Talking with a 'Top Chef': Fans and foodies

Lee Anne Wong and her mother.

While many mothers and their children went out to brunch today to celebrate Mother's Day, celebrity chef Lee Anne Wong and her mother - "Mama Wong" as her daughter calls her - enjoyed the day in a different capacity: The two spent the morning cooking and baking in the Taste kitchen in Kakaako in preparation for serving two three-course seatings today.

"We've actually been cooking and baking since Thursday," said Wong with a laugh. "This is my mother's first time in Hawaii, so we're just relaxing and I'm going to take her around and meet my boyfriend, family and friends."

Wong was a final four contestant on the first season of the TV show "Top Chef." She then served as the supervising culinary producer for the next four seasons on the show and also worked on its spin-off "Top Chef Masters."

Wong was the chef for the Mother's Day brunch at Taste. She had prepared meals before at Taste, where different chefs are rotated through out the course of a week at the pop-up style restaurant.

"I just happened to be in town for Mother's Day," said Wong. "I flew my mom out."

At her mother's insistence, the elder Wong baked breads and desserts alongside her daughter, whose Mother's Day menu included dishes such as smoked fish with a black pepper cream sauce and

a pork belly entree with creamy polenta, sweet corn hollandaise, asparagus and tomatoes.

"My mother has been asking me for the past 10 years to be my pastry chef, so I said yes for three reasons: a.) I wanted to see my mom b.) I wanted to introduce her to my boyfriend and c.) so I could call her bluff."

Wong is preparing to move to Hawaii, where her boyfriend, Tristan Reynolds, owner of the Norh Shore-based Hawaiian Fresh Farms, lives. Wong said she travels to Hawaii from the mainland nearly every other month to visit him.

After heading to Maui for a few days next week, she will begin working on some ideas for business ventures in Hawaii. "I have a couple of ideas," she said.

"The research shows that especially if you're a chef, Hawaii is open to new business and you can excel here. People and the community are very giving. The attitude is changing and growing, and Hawaii is becoming the heartland."

Not so great 'Gatsby'?

"I loved it." "Well, I hated it."

There seems to a split vote on how people feel about F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel "The Great Gatsby." But most movie critics seem to be agreement with each other, with the majority calling the movie version a limp, lackluster retelling of the novel. Heavy on the visuals and light on substance seems to be the resounding cry.

I read the book for the first time in preparation to see the remake. As far as how I felt about the novel, I might be in the smallest percentage group - I'm fairly neutral on the book. Though the book has been a quick and easy read, it is a story that has been retold many times since it first came out; I hesitate at seeing the movie, knowing how the book ends. (And in the heavy hands of director Baz Luhrmann ("Moulin Rouge," "Romeo and Juliet"), "overkill" might be an understatement as to how the ending might be treated.)

The book must have been something of a novel concept when it was first published, giving a solid sympathetic portrayal of a meek, married man who shoots the man he believes to be his wife's lover. But in today's world, the story has lost its luster and stories about unhinged romantic partners have become almost routine. But for many naysayers, much of the unpleasantness in the book derives from characters who are ugly in spirit, and that doesn't always sit well with readers who want protagonists with some degree of integrity. (Though we see the characters and scenery through the eyes of the narrator, Nick Carraway, who describes himself as an honest man, and perhaps that's why we see these characters in a semi-unflattering light.)

While I don't have high expectations for the movie, based partly upon what some renowned critics are saying, the visuals look lovely with frothy dresses created to replicate the style of 1920s fashion. Hopefully, the visuals aren't the best part of the movie adaptation of "The Great Gatsby," and the retelling isn't as light and flimsy as the dresses.

Though as one reviewer states, "it’s best to accept before buying the popcorn that this is not a literary adaptation but a 3-D blockbuster, with Gatsby as the superhero." High expectations may have to be put aside.