Chef Report

If Philadelphia City Councilman Jack Kelly gets his way, the city known for brotherly love will also soon be known for kindness to animals. Councilman Kelly recently proposed a bill to ban the sale of foie gras—a so-called delicacy made from the diseased livers of ducks and geese. If the bill passes, and it should, Philly will become just the second city in the nation to ban a food out of concern for animal welfare.

Chicago was the first. On April 26, the Chicago City Council voted 48 to 1 to outlaw the sale of foie gras. Foie gras production is also prohibited in Israel, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany, and a number of other European countries. In 2004 California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law a bill to ban the production and sale of foie gras in the state, starting in 2012. Politicians in New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Oregon have proposed similar legislation.

Like chickens and turkeys, ducks and geese are not covered by the federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, the only federal law that offers any sort of protection to farmed animals. Birds raised for foie gras are normally confined to cages and fed a high-protein, high-starch diet that is designed to promote rapid growth. Farmers begin force feeding the birds when they are between 8 and 10 weeks old. For 12 to 21 days, up to 2 pounds of grain and fat is forced down ducks and geese’ throats every day by a feeding tube, a process known as gavage.

The birds’ livers become engorged and can expand as much as 12 times their normal size, so much so that they protrude from the animals’ bellies. The birds have difficulty standing, and become so stressed that they tear out their own feathers. Many suffer from internal hemorrhaging, fungal and bacterial infections, and hepatic encephalopathy, a brain ailment caused when their livers fail. more…

What if the next burger you ate was created in a warm, nutrient-enriched soup swirling within a bioreactor?

Edible, lab-grown ground chuck that smells and tastes just like the real thing might take a place next to Quorn at supermarkets in just a few years, thanks to some determined meat researchers. Scientists routinely grow small quantities of muscle cells in petri dishes for experiments, but now for the first time a concentrated effort is under way to mass-produce meat in this manner.

Henk Haagsman, a professor of meat sciences at Utrecht University, and his Dutch colleagues are working on growing artificial pork meat out of pig stem cells. They hope to grow a form of minced meat suitable for burgers, sausages and pizza toppings within the next few years. more…

A sample of muscle grown without an artificial scaffold.

Cameron Diaz is feasting on hamburgers and French fries in a bid to change her shape from skinny to curvy. The actress confesses she is desperate to become more “voluptuous” and is indulging all her fast food fetishes so she can put on weight. Diaz says, “All my life, I’ve wanted to be a fleshy voluptuous woman - the kind that bursts out of her clothing, displaying her wealth of femininity. I have to work for the curves I desire.” more…

Burgers and armadillo eggs?

Ever eat a lizard tail?

How about an armadillo egg?

They’re not delicacies from the reality stunt show “Fear Factor.” They’re served daily at the Empty Bottle in Troy.

Owner Penny Cleveland watches a newcomer making faces after hearing the unappetizing names at the small bar on Illinois 162 west of Interstate 55.

“People will say ‘I don’t like eggs,’” said Penny, with a laugh.

Armadillo eggs aren’t eggs and they don’t come from the well-armored mammals.

“They’re chicken stuffed with cheese and wrapped in bacon and we grill them,” said Penny, 42, who opened the bar in November with her husband, Brent, also 42.

Each armadillo egg is about the size of a small chicken’s egg. Brent got the idea, as well as the recipe for lizard tails, from a television cooking show.

They’re hollow jalapeno peppers stuffed with garlic cream cheese, wrapped in bacon, then grilled. more…

CHICAGO

HOMARO CANTU’S maki look a lot like the sushi rolls served at other upscale restaurants: pristine, coin-size disks stuffed with lumps of fresh crab and rice and wrapped in shiny nori. They also taste like sushi, deliciously fishy and seaweedy.

But the sushi made by Mr. Cantu, the 28-year-old executive chef at Moto in Chicago, often contains no fish. more…

Craft, the upscale restaurant, and Ghostbar, the chic lounge that just opened in the new W Hotel north of downtown, could be the first boulders in an avalanche that remakes the local dining scene. The difference between which spots survive and which get buried may be as simple as the strength of a restaurateur’s personality.

Craft, the restaurant created by New York chef Tom Colicchio, is only the first of several blockbuster names that soon will be serving dinner and drinks in or near the American Airlines Center-Victory Park development. Some industry insiders suggest the ritzy new dining and entertainment district threatens the current crop of independent, local restaurateurs. But others downplay the long-term effect, and some even speculate that Victory will spark better business for many North Texas restaurants. more…

New Kraft “It’s Pasta Anytime” Loaded With Fat & SodiumYou don’t have to take the time to boil water to prepare Kraft’s new shelf-stable It’s Pasta Anytime pasta. But you should take the time to read the nutrition labels, according to the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), which has designated the cheesiest of these microwaveable pasta meals Food Porn for the month of December.

It’s Pasta Anytime’s Rotini with Three Cheese Sauce, Rotini with Mild Cheddar Cheese Sauce, and Fettuccine with Roasted Garlic Alfredo Sauce average 600 calories, 15 grams of saturated fat, and 2,100 milligrams of sodium. They each consist of a microwave-safe plastic tray of pasta and a plastic pouch of sauce enclosed in a paperboard box. more…

NASCAR has its own style of tailgating. Celebrations often last for a week and meals include overflowing platters of homemade food, opulent decorations, and great spirit.

Lifetime Products, a manufacturer of folding tables, will name “America’s Ultimate Tailgater” at the Tailgate of a Lifetime 2006 Tailgating Championship Aug. 19 at Michigan International Speedway.

Five finalists will be selected to join the official chef of NASCAR, Mario Batali, an author and New York restaurateur, for a trip to MIS. The finalists will create their ultimate tailgate parties, including a three-course meal, over-the-top decorations, and all the trappings that make NASCAR Tailgates so unusual. The contest is judged by Batali, NASCAR legend Ernie Irvan, and Richard Hendrickson, president of Lifetime Products; the prize is $10,000 in cash. more…

It’s not easy cooking for 300 people.

But inside an aroma-filled kitchen in Jeffersonville Saturday morning, close to 20 Red Cross volunteers didn’t mind working up a sweat doing just that as part of Disaster Kitchen training hosted by the Clark County Red Cross.

“This is the first time that this class has been taught in the state of Indiana,” Phyllis Wilkins, executive director of the Red Cross’s Clark County chapter, said in a phone interview Friday.

The purpose of the two-day training, which took place Friday and Saturday, is to teach volunteers how to prepare mass quantities of food for people in need when disaster strikes. more…

When asked to come aboard the Borgata’s new expansion, chef Bobby Flay asked who else signed on and was told Wolfgang Puck and Michael Mina.

“At that point, the conversation was over for me. I was sold,” Flay said.

On Friday, Bobby Flay Steak joined Wolfgang Puck American Grille and Sea Blue, Michael Mina’s seafood restaurant, as the Borgata’s $200 million addition debuted. The expansion, the first of two, premiered almost three years to the day the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa brought a strong Las Vegas flavor to Atlantic City. more…

Borgata’s first phase of expansion features restaurants opened by celebrity chefs (from left) Michael Mina, Bobby Flay and Wolfgang Puck. Their restaurants are called Sea Blue, Bobby Flay Steak and Wolfgang Puck Grille.

The pop diva is convinced mauve-coloured foods like red grapes and plums - known for their anti-ageing benefits - will stop her developing wrinkles.
The songstress, who devised the diet with her nutritionist, now munches purple meals three days a week.
A source is quoted in Britain’s The Sun newspaper as saying: “It sounds off-the-wall but it’s a huge injection of healthy food in one go. Purple products are nature’s best weapons in the battle against ageing. There’s a saying that ‘a plum a day keeps a facelift away’.” “Purple food can prevent breakdown of collagen and slow the wasting of muscles.” It isn’t the first time Mariah has tried a bizarre diet. more…

The Ravioli with Montrachet and Herbs is finished with cream and chives and costs less than $5. The Stuffed Sole with Red Pepper Coulis and Lime Gremolata gets fewer than a third of its calories from fat. Other selections on any given day could include Moroccan Chicken Tangine or Blackened Salmon with Apple Bourbon Chutney. It’s easy to find these and similar entrees in Clark County for an average of $5.50 per dish. Just head on down to the hospital.

Vancouver’s Ron and Carole Obert say they’ve been eating about twice a week at Legacy Salmon Creek Hospital since it opened in August. more…

Lead cook David White, left, consults with corporate chef Paul Bosch in the Southwest Washington Medical Center kitchen. Bosch oversees food production and presentation for the hospital’s patient and retail meals. (JANET L. MATHEWS/The Columbian)

(CBS) Bobby Flay, The Early Show’s resident chef, is opening his fifth restaurant, called Bobby Flay Steak, at the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City, N.J. more…

Mimicking Whole Foods might not be a bad idea. Its same-store sales growth averages 11.1% annually for the past five years.

Meanwhile, old-line grocery chains are starving for growth in the stagnant, $480 billion supermarket world. So they’re increasing their focus on specialty, natural and organic products — the kinds of things that fill the aisles at Whole Foods.

“Whole Foods has changed the game,” says Phil Lempert, a supermarket consultant. “Now, the Big Middle (traditional supermarkets) — which is not doing so well — is asking itself: ‘How do we get a Whole Foods aura?’ ” more…

Hell froze over, pigs flew, the 12th of never came and now the good ol’ boys of stock car racin’ are drinking wine.

They’re making it too — legally — and NASCAR fans steeped in the beer and bourbon culture of the South are starting to break out the stemware and pop as many corks as they do burnouts.

Budweiser may be “the official beer of NASCAR,” and Coors Light, Miller Lite, Jack Daniel’s and Jim Beam sponsor cars, yet wine is slowly weaving its way through traffic and into NASCAR. more…

Fast-food chains focus on what people want to eat, not what is healthy

ST. LOUIS - In the past few months, McDonald’s Corp. announced it would push healthy meals like salads while Wendy’s International Inc. said it would fry foods in a healthier oil with less trans fats.

And what did CKE Restaurants Inc. do? The operator of Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. unveiled a jumbo-sized cheeseburger smothered in sliced steak. more…
Hardee’s turnaround has pivoted on the Thickburger. The fast-food chain’s strategy has helped it cash in on young male customers who want burgers instead of Asian salads, said analyst Mark Smith.

Want to start a heated discussion? Just ask what’s better: charcoal or gas?While a recent survey by the consumer marketing research firm NPD found that the majority of American grillers prefer gas, there’s a kettle full of anecdotal evidence that suggests charcoal rules in and around Memphis. more…

SAUGET, Ill. — Fast food restaurants may soon notice burger lovers with a sweet tooth, and it’s all thanks to a minor league team’s unhealthy but tasty creation.An independent baseball league in Sauget, Ill., has begun to sell what they refer to as “baseball’s best burger.” more…

Jayson Williams, the retired NBA star awaiting retrial for killing a man in his Hunterdon County home four years ago, plans to open a restaurant here.Williams and wife Tanya Young Williams, a native of nearby Ewing, plan to open a franchise of TRY J’s Waffles and Chicken in about two months, Tanya Young Williams told The Times of Trenton.

Jayson Williams, 38, was found guilty in April 2004 of four charges of trying to cover up the shooting of Costas “Gus” Christofi. He was acquitted of aggravated manslaughter, aggravated assault and a weapons charge. more…

Asia’s megacities are infested with American fast-food franchises. Payback has turned out to be sweet, just a tad flaky and more than a little addictive. We’re talking about the cream puffs from the Osaka-based Beard Papa, which now has 14 cafés in the United States and plans to open a half dozen more here in the next few months.

American pastry lovers are lining up in the small, tableless stores as employees work production-line style to fill two-layered, freshly baked dough shells with all-natural mixtures of custard and cream (flavors rotate daily and range from chocolate cream to organic sesame). The company’s mascot—a hybrid of Santa Claus and founder Yugi Hirota’s cream-puff-loving grandfather—smiles paternally over the proceedings. more…

Beard Papa’s 

Recently, new media has reported a study showing the radiation from cell phones is so full of energy they can be used to cook eggs. In the experiment, researchers placed one egg in a porcelain cup (because it is easy to conduct heat), and put one cell phone on one side and another cell phone on the other. The researchers then called from one cell phone to another and kept the cell phones on after connecting. During the first 15 minutes, nothing changed. After 25 minutes, however, the egg shell started to become hot and at 40 minutes, the surface of the egg became hard and bristled. Researchers found the protein in the egg had become solid although the egg yolk was still in liquid form. After 65 minutes, the whole egg was well cooked. more…

Would you trust a computer hacker to cook your dinner? What if the menu included dishes baked with lasers or served up in laboratory test tubes? A high-tech brand of haute cuisine called “molecular gastronomy” is gaining more than a few fans from the pocket-protector set, who have taken to experimenting at home in their kitchens and coming up with some extraordinary recipes and unexpected flavor combinations.

Geek gourmet began with experiments by professional chefs at high-end restaurants like el Bulli in Spain and the Fat Duck in England, where steam baths, centrifuges and microscopes share counter space with more traditional cooking tools. more…

St. Louis rapper Nelly and his St. Lunatics crew will open a new bar and grill in August in Hazelwood.

The new restaurant, called Mack’s Bar and Grill, was originally slated for an April opening but was pushed back because the rappers were waiting for Mack’s manager, Tony Powell, to finish his work as a chef and manager at Azio, an Italian restaurant in Atlanta.

The restaurant, which takes its name from the first letters of theowners’ names - Murphy Lee, Ali, Slodown, Kyjuan and Cornell, Nelly’s first name, is now scheduled to open August 10 at 6827 Howdershell Road. more…

VietNamNet – KFC opened its first Hanoi outlet yesterday and is eyeing locations for more outlets in the North Vietnam.

On the opening day, the outlet attracted a throng of curious customers, who joined long queues in order to taste the colonel’s recipe.

“This is a good start,” KFC Vietnam General Director Nguyen Chi Kien said. He also thinks that Hanoi is a potential market for KFC to expand its business. “Hanoian’s have changed their tastes and we see a lot of opportunity here for KFC,” Kien added. more…

pink taco…

Angelique Soenarie
The Arizona Republic
SCOTTSDALE - Leading up to Friday’s public opening, Pink Taco continued its weeklong string of private parties Thursday night and early this morning, hosting special guests from Hollywood and professional sports teams.

A 20-foot pink carpet lined with black velvet ropes and pink lighting greeted guests Thursday as they stepped from the curb on Camelback Road and entered the bar-restaurant in the new Scottsdale Waterfront.

Among the invited guests this week were Jamie-Lynn Sigler from The Sopranos, Coyotes’ coach Wayne Gretzky and Arizona Cardinals quarterback Matt Leinhart.

Paradise Valley porn star Jenna Jameson, whose Club Jenna Inc. adult business empire was just bought by Playboy Enterprises Inc., was out celebrating Thursday night at the new Pink Taco. more…

Thanks to Junior’s Restaurant, Brooklyn has long been famous for its cheesecake. Now, Times Square will get a taste.

The restaurant is bringing its renowned dessert to Broadway with a new shop in the heart of Manhattan’s theater district.

Junior’s, a family-owned business now in its third generation, opened its Brooklyn site at the corner of Flatbush and DeKalb avenues in 1950 and sells some 5,000 cheesecakes per week. Its new outpost is along 45th Street near Broadway. more…

Step away from the barbecue. Let someone else make the fruit salad. This summer, embrace a staple of the Vietnamese table: the summer roll.

Light, refreshing and easily personalized, the summer roll is well worth mastering. It’s a near-perfect blend of noodles, meat or fish, vegetables and lettuce, all enclosed in a rice paper wrapper. It’s great finger food for a party, and two or three make a nice light snack. more…

This past school year at Montlake Elementary, fourth- and fifth-graders participated in the Ravioli Project, which was an extension of the Greenhouse and Garden Program that has been a part of the curriculum since 2001. In addition to learning about horticulture, students tasted the garden-to-table experience through collaboration with Cafe Lago (2305 24th Ave. E.), a nearby pasta restaurant known for its ethereal lasagna.

In herb ravioli, the students discovered culinary context.

The Greenhouse and Garden Program was the brainchild of Cheri Bloom, who had specialized in horticultural therapy, working with the elderly and other special-needs groups. About 12 years ago, she transformed her “typical Seattle back yard” into an organic farm, which she had certified as the smallest organic farm in Washington. The farm benefited her clients and the restaurants that bought the greens. more…

Cafe Lago chef Brad Jencks imparts the finer points of making ravioli to Montlake Elementary student Augusta Chapman as part of the Ravioli Project.

Curious to see if their rules were accurate, we asked four sushi chefs for their opinions: James Hamamori, chefowner of Wasa in Irvine and Newport Beach, Calif.; Takashi Abe, chef-owner of Abe in Newport Beach and Bluefin in Newport Coast; Lorin Watada, corporate sushi chef for 11 Roy’s; and D.K. Kodama, chef-owner of six restaurants in Hawaii, including three Sansei Seafood Restaurants & Sushi Bars, and coauthor of “D.K.’s Sushi Chronicles From Hawai’i” (Ten Speed Press, $35).

The “rules” and the sushi chefs’ comments:

1. It is correct to eat sushi either with fingers or chopsticks.

Hamamori: In Japan, we use our fingers. You can use chopsticks; you don’t have to use your hands. But fingers are more correct.

Abe: I eat sushi with my fingers. Sushi is delicate and soft — if you use chopsticks it is messy. more…

BOCA RATON, Fla. — A hundred bucks might buy you more than six dozen burgers from McDonald’s, but the the swanky Old Homestead Steakhouse will sell you one brawny beef sandwich for the same price.

Boca Raton Mayor Steven Abrams could barely speak between bites as he devoured the 20-ounce, $100 hamburger billed as the “beluga caviar of sandwiches.” more…

BERKELEY, Calif. - Eric Schlosser, investigative journalist and author of “Fast Food Nation'’ - the expose of the fast-food industry and how it manipulates customers to buy food that isn’t good for them - is speaking to his latest audience: preteens and teenagers.Schlosser’s new book, “Chew on This: Everything You Don’t Want to Know About Fast Food,'’ has just come out, and he and co-author Charles Wilson are giving a presentation to 600 kids at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley. more…

My family and I are in Dans le Noir, a new London restaurant where, as the English translation of the name suggests, you eat in the dark. By dark I don’t mean shadowy or can’t-quite-see, like being under a doona or in a forest on a moonless night. I mean where you cannot even see your hand in front of your face.

Around us people are talking and laughing as they would in any restaurant, but the hum is more intense than usual. Perhaps they’re realising, as I did, that they have never been in complete blackness before. more…

London, June 17 (IANS) Use of potassium-enriched salt in place of regular salt in everyday diet could cut the risk of several diseases, including heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes, a study has found. more…

I remember the host on a program about animal rights saying, “Please take care of our animals. It will be good for everyone.” However, some Chinese don’t think about the animals when eating meat. They dare to eat anything but aren’t aware that what they are eating may actually be harmful to them.

Ah Chang, who has worked in the restaurant industry for many years in China, has witnessed the use of all kinds of tricks used to fool the public into buying inferior meat. The following is his experience as a kitchen helper in a restaurant in Guangdong Province.  (more…..)

‘If it flies in the air or walks on the land then it must be good to eat’

CHICAGO (Reuters) - So long, Biggie. Hello, confusion? Wendy’s International Inc. (NYSE:WEN - News), the No. 3 U.S. hamburger chain, on Friday said it would remove the term “Biggie” from its french fries and drinks, switching to the well known terms small, medium and large.

… McDonald’s famously removed the “Super Size” option from its combo meals after the 2004 release of the film “Super Size Me” — a documentary in which filmmaker Morgan Spurlock ate nothing but McDonald’s fare for a month and tracked his increasingly poor health. more…

Customers craving fresh crustaceans will have to look beyond Whole Foods Market Inc. after the natural-foods grocery chain decided Thursday to stop selling live lobsters and crabs on the grounds that it’s inhumane.The Austin-based grocer, which has stores in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, spent seven months studying the sale of live lobsters from ship to supermarket aisle. more…

New Yorker editor Bill Buford chopped carrots in Mario Batali’s restaurant and butchered pigs in Tuscany. In the end, he learned something about being human. more…

Forget “Molto Mario,” it’s time to call Mario Batali’s popular TV show “Motor Mario.”

The James Beard Award-winning chef, cookbook author and all-around face of Italian cooking in the United States has gone nutty for NASCAR. His three-year obsession with stock-car racing has led to a cookbook, “Mario Tailgates NASCAR Style,” being named the official NASCAR chef and now a spot as a judge in “The Tailgate for a Lifetime Tailgating Championship.” (more…..)

http://www.austin360.com/

This Saturday, on Father’s Day weekend, hundreds of apron-wearing black men from across the country will fire up their grills, toss seasoned meat and veggies onto an open flame and do what they do best: Cook and connect with family.

Black families from Miami to Los Angeles will participate in a unique 16-year tradition: Sampling heaping plates of delicious food prepared by black fathers, brothers, sons and uncles in the spirit of black family solidarity and charitable causes that benefit black Americans. more…

Customers craving fresh crustaceans will have to look beyond Whole Foods Market Inc. after the natural-foods grocery chain decided Thursday to stop selling live lobsters and crabs on the grounds that it’s inhumane.The Austin-based grocer spent seven months studying the sale of live lobsters from ship to supermarket aisle, trying to determine whether the creatures suffer along the way. more…