Chef’s kiss
“THE special moments, you know, of your life — like celebrations, good times, you know, cheer — I feel like, you know, they always happen around food, you know?”
— Mikey Berzatto Season 3 of “The Bear” dropped last Friday. Last weekend, I saw people proclaim on their social media statuses that they had gone through it pretty much like a hot knife through butter.
“The Bear” continues to be one of the best shows (if not the best) out right now.
I couldn’t totally binge the show and was consuming it like a delicious meal, taking breaths and pauses between bites. As of this writing, I had to stop and take a very long pause at episode 6, “Napkins,” my current favorite of the season.
“Napkins’ is a Tina (Liza ColonZayas) story, it’s about her life prior to working at The Original Beef of Chicagoland and eventually, The Bear. I won’t go into too much detail; I will say Liza’s husband David Zayas (from “Dexter”) plays her husband, Jon Bernthal is in it as Mikey and it’s directed by Ayo Edebiri, the actress who plays Chef Sydney. The script is by Catherine Schetina.
At a recent virtual press conference, Edebiri described her experience, “Directing was a blast. I really loved it. It’s like a dream to get to work with our crew as an actor. By extension, with directing, that feeling was only amplified. I was just so impressed and so moved every day.
“I got to direct some of my favorite actors in the world, and it just felt like a bit of a master class, but also a gift. I was just in the best circumstances of truly having masters of their craft beside me, and I just felt so lucky. I was kind of like this is maybe the best job in the world? Or tied for first place, at least, with the one of acting. It was really wonderful.”
Edebiri said she was very lucky to read all the scripts beforehand and when showrunner Chris Storer asked which script she responded to, “I would literally give you my firstborn child, who does not exist yet, if I could do the Liza episode, because I would love to work with Liza in that way.”
Storer responded with, “Well, we have nice little parallel thinking.”
In that episode, Mikey and Tina meet each other for the first time as practically random strangers on a particularly bad day in Tina’s life. And soon, they’re having an insightful, honest and profound conversation about life.
Over the course of the press conference, Liza Colón-Zayas said the cast, writers, creators and crew were “the best” and added, “there’s so much kindness. I love this. I love what we have going on. It’s very special.”
Jeremy Allen White who plays Carmy Berzatto could only but echo her sentiment, “It’s true…we wrapped a couple weeks ago, and we love our lives very much, but it’s really special to all be together for as long as we get to.
Season 3 has lots of new cameos, including some by famous chefs, expect to see some old favorites return.
All three seasons of “The Bear” can be watched, and rewatched, on Disney+.