The Dark Underbelly of Rick Bayless

The Chicago Tribune and Rick Bayless show everyone why, sometimes, shadowing a big-name chef—even one that is a dead ringer for Ned Flanders—in the week he's opening a new restaurant isn't always as good an idea as it sounds: "[Bayless is] really sorry I picked this week to shadow him but maybe, you know, now is not the time, that maybe I should come back next week or something. He does not smile when he says this, and he does not say this with any apparent degree of apology, but rather a barely concealed annoyance that I actually showed up ... he bares a look of irritation and anxiety that, friends and associates assure, is rare for him to show in public." [CT]