It was a lunch that would horrify a dietitian: a bag of Tropical Skittles, a Jones soda, two Little Debbie marshmallow treats, a deep-fried pizza stick and a bottle of sweetened iced tea.
The high-calorie, sugar-packed treats are standard fare for Cleveland High School freshman Tikisha Spires, who travels off campus for lunch each day.
It’s certainly not what the Seattle School Board had in mind two years ago when it adopted a rigorous nutrition policy and canceled a lucrative vending contract with Coca-Cola. Chips and cookies were replaced in vending machines with granola bars and trail mix; sugary drinks are no longer sold in schools. Cleveland fell into line with other schools, offering healthier foods in its cafeteria and vending machines.
Rachael Ray is everywhere. She’s on TV, on bookshelves and now you can even buy the Food Network personality’s cookware.
To Lansing resident Misty Lane, it’s too much, and through a Web site she has created she has found out she is not alone.
Originally conceived as a joke, Lane started the “Rachael Ray Sucks Community” (http://community.livejournal.com/rachael_ray_sux/) in 2003 half expecting others to share her disdain for Ray.
“I got really fed up watching her show,” Lane said. “I really didn’t think anybody would join.”
The online group dedicated to Ray-bashing existed under the radar for about two years, until web magazine Slate.com ran a piece in defense of Ray in July of 2005 with a link to the site. Now 1,332 members strong, Lane, who has never met Ray, said the community receives about 300,000 hits every month. more…
Celebrity Chef Daniel Boulud screamed vicious obscenities at Hispanic workers and promoted unqualified white workers who fit the upscale image of his four-star French eatery Daniel, a lawsuit claims.Seven Latino and Bangladeshi busboys and runners who worked at Daniel sued Boulud in Manhattan Federal Court yesterday, accusing the award-winning chef of racial and ethnic discrimination.
“They don’t want to see anyone who is a captain who is Bengali or Latino,” said Mir Kadir Mamun, 30, a Bangladeshi busboy from Queens who says he was fired in May after airing complaints with federal officials. “They are never going to promote us.”
The workers say they were also forced to remain in back-breaking, low-paying jobs that require lifting heavy trays of food. more…
Christina Bayens — 26 and born with cystic fibrosis — needed a double lung transplant but she and her middle-class Louisville parents faced a dilemma.
How would they pay thousands of dollars of bills not covered by insurance?
Sitting on a hotel bed in St. Louis after visiting doctors in January — laughing and crying at the prospect of raising money — Christina and her mother, Linda, saw a television news report.
Twelve men from a New York Moose Lodge had posed partially nude for a calendar to raise money for a children’s charity.
“Naked chefs,” Linda blurted out.
Thus was born the “Louisville Chefs’ Best Kept Secrets” calendar — featuring male and female chefs from the city’s top tables, showing off their ingredients — which is now on sale at various local restaurants. more…
While luminous Yanks like Michelle Pfeiffer continue storming our restaurants — she was at Opus in Toronto the other night, FYI — an admirable Canadian has just taken up the task of feeding Americans.
Gabriel Aubry, who has a bedroom smile but is also adept in the kitchen and known best, of course, as the beau of one Halle Berry, just opened a restaurant in New York City. The theme is Cuban, and the locale is the East Village. Cafe Fuego is what they’re calling it.
Two years have passed since the French-Canadian Versace model and the Oscar-anointed Catwoman became an item, and things seem to be in that calm, settle-down place for both. Last week, at a party sponsored by Hennessy Cognac at Gabriel’s new spot, Halle even made an appearance and gave the restaurant the best, highest-wattage shot of publicity it could ever ask for.
“I was a cook before I was a model,” the tousled-haired hunk told InStyle magazine’s Party Hopper column. “I have a metabolism, so I can eat anything,” he boasted when the question of models-who-eat naturally came up. more…
A Florida woman has told the National Enquirer that she carried on a five-year affair with TV cook Rachael Ray’s husband.
Rachael Ray is the talk show circuit’s newest darling, so you can see why Jeannine Walz would pick now to cash in on her dirt. Why Rachael Ray, the mouse-voiced spaz attack who laughs at her own jokes, is popular, though, is still a secret.
Walz says she did drugs with John Cusimano, Ray’s husband and a lawyer, and then the two got their freak on. Maybe Ray has some recipes for food to slather on your lover’s body she can share?
In any case, Cusimano’s sexual requests aren’t sugary, but they sure are spicy. Walz says he shelled out cash for her to spit in his face and rub her bare feet on his face, amongst other things.
“Sometimes he’d be naked. I always kept my clothes on,” Walz says. “John paid me up to $500 for a session. We’d often have sessions at least twice a month … I virtually supported myself by spitting on him. But there was never any normal sex involved. He once offered to pay me $1,200 to perform a kinky sex act with him, but I refused.” more…
Jeri Ryan’s chef fiancé thrills her in the bedroom because he’s the first man she has met who really appreciates her lacy lingerie. The actress, who was previously married to politician Jack Ryan, insists her French lover Christophe Eme is a cut above most men because he makes her feel extra special when she wears sexy undies for him. more…
London, Nov 19 (ANI): She may be making millions of dollars now that she’s a A-List movie star, but for actress Renee Zellweger, her life had never been happier than when she was just a waitress. more…
A restaurant in the southwestern US state of Arizona that proudly admits to trying to finish off its customers has introduced a new item on its menu — the “quadruple bypass burger”.
The burger at the “Heart Attack Grill” restaurant is stacked with four beef patties, cheese, onions, tomatoes and fried bacon, and weighs in at only 8,000 calories, more than three times what the human body needs in one day.
Patrons who have no appetite for the “quadruple bypass burger” can opt for the “triple” or “double-bypass”.
“It’s not good for one’s health but it’s only a joke,” John Basso, who opened the restaurant 10 months ago, told AFP.
Customers who have room for more can also order French fries “fried in pure lard” and can purchase cigarettes off the menu. As a courtesy, the restaurant offers its “best customers” a wheelchair service to their cars by waitresses dressed in slinky nurses’ outfits.
The idea, however, has not gone down well with the Arizona State Board of Nursing which has expressed concern that some patrons may confuse the waitresses with real nurses. more…
Chef Edouardo Jordan started his culinary career at an early age in the kitchens of his mother and grandmother in St. Petersburg, Florida. As a top graduate of his high school, Edouardo had a decision to make: culinary school or college. He chose college. After graduating from the University of Florida with degrees in Business Administration and Sports Management, Edouardo, determined to apply his degrees, started an online restaurant guide for his hometown. His love for food and restaurants drove him to indulge his self in food. Spending nearly a year researching recipes, visiting restaurants, managing the website and critiquing food, Edouardo decided to follow his passion, he enrolled into culinary school. As a student at Le Cordon Bleu’s Orlando Culinary Academy, Edouardo excelled in the classroom and the kitchen, managing to graduate top of his class. Edouardo has studied under some of the greatest minds in the industry, spending time under pastry chef Ewald Notterin Orlando, Florida; Chef Marty Blitz at Mise en Place in Tampa, Florida; Chef Thomas Keller at the French Laundry in Yountville, California and a stint at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. Chef Jordan is currently working under Chef Jerry Traunfeld at the Herbfarm restaurant in Woodinville, Washington and spends his days off catering to his magnificent clients in the King County and surrounding areas.
Thank you for your interest in Nouvelle Personal Chef Service. If you have any questions or would like to set-up an interview please contact Chef Jordan.
Yahoo! has a site up for nearly every interest–pets, astrology, finance and cars are all well-represented. Yet until Thursday, the Internet portal didn’t have a home for food lovers.Now it does. Yahoo! Food will feature recipes, videos and restaurant reviews, says Deanna Brown, general manager of lifestyles at Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ). The site will cull videos and recipes from several food content brands, such as Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (nyse: MSO - news - people ), as well as posts from 13 food bloggers and one new Web-based cooking show.
Brown has been working with food for most of the Internet’s history. She claims she put the first recipe online in 1995 while launching Conde Nast’s Epicurious.com. In 2002, she revamped AOL Food. Now she’s hand picking chocolate chip cookie recipes, among other things, for Yahoo!.
Yahoo! media and entertainment head Lloyd Braun hired Brown because “[Braun] identified ‘food’ as something he wanted to do. He saw the food marketplace as under-served,” says Brown. more…
A diet containing curry may help protect the aging brain, according a study of elderly Asians in which increased curry consumption was associated with better cognitive performance on standard tests.
Curcumin, found in the curry spice turmeric, possesses potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
It’s known that long-term users of anti-inflammatory drugs have a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, although these agents can have harmful effects in the stomach, liver and kidney, limiting their use in the elderly.
Antioxidants, such as vitamin E, have been shown to protect neurons in lab experiments but have had limited success in alleviating cognitive decline in patients with mild-to-moderate dementia.
Curry is used widely by people in India and “interestingly,” the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease among India’s elderly ranks is fourfold less than that seen in the United States. more…
A new dish is now appearing on menus across the United States: the $40 entree. Such prices used to be the stuff of four-star, white-tablecloth meals, the kind that ended with a diamond ring on the petit four tray. But now entrees over $40 can be found in restaurants that are merely upscale or even chains, where diners wear jeans and tote children. In geographic terms, New York and Las Vegas have led the charge, and in culinary ones, steak and lobster were first and are still most prevalent. But the $40 entree is migrating: to restaurants in Philadelphia, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Denver, and to ingredients such as fish and even pasta.NOT THE CHEFS’ CHOICE?
Restaurateurs say rising rents, ever more elaborate interior decoration and the increasing cost of premium ingredients — especially beef and fish — leave them little choice. “Forty is the new 30,” said Richard Coraine, of Union Square Hospitality Group, which recently began charging $42 for a 1¾-ounce appetizer portion of lobster for lunch at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. Bobby Flay, who recently crossed the $40 mark in his Las Vegas and Atlantic City outposts, says he intentionally loses money on many other entrees to keep prices reasonable.
JACKSON, Miss. - Delta State University’s “Fighting Okra” mascot has landed a leading role on an episode of The Food Network’s “Good Eats,” a family cooking show starring Alton Brown.
The episode, Okraphobia, will premiere at 9 p.m. Wednesday with additional air dates at midnight Thursday, 9 p.m. Friday, 1 a.m. Saturday and 6 p.m. Oct. 6.
Delta State’s official mascot is the Statesman. The Fighting Okra is its popular unofficial mascot.
The Fighting Okra’s original 1998 costume was handsewn from a green sleeping bag. The okra got a new costume for the TV gig. more…
UZHHOROD, Ukraine - Valentyn Shtefano’s pastries were known for attracting stares and giggles as well as lip-smacking murmurs. But even his fiancee was surprised when Shtefano told her he was making her wedding dress — out of flour, eggs, sugar and caramel.
The dress — made of 1,500 cream puffs and weighing 20 pounds — took the 28-year-old baker two months to make, and by the end of the wedding reception, bride Viktoriya said she didn’t want to take it off. more…
In the video game, Cooking Mama, the player learns how to cook various meals using the Nintendo DS’s touch screen to interact with the ingredients. This gameplay structure, with the player completing a series of short mini-games, is similar to the WarioWare series. Following the instructions of the titular “Mama”, the player uses the stylus to chop vegetables, slice meat, flip food in pans and arrange the final items on the plate. The game features over 76 dishes to complete.
In 2001, both E! and the Style Network began airing Nigella Bites, the first stateside TV outlet for the British sensualist Nigella Lawson. Nigella Feasts finds the hostess up to the same old tricks: She prepares hearty food without fuss; she alternates coy smiles with confidential grins; verbal and voluptuary, she reinvents the double-entendre. This sex bomb is aimed, I think, at housewives. Buford, explaining why the Food Network’s offerings are called “food porn,” insisted, “It’s not erotic … It’s just unreal.” He obviously hadn’t seen Lawson make guacamole.
Or even heard her say “guacamole.” In the first episode of Nigella Feasts, working on a side dish for her cornbread-topped chili con carne, she endowed the word with illicit implications, pronouncing it with the roundest O imaginable, as if the sound itself might ripen the fruit. O, avocados! Having scooped them into a bowl, Lawson first reflected on the succulence of their flesh, then got down to business “massacring the avocados with [her] masher.” She mashed without pity. “Hmm—disturbingly satisfying!” she moaned. You want me to put my chips in that? more…
In a dynamic documentary style, “Gourmet’s Diary Of A Foodie” pastes together a whirlwind tour of China from Beijing to Shanghai and rural villages in between. Food on television is dominated by eye candy, silly prattle, and 30-minute meals, and some say offers nothing for real cooks. So this new series, produced by WGBH-TV, may fill the void for a more demanding audience. “The show is meant to appeal to serious foodies,” says co-executive producer Michael Selditch. “We went out the door with that crowd in mind and tried to bring back stories that hadn’t been done before.”
As such, the viewer goes down the old alleyways of Beijing, where chef Li Qun demonstrates fruitwood-roasted Peking duck. In the village of Xi Tang, which is on the water and famous for its snacks, we get a close look at zongzi dumplings, lean and fatty meats with sticky rice, wrapped in aromatic reed leaves. In Shanghai, we are whisked into the kitchen of chef Jereme Leung , who specializes in what he calls new-Shanghai cuisine for the emerging middle class (a riff on the traditional drunken chicken served in a martini glass with a granité on top), and in Daxing, outside of Beijing, we go to the house of Dr. Du, the village doctor, where lunch is being prepared in side a rustic kitchen in a giant iron wok over a wood fire.
Gourmet’s editor-in-chief , Ruth Reichl , thinks of the show as a “magazine on the air. ” “ It’s so graphically rich in the same way that the magazine is,” she says by phone from New York. Behind the camera is Zero Point Zero Productions, the New York-based team responsible for “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations” and other popular shows. The filming style is fast and unpredictable. With plenty of close - ups, stylish cropping, and moody natural lighting, everything is slick. “We were trying to achieve a look that could match the elegant photography in Gourmet magazine,” says Selditch.
The show really moves. Each 30-minute episode (there are 20 this season) has a theme, with local food journalists serving as translators and reporting on what they know best. Lydia Tenaglia, co-executive producer and director of “Diary of a Foodie,” was already connected to an international network of food people from her work on Bourdain’s shows. “We ended up talking to a lot of the same people and going deeper into stories that we had begun to explore on other series,” she says. more…
First, she took daytime television by storm with her highly rated new talk show, now RACHAEL RAY has joined forces with Epic Records to introduce viewers to one of her passions outside the kitchen — music! The label has announced that it will release a series of soundtracks with songs handpicked by Ray.
“I’m thrilled to partner with Epic … Epic is iconic!” Rachael says. “We’ve created soundtracks that I would listen to or play at a party, starting off with my picks for Christmas and a funky mix for kids. I start singing holiday songs on Thanksgiving weekend — that’s when my tree goes up as well — and, the kids’ CD is filled with music that both kids and parents might enjoy.”
The first two soundtrack releases are slated for next month. How Cool Is That Christmas CD hits music stores on October 10, while Rachael Ray’s Too Cool For School Mixtape for Kids will be available on October 31. Other titles will be introduced in 2007.
Through the Epic deal, Rachael has also created unique cellular voicetones — ringtones featuring messages from Rachael — to all major U.S. carriers.
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Carefully tailored to service the soccer mom crowd racing between work and kids and shopping, “The Rachael Ray Show” is a syndicated daytime talk show-cum-pep rally targeting viewers who are double-parked.
It moves along in energetic rat-a-tat-tat style via a series of manic Rachael McNuggets that casts Oprah’s very own handpicked youngster as a whirlwind of hyperkinetic charisma. Indeed, the opening hour depicts the former host of Food Network’s wildly popular “30-Minute Meals” as a woman in need of
Ritalin to slow it down, modulate her pitch and try a little less hard. Ray has an inherent likability and is certainly easy on the eyes, but she doesn’t talk to us so much as screams and she might want to consider taking a more leisurely approach. As it is, it’s all she can do to keep from using the adoring audience as her mosh pit.
Happy to be here after spending the past five years “talking to vegetables,” Ray emerges to a cool, loftlike brick set (it spins!) and hip R&B theme music. She quickly (everything here is quick) pours herself a cup of completely unnecessary coffee that she sips while reminiscing at the set’s kitchen table. Ray’s occasionally squeaky voice is even more adorably anxious than usual, but the crowd clearly already views her as royalty on Day 1 — screaming wildly with her every breathless piece of jabber. She packs a lot of show — too much, actually — into the kickoff that’s punctuated by her cuddly asides designed to establish a connection with Jane America. more…
There used to be a time when we would gather around the dinner table and enjoy wonderful food: Food that would nourish the body, mind and soul. We shared family events, and simply enjoyed each other’s company.
In today’s fast-paced world, enjoying a “home-made” family meal has become a thing-of-the-past. Where eating at a nice restaurant is a cost prohibitive solution, many have turned to the less nutritious fast food. In either event, something seems to be lost.
At “Chefs”, we have the solution. Our staff will assist with the menu planning, and shopping. Finally, as chef-for-the-day, using our industrial kitchen you prepare 8 to 12 meals that will feed your entire family: body, mind and soul. more…
” I grew up with food being an integral part of my home. I take what I know, and ideas from where I’ve been. I incorporate seasonal ingredients with fresh herbs and zesty spices to create unique dishes with a sense of style and bold flavors. “ -Chef Alexandra I. Lopez
CAKE INGREDIENTS:
1 box spice or German chocolate cake mix
1 box of white cake mix
1 package white sandwich cookies
1 large package vanilla instant pudding mix
A few drops of green food coloring
12 small Tootsie Rolls or equivalent
SERVING “DISHES AND UTENSILS”
1 NEW cat-litter box
1 NEW cat-litter box liner
1 NEW pooper scooper
1) Prepare and bake cake mixes, according to directions, in any size pan. Prepare pudding and chill. Crumble cookies in small batches in blender or food processor. Add a few drops of green food coloring to 1 cup of cookie crumbs. Mix with a fork or shake in a jar. Set aside.
2) When cakes are at room temperature, crumble them into a large bowl. Toss with half of the remaining cookie crumbs, and enough pudding to make the mixture moist, but not soggy. Place liner in litter box and pour in mixture.
3) Unwrap 3 Tootsie Rolls and heat in a microwave until soft and pliable. Shape the blunt ends into slightly curved points. Repeat with three more rolls. Bury the rolls decoratively in the cake mixture. Sprinkle remaining white cookie crumbs over the mixture, then scatter green crumbs lightly over top.
4) Heat 5 more Tootsie Rolls until almost melted. Scrape them on top of the cake and sprinkle with crumbs from the litter box. Heat the remaining Tootsie Roll until pliable and hang it over the edge of the box. Place box on a sheet of newspaper and serve with scooper. Enjoy!
U.S. health officials told California farmers to improve produce safety in a pointed warning letter last November, nearly a year before the multistate E. coli outbreak linked to spinach.
In fact, the current food-poisoning episode is the 20th since 1995 linked to spinach or lettuce, the Food and Drug Administration says.
Though state and federal officials have traced the current outbreak to a California company’s fresh spinach, they have not pinpointed the source of the bacteria that have killed one person and sickened more than 100 others.
The FDA is still warning consumers not to eat fresh spinach.
There is no evidence of tampering in the outbreak, FDA spokeswoman Susan Bro said Monday. That leaves a broad range of other possible sources, including contaminated irrigation water that has been a problem in California’s Salinas Valley. The area on California’s central coast produces much of the U.S. spinach crop.
There have been 19 other food-poisoning outbreaks since 1995 linked to lettuce and spinach, according to the FDA. At least eight were traced to produce grown in the Salinas Valley. The outbreaks involved more than 400 cases of sickness and two deaths.
In 2004 and again in 2005, the FDA’s top food safety official warned California farmers they needed to do more to increase the safety of the fresh leafy greens they grow. more…
HUNTINGTON — About 25 minutes into eating his cheeseburger, David Francke’s eyes glazed over and he pushed back from the table. “There’s no way,” Francke said. “I’m giving up on it. If I don’t, it would be everywhere.”
“It” is the brand new Bubba’s Big Bad Single Wide Burger at the almost-famous restaurant, Hillbilly Hotdogs that gives new meaning to the phrase “Biggie Size.”
Weighing in at 5 pounds, with seven pieces of cheese on 31/2 pounds of fresh meat from Logan’s on a custom-baked bun from Brunetti’s, The Single Wide got a grand introduction Friday afternoon as the restaurant, just a couple of blocks from Marshall’s campus, filled with students cheering on Francke, a 25-year-old med school student at Marshall from Charleston.
Francke earned the chance to be the first customer to take on a Single Wide since he holds the record (4 minutes) for eating Hillbilly Hotdog’s massive Homewrecker, a 15-inch hotdog with ALL the trimmings — the equivalent to eating 10 hotdogs.
Francke, who disposed of the Homewrecker in record time, said he was pretty confident about taking on the Single Wide, since he was still a bit hungry after knocking out a Homewrecker. more…
During Rachael Ray’s time on the Food Network, she has burned bread at least 50 times, chopped off the tip of a finger, lit Emeril Lagasse’s set on fire and set her own hair ablaze while leaning over a candle-covered birthday cake. Many of her jeans feature a permanent shiny line across the back created from standing too close to the stove.Those incidents make her a poor choice to run your gourmet kitchen, but they add up nonetheless to the most promising newcomer in the ever-competitive world of syndicated daytime talk shows.
“Rachael Ray,” which premieres today, follows a traditional recipe of celebrity interviews, cooking segments and lifestyle tips. But the wild ingredient is the host, a self-described bobblehead who can’t stay in place long enough to boil an egg and who seems stuck permanently in cheerleader mode.
“Everything I do I compare to being a waitress,” said Ray, 38, who peppers her conversations with words like “groovy,”wuss” and “hootenanny.”I try to figure out what people want and expect, and then I try to fill the order for them.”
That eager-to-please attitude is not for everyone, especially those still wiping sleep from their eyes at 11 a.m., but for those frustrated by Martha Stewart’s stringent guide to living, Ray probably will be welcome relief. In the first week alone, viewers will see her jump out of a plane, challenge an audience member to a “bag carrying” contest and create meals for polar bears — stunts that Stewart wouldn’t do for a million gardenias.
That spirit is what caught the attention of the reigning Queen of Daytime TV. Oprah Winfrey’s company, Harpo Productions, is behind the new show and hopes to have the same success it did with its last project, “Dr. Phil.” Winfrey will accentuate her support by making an appearance on Tuesday’s program.
“Oprah got from day one that Rachael knows how to be herself on TV,” said Terry Wood, president of creative affairs for King World, which is partnering with Harpo on the series. “She doesn’t want us to change her. She wants us to take what works and expand it, give her a bigger stage.” more…
Most people probably don’t think of Whole Foods as a restaurant.
But plenty are using it that way, as the organic food giant is now second in take-out sales in the casual/fast casual dining segment, according to a stock research report from CIBC World Markets earlier this year.
The Austin, Texas-based chain’s nearly 200 stores racked up $450 million in prepared food sales in 2005. That surpassed all of the casual dining restaurants, such as Olive Garden and Outback, and all of the fast casuals, except Panera Bread. (Neither category includes traditional fast-food eateries like McDonald’s.)
The organic and natural foods industry is up to $25 billion-$30 billion in annual sales in the U.S. - about 5 percent of total food sales - with growth at double-digit rates, CIBC reported. And Whole Foods has been a prime beneficiary, with annual sales growth of 15-20 percent. Take-out offerings are an estimated 8-10 percent of sales, compared to 2 percent for the typical grocery store, CIBC reported. more…
Variety is reporting that Warner Bros. Pictures is cooking up another comedy caper about murdered chefs — only this time set in Sin City, one of the world’s new culinary capitals. Eric Gold is producing.
Remake of the 1978 laffer “Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?”–starring George Segal and Jacqueline Bisset — will see its title shortened to “Who is Killing the Great Chefs?”
Studio has hired scribe David A. Goodman to pen the script, with Oliver Platt attached to star in the one of the two lead male roles.
Gold told Daily Variety that it made perfect sense to have the film take place in Las Vegas, where many of the world’s greatest chefs, including the likes of Todd English, Nobu Matsuhisa, Michael Mina and Joachim Splichal, have flocked.
In the updated version, Platt will play a food critic who comes to Vegas to check out the action, reprising the role played by Robert Morley in the original. But when a chef is found murdered in the same way his signature dish is prepared, the critic becomes a suspect. more…
CHICAGO — Don’t come between foodies and their foie gras.
That was the message sent by Chicago diners who dug into foie gras dishes Monday, on the eve of the city’s ban on foie gras. High-end restaurants had special foie gras tastings to protest the ban, and even a few down-home sandwich and pizza joints added it to their menus for the occasion.
At the 676 Restaurant & Bar on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, chef Robert Gadsby topped foie gras with Pop Rocks candies, wrapped it in prosciutto, and blended it into hot chocolate as part of an “Outlaw Dinner” that also featured such controversial ingredients as wild morels, absinthe, unpasteurized imported cheese, and hemp seeds. While the seven-course, $140 dinner was completely legal, all the ingredients have been banned at some point.
Gadsby called the foie gras ban ridiculous.
“What’s next?” asked Gadsby, who also hosted an Outlaw Dinner last month at his Noe Restaurant & Bar in Los Angeles, where foie gras will be subject to a statewide ban by 2012. “They’ll outlaw truffles, then lobster, beluga caviar, oysters. There are diners who eat to fill a hunger urge, and there are diners who eat to be dazzled. If you take away the luxury ingredients, how can you dazzle them?”
Who could possibly be next in the battle of Cheesecake photos? Some I would like to see, some should just stay in the kitchen. Please add your comments and be heard.
Not to be outdone by Rachael Ray, Cat Cora has now broken the seal on “sexy” in the kitchen. The 39-year-old Greek beauty, who hails from Jackson, MS, is the only female Iron Chef on the Food Network series. more…
Celebrity chef Bobby Flay, known from the Food Network, had two horses running Monday.
He entered 2-year-old filly So phie’s Salad in the second race. Named after Flay’s daughter, So phie’s Salad finished last at 2-1 odds in the 1-1/16 race on the Mellon turf.
Unlike her 5-furlong debut at Saratoga on Aug. 9, when she came from behind to finish third, So phie’s Salad went straight to the lead under jockey Javier Castellano. She led entering the stretch before fading badly to finish more than 17 lengths behind winner Limoncella.
Flay is also part-owner of Unbridled Success, who finished third in the Grade I Hopeful Stakes, 5-1/4 lengths behind winner Circular Quay. more…
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. - Gene Grabarnick longed for a hotel with all the things a man would want on a getaway with friends.
Where the concierge ushers guests to the hottest clubs. Where requests, from hand-rolled cigars to a favorite beer in the mini-bar, are unflinchingly filled. Where luxury is wrapped in sexy, swanky style.
1 whole chicken (weight is dependent on how many servings are required)
1 large lemon, cut into halves
sprig of rosemary
salt and pepper to taste
butter or olive oil, whichever you prefer
Heat oven to 350 degrees
Rub butter or oil over the skin of the chicken until it is completely coated.
Take a knife and gently separate the skin from the breast meat; slide lemon halves under the skin with the peel side up. This way the juice from the lemon will coat the breast.
Season skin of chicken to your preference; place sprig of rosemary into the chicken.
Cover and place in oven for 30-45 minutes. Remove cover and continue to roast until juices run clear, basting every 15-20 minutes, depending on size of the bird.
If you’ve followed these steps correctly, your chicken should look like the one in the picture. Bon Appetit!
(AP)BOMBAY, India When Hitler’s Cross restaurant opened four days ago in a Bombay suburb, local politicians and movie industry types were on hand to celebrate beneath the posters of the Nazi leader and swastikas.
The owner insisted then — and still does — that the name and theme of his new eatery is only meant to attract attention, even if it has outraged Bombay’s Jewish community.
“It’s really made people very upset that a person responsible for the massacre of 6 million Jews can be glorified,” Elijah Jacob, one of the community’s leaders, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
But owner Puneet Sablok has refused to back down, and apart from Bombay’s 4,500 Jews, there’s been little controversy in India, where Holocaust awareness is limited, Hitler is regarded as just another historical figure and swastikas are an ancient Hindu symbol, displayed all over to bring luck. There are just 5,500 Jews in all of India.
“It’s just to attract people. There is no intention to hurt anyone,” said Sablok about his spacious restaurant, which serves pastries, pizza and salad in Navi Mumbai, a northern suburb of Bombay, which is also known as Mumbai.
Those objecting to the restaurant plan to ask the local government to force a name change, said Daniel Zonshine, Israel’s consul general in Bombay.
“Instead of Hitler’s name being an example of extreme evil, this is like giving legitimacy to Hitler. It’s not right to advertise his name in public,” Zonshine said. more…
Sugary cupcakes, cookies, and muffins will be forbidden in Haverhill’s schools from now on. Beverly is banning all home-baked goods from school fund-raisers. And in Revere, officials are proposing food-free classroom parties and celebrations.
When students across the region head back to school this week and next, they will encounter new rules aimed at promoting healthier nutrition and more exercise. The change is prompted by a federal mandate that requires every school district that receives funding for lunch programs — and the vast majority do — to have a wellness policy in place by the first day of school or risk losing federal school lunch funding.
“When our parents hear about this, we are going to have an outcry,” said Raleigh Buchanan, superintendent of Haverhill’s public schools. The district is still finalizing sections of its wellness policy dealing with bake sales and classroom parties.
“In the history of schools in America, bake sales have been the staple of raising money,” Buchanan said. “And now bake sales have to have sugar-free cookies and muffins because of sugar content.”
The federal rule governing the changes, formally known as the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004, requires that school policies include nutrition guidelines for all food available at school, including vending machines and bake sales, and directs school officials to develop plans for evaluating implementation of the policies. It also mandates that a cross-section of each community — including parents, students, the school board, and the public — craft the policies. more…
Birthdays are becoming lessons in counting calories along with candles for thousands of kids heading back to school this fall.A growing number of schools nationwide are curtailing or cutting out birthday sweets in the name of nutrition and weight control. Others are concerned about food allergies and contamination. Some also argue that birthday parties eat up class time.
It’s a controversial topic, as local districts debate whether such policies protect the health of their children or if they needlessly destroy a longtime childhood ritual.
“There’s no question that it’s an issue out there,” says Erik Peterson, a spokesman for the School Nutrition Association, a national group of school-food directors. “ …But no one wants to be the food police.”
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that one in six school-age children is overweight, triple the proportion in 1980. The agency has projected that one in three children born in 2000 will eventually develop a form of diabetes linked to being overweight.
One recent study says school snack fests may play a role: A survey of 3,000 Minneapolis-area eighth-graders found that their average body-mass index — a common gauge of weight appropriateness — rose 10 percent with every form of noshing a school allowed, from fundraising bake sales to congratulatory pizza parties. more…
BremertonSubmarine cooks are rumored to be the best in the Navy. They have to keep hundreds of sailors happy for months while they’re stuck underwater in tight quarters.
Well, the rumor may be true, if a competition Friday among cooks from local bases, ships and subs is any indication.
A three-man team from the USS Nevada Blue crew emerged as the winner after six teams of Navy cooks went head-to-head in their own version of the Food Network’s popular “Iron Chef” TV show at Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton.
It was the second time in the two-year history of the event that a submarine team has won.
This year, teams found themselves judged by a panel that included former Seattle Mariner Edgar Martinez, comedian Cris Larsen, Nestle Chef Ron Coneybeer and Capt. Lindsay Perkins, the commanding officer of Fleet and Industrial Supply Center Puget Sound. more…
WHITE PLAINS — Eric Buffong said that ever since he was a 7-year-old girl named Erica, he knew deep down inside that he was really a man.
Now the 27-year-old chef has wound up in the middle of a court battle that took on statewide significance last week, when a judge ruled that his status as a transgender person qualified him for protection under the New York State Human Rights Law in a lawsuit against the upscale Tarrytown restaurant where he formerly worked.
Buffong is suing the parent company of Equus, a five-star restaurant in The Castle on the Hudson in Tarrytown, claiming he was mistreated and fired from his job as a line chef last year after a co-worker brought in a copy of his 1998 White Plains High School yearbook, in which he appears in his senior portrait as Erica Buffong.
Lawyers for the restaurant sought to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that Buffong had no standing to sue under New York law.
State Supreme Court Justice Joan Lefkowitz, expanding on previous rulings, held that even though the state’s human rights law does not specifically mention transgender people, they are nonetheless entitled to protection under it.
Buffong began working at the restaurant, which serves $230 Beluga caviar appetizers, in May 2004.
He said that about eight months later, after a co-worker brought in the yearbook and showed it to the other employees, he became the target of jokes and ultimately constant harassment.
He said his name on the work schedule was changed from “Eric” to “Erica,” jokes were made about his anatomy and lifestyle, and he was routinely asked inappropriate questions.
“Prior to this, I had never had any problems with anybody about who I am,” Buffong said.
Buffong said that when he complained to the executive chef, David Haviland, he was told: “That’s not my problem. Just deal with it.”
Shortly afterward, his work schedule was reduced from five days to four, then shifted from nights to mornings, before he was fired in May 2005, Buffong said. more…
FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. (AP) - Workers at a chocolate company have discovered a 2-inch-tall (5-centimeter-tall) column of chocolate drippings that they believe bears a striking resemblance to traditional depictions of the Virgin Mary.
Since the discovery of the drippings under a vat on Monday, employees of Bodega Chocolates have spent much of their time hovering over the tiny figure, praying and placing rose petals and candles around it.
“I was raised to believe in the Virgin Mary, but this still gives me the chills,” company co-owner Martucci Angiano said as she balanced the dark brown figure in her hand during an interview Thursday. “Everyone should see this.”
Kitchen worker Cruz Jacinto was the first to spot the lump of melted chocolate when she began her shift Monday cleaning up drippings that had accumulated under a large vat of dark chocolate.
Chocolate drippings usually harden in thin, flat strips on wax paper. But Jacinto said she froze when she noticed the unusual shape of this cast-off: It looked just like the Virgin Mary on the prayer card she always carries in her right pocket. more…
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When Rachael Ray’s new talk show kicks off in September, one very special guest will be in the house: Ray’s friend and mentor, Oprah Winfrey.
On Aug. 3, Winfrey, 52, made a surprise stop at the New York City set of Ray’s show, where she hung out for the entire taping, met the audience, got a full tour of the set and shared some on-air coffee talk with Ray.
Afterwards, Winfrey, who rarely appears on other people’s shows, headed to the airport for a flight to South Africa, where she is working on her Leadership Academy for Girls, due to open in January.
Ray’s hour-long syndicated program, The Rachael Ray Show,premieres Sept. 18. The episode with Winfrey will air during its first week. more…
In today’s fashionable homes — if appliance makers have their way — everything from refrigerators to faucets will be supersized.
At the annual Kitchen and Bath Industry Show in Chicago, manufacturers displayed a variety of new appliances that make traditional products look Lilliputian. Viking Range Corp.’s biggest oven now has 4.1 cubic feet of capacity, big enough to evenly cook 144 cookies at one time, the company says. Capital Cooking Equipment Inc. is selling a new 60-inch-wide range — compared with a previous model of 48 inches — that includes a rotisserie oven underneath and a 30,000 British Thermal Unit “power-flo” burner for big pots and woks. Sub-Zero Freezer Co. is offering its most spacious all-refrigerator unit, with 21 cubic feet of storage space, up from 15.3 cubic feet. Northland, a subsidiary of the United Kingdom-based Aga Foodservice Group, just unveiled a 60-inch, 40-cubic-foot refrigerator/freezer that can fit 24 soda cans lined side by side. General Electric Co. rolled out a 6-foot-wide, 41-cubic-foot, double-door refrigerator/freezer that starts at $13,999.
We’ve written about Anthony Bourdain’s recent experience in Beirut— the globe-trotting chef was there taping an episode of his show No Reservations when fighting broke out. (He was safely evacuated.) At the time, he wasn’t sure whether the episode would ever air. Now comes word that it will indeed be broadcast on the Travel Channel Monday, Aug. 21 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. more…
Thanks in large part to the $58,000 celebrity chef Bobby Flay spent on options to breed to two of the top Thoroughbred stallions, the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation raised an excess of $500,000 Aug. 7 at its annual gala at the Saratoga Golf and Polo Club.
The TRF is the nation’s oldest and largest horse rescue operation. The funds raised Monday will go toward the care of the more than 1,300 retired race horses under the group’s responsibility.
Throughout the night, options to breed in 2007 to some of the sport’s hottest stallions at 2006 prices were put up for bids to the more than 450 people attending the party. Flay paid $47,000 for the right to breed to Distorted Humor at his 2006 fee of $150,000 and $11,000 to breed to More Than Ready at his 2006 fee of $30,000. more…
GREENSBORO — If you want to see Oprah Winfrey from a closer vantage point than your overstuffed couch, you’re in luck.
The details are out about the influential television host’s visit to Greensboro in October to headline a benefit gala for Bennett College.
Tickets go on sale at 9 a.m. Monday and range in price from $250 to $1,000. Proceeds will go to the Revitalizing Bennett Campaign, which has raised more than $30 million of a $50 million goal.
For the money, you get to go to a hospitality hour, attend the gala and hear Winfrey speak and partake of a to-be-determined meal. Those buying certain levels of sponsorship packages will have an opportunity to meet the pop icon herself. more…
Follow up…
College Sells 300 Oprah Tickets in a Day
GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — Tickets to a fundraiser for Bennett College featuring Oprah Winfrey and Maya Angelou sold fast in the first day of public sale. more…
Years ago, when cooking at even the best restaurants was considered menial labor, blacks often worked the stoves. But as employment options opened up for blacks in the 1960’s and 70’s, kitchen work became less attractive. Now, with the restaurant industry booming and chefs becoming celebrities and wealthy entrepreneurs, few blacks are sharing in that success, and as young black men and women enter the profession they are finding few mentors or peers. >>More…
Celebrity chef Bobby Flay hopes he has the recipe to become a graded stakes winner when his filly Gilded Gold takes on six rivals in Saturday’s $100,000-added Floral Park Handicap (gr. III) for fillies and mares at six furlongs at Belmont Park.
The 4-year-old Gilded Time filly has won five of 12 career starts. She’s in tough, with Areek, a winner of five of her last six starts, heading the field.
“We bought Gilded Gold off (trainer) Tom Amoss last summer,” said Flay, whose filly is now trained by Alan Goldberg. “We ran her in a grade III (Safely Kept) at Pimlico. She didn’t run at all that day, and it turned out that she developed a real bad respiratory infection. She got over that, and we ran her at Aqueduct and she stumbled and came up with a foot infection. It was like we went from one thing right into another, so we decided to give her a lot of time off.” more…
I don’t know about you, but when I hire a personal chef, I have three requirements:
They must be friendly. They must whip up bourbon and honey-glazed pork chops to die for. And they must live to pulverize would-be tacklers.
“I’ve got to be honest,” one prospect confided to me the other day. “There are times I can cut the corner and get into the end zone. Instead, I’ll square up and run over somebody - just because I can. And then I’ll smile.”
Um, people? Say hello to my new personal chef, the next time my delicate palate demands a personal chef: Rachelle Pecovsky.
Yes, that Rachelle Pecovsky. N o. 44 for the D.C. Divas. One of the best running backs - yes, running backs - in all of women’s tackle football - yes, women’s tackle football.
Don’t know Pecovsky? Not quite down with the Divas? Allow me.
The 31-year-old Pecovsky is the culinary temptress behind her Traveling Kitchen chef service (www.thetravelingkitchen.com). She lives in Newport News but, as her handle suggests, Pecovsky stands eager and ready to take her Greek Stuffed Chicken on the road. more…
#44 Rachelle Pecovsky, Running Back, Personal Chef
