Inqlings: Philly grabs ball and runs with it

Philadelphia, the setting of some great sports flicks, will host the first-ever U.S. Sports Film Festival from Oct. 23 to 26.

The festival had been set up to debut next month in Lake Placid, N.Y., but got rerouted here when the city made a push, says

Tom Caraccioli

, who's handling its marketing.

Vince Papale

, the inspiration for the movie

Invincible

, has been involved since the beginning, as have

Mayor Nutter

,

Gov. Rendell

, and the Greater Philadelphia Film Office, Caraccioli says. (His own fave sports movie is

Rocky

.) Organizer

Stephan Hartman

went to Villanova and Wharton.

"We wanted to create an outlet for this genre of films," Caraccioli says. "There's nothing really like it."

Details and the lineup are being worked out, but it's known that both classic and new films will be showcased. There also will be panel discussions, VIP parties and award ceremonies.

Willingboro's

Kevin Sbraga

, 29, culinary director for the Garces Restaurant Group (Amada, Tinto and Distrito here), is going where no Philly chef has gone before: He's a finalist to be the American representative at the Bocuse d'Or, widely considered to be the Olympics of cooking. (Think downhill skiing. Yanks have never finished in the top three in the competition started by French chef

Paul Bocuse

.)

The Johnson & Wales-trained Sbraga plans to take a Philly focus to the elimination at the Epcot Center at Walt Disney World on Sept. 26-27. Since he and his seven fellow competitors must prepare a beef and fish course, he says, he's thinking of a "Jersey Shore" seafood theme and either "Philly cheesesteak" or "pepperpot soup" for the beef.

Sbraga, who credits backing from

Georges Perrier

and his boss,

Jose Garces

, says he'll bring along

Aimee Patel

, a line cook at Amada, to help.

He made the finals with a beef dish that includes sweet corn tamal and salsa verde and is finished with sunny-side-up quail egg dressed with black-truffle toast. Standard stuff.

He went even fancier for a cod dish he prepared in New York last week for judges including

Daniel Boulud

and

Thomas Keller

. It's black cod, pan-seared on the skin side only, in Spanish olive oil, he says. It's served with a grilled lobster brochette (garnished with poblano peppers, tomatoes and pearl onions), glazed with an orange coriander reduction and toasted peanuts. As for garnishes, a mango pavé is "sous-vide"-cooked with cilantro, olive oil, lime juice (escabeche style), and served room temperature with a shaved fennel garnish. A thin slice of jicama, stuffed with basil, lobster, serrano ham and peppers, is served cold. The plate is finished with a coconut jalapeño sauce.

Wedding bells are in the future for CBS3 reporter

Valerie Levesque

, 33, and her beau of 41/2 years,

Chris Watson

, 36, a management consultant. They'd met years ago because he went to Georgetown with the guy who married her sister. After he arrived in town, he saw her on the news, and three days later, they bumped into each other. "Sometimes things are destined to happen," says Levesque, whose date is July 18 in Newport, R.I.

The

Allen Iverson

mansion in Villanova is back on the market, with an asking price of $4 million. The Sixer-turned-Nugget paid $5 million for it in 2002. It first went up last year for $6.3 million.

Night makes it a

Knight

: The Franklin's IMAX theater had director

M. Night Shyamalan

and family in the audience for a screening Thursday night.

There were two sightings last week of Montgomery County-rooted actor

Terrence Howard

. He amazed attendees at Tuesday's Philadelphia Style issue-launch party by autographing a poster backward. (Grab a mirror to read it.) He also showed up at the new Dave & Buster's fun house in Plymouth Meeting Mall, looking casually dapper in his fedora as he played billiards with his son,

Hunter

, using his own cue.

Fox29 - tuning up for its 11 p.m. newscast - will do half-hour 11 p.m. reports this week and next week from Eagles training camp at Lehigh University.

Good Day's

John Anderson

will host with feeds from

Bill Vargus

and

Joe Staszak

, plus the Eagles'

Dave Spadaro

and WIP radio's

Anthony Gargano

.

Celebs spent Thursday scooping lemon Rita's Water Ice on Lemon Hill in Fairmount Park in a benefit that raised $520,000 for the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. Among them: ice man

Riley Cote

of the Flyers, Police Commissioner

Charles Ramsey

and newlyweds

Ben Franklin/Betsy Ross

(

Ralph Archbold

and

Linda Wilde Archbold

), who repeatedly spoon-fed each other. Archbold also got a kick out of telling people: "You can have any flavor you want, as long as it's lemon."

The Spectrum and its long history with jam bands will be the topic of tomorrow's

Jam Bands

show on WXPN (88.5), at 7 p.m. Comcast-Spectacor's

Ike Richman

, the publicist for the Spectrum for nearly 20 years, will cohost with music director

Dan Reed

. The Grateful Dead, founders of the Jam Nation, played more shows than any other band in the history of the venue, with 53 sell-outs.

"Should CBS3 apologize to

Alycia Lane

and give her back her job?" was the question that the TV-industry Web site TV Spy asked readers of its ShopTalk page last week, vis-a-vis the computer-spying charge against her former colleague

Larry Mendte

. Lane was fired Jan. 1, two weeks after she was arrested in New York and accused of hitting a police officer (the charges are to be dropped next month if she stays out of trouble).

Of the 540 who voted, 53 percent said yes, 42 percent said no, and 5 percent offered other options, including: "They should apologize and hand her a gigantic bundle of cash," "apology and financial settlement," and "apologize but do not give her her job back; she's lost credibility."

So what about rehiring her? A station spokesman did not comment. Lane's lawyer

Paul Rosen

of Spector, Gadon & Rosen, who is suing the station over Lane's termination, said he didn't feel it was appropriate to talk about it.