Inqlings: CBS3 wins big at area Emmys

With prizes in 15 categories, CBS3 was the big winner last night at the 27th Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards, a black-tie gathering at the Loews Hotel.

But Fox29 won the glamour awards, including station excellence, morning show, and Kerri-Lee Halkett for best anchor. She was in tears as she recounted how, earlier in the evening, she had heard from a high school friend whose son was dying of brain cancer. "That puts everything into perspective," she said.

Top weather anchor was CBS3's Kathy Orr. Bill Vargus, let go recently from Fox29, shared the sports-anchor Emmy with Jason Bristol of WHP in Harrisburg. Vargus won last year, as well.

CBS3 alumnus Larry Mendte won in two of the three categories for which he was nominated, for features reporter and human-interest show. He was a no-show.

"Larry will be receiving this award via e-mail," said presenter Mike Jerrick of Fox29, who, after the groans and cheers subsided, explained that he had cleared that joke with Mendte's wife, Dawn Stensland, his colleague.

This year's work covered April 1, 2008, to March 31. Mendte was fired in July 2008.

CBS3 won for newscast, for its coverage of the airplane ditching in the Hudson River. Top morning show was Fox29's Good Day. The Mid-Atlantic Emmys cover Pennsylvania, South Jersey, and Delaware.

CBS3 editor Mike Henry won eight Emmys. He said he was not sure how many Emmys he had won - "something like 39 or 41 before tonight." He keeps most of them in a closet in the basement and has given away some to relatives.

CBS3's 15 wins were followed by 12 for Comcast SportsNet, six for Fox29, four each for NJN Public Television and WHP (a Harrisburg CBS affiliate), and three for NBC10. (6ABC traditionally does not participate.)

Burglars cooked themselves a middle-of-the-night snack at a Queen Village bistro and took their drinks to go.

Coquette owner Cary Neff told police that when he arrived Tuesday, after the restaurant's day off, he found dirty pots and pans on the stove. He said the thieves, who had forced the front door, bypassed expensive salmon, trout, and tuna in favor of hanger steak, burgers, and macaroni and cheese.

The hamburglars' food tastes may have been plebeian, but their choice of beverages was more refined. Missing beers included Rogue's Mocha Porter, Lindemans Framboise, and Samuel Smith oatmeal stout; assorted red wines were gone as well. He estimated his loss at $500. Detective Megan Bolognone of South Detectives said the investigation continued.

Neff said fingerprints were plentiful.

WBEB (101.1) won not one but two Marconi Awards Thursday at the 2009 National Association of Broadcasters dinner at the Convention Center, for major-market station of the year

and

adult-contemporary station of the year - a rarity.

Jerry Lee's

B101 is one of the only independently owned major-market FM stations in the country.

It's too early to set your DVR, but Philly's best-known Italian chef,

Marc Vetri

- he of Vetri, Osteria, and the forthcoming Amís - has taped a battle on the Food Network's

Iron Chef America

against the similarly follically deficient Iron Chef

Michael Symon

. Vetri brushed off my questions about it, and the Food Network says it won't announce episodes till after New Year's. Philly, meanwhile, will be ably represented on Food Network this fall.

Chef Jose Garces (Amada, Tinto, Distrito, Village Whiskey, the soon-to-open Garces Trading Company) is a competitor on The Next Iron Chef, which premieres next Sunday. Also in the food-reality realm, Northeast Philly-bred Jennifer Carroll, chef of 10 Arts at the Ritz-Carlton, is getting mad love on season six of Bravo's Top Chef.

Producer Jim Davey, who's done TV shows for pro chefs such as Jim Coleman and Walter Staib, is looking for amateur chefs to star in a pilot for TCN (Comcast Network) called Culinary Bragging Rights. "It's for the people who say, 'I have an aunt who makes the best meatballs,' " says Davey, who is soliciting homemade audition videos at www.culinarybraggingrights.com. Deadline has been extended to Oct. 15.

HGTV's new show My First Sale is looking for first-time home sellers and their agents to go through the prep process in front of the cameras. Taping will begin soon and run into the spring. Applications go to cbaggish@highnoonentertainment.com.

Reese Witherspoon

and a five-woman entourage did an Old City boutique crawl last week, hitting Sevilla Smith - where owner

Faye Sevilla Smith

is a former movie stylist - to scope out Moroccan tea sets. Witherspoon, here filming a comedy for

James L. Brooks

, also visited Vagabond, Sugarcube, Lost & Found, and finally, Third Street Habit, where her haul included an Isabel Marant sweater, a leather-and-gemstone necklace, and De Palma leather belts (in black and brown). After her assistant got a call from the set, Witherspoon and posse left quickly.