Law, Scouters Come to Deal

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-Thenoø Law is one signature away from extending his Feast Fest career for three years.

Law and scouters came to terms Wednesday with a staggered 3-year deal that will start in 2013 with the 15-year fixture receiving $501,336 (up from the $482,267 he'll receive this Thanksgiving), with 2014 pay between $505,000 and $508,000 and 2015 pay between $512,000 and $515,000 (with the exact amount for those years to be determined at a later date).

The deal should take Law through Feast Fest 2015.

"We have reached a preliminary agreement with Thenoø," said a pleased Scouting Department Head Jim Dall.

The claps and hugs and uncorking of champagne can't go around yet, though; because Feast Fest chefs cannot sign deals unless it is the offseason, and because the next offseason will not begin until after Thanksgiving, Law will have to wait until Dec. 3 to put his signature down and make the deal official.

"I'm happy, though," Law said, "because it's a very good deal and because now I know that all I need to do is sign the paper come December and then I can forget about it, have the work of it behind me, for the rest of the offseason."

In 2009, Law signed a four-year deal taking him through 2012. That deal expires after this year's Feast Fest next month.






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Vanderbilt, Dall, Ayeiy Set Off

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-Feast Fest Event Mgr. William Vanderbilt, Head Scouter Jim Dall, and Executive Assistant and Vanderbilt Second-in-Command Arthur Ayeiy have left the Marina in the middle of Feast Fest Meeting & Conference Week for the start of a 30-city, 11-day global trek.

Vanderbilt ironically was not able to stay through the entirety of "Managerial Thursday", rather making a short 8 a.m. opening speech and a 10 a.m. commemoration of former chef Mei Okoworth before setting off with Jimmy and Arty.

The threesome was about an hour and a half of the way through a flight to Honolulu, their first stop, at 1:20 p.m. Thursday. They visit Honolulu only tonight before progressing to Tokyo, Osaka, Nagano and Manila on Friday, then catching a red-eye back to North America for business in Vancouver on Saturday.

"Very excited to go on this journey," Vanderbilt remarked. "We'll get to work on some important contracts with overseas chefs and scout out new ones that we can begin negotiations with when the offseason flares back up in December."

One of the biggest items on the menu will be an intense round of negotiations with France-based chef Claudien Ainenl, whom scouters have been attempting to sign to the event for well over a year, when Vandy, Dall, and Ayeiy park it in Paris Oct. 31.





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Correction

An article about Alexei Aiber winning the NCA's Best of the Rest Award falsely stated that he has won the honor seven times; he has only won it four times.

Rather, FELLOW FFer Thenoø Law has won the award seven times: in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, and 2010.



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Aiber Wins BotR Again

-New York
-For the third time in the last four years and for the seventh time in the last eleven years, Alexei Aiber, a longtime Feast Fest fixture, has won the NCA's "Best of the Rest" Most Overlooked/Underestimated Chef Award. The award honors a chef who puts in just as much effort or has just as much talent as his or her more famed, well-known colleagues, but who does not get recognized for his/her efforts often.

Aiber's 7th award in the category may be the last for him as a Feast Fest chef, however, depending on whether or not he exercises a 2013 option on his contract.

However, Aiber may soon be disqualified from the award because he has won it so many times that it has pulled him out of his obscurity and made him much more renowned and well-known than when he first received the honor.




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Leineken Calls Feast Fest "A Horrendous Employer" in Interview

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-You thought you'd seen the last of him, didn't you?

Well, you were wrong. Daved Leineken, the scouter who made huge waves about this time a year ago for accusations that he bribed former chef Brianna Galen-Ames and was subsequently fired, called Feast Fest "a horrendous...downright tyrannical employer" in an interview.

"We'd work hours and hours on end...with no breaks, the benefits were completely disproportionate to the workloads we were taking on."

In fact, Leineken now spends his days eating caviar and Godiva chocolates in front of a personal home movie theater thanks to the $51 million he made on commissions for signing a whole smorgasbord of now-superstar Feast Fest chefs in his 12 year career from 1999-2011: Galen-Ames, the Mason Duo, Lynn Avi, Joe Pasik, Jan Stephan, Andruw Stephan, Daniel Mettling, Danyela Harris, Laelech Crellas, Jon Chu, Petr and Andri Jones, Guilliame Jacquetaine, and many more. Of the 66 chefs in the event, Leineken signed or was part of a team of scouters which signed 32 of them--almost half. In 2010, Head Scouter Jim Dall announced Leineken as a potential successor to his position.

But the Galen-Ames matter, coupled with his reputation as a ruthless, greedy scouter, led to his fall from glory.

"There is no truth to the comments Mr. Leineken made" in a Feast Fest Press interview, Event Mgr. William Vanderbilt.

The interviewer himself, one Donald Virkenn, said he was "aghast at the falseness" of what Leineken was saying to him during the interview.





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Piscot To Sit Out at Edelyn

-Phoenix
-Arizonan Feast Fest newcomer Lillian Piscot will sit out the Edelyn Cooking Arena exhibition in Punta Gorda, Fla., on Sunday, due to a broken leg she suffered Monday.

Although the leg "should be healed sufficiently" for Feast Fest, the Edelyn exhibition is "a definite no" as she is still in the initial stages of recovery.

"We wish Piscot the best and the speediest recovery and hope she will be recovered in time for Feast Fest on Nov. 22," said Event Mgr. William Vanderbilt.





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Breakthrough in Dreim/FF Talks

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-Feast Fest gave in to Stephen Dreim's demands of a formal apology and $1,500 compensation in order to coax him back to the bargaining table Wednesday.

"We believed that Mr. Dreim's demands were unjust," admitted Scouter Phillip Alex, "but when Mr. Dreim held out and we were unable to get him to relent, we gave in to his demands in order to move along the constipated process of getting him re-signed."

Scouters presented Dreim with a $631,221, staggered 3-year deal, with Dreim receiving $631,221 this year and having his annual salary upped by $5,750 in the two successive years. The deal also includes a 2015 option.

The $631K-and-up deal is $87,000 above what Dreim was originally scheduled to receive this year.

"It's an effective raise to lure him back," Alex said.

However, a fellow Scouter, Stefanie McOneguew, remained her colleagues that the sentiment of the chef body as a whole towards Dreim "must be factored in toward our decision.". McOneguew noted that a significant portion of the chef body called Dreim haughty and conceited and said they were "relieved" at Dreim's resignation. "We are further studying Mr. Dreim's relations with fellow chefs throughout the years. If the claims of these chefs are largely true, we would reexamine Dreim." Because, as McOneguew said, "Those qualities are unacceptable among our chefs. We wouldn't hire the best chef in the world if he/she was belligerent to our chefs. Attitude and commitment come first, talent second."

Dreim has yet to respond to the new deal, but claimed to be "thankful" for the apology the event issued, saying that he and an agent were "reviewing the case and the recent offer received."





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