I'd like to thank the Academy...

...for naming Cash Cab the best game show of 2008! The show took place at The historic Orpheum Theatre in LA and aired live on the CW Network last Sunday evening. After a couple of L.A. Times bloggers ripped Cash Cab for its production values and writing and predicted Jeopardy! would win the statue, we pulled out the award, which was sweet indeed. The pic above is our executive producer, Tony, giving the acceptance speech. Below is one of the Orpheum's awesome marquee.

Winning a Daytime Emmy was very exciting, to say the least. A big thank you has to go out to Ben Bailey--the host--who I think really carries the show. Also a thank you to the rest of the staff, every member of which does a fantastic job on the show.

I was also able to get a little press from the win. The blog Hoboken Now, did a small story on me and the same writer of that wrote a short piece about me in The Jersey Journal. And, on its blog, my hometown newspaper, The Intelligencer, ran a blurb about me last week.

Click here for a roundup of cool pics from the evening, here for the video of the Cash Cab team accepting the Emmy and here for a few more pics of our executive producer making the speech.

Cake Boss Story

As I mentioned last week, I wrote a story on Cake Boss star Buddy Valastro for Hoboken Progress and it (and a picture I shot) will be on the cover of the August 14th edition.

You can click on the picture to the left to see/read the cover and then click here to read the continuation from page 6 of the newspaper.

Let Them Watch Cake

I interviewed Buddy Valastro, the star of TLC's hit show Cake Boss the other day. The story I wrote should appear in next week's edition of Hoboken Progress. Buddy's bakery is nearly 100 years old and is located in Hoboken right across the street from City Hall.

Buddy was a very nice guy--and so was his sister, Mary, whom I also interviewed--as he took some time out of his busy schedule of baking and shooting the second season of the show to talk with me. Above is a picture I took of Buddy doing a scene for the show.

Hoboken's Cammarano Resigns

Capping what was a wild week in Hoboken, Peter Cammarano bowed to pressure from the city's residents and the state's governor, Jon Corzine, and resigned from his post as mayor. That paved the way for the City Council President Dawn Zimmer to take over the office on an interim basis. Zimmer was defeated by Cammarano in a runoff election for the mayor's office by just 161 votes on June 9th. I interviewed Cammarano just days before he won the runoff election.

And I covered the events of the last week for Hoboken Progress, and, though it won't be out till this Friday, you can read the report I filed for the paper last Friday. Click on the above picture for the first page of the piece and the picture below for everything after the jump.

Drama In Hoboken

It's been a pretty wild end of the month in Hoboken, with the Mayor getting arrested by the FBI on bribery charges and, ultimately, announcing his resignation yesterday. I interviewed Peter Cammarano, the former Hoboken mayor, for Hoboken Progress just before he was elected and I'm going to try to get another interview with him. His tenure was the shortest of any mayor on the city's history. You can read the first page of the Cammarano interview here and click here for the second page of the story. Also, I have an article recapping the whole week in Hoboken in the next edition of Hoboken Progress. 

Before all the drama unfolded, though, I had a few other stories in Hoboken Progress. A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece on the closing of the Goldhawk, a popular rock and roll bar in Hoboken. Click here for the first page of the story and here for the second page.

The following week, I wrote a profile on Hoboken's new police chief. Click here for the first page of that story and here for the second. And I'll have the article about the resignation of Peter Cammarano up as soon as it's published.

More Stories In Hoboken Progress

Recently, I've had several more stories published in Hoboken Progress, a few of them cover stories. You can check the first one here (for page one) and here (for page two), published in the June 19th edition about some phony campaign work flyers. And click here (for page one) and here (for page two) of a story in the July 3rd edition about Hoboken inauguration-day trivia.

More Scripts for Bon Appétit Web Site

A while back I worked on another video project for the Bon Appétit Web site. The project was co-sponsored by Slowfood USA and Anolon Cookware and the gist of it is that a few high-profile New York City chefs used some of the Slowfood (a movement that's the opposite of "fast food") sustainability principles to prepare a gourmet, four-course meal. I wrote the scripts for the  five-part video series, the first of which you can view below and the rest of which you can see here or by clicking on the name of the dish in the right column. 

The four courses were: Butternut Squash Soup with Pancetta and Spice Creme Fraiche (prepared by Jonathan Lindenauer); Seared Diver Scallops with Cauliflower and Caper Gastrique (also prepared by Lindenauer); Herb Stuffed Leg of Lamb with Beans Confit (prepared by Bill Telepan of Telepan restaurant); and Heirloom Apple Tart with Almond Frangipane and Caramel Sauce (prepare by Galen Zamarra of Mas [farmhouse] restaurant). The last segment is a video of the chefs enjoying the meal and discussing the cookware and the virtues of the Slowfood approach to food.