny Veltri, who lives in Edgewater and is an executive chef at Flip Flops Grill and Chill in New Smyrna Beach.

I don't think he'll be asked to take off his chef's coat tonight, though. I believe hell-beast Gordon Ramsay and the other competitors are taking aim at one of the women, either Lacey or the ever-annoying "Colleen," still part of the original Red Team, much to their displeasure.

Watch with me, at 9 tonight on Fox.

Here's an unflattering look at Seth from last week. No wonder he left:


 

Gordon Ramsay held it together pretty well while the remaining chefs in his "Hell's Kitchen" cooked breakfast for 100 children, only resorting to loud, naughty words once or twice during the entire affair.

It looked as though Edgewater resident Danny Veltri, executive chef at Grill and Chill in New Smyrna Beach, was holding up well, too, in the beginning of Thursday's episode, slamming out pancakes quickly. The weak link on the men's side appeared to be "Seth" who was struggling mightily, very slowly making scrambled eggs purported to be Ramsay-style.

On the women's side, the prize for the least competent and most annoying still goes to "Colleen." Even though she's a teacher, she's easily distracted and seldom stays -- to use a teacher's phrase -- on task.

In the end, the Red Team won the challenge and the women were treated to a day by the pool. The losing Blue Team's men had to clean Hell's Kitchen and prep everything for both teams for the night's dinner service.

Most of the men were prepared to blame Seth, but Ben set his sights on our boy Danny, who had earlier proclaimed himself the strongest member of the team. "You couldn't cook my d##k!" Ben bleeped out. Let's hope not.

The day's activities didn't help either team, and the dinner service was an unmitigated failure. Danny had a great night, filling in after a tardy Ben prepped an inedible tomato butter sauce for the women's team.

It proved to be Ben's undoing. Each team -- neither having won -- had to put up two nominees for elimination, and the three most inept were nominated easily. Ben got caught in the sweep, and Ramsay was still perturbed enough to give him the boot, but Seth was the one to go.

Strategically, it's not so great for Danny, who is not shed of an early nemesis. Unfortunately, although we'll see our native son next week, we still have to watch Colleen and the pathetic "Lacey," who was ready to give up before she had even begun.