Hair Dye And Brazilian Food With Carla Pellegrino

[private]If there’s one person most responsible for me being the most unconventional looking food writer in Las Vegas (or perhaps America?), it’s my friend Brandon Arthur.  After 15 years of having long jet-black hair that went halfway down my back, I hacked it off and decided I wanted to have a little fun with it.  But my hair just wouldn’t hold color!  I went to the best stylists and colorists in town, and the best they could do was give me a touch of red that would last for a couple of days and then fade.  Then I met Brandon.

Brandon is something of a mad-scientist, always experimenting with new products.  And he uses me as a guinea pig.  I let him do whatever he wants to my hair.  What the hell, it’s only hair.  If I don’t like it I can always shave it off and start over, right? (Which I’ve never had to do, BTW.)  And in exchange for that freedom, Brandon has always cut me incredible deals on whatever triple or quadruple process he does for me.  Sometimes I even pay him in food, like I did in this video.

Brandon could easily work at the best salons on The Strip – the owner of one of the biggest has repeatedly asked me to put me in touch with the guy who does my color. But he loves working at Roni Josef. So I gladly schlep all the way to Green Valley to let him work his magic.

The fact that Brandon works at a salon less than a mile from Carla Pellegrino’s restaurant Bratalian made this a perfect fit for a video.  Carla is one of the only other reasons I hike to that part of town.  She’s a manic little spitfire who’s as much fun to be around as she is drop-dead gorgeous! She may be the craziest chef I know – and that’s saying something.  But more importantly, she’s an incredible chef.  I loved her cooking when she ran the kitchen at the Las Vegas incarnation of Rao’s (one of the most famous Italian restaurants in America), and I love it at both Bratalian and Baccio by Carla Pellegrino in The Tropicana.  But Bratalian is the only place she shows off her Brazilian cooking skills.  And while it’s easy to find a churrascaria rodizio (Brazilian barbecue restaurant) in Las Vegas, I don’t know anyone else who does this kind of Brazilian food.

So what could be better than bringing the guy who makes me look wild and crazy to learn about Brazilian cooking from one of the wildest and craziest chefs I know?  Enjoy![/private]