The Fall 2011 issue of Promax/BDA’s BRIEF Magazine features a nice story on the Top Chef Just Desserts Season 2 launch directed by Dan Appel and produced by danApplecreative for client Bravo.

When it comes to competitive culinary entertainment, no matter how famous the judges, how notorious the contestants or how outrageous the challenges, the show’s real stars are always the mouth-watering dishes.

Bravo took this to heart in the summer of 2011, when it made a “big” deal out of its season premiere for the sweet-toothed Top Chef spinoff series, Top Chef: Just Desserts (TCJD). While the season’s chef contestants taunted the camera with over-the-top culinary machismo, the commercial’s real stars hovered alongside them, strong and silent: an array of giant-sized layer cakes, tarts and other sweet treats that were nearly as big as the humans.

The campaign set the tone for the series as a new course in the network’s successful portfolio of reality programming, but for the Season 2 premiere, the challenge was to “come up with something new that would build upon last year,” said Amy Troiano, VP of on-air promotions at Bravo. “We wanted to go beyond giant, amazing desserts and do something that really catches the viewer’s eye.”

The solution? Leave the confections normal-sized this time around, but go big on the quantity of sweets – so many, in fact, they could be pieced together to form the TCJD logo itself, completely out of, what else, Top Chef desserts.

Read the whole article HERE.

3 Oct 11

DAC had a lovely shoot with Michael & Bryan Voltaggio, winner and runner-up, respectively, of Top Chef Las Vegas. The brothers were great to work with, and although we can’t publish any pix yet from the Bravo/Samsung shoot, we can post a coupla phenomenal sandwiches from Michael’s new lunch stop, INK.SACK, on Melrose, just down the street from his newly opened INK. The Bahn Mi (on the right) is crazy good (with pork rinds, no less) and the fried chicken sandwich is sublime. Looking forward to making it to DC soon, so we can check out Bryan’s restaurant, VOLT.

11 Sep 11

29 Jul 11

One of the many perks of shooting in NYC.


Dan doesn’t think there’s enough Lactaid on the planet to properly handle this sandwich.

8 Jul 11

If it’s Independence Day, it must be pulled pork.

17 Jun 11

Donuts and coffee. For several hundred. A prerequisite of shooting at any open Home Depot during store hours.

Using your client as a stand-in. Stay classy, Mr. Appel.

17 Mar 11

It is true.


Happy St. Patricks Day from Chicago!

24 Jan 11

Just another Daddurday at the office.

14 Dec 10

Now this truly is one of the perks of the job: Food. [See previous entry] This particular gem, though not the photogenic beauty queen we were hoping for, is the deep fried deviled eggs at Nick’s in San Clemente, CA, the night before our USA shoot for Character With a Cause: Pfizer (Hello PT).

Dan’s fascination with deviled eggs may in fact predate his fascination with all things bacon. His mother used to make deviled eggs when his was a child, and many a late night in NYC found him stumbling to the local bodega at 4am to buy a few hard boiled eggs to make deviled eggs.  Apparently a foolproof preemptive hangover strategy, so he claims.

13 Oct 10

The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas is an incredible place. Truly. But unfortunately, they aren’t open yet. So a short jaunt down the Strip takes you to Mario Batali’s Carne Vino at Palazzo.

Need we say more…?

12 Aug 10

At the Bravo TRESemme shoot, the lovely Jeanie Syfu. And her stand-in.

6 Aug 10

The Walking Dead in The ATL.

23 Jul 10

If you’re ever shooting in Seattle, you must get ahold of the finest caterers the Northwest has to offer - Josh (pictured above) and his welcoming crew at SKILLET. Besides the fact that both breakfast and lunch were outstanding - country scrambles with Niman Ranch bacon (first broiled, then finished off on a charcoal grill), Moroccan lamb sloppy joes, papardelle pasta with root vegetable and a splash of olive oil & balsamic - they cook everything out of this retooled vintage Airstream, their plates are metal (like camping!), and they are about to hit Whole Foods with their signature “Bacon Jam”. ‘Nuf said.