It makes sense that NYC would follow LA's desire to ban fast-food. Just this past March, a report from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene revealed that in just two years obesity and diagnosed diabetes increased by 17 percent while the rest of the nation experienced just a six percent increase. An article from New York magazine reports that, according to the Sun, NYC Councilman Eric Gioia wants to impose a one-year ban on new fast-food restaurants. Considering the gravity of this health crisis, this desired measure hardly seems as puritanical as New York magazine describes.
The BBC explains that local policians in LA want to implement laws that would ban fast-food businesses from opening up in South LA where 32 percent of adults are overweight. In cities with high rates of obesity, these measures seem crucial. Personally, I think these bans would encourage businesses to offer affordable healthy food. At the same time, it would bring back the traditional ways of enjoying and cooking food.
Last night I went to a party at James, a lovely little restaurant in the Italian Market section of Philadelphia. It was in celebration of the fact that the chef and co-owner James Burke had been named one of Food & Wine Magazine's Best New Chefs for 2008. It was a far swankier event than I am accustomed to attending, but ended up being lots of fun (even though I forgot to change out of my flip flops before I left the house and so spent some time feeling embarrassed about my flat, plastic shoes).
One of the hits of the evening was a signature drink (essentially a fancified gin and tonic) that they whipped up for the evening, called Hendrick's and Honeydew. Made with fresh honeydew and garnished with a sprig of thyme and a bit of the melon, it was refreshing and lovely, perfect for a swampy summer evening. Check out the recipe after the jump.
I'm always a fan of booze-based kitchen pyrotechnics, and a sucker for a good technique demo. The twain are meeting in this video from Gourmet.com's The Test Kitchen video series. In this particular installment, Gourmet's test kitchen director Ruth Cousineau talks her way through a flambé of sirloin pan juices, olive oil, and a goodly lashing of whiskey, outlining her strategies for forestalling danger along the way. Fire pretty. Video handy. Me hungry.
Other useful video tutorials include methods for measuring honey and flour correctly, coring apples, cleaning herbs, and general behind the toque tips and techniques from their staff's seasoned kitchen pros.
Gourmet's Barry Estabrook investigated the hows and whys of salmonella's introduction to the produce we eat. The following is an excerpt of his findings published on Gourmet.com.
How in the hell does salmonella get inside a tomato?
Excuse the bluntness, but that question has been much on my mind this week in the wake of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) warnings against eating raw red tomatoes. The agency took action after 145 diners in 16 states were sickened by tomatoes tainted with salmonella, a bacteria carried in the intestines of animals and humans.
After making several calls and receiving no satisfactory answer to my simple question, I finally reached David Gombas, senior vice president of food safety and technology at the United Fresh Produce Association, a trade organization. He frankly admitted that while there are a number of potential ways for salmonella bacteria to get from some animal's intestines into your fresh salsa, the exact mechanism remains a food-safety mystery that the industry would dearly love to solve. This explains why outbreaks of the disease are so common. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) says that more than 3,000 Americans have been sickened by tomatoes in 24 different outbreaks since 1990, a number that looks even more sobering when you realize that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that only 1 in 30 salmonella cases ever gets reported.
Writing in Slate, urban farmer L.E. Leone describes her emotions when killing one of her own chickens: "I kneel in the dirt, holding the body still while it flutters, and hyperventilate... I feel alive and in love and closer than ever to death."
Which got me thinking: how would I feel if presented with a live bird and a sharp ax?
I'm pretty darn sure I could do it. I certainly eat enough meat that I should be able to deal with where it comes from. While, like many people, I've got issues with the meat industry as it exists in America today, I'm pretty comfortable with the concept of the food chain. I don't get grossed out by blood. I used to drive an ambulance. I grind my own sausage. But I've never directly killed anything bigger than a trout. Would it be weird? Would I cry, as Leone claims she does each and every time? If I didn't get teary, would I feel guilty for being an insensitive killer?
Women's Health is great, but they obviously made a typo when writing about the top food blogs - they listed Chow.com instead of Slashfood!
It's okay, though...we all make mistakes. I'm sure the copyeditors will fix that soon.
In the meantime, here are what WH thinks are the best food and drink websites, followed by my suggestions for others you may enjoy.
What's for Dinner is a rudimentary site with a great concept: it provides a week's worth of new recipes at the beginning of each week, so you don't have to rely on your own creativity when you come home exhausted from work. The recipes are certainly easy and not too time-consuming, but don't expect huge nutrition benefits: several of the dishes are fried, and only one is vegetarian-friendly. All Recipes has a "Recipe of the Day" feature, as well.
The Eat Well Guide is a decent search engine for finding local, organic foods nearest to you. There are other sites that offer this service, too - check out Local Harvest for co-ops and farmers markets near you, and visit Organic Highways for organic restaurants in your area.
With Cork'd, you can read and share wine reviews with other vino lovers, so you know exactly what to bring to your next BYOB. But Snooth and Wine-Searcher are just as good.
I feel like there's a new "World's Most Expensive Burger" story every year. Made with Wagyu beef, topped with foie gras, buns studded with diamond dust (OK, not really), it's a gimmick that never fails to elicit gasps. The rank-and-file shake their heads in disapproval at the decadent rich - "a $50 hamburger, what's the world coming to?" while those with money to burn get to feel very ironic and high-low (the pinnacle of this attitude can be found at Las Vegas's Palms casino, where they'll serve you a $6 Carl's Jr. burger with a 24-year-old bottle of French Bordeaux for $6,000).
For a brief history of the trend, see this story on Forbes Traveler. There's a slideshow of haute burgers, from the six-pack of Kobe sliders at the Continental in Atlantic City to the $150 truffle-stuffed version at DB Bistro Moderne to the $5,000 burger n' 1990 Chateau Petrus combo at Fleur de Lys in Vegas.
I know that's a rather fattening-sounding name, but this recipe is under the "Light & Healthy" category over at Martha Stewart's Everyday Food. Hmmm...I'm not so sure. Yeah, they're made with unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder and egg whites and light cream cheese, but still. Maybe "lighter" and "healthier" is a better phrase.They sound pretty darn good.
In the New York Times Magazine, chef Daniel Patterson, owner of Coi in San Francisco, admits to a massive kitchen taboo - he doesn't like garlic. Well, he doesn't like eye-stinging, cutting-board ruining radioactive garlic, that is. What he does like is green garlic, the young stalks of the garlic plant plucked before they reach maturity. Also known as spring or new garlic, it goes perfectly with springtime dishes like lamb, peas and fava beans. Patterson likes to turn it into a aioli-like sauce by pureeing it with egg, oil and vinegar and using it as a sandwich spread and an artichoke dip.
The story includes a great-looking recipe for linguine with green garlic sauce, which I'll have to try next time I get my hands on four pounds of Manila clams. If you try it, please let me know how it is!
Have you ever sighed silently when someone told you they were a vegetarian, assuming they were a dogmatic, tofu-eating hippie? If so, read this essay by Taylor Clark on Slate, debunking various anti-vegetarian myths. No, vegetarians are not (necessarily) dull-palated, content to eat mushy vegetables and Gardenburgers. No, most vegetarians aren't interested in lecturing you about your steak (unless they're just jerks), so feel free to invite them to your barbecue. No, they're not silently judging you.
So don't lecture them about how being a vegetarian is silly, bad for your health, or against God's will. And no, just because they're wearing leather shoes doesn't make them total hypocrites - "I'd still say that doing something beats doing nothing," he writes. "It's kind of like driving a hybrid: not a solution to the global-warming dilemma but a decent start."
Esquire has a great list of the 75 skills that every man should master. And among those 75 things are several food and drink-related skills. Here's how I made out.
#7 on the list is "Cook meat somewhere other than the grill." This is the easiest one for me because I haven't cooked anything on a grill since I worked in restaurants years ago (and I don't bbq). #17 is "Make one drink, in large batches, very well." Does iced tea count? If it's booze, I'll have to work on this one. #32 is something I've never had a problem with, "Describe a glass of wine in one sentence without using the words nutty, fruity, oakey, finish, or kick." I usually just say something like "this Cabernet is really, really good!"
If you read one magazine article this week, definitely check out the New Yorker profile of Chicago chef Grant Achatz. The wunderkind behind the molecular gastronomy mecca Alinea, Achatz is currently running the show without a sense of taste. In what must be one of the worst cases of irony ever, the 34-year old was diagnosed with Stage IV tongue cancer earlier this year. Though he refused the standard treatment that would have involved removing most of his tongue, radiation therapy has nonetheless zapped, at least temporarily, most of his taste buds.
Still, Achatz presides over the Alinea kitchen, guiding his employees in the creation of his trademark outrageous confections - desserts of strawberry, olive, and violet essence; squab candy bars; pea and smoked salmon lollipops. Slowly, his sense of taste is returning - he can now taste salt and sugar again, and expects regain the ability to detect more subtleties as the months pass. He even hopes the experience will make him a more creative, edgier chef. Though coming from the man who served dehydrated bacon suspended from a silver scaffold during opening week, I'm not sure what that means.
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Chocolate-stuffed bananas on the grill
Tyler Florence welcomes new daughter
Beware kids' menus!
