Nicholas Evans, the author of the best-selling novel "The Horse Whisperer" is recovering in a hospital after eating a highly toxic variety of mushroom.
Evans, his wife, her sister and the sister's husband became sick after cooking and eating Cortinarius speciosissimus mushrooms, which they'd gathered in the woods during a vacation in Scotland. The mushrooms contain kidney toxins; all four received dialysis and were reportedly doing well.
Incidents like this shouldn't scare you off mushroom hunting, especially during prime chanterelle season. Just be VERY sure you know exactly what you're doing. Check out Jonathan's 'Chasing the wild mushrooms' features for more on (non-deadly) mushroom hunting.
Every election year, different bakeries and candy makers come out with party or candidate-identified treats. They conduct their own, unscientific straw polls, in an attempt to determine what the outcome of the election will be. While elections won't be won or lost over sweet confections, they do add an element of fun to your convention or election return parties.
Famed chocolatier Jacques Torres has thrown his hat into the election-themed chocolates this year, with a pair of white chocolate lollipops. They are available with either a blue donkey for the Dems or a red and blue elephant for the GOP. The back of the blue pops are printed with the slogan "Barack the Vote," the others cheer that "Mac is Back." They run $5 a pop and are hand crafted with some of the tastiest, citrus-infused white chocolate around. They'd make a great election time gift for your favorite policy wonk.
Guess the politicians' favorite foods!
Who still loves their hometown pizza joint? Who obsesses over pork rinds? Click the thumbnails to find out!
British food always gets knocked about, and now it's getting an added slap from Jamie Oliver. The BBC reports that Paris Match magazine has interviewed the popular celebrity chef, who is not too happy about the state of food in the UK. In fact, he even said that there was a better variety of food in South African slums.
But he doesn't think it was always that way. He says that "We have lost our traditions," and that Britain's "poverty shows in the way they feed themselves." Basically, he says they do so by spending everything on technology and booze, rather than meals around the dinner table -- something that seems far from UK-centric.
The Sydney Morning Herald also notes that Oliver went on to discuss how well France has kept up their food traditions, and how he'd like to shoot a new television show there. My suggestion: Oliver should go to France, research the continuing traditions practiced there and then head back to the UK for a British food Renaissance.
Back in June, we mentioned that the National Mango Board was conducting a contest, looking for the first Next Mango Rising Star. Essentially, they were inviting kids between the ages of 8 and 14 to make a cooking video, using a recipe that included mango. Well, the contest is now over and they've crowned a winner.
Dean Sturt, of Rowlett, TX, has been anointed with the title Rising Mango Star, thanks to his confident video and delicious dish, Mangolicious Flip Flop Cake. The video above is the one that catapulted him into the winning position. It's pretty cute and looks like a good recipe to boot. Congrats, Dean!!
There's so much news about Michael Phelps right now, I bet the guy could write his own ticket for the foreseeable future. When I heard a news blurb that he was going to be on a cereal box by next month I didn't think much about it.
Naturally I figured Mr. Phelps would be on the front of a Wheaties box, but apparently that's not the case. According to an article in the New York Daily News, the swimming champion will lend his image to Frosted Flakes (move over Tony). Some nutritionists are a little concerned about the message that sends to kids. While Michael Phelps can handle the excess sugar of Frosted Flakes, experts are concerned about regular cereal eaters who don't burn as many calories as he does.
I admit I was a little surprised by Michael Phelps' choice. It makes more sense when you think about how many calories he eats and burns through in one day, but you'd think the guy would be a little more interested in promoting slightly more healthy breakfast choices. Would you buy Frosted Flakes just because Mr Phelps was on the box?
You know Duff Goldman as the owner of Charm City Cakes and the central character in the Food Network's reality show, Ace of Cakes. I have a friend who has something of a crush on him and often says that she'd like to "put him in her pocket." Well, today is apparently her lucky day, as Charm City Cakes has teamed up with Diamond Select Toys to turn Duff into a very pocket-sized action figure. That's right Charm City Cakes fans, you can now have your very own Duff doll.
In addition to the doll, you can also buy an assortment of accessories, including "two of the shop's signature cakes, a drill-powered mixer, a chainsaw, wooden spoon, spatula, guitar and flame-thrower! Also included is an alternate baseball cap to recreate another Duff Goldman look!"
They're available this fall and would make the perfect holiday gift for the Duff Goldman fan.
One of my favorite early Saturday Night Liveskits was featured John Belushi as an Olympic athlete. The scene opens with clips of Belushi doing a high jump and running around a track, then cuts to a shot of him at the breakfast table. Clutching a cigarette, Belushi looks into the camera with complete gravitas and tells about his secret to staying fit: "I downed a lot of donuts. Little chocolate donuts. They taste good and they've got the sugar I need to get me going in the morning."
The commercial played off the classic "Wheaties" ads, which featured Bruce Jenner. The prevailing wisdom in those days stated that top-class athletes had to eat extremely healthy foods, like whole grain cereal and skinless, boneless chicken. However, as I recently read about Michael Phelps' daily eating regimen, I was surprised to see that his diet is much closer to John Belushi's than to Richard Simmons. To begin with, the Olympian consumes approximately 12,000 calories a day, roughly six times the RDA for a man his age. Second, it is heavily skewed towards carbohydrates and fats, which most diets eschew. Given Phelps' amazing energy expenditure (in the average week, the guy swims five hours a day, six days a week!
At any rate, Phelps' average daily menu is after the jump...
Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter picks up his second restaurant, Monkey Bar. His first, the Waverly Inn, has been luring a high wattage crowd for two years, despite not being officially open.
L.A.'s fast food moratorium raises questions about choice and personal responsibility.
No wonder the Internet is swarming with a horde of wanna-be celebrity chefs. Forbes reports that those faces we all know and love (or loathe) are making some decent coin as faces of the cooking world.
Sure, some of them are making a heck of a lot more because they're taking over the airwaves with a million different shows (Rachel Ray), but man, it just hurts me to see Paula Deen ahead of the likes of Bourdain, Flay, and Batali.
The Top 10 Earning Celebrity Chefs:
10. Anthony Bourdain - $1.5 million 9. Bobby Flay - $1.5 million 8. Tom Colicchio - $2 million 7. Mario Batali - $3 million 6. Paula Deen - $4.5 million 5. Alain Ducasse - $5 million 4. Nobuyuki Matsuhisa - $5 million 3. Gordon Ramsay - $7.5 million 2. Wolfgang Puck - $16 million 1. Rachel Ray - $18 million
(Click the photo to see TV's Top 7 Sexy Celebrity Chefs)
Food Network chef Tyler Florence and wife Tolan Clark Florence announced the birth of their daughter, Dorothy Tyler Florence on Friday. Born on August 8th, 2008 she Dorothy will forever have the delightful (and according to the Chinese, very auspicious) birth date 08/08/08. To see a picture of the newborn, check out the post welcoming her to the scene over at the Food Network Addict blog.
Dorothy has two older brothers, Hayden is 14 months old and Miles is 12 years old (Tyler's son from a previous relationship). I'm sure they're both just giddy over their pretty new sister.
Okay, I'm going to get something out in the open here: I am somewhat biased when it comes to Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Just in case the title of this post wasn't enough to make my feelings clear, I want you to know that, from where I stand, the famed ice cream makers share moral ground with Kim Philby, John Walker, and Robert Hanssen. In my house, we don't use the term "Benedict Arnold." For us, the gold standard of betrayal takes the form of two Vermont pseudo-hippies, and the phrase "You're a total...Ben and Jerry!" can be the prelude to a massive battle royale.
Even so, I'll try to be fair.
When I was a kid, long before Ben and Jerry's became a household term, I met the pair at a book show in Washington D.C. They were hawking their ice cream cookbook and, as a young cook and avid bibliophile, I eagerly snapped up the signed first edition of their tome. Although I left the DC convention center that day with several huge bags of books, Ben and Jerry's slim volume was in my lap, and I read it and reread it repeatedly over the next few days.
Although it was to be a long time before Ben and Jerry's came to our neck of the woods, I mixed up several of their recipes in my little ice cream maker. I loved them all. In Massachusetts, where my family spent our summers, B&J's was available in a few of the markets, so my sisters and I were able to try out a few of the famous flavors. We absolutely adored them.
When I was in high school, I had a love-hate relationship with science classes. Geology was fine, biology was okay, and chemistry...well, chemistry was hell. Mrs. Olech, the troll who taught the class, regularly flunked half her students and had a teaching manner that made Alan Greenspan seem bouncy and exciting.
Ironically, while I flunked chem, I aced my cooking classes. Even at the time, I thought that this was a little weird; after all, what is cooking if not a chemical process? The subtle adjustment of flavors, the cultivation of certain bacteria, the measured combination of leavening chemicals are all, basically, a mix of applied chemistry and biology. However, cooking class captured my imagination and attention in a way that chemistry didn't.
Reading a recent profile of Alton Brown, I realize that the problem lay with Mrs. Olech and her ilk. The simple fact is that science can be a lot of fun, if it is applied in a way that is relevant and exciting. I was surprised to learn that, like me, Brown found his science classes "boring beyond words." Even now, as he has built his own store of scientific knowledge, he admits to having discarded academic journals and scholarly papers because of their inability to engage his interest.
Yes, proceeds from the sales of Nutrish will indeed go toward funding no-kill shelters and awareness campaigns, and it's not as if she's the first media-centric chef to go to the dogs -- or cats (remember Rocco DiSpirito's Fancy Feast Elegant Medleys?). Still, I'm continually shocked by the branding stretches some of these folks are making.
(Aaaannnd I've just run across Paula Deen's Butt Massage. I know it's likely a handy and delicious mix of herbs, spices and faerie dust, but still. Ew.)
Have you ever wondered about why it's important to salt your food at various stages of the cooking process? Or wished for someone to talk you through a good technique for poaching an egg with humor and understanding? If so, Michael Ruhlman's 2007 book, The Elements of Cooking should be given a place in your kitchen as this book has the answers and guidance you seek.
This is a book that walks you through basics, gives you insights into the ways in which chefs think and offers lots of little things you can do to make your home cooking more successful and delicious. It is the best-written and most instructive book I've clapped eyes on in a long time. If my educational texts in college had been this engrossing, I probably would have stayed a student for ever.
In addition to offering lots of immensely helpful tips, there are also a handful of recipes scattered throughout the book, mostly tucked in the A to Z section. They might not look like recipes as you're used to seeing, as they come in narrative form, but they are there, in the form of instructions on how to macerate berries or make lemon confit. I can't say enough good things about this book, I just recommend that if you have any interest in learning more about cooking and the food you eat, you should check it out.
In his forty-plus year career, Elton John has had no lack of awards: in addition to an Oscar for his work on The Lion King, he can boast five Grammys, a place in the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a CBE and a Knighthood, as well as hundreds of other honors, great and small.
However, in some ways, none of these honors is as sweet as the one recently bestowed on the famed singer/songwriter. This week, Ben and Jerry's will launch Goodbye, Yellow Brickle Road, an Elton John-themed flavor that it will sell in its scoop shops from July 18th to July 25th. Named after his seminal 1973 breakthrough album and unveiled in honor of his first-ever concert in the Green Mountain State, all proceeds from the sale of the ice cream will go to the Elton John AIDS Fund.
A chocolate ice cream base with peanut butter cookie dough, butter brickle, and white chocolate chunks, one wonders if "Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road" might spawn sequels. After all, is it hard to imagine a market for "Rocky Road Man," "Can You Feel the Carbs Tonight" or "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blueberry Bonanza"?
A jar of honey can become a sticky mess. Next time you're adding honey to another dish or a mug of tea, use a honey dipper to prevent a thick gooey layer from spreading.
Nicholas Evans, the author of the best-selling novel "The Horse Whisperer" is recovering in a hospital after eating a highly toxic variety of mushroom.
There's so much news about Michael Phelps right now, I bet the guy could write his own ticket for the foreseeable future. When I heard a news blurb that he was going to be on a cereal box by next month I didn't think much about it.
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One of my favorite early Saturday Night Live 
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Okay, I'm going to get something out in the open here: I am somewhat biased when it comes to Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Just in case the title of this post wasn't enough to make my feelings clear, I want you to know that, from where I stand, the famed ice cream makers share moral ground with Kim Philby, John Walker, and Robert Hanssen. In my house, we don't use the term "Benedict Arnold." For us, the gold standard of betrayal takes the form of two Vermont pseudo-hippies, and the phrase "You're a total...Ben and Jerry!" can be the prelude to a massive battle royale..jpg)
When I was in high school, I had a love-hate relationship with science classes. Geology was fine, biology was okay, and chemistry...well, chemistry was hell. Mrs. Olech, the troll who taught the class, regularly flunked half her students and had a teaching manner that made Alan Greenspan seem bouncy and exciting. 
In response to the unleashing of 
Have you ever wondered about why it's important to salt your food at various stages of the cooking process? Or wished for someone to talk you through a good technique for poaching an egg with humor and understanding? If so, Michael Ruhlman's 2007 book, 
Chocolate-stuffed bananas on the grill
Tyler Florence welcomes new daughter
Beware kids' menus!
