Late in the afternoon on the second day of the retreat, Cantor and his wife, Diana, who happens to be a liberal Democrat, met me for coffee at the Trellis restaurant, in Williamsburg.

NEWYORKER: The House of Pain

Alister stops outside a restaurant that could be a first cousin to the coffee shop in Amundsen.

NEWYORKER: Amundsen

Basically the chefs were interviewed documentary style, filmed and taped, but the result was converted into these two coffee table editions rather than a film, and in most cases, the chef goes from home to restaurant to, in some cases, a workout session, in order to fully capture what makes them and their dishes tick.

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