BOOK’S FOODIE: ?uestlove appears on “The Chew” to cook with Mario Batali and share his food interests
If you have followed The Roots‘ drummer Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson through the social media for the last two years, he has shown a growing love for food that has become more than just a stop or two at restaurants or a casual sample of local and regional cuisine during festival stops in Europe. ?uest has established ?uest Loves Food, which has lead to him creating chicken drumsticks and presenting it in a number of places. This included a battle between ?uest and chef David Chang on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon and a one-time (for now) chicken drum stick food truck in New York City that got fans of the pollo going crazy. In the words of Wyclef Jean, most likely this is not just a one-time thing, but “two-times”. How so?
?uest Loves Food is a catering service that features, according to his interview with the Huffington Post, “locally sourced buttermilk fried chicken”, and as a catering start-up, it’s going to add the culinary arts to the man’s already deep resume. Any of you who watch the Food Network, Cooking Channel, or shows by Anthony Bourdain, Samantha Brown, Guy Fieri, or anyone of the “food celebrities” know that catering can be a very profitable business, because there’s one guarantee in a business like this: everyone likes to eat. The chicken drumsticks may have been demos for the ?uest Loves Food brand, and as he revealed in his appearance in ABC’s food talk show The Chew (i.e. the foodie version of The View, get it?), more will be revealed on or around January 2013 when it makes its big public debut. Is it just catering? An extension of the food truck? A restaurant? Do you want… yeah, you knew I was going to say that but things are being kept under the lid right now, with absolutely no cryptic messages from ?uest as he normally does with his music.
On top of letting people know about ?uest Love Food, ?uest had posted a photo of a drum set they had made specifically for his appearance on The Chew, consisting of pots and pants. As ?uest walked towards the kit, he said that this was how The Roots actually started, with pots and pants. I’m sure the crowd were thinking “yeah right, this is going to sound like a complete mess” but… it was not. As you will see, it lead to co-host Carla Hall getting down to the metallic funk, soul, and salsa. Does that mean ?uesto nacho chips or salsa are on the way? Who knows but if you missed his appearance and drum break, here they are.
