Inqlings: Chef's contest: Not just a dash

The lonely life of a chef in training: Four days a week for seven weeks, Willingboro's

Kevin Sbraga

has been holed up in the kitchen of a closed restaurant near Washington Square as he practices for next weekend's U.S. finals of the Bocuse d'Or, considered the Olympics of cooking.

Sbraga, 29, culinary director of the Garces Restaurant Group (Amada, Tinto and Distrito here), will cook with assistant

Aimee Patel

at the Epcot Center at Walt Disney World in Florida. Winners get a paid sabbatical to train in Yountville, Calif., for the Bocuse d'Or-World Cuisine Contest in France in January.

Sbraga, put up for the competition by fellow chefs, says the contest is grueling - "a couple of years ago, a guy passed out" - so he starts his days at 5:30 a.m. with a 15-mile bike ride. Tougher is the prospect of cooking for chef judges such as

Georges Perrier

,

Daniel Boulud

and

Jean-Georges Vongerichten

.

Perrier, Le Bec-Fin's high hat, who also will help prepare the welcoming feast, visited Sbraga's lab the other day and sampled a few dishes (fried okra, poached cod, seafood sausage, quail egg over shrimp and grits). Perrier insisted he wouldn't give Sbraga a hometown advantage. "I'm going to say, 'I don't know you,' " he quipped before snapping out advice on everything, including: "I want you to trim that beard."

As one of the last of the big-time solo radio-station owners in America,

Jerry Lee

has walls full of awards for WBEB (B101). And now he's a Swedish knight.

Ulf Hjertonsson

, consul general of Sweden in New York, came down last week to dub him officer first class of the Royal Order of the Polar Star, Royal Order of Knights (Order of His Majesty the King), on behalf of

Carl XVI Gustaf

. Attending Monday's ceremony at the Main Line home Lee shares with his wife,

Ellen

, were former U.S. Attorney

Patrick Meehan

, Philadelphia District Attorney

Lynne M. Abraham

,

Mayor Nutter

, plus a half-dozen radio competitors. No sword was involved; the royal decoration was pinned on.

The knighthood stems from Lee's work in criminology. In 2005, he established the Stockholm Prize in Criminology, the crime-busting equivalent of the Nobel. Lee also founded the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, and last year started a criminology program at Cambridge University. The mild-mannered Lee, 72, seems to have a Walter Mitty thing going, judging by his rec room: Parked there is a 1965 Aston Martin DB5 that had been used in James Bond movies and still has its retractable rear bulletproof screen, ejector seat, and oil-slick squirter thingie.

Everybody

wants to praise Lee. During his introduction, Penn criminologist

Lawrence Sherman

cited last week's release of the FBI's 2007 U.S. Crime Report: "As a present, they've announced that crime is down in America."

The Secret Service was all over Le Bec-Fin midday Friday as Iraqi President

Jalal Talabani

and his family (a party of 10) had lunch at the Walnut Street restaurant on a day trip from New York. Appetizers: tomato salad and foie gras, followed by a main course of sole meunière.

Why the recent grumbling in the arts community:

Gov. Rendell

skipped Sept. 7's long-planned memorial service for Art Museum chief executive

Anne d'Harnoncourt

- at which he was to be a featured speaker - in favor of his Eagles postgame work with Comcast SportsNet. Rendell was listed on the program between

Gerry Lenfest

's introductory remarks and a performance of the aria "Ombra mai fù" from Handel's

Serse

. (Roughly translated, "Fly, Eagles, fly.") Rendell's absence among society/arty types such as

Jasper Johns

,

Ellsworth Kelly

,

Christo

,

Mary McFadden

and

Richard Gluckman

was conspicuous, a source says. The guv, otherwise known as a champion of the arts, was "contractually obligated to do the show," Rendell spokesman

Chuck Ardo

says. "He had no choice but to be there." Eagles 38, Rams 3.

Make U Famous, a Philly production company, just signed an agreement with

Mark Webber

(filmmaker son of activist

Cheri Honkala

) to write an original script for a dark comedy starring

Ethan Hawke

,

Kevin Spacey

,

Steve Buscemi

and

Vincent Gallo

. Intent is to film it here this winter. Webber, whose film

Explicit Ills

will debut early next year, will direct. Make U Famous partners are

Mary Patel

, restaurateur brothers

Michael and Jerry D'Addesi

and

Christopher Perez

.

Filmmaker

Tigre Hill

has enlisted singer-songwriter

Lauren Hart

to write and perform music for his documentary

The Barrel of a Gun

, about the

Daniel Faulkner/Mumia Abu Jamal

controversy. Hart is writing a song for the closing credits and will sing "Danny Boy." Hart wrote and performed "What We Are Today," which plays over the close of Hill's doc

The Shame of a City

.

Barrel

is due at the end of the year.

The FirstGlance Film Festival, running Oct. 16-19 at the Prince, will have a few world premieres, including

Hank and Mike

,

Matthiew Klinck

's comedy starring

Joe Mantegna

and

Chris Klein

, about two Easter bunnies who are fired from their jobs and try their hand at several other occupations;

The Death of Milo Freedman

, a shot-in-Philly short narrative about a hit man; and

Berni's Doll

,

Yann Jouette

's animated flick about a worker in a cat-food factory who learns that he can buy a woman, part by part. (A comedy, I think.)

Larry Mendte

was a busy guy at the post office last week. The former CBS3 anchor, who won eight Emmys last weekend, shipped three statuettes to people whose lives he touched with his stories. Recipients were

Bobbie McGowan

of Newark, Del., whose Army corporal son,

Stephen

, was featured by Mendte;

Jeannie and Mike Monichetti

, who own Mike's Seafood in Sea Isle City, N.J., and whose daughter

Kara

was featured in a Mendte piece about autism; and the Main Line's

Jay and Liz Scott

, whose daughter

Alex

inspired the charity Alex's Lemonade Stand. (Mendte gave the Scotts one of his Emmys last year, so they now have two.) I hear that Mendte plans to continue filming Kara and plans to do a documentary when Kara, 8, is older and can voice it herself.

Jose Garces

- the guy who whupped Bobby Flay on

Iron Chef America

and Sbraga's boss at Amada, Tinto and Distrito - will be on the CBS

Early Show

about 8:30 a.m. tomorrow. He's talking up his new cookbook,

Latin Evolution

.

Sports-talker

Jody McDonald

, who had quadruple-bypass surgery Aug. 22, says he hopes to be back on the air at WPEN (950) on Oct. 3 after clearances from his docs. "The arrows are pointed up," Jody Mac said Friday. So far, he can't drive or even ride in the front seat, lest an air bag deploy upon his tender chest. McDonald, 47, says he didn't have classic symptoms, other than arm and shoulder pain that he'd been working through. Oh, and blood pressure of 227/183.