Beard and . . .

What would you do if you were a participating judge for the James Beard Awards this year? Let’s say you were a Twin Cities based adjudicator, fully versed in the work of the five nominees in our region. Three of those nominees are 112’s Isaac Becker, Alma’s and Brasa’s Alex Roberts, and Solera’s and LBV’s Tim McKee.

Do you vote for the kid from Milwaukee or Indianapolis? That would be a cop-out, and frankly, our three homeboys are all more deserving. Now the results don’t come out until June when the winners are announced in NYC, and for the umpteenth year in a row, I can’t make it because of a prior commitment, which bites. But I did have to vote for one of the lads, and I will be happy to share that with everyone at the last possible moment. But the question is, who would you vote for, and most importantly, why? Check out the James Beard website for all of the nominees in several categories.

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Want to see something hysterical? Check out the Deep End Dining website and the fun video that Eddie Lin and I made in Los Angeles last week.

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An finally, in what might be the most horrifying piece of news that has ever come across my desk, proving once again that there is no accounting for taste of any type. The Emmy nominations came out, and the she-devil of the Food Network garnered a nomination that I am sure she is so proud of:

Outstanding Achievement in Hairstyling: Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee, Food Network 


As my friend Dan Barreiro says, you just can’t make this stuff up.

New Restaurants and Celebrity Sightings

Good news for St. Paul-ites. Finally, The River City outpost of Salut, the wildly successful Edina French American brasserie, opens mid-June, according to what I hear. That’s good news for Grand Ave. denizens in particular, and I can guarantee you it will do wonderful business there. It’s an easy concept to like, serving accessible food in a comfy space, it’s priced right, and it sits smack-dab in the middle of one of the most underserved restaurant areas in the metro.

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Speaking of openings, 3 Squares opens today in Maple Grove, part of the Blue Plate Restaurant Company’s family of restaurants that includes Highland Grill, Edina Grill, Groveland Tap, and Longfellow Grill. In today’s sketchy economic times, a casual restaurant serving recognizable fare is exactly what the ‘burbs need more of.

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The Bayport Cookery’s Morel Mushroom Fest begins May 8 and will run until June 28. This year’s twist is Jim Kyndberg’s Ten Year Celebration Dinner, a ten-course meal honoring Jim’s ten years of ownership at The Bayport Cookery. Ten years is a heck of a run and worth celebrating under any circumstances. Check out its website for reservations.

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For Food Network fans, Bobby Flay will be at Mall of America on Sunday, May 11. Flay will be signing copies of his first full-color, fully illustrated grilling cookbook, Bobby Flay’s Grill It! The event runs 3–5 p.m.

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In other FN news, Paula Deen is going into syndication, something we need less of, not more. Deen has a few problems to deal with. Remember last year when I wrote about her Smithfield sponsorship and the inherent conflict with sponsorship from a company with a worker health history such as Smithfield?

Well, Atlanta-area churches are joining a campaign to get Paula Deen to meet with injured and abused workers from Smithfield, the company she promotes. Rev. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Rev. Lowery, Danny Glover, Susan Sarandon, Judge Greg Mathis, National Hispanic Leadership Conference, and others have mounted a national campaign to support the Smithfield workers and are pressing Deen to follow up on her promise she made in previous interviews on Larry King Live to meet with these Smithfield workers who have been fighting for more than a decade to improve the working situation in Tar Heel, North Carolina.

According to an e-mail I received from friends in the South,

"At the Smithfield Tar Heel plant workers suffer crippling injuries. They endure excessive line speeds and receive inadequate training to do their jobs. A 2007 Research Associates of America report, using company data from federal safety and health reports, reveals that injuries at Smithfield Tar Heel went up 200 percent between 2003 and 2006.

In 2006, a federal appeals courts enforced the National Labor Relations Board decision that found that the company assaulted people, harassed and threatened violence against the Tar Heel workers during an election in 1997. Human Rights Watch, an organization that normally documents abuses by foreign governments, published two reports, in 2000 and 2005, decrying the dangerous conditions and numerous abuses that workers faced at the Tar Heel plant. Similar to the Kathie Lee Gifford controversy, the ministers want Paula Deen to meet with workers and are appealing to her sense of morality and faith to ultimately speak out on their behalf."

Food for Thought

OK. Remember when Levain and Auriga and Five closed, Seth left Cosmos, and I announced I was out on the ledge, so to speak, over the local state of restaurant affairs? Well I am back on a ledge. Except this time, it’s the ledge of global food production, world hunger, and the threat to our international security.

I have been abroad for a while, and after coming home, I can tell you with utmost assurance, from both anecdotal and scholarly resources alike, that we are in for a sh*tstorm of problems related to the rice panic, the rise of Chinese and Russian food demand, and the falling strength of the dollar. I was in three European countries last week and spent a lot of time with farmers, fishermen, and restaurant employees. The situation in Europe is terrible, and you will read a lot about it in the coming weeks, I am sure.

The French housing market is about to crater, the average EU citizen is facing unprecedented economic uncertainty as food prices eclipse the reach of single earner families in the middle class and lower income families with two wage earners. The cover of the International Herald Tribune even ran with a story about this phenomenon. And watching Al Jazeera, BBC News, and China News for a few weeks would scare the crap out of the average American. Anti-Americanism, fear of economic uncertainty, rising Chinese nationalism of the type that burst into the news last year in Russia (remember the Putin youth stories!?), and a tidal wave of problems rumbling across the Middle and Near East (Pakistani political clashes, Muslim Brotherhood threatening Egypt’s Mubarak oligarchy, Iranian obstinateness, Iraqi everything . . .) are making traveling and news watching uncomfortable.

There seems to be a solution for our ailing image abroad in all this, and it’s food related. Why doesn’t the United States stand up tomorrow and announce a global hunger initiative aimed at getting food into the hands of the world’s hungriest? Why don’t we single-handedly take care of the UN World Food Programme’s money crunch? Why not stand up and show the rest of the world that in our country, we stand alongside the least fortunate in time of need? Well, probably because we can’t even do that in our own country.

A report out on Tuesday from the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production examined the impact of the growth and rampant use of factory facilities masquerading as farms where huge numbers of the cattle, swine, and poultry (some right here in Minnesota) are concentrated in such large numbers and in such close quarters for the sole purpose of speeding up both the growth process and the slaughtering timetables. The report’s conclusion was that we must end this practice or continue to create an ever-widening epidemic of environmental and health problems.  To quote, ”There is increasing urgency to chart a new course . . . (These facilities) often poses unacceptable risks to public health, the environment and the welfare of the animals themselves.” And the canard we have been sold for too long is that all of this is good for farmers. Wrong! As an AP story I caught so succinctly put it, “it is good only in that it has shifted rural Americas economic power from farmers to livestock processors.”

Remember, when only three companies control two-thirds of the beef processing in this country, something is wrong. It creates untenable health risks and an ad hoc food cartel, which will very soon have OPEC-like powers that will continue to marginalize the average consumer when it comes to choice and access to healthy, inexpensive quality food. Mark my words, this is happening right now. Eating well is becoming a class issue in this country and around the world.

And if that doesn’t piss you off and give you food for thought, check out these links:

Here is a link to a PDF of "CAFO's Uncovered". Do you know how much tax we pay to clean up after these sh*tholes—literally?

Here is a link to the new Pollan article in the NYT Magazine about the impending climate doom and why someone should plant a garden, or not.

How about going on a recession diet? Really!

Slate has an article on how food writers don't necessarily write about the cost of food. True enough, but that’s not every food writer’s job, is it? That being said, there is a cool idea or two in here. 

Has anyone seen the Vanity Fair green issue? This Monsanto article is amazing in its ability to show you the reach and power that companies like this one have in our world today.

Shipping food around the EU through the perspective of the humble kiwi. 

Truth in Labeling bugging anyone other than me? Chipotle's nutritional info just doesn't add up.

Conspiracy Theory

According to a WCCO piece I caught online by John Lauritsen, it is a weak economy to blame for Temple having to close its doors, rising food costs, a sluggish economy (let me tell you, this is a full-blown recession and could approach depression standards very shortly). I logged on to several local blogs and news sites and checked out the temper of the commentary, and several posters got it right. As they see it, and as I wrote four months ago, there will be a lot more closings across the region as the discretionary budgets of Minnesotans shrinks.

Temple was not a victim of the economy as much as it was a casualty of its own miscalculations of the marketplace. Restaurants close because customers don’t go. And Temple failed to create a compelling reason for being there. The food was poorly conceived and executed from the get-go, the chef was gone within the first year, and naked sushi is a more desperate attempt at wooing customers than half-price wine nights could ever be.  It’s an important distinction to make because restaurants still work, in good economies or bad, so long as they are resonant with customers and create a business model within their own four walls that allows them to quickly adjust their costs to stay in line with their weekly haul and customer counts. In rugged times, simply thinking (as I believe Pham did) that if you build it they will come is a mistake of the highest magnitude.

The reason I launched my BODY COUNTS in these pages last year was to illustrate the point that the amount of people in your restaurant on a given night is the single greatest indicator of long- and short-term success. We had to suspend our counts because travel schedules and the like in our office, but I would encourage readers to take some body counts as they make their way around town. You might see some interesting trends.

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Heidi’s restaurant, Heidi and Stewart Woodman’s restaurant, appears in this months Condé Nast Traveler’s annual “Hot List” guide to the “world’s most exciting new establishments.” Check out the May issue of Condé Nast Traveler or visit the website.

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IACP Awards were handed out not long ago and Lee Klein's November 22 article in the Miami New Times, "Eat Shit and Die,” won an award. Klein’s piece detailed the dirty little secret that food animals are fed feces in the American Ag system. Other secrets that I have heard and read about recently include, but are not limited to, male chicks thrown into trash cans as soon as they hatch in egg farms; male calves torn from their mothers at birth and slaughtered before they are one-day-old; pig farms slice off the toes, ears, and tails of live piglets using knives and no painkillers; meatpacking plants (slaughterhouses) keep it a secret that up to four out of ten animals are not properly stunned, and the list goes on.

For real conspiracy theory freaks, here are a few pieces of food for thought: Some think the USDA isn’t really interested in mad cow disease because finding it would be bad for business. The American Medical Association keeps it a secret that there is overwhelming evidence linking dairy products to cancer. The American Veterinary Medicine Association keeps it a secret that food animals are pumped with hormones and antibiotics, which are directly responsible for many antibiotic-resistant strains of disease. Anyone else care to chime in? In the light of the fact that industry spokespeople are now saying that the powers that be are willing to concede that downer cattle have no place in the food system, it might be time to start stirring the pot.

Hodgepodge

Am I the only one left unimpressed by Duff Goldman’s giant cupcake? I finally saw a picture of the treat, and based on the work I see every week on Ace of Cakes, I expected more from the bake master. The event, on the other hand, was a smash hit. Congrats to all involved.

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According to a press release that made its way to my inbox, “An endangered, rare Sumatran plant that has been patiently waiting to bloom for 15 years has started to show a flower bud and may soon send a perfume odor of rotting flesh. The Amorphophallus titanum, also known as the Corpse Flower from the smell it omits during bloom, will hopefully be in bloom in a about a week at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory in Saint Paul, MN.”

The flower weighs approximately twenty-five pounds, and when it does bloom, it will stink of rotting flesh for roughly forty-eight hours. Why does this sound interesting to me? Well, given the fact that this has only happened a handful of times on our continent in the last 100 years, you might want to check it out. Go to the conservatory’s website for more info.

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The New Yorker's epic profiler, Larissa MacFarquhar, wrote a profile of David Chang last week. The Momofuku maven is up for a big Beard award this year, and his restaurants in NYC are packed. His food is fantastic, and Ed Levine chimed in here. Here is a take from Eater.

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Kim Severson is calling a tight group of food bloggers, journalists, and chefs the Fat Pack.

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The infallible vicar of God on earth, the new Pope, is making his first trip to New York, and who is his chef? Lidia Bastianich, of course. 

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Culinate has a great piece on eating insects. I I have to say that I have seen more on this subject in the last three months than in the last three years combined. Alternative foods are a big issue, and obviously I have a soft spot in my heart for this subject.

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Several weeks ago, I blogged about a new legal label, “Naturally Raised."  I am pretty sure it won't mean much more than "Certified Organic" and will cost farmers the same exorbitant amount of money to get cleared. That being said, the Des Moines Register has a pretty good take on the subject. 

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And in more meat news, here is one you should read, especially if you want to impress your foodie friends at the next dinner party. The notion that growth hormones are beneficial for farming economics is nothing new, but it is still sickening to read something so achingly detached from my reality.

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In more meat news . . . it just doesn’t stop!  This post comes from The Jew & the Carrot and covers quite a few interesting points about who owns the majority of the beef production system in our country. Three companies own 70 percent of the beef. Seriously!

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And yes, even more meat news! I'm sure you remember the story about the exploding meatpacking plant. Well, it’s time to call in the hazmat teams.

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And finally, here's a really good article by the great Molly O'Neill about the history of food journalism.

Top Chef(s)

The James Beard Award nominations came out Monday, and although I have not eaten at Bluestem, I have eaten at the other four JBA-nominated restaurants in our region. Alex deserves the nomination as does Isaac, both of who deserve the recognition, which is long overdue. But pound for pound, the cooking that Tim is doing at LBV outshines what anyone else has been doing in this town for the last two to three years. And what’s more, there are dozens of chefs more deserving than the guy at Bartolotta’s. I have eaten there several times, and it’s good bistro fare, but it is nothing that makes it Beard-worthy in my opinion. More on all the JBA news on Monday.

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Top Chef received two nods, and I have to say this show keeps getting better each season. Finally, a show that merges the challenges and evictions that reality TV junkies crave and the rigors of cooking that food fans hunger for.

Some observations so far:

Richard and Dale seem like potential winners to me, both will be there in the end.

Erik is a bozo. Perhaps the dumbest thing I have heard come out of a human being’s mouth regarding food was the insulting, ethnocentric, and ignorant drivel he hurled at Rick Bayless: “I don’t think fine dining and Mexican go together, so he can go screw himself.”  Erik came close to equaling that feat when he declared, after being tossed out, that, “I have a bright future ahead of me . . . .” Not with that attitude and talent level, you misguided idiot!

The only thing you need to know to be convinced that Padma neither enjoys nor understands food: She tried to eat a toasted marshmallow rolled in finely ground graham crackers and chocolate in two bites.

Someone please tell me who does not belong in this group of judges: Tony Bourdain, Rocco DiSpirito, Rick Bayless, and Ted Allen. I need to hear from anyone as to what qualifies this fella; although, he did a fine job explaining why it’s a bad idea to serve corn dogs two hours after they are fried. Then again, my three-year-old could have explained that one.

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According to yesterday’s DailyCandy that arrived in my box, there is an answer for all the folks out there who want to eat some of the world’s most obscure delicacies. Everything from croc, scorpions, civet coffee, and mopane worms can be found at the Edible website.

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Scott Pampuch sent me this great article: “The Revolution Will Not Be Pasteurized.” It is a piece as timely as it is relevant. Raw milk should be labeled as such and sold legally; it’s a no-brainer. In similar news, Rep. Michelle Bachman is pushing for a dismantling of the new legislation requiring incandescent bulbs to go the way of the horse and buggy in favor of the more environmentally friendly long life bulb. Again, a no-brainer. Except in this case, it’s Bachman that needs to have her cortex examined.

The Minnesota Model

Target just announced that it will label carbon-monoxide treated meat saying that color is not indicative of freshness. Regular readers will remember my eruption due to the stupidity of the folks who refused to acknowledge same. Target, once again, gets it! Great move, Big Red.

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Hey, Minnesota, tomorrow night is the premiere of the Minnesota episode of Bizarre Foods. For all the obvious reasons, check it out.

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Sorry about the dearth of posts last week, I was in a country that only has dial-up Internet access and limited connectivity of any kind. Yes, these places really do exist.

I checked e-mail on my way home and saw that Jim Denevan had sent me an e-mail reminding me that the 2008 summer schedule for Outstanding in the Field is available online at and that reservations can be made online. Two years ago, the program made a stop here in Minnesota, and Lenny Russo made a dinner down at Alexis Bailly Vineyard that was superb. The year before that, I went to Georgia for one of the dinners that Anne Quatrano from Bacchanalia put together, and it was stupendous.

Essentially, you sit at a table for one-hundred people, which is built in the middle of a farm field, and are served a multi-course food and wine extravaganza designed by a local culinary wizard and inspired by everything local, fresh, and best. On August 15, OITF will be hosting a dinner at Cedar Summit Farm here in New Prague. Make your reservations now since almost all the dinners around the country are quickly selling out.

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The 2008 IACP Award nominations are out, and my pals Sasha Issenberg (The Sushi Economy) and Paula Disbrowe (Crescent City Cooking) both got nominated. I hope they win big. The Beard Award nominees will be announced today if memory serves me. Look for plenty of local nominees this year; should be a good year for local food writers and chefs to win big.

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I missed the Food and Wine Experience this year because I was at the SoBe show, but Stephanie March's take on the Food and Wine conclave surprised me. I had forgotten about the event since no one I know went. Does anyone go? I mean, there are huge numbers of people there, but who are they? Do you go, and why?

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Regarding the meat packing brouhaha and the posted comments on this blog, here is a website that shows which organic companies are owned by other really big companies–enjoy!

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Speaking of cool food news, check out this Ethicurean article about rising grain prices. It has quite a few good links within the first paragraph about the global food situation.

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I spent a few weeks in Hawaii recently and was shocked at the number of wealthy farmsters with serious working farms, especially in Maui. Here is a cool New York Times piece on hipsters becoming farmsters.   

LA Nocturne

I love The Soup, previously called Talk Soup, and who knows, I might have that backward. For years, I have made it a must-look whenever I surf by it on TV. I have just learned that last week, Bizarre Foods Beijing was selected as the most disturbing clip of the week—of course it was the penis restaurant scene. Very cool.

And speaking of cool, check out Access Hollywood tonight. Maria Menounos and I sat down for lunch together at Spago last week and chatted about all things bizarre. She is 100 times hipper and sweeter in person than she usually comes across on camera.

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Here is some hot LA food news from my quick pit stop there last week:

Cut, in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, is still the hottest table in town. Lee Hefter and Wolfgang Puck’s steakhouse is now also open in Vegas. Lee is there all this week supervising the crew and showing everyone the ropes. When we arrived in LA, we stuck our heads in the kitchen since we were staying at the Bev Wilshire. We stayed for dinner, which was as good as ever. The tomato salad, tartare, strip sampler of Wagyu, American Kobe, and dry-aged NY sirloin are just phenomenal. If you want a real beef dinner, Cut is nearly perfect. Noah (our three-year-old) devoured the mini Kobe burgers.

The Boulevard restaurant on the other side of the property is a great restaurant as well, and during breakfast the next day, I sat next to Sidney Poitier. What a feeling. Lunch took us over to Spago for the shoot and some treats from the kitchen, such as basil pesto shrimp pizza— travesty elsewhere but amazing here—and a Greek salad. We shot with Maria and that night ate with friends at their house. For about the umpteenth time, we swung by Madeo and got some pasta and salads to go. I love that restaurant.

That night, we stopped by Cut to say thanks to Wolfgang for all his help with the Access Hollywood shoot, and Noah ran and jumped on him screaming, ‘Wolfy,’ as he gang tackled him. Puck, who has a bunch of little kids himself, was quite a sport about it all. And on May 16, you can see what a star the man is in person by buying tickets to CuisineArt at The Walker, one of the best food events of the year.

True Lies

I voted last weekend for the second phase of the Beard Awards. Anyone who wants to see the talent pool that my fellow judges and I had to work with can check it out at on the James Beard website or at NY Mag's site here.

I voted for a lot of hometown heroes during this winnowing phase of the process since we were allowed to vote for five nominees in most categories. There were a lot of head scratchers in some categories (more on that later next week), but I got to give some juice to some of the out-of-towners I have dined with throughout the last year. Lee Hefter, Mike Lata, Tony Mantuano, Gabe Rucker, Gavin Kaysen, etc. My old buddy Steve Hanson got one of my nods for Restaurateur of the Year as well.

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In Tuesday’s NYT, I read that Robert Irvine got fired. The Dinner Impossible star lied about his background in his CV and told the St. Petersburg Times that he lied because he felt pressure to keep up with the Joneses! Why? He was the anti-star, the mess hall cook. How crazy is this? He didn’t have to make anything up for gosh sakes; he works for the network that airs Sandy Lee, the Neelys, and the numbingly ridiculous Fieri guy.

In the same issue, Peggy Seltzer, who wrote Love and Consequences as Margaret Jones, admitted she fabricated her whole best-selling, critically acclaimed bio a la James Frey. Except, this lady could have written her book as fiction and not lost a damn bit of the story. What gives? Seltzer says she wanted to show readers how the other half lived. Irvine and she have one thing in common: They are full of it. They wanted the . . . and rather than admit that they thought they had to lie to keep it, they keep the spin spinning. He thought he had to be pedigreed to get it, she thought she couldn’t sell fiction. Sad.

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The Kathie Jenkins story keeps getting better and better. Friends who were at P & F on opening night spotted her there with a gal pal, so she bashed P & F in a first-peek style blurb, which is ridiculous in the first place since those types of notices should simply be alerts that a place is open along with a description of the look and feel of a joint. To not tell people you were there on opening night when you are lambasting the restaurant is disingenuous. Why do I care? Because I write about food, and I am shocked at the Pi Press editorial policy that allows this to be printed. I believe in transparency when it comes to these sorts of pieces, and Steven Brown is a friend of mine besides being a phenomenal talent. And it comes hot on the heels of her famous Chambers diatribe in last year’s Pi Press where it turned out that she had based some of her writing on a visit there during one of the pre-opening test dinners.

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Now, on to the ethics of customer expectations, a question raised by posters to my last blog.

First off to Tony: You are nuts. The idea is to blend art and commerce, especially in the dining world, which is different than the eating world. And if you have the stones, let us know where you work. I am curious. And as someone who attended Doug Flicker’s Beard dinner, all I can say is that not only was the food sublime, but the vibe in the room was indescribable, especially to see Doug’s staff, and their faces, when he was presented with his dream knife. Wow. That night in NYC was the reason I do what I do. It was performance art; you just had to be there.

If a restaurant is taking money for their food, a customer deserves to say what they want about the level of service and quality of food they eat. And it should be good; open means open. But take the Broadway show/restaurant metaphor one step further: When I see The Producers during the first week of its run, I get a less perfect product than I do when it is 100 nights into it. But the energy is amazing, and when I go to see it again, I can compare the performances. I like that, which is why I dine in restaurants early in their lifespan.

A restaurant is a growing, moving, and changing organism. It is thrilling to see, and I always experience less than ideal service early on and eat dishes in need of work regardless of the caliber of eatery. That is par for the course even though I might be paying the same dough for that early dinner as I do for a better one three months later. But that is the fun of seeing a place grow, morph, and become refined. Sometimes the other extreme is disheartening. I have seen The Producers 500 shows in and saw the stars sleepwalk through ‘yet another’ performance. I’ll take the opening week any day over that dud. And even worse, try going to a restaurant, a truly good one, 500 nights into its run. The chef might not even be there!

That’s why I like eating out in good restaurants. It’s about more than the food: It’s about the theater.

Link Me

Amateur Gourmet has sold his soul to the Food Network. I like Adam a lot; the FN needs more guys like him.

I am not the only dude trying to open up the eyes of the Western world to the delightful taste treats, such as insects.

Here is a great piece on how sugar substitutes will make you fat. 

And in other health-related news: Here is some good data on what eating food from some chains will do to your weight.

For travel bugs: Here is a list of top chefs' favorite travel spots on Fodor's website. 

The Chicago Tribune picks the best movies with food this last year.

Frank Bruni would love the Minnesota model of eating based on this Diner’s Journal blog entry.

In the NYT, Bittman dispels six kitchen myths for those of you who need some deprogramming. 

I love drinking soda in foreign countries because they don’t use corn syrup the way we do in this country. That’s why Mexican Coke is so good. Well check out Pepsi Raw; will it be here soon?

And last but not least, I thought you might like this post on deadly foods: Have you tried any today? 

Miami Rhapsody

To whoever took my camera at the SoBe Food and Wine Festival on Saturday, please return it. There is a reward.

Everyone should make his or her plans now for next year’s SoBe FWF. It is an awesome event, and this was my first year working the fest. Michael Bloise (Wish Restaurant) and I took on Rocco DiSpirito and Clay Conley (Azul) in an Iron Chef contest live on the Target Stage, and we destroyed them. The Target folks did an amazing job down there, and those lime Popsicle bars are addictive in the extreme. Come down next year and hang with all of us, you will love it.

I think it is one of the top food fests in the country, and I got to hang with lots of old and new friends: Matt and Ted Lee are working on a new book proposal; Tim Love was taking his fans “to the mountain top” thanks to a never empty bottle of Patron; Michael Schwartz; Adam Perry Lang, who is the Daisy May BBQ honcho and the nicest man in the business; Emeril (he looks more exhausted than any human being I know; Rachel (cute dress); Paula (went through the motions); Geoff Zakarian from Town and Country in NYC (congrats on getting married and the new baby, my man); Jimmy Boyce, Giada, Jonathan Barnett (who reminded me of all the obnoxious crap I used to tell him back in NYC when we worked together); Jimmy Bradley from Red Cat and The Harrison, and loads of other great folks all cooked up a storm all weekend long.

My only regret is that I can’t post all my great behind the scenes pics because some a**hole lifted my camera along with my cool new shades.

The best thing I ate all weekend was the foie with black pepper marshmallow at Wish on Friday evening, second best was the carpaccio with white truffles and roasted coconut at Wish, third best thing was the cinnamon cured salmon that Bloise made during our demo. He is a talented young man.

I shot a commercial all night in the Everglades and got back in town hours late. I had planned on hitting the Bubble Q with Cat Cora but ended up missing it, and the folks at Wish blew me away with an awesome meal. South Beach also offers the best people watching in North America, not even close.

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To those of you who read the posts to this blog, here is some explanation to all the questions posed by readers on last Thursday’s blog:

NO, you do not have to advertise in the magazine to win awards at our Best Of event, especially not for Restaurateur of the Year.

YES, there were several other deserving candidates this year.

The Town Talk lads would have been a reasonable choice, and I was partial to the Solera/LBV crew simply because of all the accolades they earned this past year for their exceptional work. You also could have made a case for Alex Roberts and his two restaurants (Alma and Brasa), but because of the launch of Flame, the perseverance of Atlas, the re-energizing of Mission with the hiring of Doug Flicker, and the hugely successful opening of Via, the choice that the editors at the magazine made was Anoush, Hadi, and the folks at Hemisphere.

It is a group choice to suggest candidates for a pool that is ultimately decided on by our editor-in-chief, Brian Anderson. Some of us have Brian’s ear more than others, and lots of thought goes into the decision—and not every reader will agree on who is chosen. Of course, we are all aware of the ridiculousness of some of the choices over the years given the turn of events after the selections. Aqauvit wins and closes, and we gave them the award for changing the nature of dining in the city. Sam Ernst and his boys won for T of C and Red Fish Blue at a time when they seemed poised to do something big, and then they fizzled, and I could go on and on.

The confusion for our readers, I am thinking, is that there is no consistent criteria for picking winners from year to year, so some of the choices are made one year for food excellence (112 Eatery or Aquavit) and the next year for business acumen (Rick Webb), and some years there are some truly deserving candidates who are not selected. I do agree with several of the e-mailers and post-a-holics that the Solera/LBV team is sorely overdue an award from us, considering they have yet to win one, and they have twice created a restaurant that changes the culinary landscape in this town and have twice hit home runs.

I was also being somewhat rhetorical when I posited my ‘shock and outrage’ over the Readers Poll results. I get it, and I have said for years that to me, the Readers Poll is a conundrum, wrapped in a riddle, inside a puzzle . . . or is that Russia? Who cares about a Readers Poll? Any thoughts?

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Before it becomes an issue du jour, the critics’ picks list was divided among four of us. We picked fifty restaurants, and then Adam Platt divvied them up—otherwise, we would all have too much repetition with our selections.

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Zander is no more from what I gather. I returned from Thailand the other week, and several people told me the doors were shut. Is it true? If it is, I am not surprised in the least, despite the very nice meals I ate there throughout the years. The restaurant never recovered from the lunacy of the sale of the breakfast joint and the remodeling of the room next to the restaurant into a wine bar, all of which happened at the height of the popularity of the eatery—both created a confusion for the customer. It makes me sad that a restaurant that existed solely because of a talented man’s passion for good food (Alexander Dixon) failed to sustain a customer base, and passionless restaurants with mediocre food, such as Kincaid’s, keep winning our Reader’s Poll

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Speaking of mediocre, I have had several folks tell me that r.Norman’s is disappointing in the extreme. True or false?

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I had a delightful lunch last week at Red Stag with Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl. Our server seemed puzzled when two people ordered enough food for five. But hey, we were hungry. This place shows promise but lacks some attention to detail. As with many restaurants, with a little more effort and expertise, they could really be doing some cool stuff.

The room is comfy, and the map of the USA from the mid-eighteenth century is one that I have been looking to add to my collection for years; I was jealous. The chili was average, the food all needed salt, the lobster-studded mac and cheese was pretty good, the grits were good, the garlic-kissed Jo-Jo-style potato bats were killer, the egg-salad sandwich was fair and poorly constructed, and the bangers and mash could have been great had the sausages not been overcooked and made with too little fat to begin with. The red-velvet-style beetroot cake was inedible as was the grainy (frozen too slowly) ice cream that came with it. Someone needs to crack the whip in that place. How can you serve inedible cake that tastes like the fridge and ice cream that is made improperly? Crazy.

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I am dining at Porter & Frye this week, and all the early money says this will be a thrilling restaurant from a food standpoint; I am looking forward to it.

Seth, Lies, and Videotape

Seth Bixby Daugherty is making his national TV debut on Monday, March 3 on the Rachel Ray show all in support of his charitable efforts to change the way children eat in our school system. He’s a rock star.

Here is a nice segue: The following night, Season 2 of Bizarre Foods airs. And set your DVR for February 26 for another Bizarre Foods Best Of special with some previews of Season 2. A lot of folks have seen the new ad campaign for the show; if not, here is a sneak peek. These ads are hysterical and remind me of the SportsCenter ads from back in the day.

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Anyone see the NYT piece about the growing crop of "bloggers calling for fat acceptance" that is giving rise to "a virtual soapbox known as the fatosphere"?  Roni Caryn Rabin of The New York Times profiles these bloggers—who include both women and men— who "challenge just about everything conventional medical wisdom has to say about obesity” What a pack of lies!

According to Tim Manners’s Cool News, the message from the fatosphere is not just that big is beautiful.

Says the NYT article:

Many of the bloggers dismiss the “obesity epidemic” as hysteria. They argue that Americans are not that much larger than they used to be and that being fat in and of itself is not necessarily bad for you."

Kate Harding, whose blog is called Shapley Prose, starts by attacking the premise that being fat is a choice. "No fat acceptance advocate is saying you should sit around and wildly overeat," she acknowledges. "What we're saying is that exercise and a balanced diet do not make everyone thin." Others point to evidence that overweight people can be healthier than thin people. For example, "recent studies on heart patients and dialysis patients have also reported higher survival rates among heavier patients, suggesting that the link between body size and health may be more complex than generally acknowledged."

Others point to study of people over 60 that "found that being fit has more bearing on longevity than simply being thin." But the main argument "is that being fat is not a result of moral failure or a character flaw, or of gluttony, sloth or a lack of willpower," and that it may have more to do with genetics than anything else. "We accept that some people are short," says Rachel Richardson, whose blog is called The F-Word. "Yet we seem to think all people should be thin -- it just doesn't make sense." There's also a certain feminist streak at work, although at least one blogger, Red No. 3, specializes in the male perspective, and says: "See, I don't have a problem with fat ... My body is simply adorned, and I'll take that."

WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP! Being fat has physical, mental, and spiritual components to the disease. Obesity is a disease, and there is also a wellspring of available cures and treatments, and the people who think that being grossly and chronically overweight is in some way OK are in denial.

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The recent contretemps re the Humane Society videotape, its undercover work, the downer cattle going to slaughter, and the beef recall all bring to mind the shortsighted and ignorant citizens of our country who actually believe that the USDA and the other federal agencies charged with protecting our food pathways are doing a competent job. That idea would simply be crazy. The agencies, such as the USDA, FDA, and the like, are broken.

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The Mpls.St.Paul Magazine Best of the Best Party on Monday night was a rousing success. The Walker Art Center staff did an outstanding job! What a great place to have an event of any size, and 1,500 of you filled the rooms. The MSP people, most notably Adam Platt and his team, Natasha Freimark and her team, Deb Hopp, Stephanie Peterson, Kevin Dunn, Gary Johnson, Brian Anderson, and scores of other folks should be loudly applauded for creating such a compelling evening of food celebration. Also, congrats to Hadi and Anoush and all the folks at Hempisphere for winning our Restaurateur of the Year award.

Here are a couple of other observations:

Restaurants that are looking to impress 1,500 potential A-list customers should try to serve great food at an event like this, not mediocre food. Chopped sausage at a high-end tasting event is a cop-out. Saffron, Masa, Chambers, Solera, 20.21, and La Belle Vie did some great food that night as did the Puck catering people in the VIP room.

Speaking of La Belle Vie, that restaurant earned sixth place in our annual Readers Poll if I remember the presentation video correctly. WOW. How can you reconcile the Readers Poll with other accolades that LBV regularly acquires? Does LBV not resonate with your average Minnesotan? Gourmet magazine called them one of the fifty best restaurants in the country. I listed them on my judge’s ballots for Beard Awards and for the S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants award (there is a mandatory section for local restaurants in a judges given geographic zone).

I believe LBV is pound for pound the best restaurant in our state for food quality/service/beverage, program/ambiance/innovation, etc. So anyone who thinks that there is not some lingering provincialism in our DNA when it comes to our ability to recognize culinary greatness should be pointed in the direction of the Readers Poll and the disparities it points out between who is eating where and why. I would understand if LBV is not everyone’s cup of tea, but sixth?! C’mon now, people. And for the record, the bar at LBV is a low-key and casual place to enjoy great food without sitting at a table for two hours if that is more your speed. If you love great dining experiences, sit in the dining room for the full-frontal effect.

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Porter and Frye is now open. I finally ate at Red Stag (are you writing that down, Jeremy!?), and Zander closed. More on all that on Monday.

Illegalities

On a local news site last week, there was a lot of poutine chat going around. Here in Minnesota, the idea of French fries with cheese and gravy—with or without the foie gras supplement—is an easy thing to say yes to. In other parts of the country, there are some foods that inspire heart attack paranoia and are considered illegal to serve. I don’t know about you, but this seems pretty frickin’ awesome to me!

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What foods and other related matters should be illegal in Minnesota? Here is a list:

—Anyone writing a menu with yet another Caesar salad on it?
—Restaurants who make waiters introduce themselves.
—A Japanese restaurant with the same menu as the other twenty that are already open here.
—Another Kincaids.
—Food billed as homemade that isn’t, such as bread and desserts that are brought in the back door and sold as house-made. Happens all the time.
—Tuna sold table-side by servers as “sashimi quality.” It’s a misnomer and often is used to push inferior quality fish on unsuspecting consumers.
—A second Zahtar.

Oh, wait, there is a second one opening. I opened up my latest copy of Foodservice News, and there it was. The restaurant in the Grand Hotel that Life Time Fitness owns will soon become Zahtar number two, and it will be open to the public. Zahtar number one is located in the Eden Prairie Life Time Fitness and is available only to members. So let me get this straight: The restaurant and concept is so perfect, so finely honed that the company is going to open another one?! Wow. I am speechless. I heard through the rumor mill that the Zahtar GM only lasted six weeks before he quit.

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Set your DVR for February 26. We have a “best of” special for Bizarre Foods airing, and the following Monday, I am on the Today Show to kick off premier week. First show airing is Beijing on Tuesday, March 4, our new night.

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Did you know they do naked sushi at Temple Restaurant and Bar? As in eating sushi off a naked person. And, according to what my boss Brian Anderson said on the radio last week, not just off naked women. I don't think eating sushi off a naked man has the same intrinsic sex appeal. Hey, that's not a caterpillar roll! And is this the 2008 version of closing for lunch and offering half-price wine? Are these the death throes of a restaurant—when they copy a ten-year-old dining cliché that didn’t work for anyone back in 1997 let alone now?

You, Me, and the USDA

I have been alerted that the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is seeking comments on a proposed voluntary standard for a "naturally raised" marketing claim for meats. According to its Notice and Request for Comments for Docket AMS-LS-07-0131; LS-07-16, "the livestock and meat supply chain, along with consumers could benefit from a uniform standard for the marketing of this type of product." The definition for "naturally raised" proposed by USDA is:

"Livestock used for the production of meat and meat products have been raised entirely without growth promotants, antibiotics, and have never been fed mammalian or avian by-products. This information shall be contained on any label claim that an animal has been naturally raised."    

Jeff Swain, the head honcho at Niman Ranch, thinks this is bunk, and so do I. Like many of us who have been calling for more clear-cut definitions, we feel this stated policy lacks teeth and substance. Consumers purchase a product labeled "naturally raised," and their desire is to feed their families a wholesome, safe, clean, and responsibly raised product.  He says that"Naturally Raised," such as the term "Organic" before it, is about to get keelhauled. No one acknowledges what it means to consumers! "Naturally raised" must mean, as Swain put it in a recent e-mail:

"that the animals were raised in an environment that promotes sustainability. When consumers purchase natural meats they feel they are making a commitment to their environment. Thus, raising animals in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) should not be labeled as 'naturally raised' as these operations pose a documented threat to our air and water quality. Naturally raised meat must be a 'never-ever' product. This means that from birth to harvest, there must be no antibiotics, artificial growth hormones, steroids or other chemicals that could potentially pose a health risk to consumers. Although we do believe in humanely treating sick animals, we feel those treated must be sold through the conventional market. Animals raised with care in comfortable, bedded conditions, smaller sized herds, with minimal crowding and ample fresh air will more than likely be less stressed and healthier, reducing the need for antibiotics or other drugs."

Cathy Liss, president of the Animal Welfare Institute, asks consumers to urge the USDA to include animal welfare criteria in the standards:

"We are seeking a better result. The definition as proposed contains no stipulations concerning the animals' own welfare or how the animals live, but applies narrow criteria related only to feed or other substances administered to animals. While farmers who raise animals under high welfare conditions should be covered by this term, the industrial producers will seek a weak definition so they can profit by selling the products of cruelly raised animals labeled as 'naturally raised.'"

AMEN, SISTER!

As Swain and Liss suggested to me, let’s urge the USDA to write a definition for "naturally raised" that: "requires farm animals, including poultry, to be raised in a manner that is consistent with the biology and natural behavior of the species; disqualifies farms that use gestation crates, farrowing crates, battery cages, calf crates, slatted floors and liquefied manure, and other equipment or facilities typical of unnatural factory systems and requires that animals have free access to continuous range on fresh pasture or woodlands or, in inclement weather, be able to move freely in comfortable housing and clean bedding until outdoor conditions improve."

I’ll make it easy for you:

Comments may be submitted online, via regular mail, or by fax until March 3.

The AMS website:
There is a link under "United States Standards for Livestock and Meat Marketing Claims, Naturally Raised Claim for Livestock and the Meat and Meat Products Derived From Such Livestock" for you to "Send a Comment or Submission."

Regular Mail:
Naturally Raised Marketing Claim
Room 2607–S, AMS, USDA
1400 Independence Ave. SW
Washington, D.C. 20250–0254

Fax:
202-720–1112

Go for it, Minnesota.

Talent and Torts

Gael Green celebrates forty years in the biz this year. She is one of my food-writing idols.

On November 11, 1968, she went to print and delivered "Paley's Preserve: The Ground Floor” in which she wrote it was “the perfect room to end an affair in . . . "

Here is what she says in a recent e-mail to me:

“see how we ate in 1968, see BITE right now on my site and if you want to remember -- or discover -- what it was like in the days when ex-cashiers and waiters controlled where we would sit in the haughty French restaurants that counted...click on "Vintage Articles"...read about the Colony as Forest Lawn, Cruel Table Games at La Caravelle, No cookies for you at La Grenouille...and the arrival of winter at the Four Seasons. For me it is wonderful to wallow in memories of the days when we had to go to France once a year for cusinary epiphany...and then later when everything was new and thrilling and we didn't need to be ironic.”

Go to her site, and check it out. She rocks.

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Did anyone read “Mississipi’s Proposal To Stop Restaurants From Serving Obese People?”

I agree with the point in the piece made by the Yalie. It is a ridiculous bill, and it is discriminatory as well, but it does raise a valid issue in a sense. Why is it OK for us to say “please don’t smoke, or shoot dope, or drink until you’re passed out, etc., etc.,” but it is not OK to talk about the STAGGERING obesity rates in this country and the people who pathologically keep stuffing themselves with food? What is the solution?

People walk around on eggshells when it comes to publicly talking about this issue with morbidly fat people. And we all know there’s a problem: I stare at it every day in the mirror myself.

Check out this site for some erudite discussion on this topic.

Mind Numbing and Brain Blowing

Sometimes the news hits home, literally. Minnesota pork-processing workers are getting a strange nerve disease, especially the ones that work at the "head table" where they quite literally blow the brains out of pigs. Immigrant workers, making 11 to 12 bucks an hour in a dangerous, dirty industry should have the right to work in a safe environment, and this plant seems to not be so safe, does it?

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I like food that isn’t ordinary, but this trend is mundane, weird, and obsessive—no wonder Vince Gill is the evil leader of this bizarre cult. Chewable ice is apparently the big thing down South. Perhaps this would be a good way for us Minnesotans to make it through a long winter?

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Mark Bittman's new blog, Bitten, on the NY Times website is great. Say what you want, but in the grandest tradition of Pierre Franey, Bittman is one of the most reliable recipe mavens in the country—and he’s a great writer. 

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Alan Richman left Bloomberg or was fired, depending on whom you believe. I think his writing is superb, and his point of view on restaurants is generally spot-on. Just read his books and recent collection of essays, and you’ll see why. Recently, he has taken a pounding about his negative take on the rebuilding restaurant scene in NOLA and his slam job on Jean Georges’s empire in GQ several years ago. Some say he wanted out and left, others say he got canned because of his growing curmudgeondom. But one thing is for sure: There is now a great job opening at B-berg.

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The Vietnamese are eating more rats, according to the WSJ. I can personally confirm this is true having spent a few weeks there during the summer. Rats, snake, dogs, and cats are all a part of the local diet, always have been. I did not eat rat because of the health concerns and provenance of the rodents I was offered. I ate snake and dog and passed on the cat for the same reasons I declined the rat. Know your food source! Now the WSJ piece offers recipes; that’s right. So if you have some rodents in the freezer, it’s time to defrost them. 

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There's word that Hearst will be publishing a Food Network magazine in partnership with Scripps, which owns FNT. Here’s the catch: The networks personalities might not be on board.

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Having spent a lot of time throughout the last two years in the third world, I can tell you that disease is rampant, and children, as always, are the most innocent victims. Nutraceuticals are not normally something I get excited about, but if this works, then I am all for it. I have seen children die from parasitic infestation in Africa and Southeast Asia. Kraft is working on a de-wormer that would be added to foods sold in Latin America and Asia. 

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The South Koreans are ingenious food packagers, and the Col-Pop is a stroke of brilliance. Popcorn chicken stays hot while resting on your cold soda. 

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The Deep South is home to a lot of strange food trends (see ice eating above), but the Pickle Sickle is ridiculous; although, it would probably do well at the State Fair. 

Going Mobil

This Super Bowl lived up to the hype and not just because my team won. If the NYGs can win a Super Bowl, the Vikings sure can, too.

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What some folks consider to be Minnesota’s temple of fine dining, La Belle Vie, was just awarded four stars in the Mobil Travel Guide.  As far as I can tell, this is the first time that a Minnesota restaurant has been listed in that guide. For some perspective: There are 149 four-star restaurants and only seventeen five-star restaurants on the MTG list. This year’s Mobil Travel Guide is the fiftieth anniversary issue, and for the first time, it awarded five stars to hotel properties in Wyoming and Utah. The Four Seasons Resort in Jackson Hole and the Stein Eriksen Lodge in Park City were both added this year. Additionally, two other properties are appearing on Mobil's five-star list for the first time: the Boston Harbor Hotel and The Sanctuary on Kiawah Island in South Carolina. Three new restaurants earned five stars in the current guide: the Georgian Room in Sea Island, Georgia; The Inn at Dos Brisas in Brenham, Texas; and Le Bernardin in New York. That fact that Le Bernardin did not received five stars last year or the year before is a joke; but there is no time like the present.

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Raising Cane’s, which serves some killer chicken fingers, has opened a Stadium Village location. Thank God because I live about four minutes away, and the haul out to Apple Valley was getting tiring.

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According to Tim Manners’s Cool News:

Tim Hanni is a recovering alcoholic and former wine snob whose goal is to "get more Americans to drink wine," reports Katy McLaughin in The Wall Street Journal (1/19/08). Tim's idea is "that no one has a palate superior to anyone else's, and that there's nothing wrong with liking wines many experts consider tacky, like White Zinfandel. He also thinks traditional tasting notes comparing wine to berries or chocolate are useless in helping most consumers find wines they enjoy." Tim's perspective is unusual not only because he is a recovering alcoholic but also because "he was one of the first two Americans to hold the highest credential in the field, Master of Wine."

Getting that credential involves a "four-day exam and dissertation ... with challenges such as identifying the region, production method and alcohol levels for wines from a blind tasting." It's precisely because of this credential that Tim has the credibility to advance "two radical new ideas to the wine trade." The first idea is what he calls "the progressive wine list, a menu that arranges wines in order from the lightest to the heaviest." He's categorized some 80,000 wines, and his database is now in use by "30 percent of casual and upscale chains" and "about four-percent of fine dining restaurants, including Nobu in New York."

Tim's other idea is something he calls the "budometer," a questionnaire "which consists of a series of questions about a drinker's preference in coffee, beer, cocktails and soft drinks" purported to "predict what kind of wine the person will like." And if that doesn't work, he has yet another idea -- Tim claims that adding some salt and lemon to food will make it go well with just about any wine. Based on this, he's created a condiment called Vignon. Such innovations are most welcome by the $27.8 billion U.S. wine industry, where "only 17.8 percent of American adults drink wine once a week or more."

Who would of thunk it?

Put Your Tongue in My Mouth, and Pass the Tiramisu

Berit, who works in my office, came across a new post about tongue. She thinks tongue is going to become hot again in 2008. Last time tongue was a racy ingredient was 1908, so it is long overdue. One of the chefs she admires, Lisa Carlson over at Spoonriver, is serving it, and so is Lenny Russo at Heartland. Here is the post she trolled across.

There is a lot of tongue around town; plenty of places serve it from Kramarczuk’s to half a dozen taquerias on Lake St., so it was only a matter of time before other chefs began utilizing this unappreciated cut. When cooked and served properly, it has the best qualities of pot roast, and because of its unparalleled marbling and deep, beefy flavor, it works perfectly in everything from stews to braises, as a superb filling for tacos, or thinly sliced on rye with a gritty and assertive mustard. I like to cook it whole, trimmed, and let it chill overnight in its cooking liquid, slice it in one-third-inch discs, and heat them up two or three at a time in butter to crust up the slices. Then, I serve it that way on a sandwich Reuben-style with sauerkraut, thinly sliced Gruyere or Appenzeller, and Russian dressing. Heaven.

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There is an amazing series of events in support of Children’s HeartLink that you should know about. Children’s HeartLink, founded in 1969, is an international humanitarian organization based in North America that inspires, empowers, and mobilizes individuals and organizations to address the heart problems of needy children in their communities around the world. In short, Children’s HeartLink sends medical teams from the United States to developing countries to train, teach, and perform lifesaving heart procedures—only on kids. I have seen their work up-close-and-personal in many of the Third and Second World countries that I travel to, and they are miracle workers.

Tonight, from 5 to 8:30 p.m. at the Fine Line Music Café, Billy Johnson and the local rock and soul band Hookers and Blow (great name for a kids’-cause event!) are performing. VIP admission is $60, and general admission is $35. Then, beginning the next day, the Tiramisu for Two goes on sale at all Lunds and Byerly’s with 100 percent of the proceeds going to Children’s HeartLink. On Saturday, February 9, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., local celebs such as Belinda Jensen, Mark Rosen, Frank Vascellaro, and Brian Turner will be serving tiramisu samples at select Lunds and Byerly’s grocery stores, and you can pick up your free Tiramisu for Two recipe book as well. The book features recipes from local notables such as Christina Kaelberer, Margo Bredeson, Zoe Francois, Michelle Gayer, and Khanh Tran.

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I think you should get your membership to a CSA now. With the high trend in "locavorism,” shares might sell out mighty quickly this year. 

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My old schoolmate Eric Schlosser, the man who birthed a generation of outrage, puts in his two cents about the cloned meat craze

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In molecular gastronomy news, Hervé This gives monthly lectures, and they are posted online and in French no less.

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Grant Achatz's taste might take awhile to come back and might not come back completely, but Beethoven was deaf, and he did all right last we checked. 

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For all those who feel that the government needs to stay out of our food choices, here is some bad news: The UK is making cooking classes mandatory in schools, and I think this is AWESOME. Here is a great chat on Just Hungry and an editorial about it on Culinate. Is the UK going to lead an uber -conscious eating trend?

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I keep running into this story: Mercury levels in tuna are way above and beyond FDA allowances. But if you ate a lot of Tekka Maki, and you eat the nori with the tuna, wouldn't that negate the bad effects since the alginic acid will bind to the toxins and flush it out?

Need a new social networking site for culinarians? Here it is.

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Finally, the problem of getting bacon perfectly situated on a BLT has been fixed, and hopefully we can all get some sleep.   

Sir Ask A Lot

I get asked all the time about cooking classes. I used to teach a lot at Cooks of Crocus Hill in St. Paul. But this coming November, I am teaching a bunch of classes and hosting a dinner onboard the Holland America Line’s Ryndam. This is all part of the Carlson Wagonlit Travel culinary cruise program, and the classes and events are available only to passengers booking through Carlson Wagonlit Travel agencies. The ten-day cruise along the Mexican Riviera is roundtrip out of San Diego and stops in Cabo, Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, etc. Want more info? Go here to book the cruise.

I also get asked to go to restaurant openings, and in the past, I always said no out of some vague sense of professional propriety. But I was asked to attend a soft opening for The Strip Club, Aaron Johnson and Tim Niver’s new joint, and I told chef-partner J.D. Fratzke I would stop by; but last week, my wife and son had the flu, the dog had surgery, and the cat was being the cat, so needless to say, I missed the first few nights of service at The Strip Club, a restaurant on my side of town that I have high hopes for. But I got an e-mail from J.D. at the end of the week. He told me that on opening night, into the first rush, with a bunch of tickets hanging,

“the shelf bolted into the stainless over our char-broiler -- the one holding all of our steak plates -- collapses.  Platters shatter all over the first ten grass-fed strips we've fired for paying customers, two fillets of char, four salmon steaks, two saute pans and, of course, my broiler cook, six foot seven Anthony Finck, who turns to me and says with a bewildered smirk, "I don't think we can stack plates there anymore, Chef." We fought out of it. It took about an hour, but we fought out.  Insurgents breached the perimeter, but we took no casualties.”

Funny stuff, J.D. Every chef has stories like this one, and since so many readers of this blog are in the business, on both sides of the room, perhaps some of you will share yours? Here’s one of mine:

I was running the floor one night in 1984 (or 85?) at Elio’s as a favor to the owner who was out of town for the weekend; it was a Friday night in NYC—in the summer. I was working at his other restaurant Petaluma as the chef, but he wanted me up the street at his flagship for the night, and my sous was handling the light night at our eatery. Calm evening at Elio’s, full but no crush; all our customers were retreating to their summer homes. A guy lights up a cigar at a six-top. I tell him to put it out since tables near him are complaining. He points out that two other tables in the front are smoking cigars. It’s Ben Gazzara at one table and someone at Woody Allen’s table smoking the other one. I tell the foppish guy in the back with the heavy New York accent that those men are regulars and that no one complained about them. He throws five one-hundred dollar bills on the table and walks.

The next day I get a call from the GM at Elio’s; there’s a picket line around the restaurant, and no deliveries can come through. We call Elio. He does some digging on Local 459. Turns out, there is no such union local. Turns out the guy I pissed off was Tony “Fat Tony” Salerno, head of the Genovese crime family. I ended up having to go with the restaurant GM to meet this guy and apologize before they would lift the fake picket. Scared sh**less. Thank goodness he was more interested in coming back to try the gnocchi than he was in messing with me.

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Here’s a great local blog, The Masticator. I get asked what I like about these all the time, and of course I think this guy’s take is spot on. Go figure.

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Go here, and check out the awesome photo contest, and start charging the digi-cam batteries—there are great prizes galore. Also, am I the only one who thinks that Punch in Highland is heads and shoulders better than any of their other locations when it comes to pizza quality?

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Tori Shin in NYC is a hot little Yakitori bar that serves chicken sashimi and some killer skewered, grilled poultry treats. I have been asked about this stuff endlessly, and I promised many of you that I would let you know about it. Consider yourself informed. The yakitori is out of sight, and this should be a must-stop for anyone heading to the Big Apple looking for a taste of Tokyo.

Hot Links

I love this stuff. Get ready, here we go.

The Smoking Gun is reporting that when Bill and Hillary Clinton vacationed at a Caribbean resort two years ago, the hotel staffers were coached with memos outlining the couple's dietary and lodging requirements. Hysterical.

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Now, I believe in the pursuit of quality—why bother making something if you’re not going to make it right? Well, pissed off at the lousy jailhouse cookies and cakes, a trio of inmates is suing a sheriff for $2 million, claiming their rights have been violated by the provision of lousy baked goods.

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Gael Greene's 2008 predictions are very funny and spot on. Gael is one of my favorite food people and her blog is one of my regular reads. She says that Jeffrey Chodorow and Frank Bruni will have a food fight in Madison Square Park televised by the Food Network. If Bruni loses, he will be required to review restaurants in Des Moines for six months. If Chodorow is the loser, he will be forbidden to open a new restaurant for three weeks.

That’s clever . . . as are her dining trends, some of which are actually happening. I had a conceptual dish at Moto once; it was simply a smell, and I have been served courses into my hand as well—and not just in sushi bars:

"Conceptual Dining will become the rage. The pleasure derived from the dish is found in its description alone. The dish, in fact, does not exist. A small fee will be charged.

Small Plates will give way to no plates, a trend for even healthier portion control. All food will be served on oak leaves, in clam shells or onto your outstretched palm."

She also highlights some new products, such as my favorite one here:

"A breed of black-footed pigs from the southwest of France, fed strictly on foie gras, custom made charcuterie and pork belly from lesser pigs will be marketed each with its own identification number and tag with a picture of the pig farmer’s daughter."

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Did anyone see the banned word list that was originally on the Lake Superior State University website? Organic is right there, front and center. And deservedly so. Grub Street chimed in with a sigh of relief as did Slashfood.

Organic should have been a word that meant something. I think I speak for a lot of us when I say that we all had high hopes. Instead, it has become an irrelevant term, neutered by alphabet organizations, such as the FDA and the assorted organic marketing boards. It is now a trademark—a bought-and-sold entitlement—and, sadly, something of a labeling canard. Now it is an overused cliché that everyone is tired of. What a shame.

Parry and Thrust

In fairness to the process, here is my take on some of the other stuff that has left a ring around my tub recently.

To Brad Zellar . . . obviously you need to read more stuff about me.  I could have saved you a lot of time and effort if you had bothered to ask. Anyone who knows me at all could have told that I don’t do dry wall. And even the most casual of my readers/viewers/listeners could have told you that I am all about the eating as well as the dining. I have forgotten about more wing joints, burger parlors, canned meals, truck stops, etc. than Mr. Zellar can ever hope to wax on about.  I hate to throw down with the food-freak pride card, but c’mon Brad! I even made an entire hourlong Travel Channel special on ballpark foods alone just ’cause I love that stuff. And I would happily take you to several places in the metro whose wings are superior to the ones you like at Shorty and Wags, but I am thrilled that you felt compelled to chime in. Someday I hope to meet you and ask about the strangely odd ‘you-must-not-be-a-man-if-you-don’t-do-your-own-dry-wall’ vibe you threw out.

To Jeremy Iggers . . . like you, too, and have enjoyed all our chats over the years when we have bumped into each other. But let’s get to it. Say anything you like about me, I can take it. And I am sorry if I hurt your feelings. Truly. That was not my intention at all, and for that, I am sorry. But what does it mean that I am the perfect critic for MSP Mag? Oh, I get it. Sarcasm. It seems the implication is that I am somehow, in some way, inadequate and that the magazine is as well. Well that not only hurts my feelings, but it is about as uninformed a riposte as I have ever read. By any yardstick, our magazine is the Rolls-Royce of its class, and the people who put it out every month are the best in the business. And yes, I have been to many of the restaurants that you wondered out loud about, and guess what, I could return the favor. Who cares? Throughout the last five months, I have blogged about—and the magazine has published pieces detailing—the issues involved in me changing my duties to account for the fact that I am not in town as much as I used to be, and I am not able to eat in as many local restaurants as I have in the past. This Just In: You and I have differing tastes in what makes for a great restaurant experience.  And that’s good for the food loving readership as a whole.

To Anne Bauer . . . you are  class act. And you get it.

And finally to Mitch . . . You are a smart guy, and I could spend pages and pages of space responding to the points you made in your piece, but let’s simply say this: You missed the forest for the trees. I feel strongly that it is not “anti-Minneapolis condescension”—as you say—to call restaurants that are less than thrilling exactly what they are: middling. And as a longtime Twin Cities food professional, I am shocked that you would try to make the argument that we live in something other than a meat and potatoes state—with an exceedingly large percentage of our community ignorant about many ingredients and techniques that are commonly found elsewhere— or that we support innovative restaurants or are willing to “pay for good food.”  Almost every piece of evidence you can gather from the last decade says otherwise. That doesn’t make us ‘less than’ in some way, just different. We are a food community that is evolving and growing and improving in fits and starts. If we delude ourselves into thinking otherwise, we are simply delaying and impeding our journey. I have many times written and spoken about how exciting our food community is to live and work in; it’s a shame you never read those pieces or chose to excerpt them. Beyond that, you took so much of my stuff out of context that I lost the energy to rebut any of it after re-reading the first couple of paragraphs.

And Jeff Guntzel . . . speaking of out of context. The point I made in our half-hour chat about “people being afraid to come out with bold opinions and stir the pot” was part of my applause for Omer in response to your question about my general impressions of his screed. We need more of that stuff (Omer’s blunt honesty) in our culinary discourse, not less. Well, everything except the cheap shot about my house and my family. What was that all about?

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On to the world of food news and notes. Here are my faves from last week:

How were your holidays? And are you more partial to Donder or Blitzen? How about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Pâté? Yes indeed, you heard right, reindeer pâté. I love a good reindeer, they’re actually quite tasty.

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Have you heard anything about the recently passed Farm Bill, which went through the Senate a few weeks ago? Here is the best rundown I have seen recently for those looking for a score sheet to crib from.

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Are you into umami, the infamous fifth taste? Yes, Dorothy, it does exist, and you should read this WSJ article replete with a video clip of Gary Danko making an umami-laden tomato sauce. 

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Jamie Oliver, one of the best food presenters on television, is back on the Food Network, and he will have a show debuting January. He will also be battling Mario in Kitchen Stadium; that should be fantastic to watch.

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Almost as much fun as buying your very own version of Rachael Ray's "Garbage Bowl." And speaking of RR, Slashfood.com reported that an online RR doll has been created and that you can dress her up yourself. Here's the link to the doll—absurd pleasure in the extreme.

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Speaking of absurd, here's a YouTube video of Kobayashi going up against a bear in a hot dog eating contest. 

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Did you see Sara's article on the Food Snob's Dictionary? She is fantastic to read regularly; keep her link handy.

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New York Mag had a great piece this last week. "Check out Molecular Gastronomy Made Complicated via PowerPoint." We all love Hervé This, but the PowerPoint lecture feels like a shark-jumping moment in the extreme.

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Here is a fun piece from the National Restaurant Association, its annual "What's Hot What's Not" list. I think it is worth a peek as is this gem from the San Fran Chronicle about whether or not it is even possible to measure if organic produce has more nutrients than their commercial counterparts.

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There’s a new report on salt that is out, and, yes, it says it is bad for you but not necessarily the stuff you use to cook at home or sprinkle on your food. The real problem is the salt compounds found in processed foods. The FDA is holding hearings. 

Get Out Your Pens and Pencils . . .

Start taking notes; here is a blizzard of news.

As everyone knows (I think), Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl has left City Pages and starts in a few weeks at Minnesota Monthly. According to an online minnpost.com piece by David Brauer, “success comes in phases, but right now, interesting monthly journalism appears on the ascendency.” Brauer points to the rash of new hires at local monthlies, and the Brian Lambert hire over here at mspmag.com. Grumdahl's new responsibilities aren't clearly defined, but in the article, it says she will be doing "60/40 — 60 percent for the magazine, doing all their restaurant coverage, plus a handful of features and cover pages. The other 40 percent of her time will be spent blogging and editing Minnesota Monthly's Real Foods magazine.”

I exchanged an e-mail with Dara yesterday, and she is thrilled to be moving on to greener pastures. This is all great news for local food freaks. Better writers in bigger jobs breeds more competition, which creates more of a market for local and regional food news, food writing, books, restaurants, and so on. The halo effect of all this stuff really works. Everyone wins here.

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After much rumor-mill grinding that was pumping out news to the contrary, Grant Achatz is cancer free! Fantastic news on many levels. I am still of the opinion that Alinea is one of the most important restaurants in the country, and Grant is also a wonderful human being, and the grace and dignity with which he dealt with his cancer is a testament to that. Check out these links for more from Frank Bruni and from the Tribune.

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You know that I think turducken is cool, and unless you have tasted a well-made version, you shouldn’t practice contempt prior to investigation. But how about a forty-eight-bird turducken made from twelve different species?

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OK food editors, this story is an interesting idea, but the Wall Street Journal piece comparing Batali's and Keller's menu calorie counts to McDonald's is specious in the extreme. Why? Because Batali's and Keller's calories don't come from high fructose corn syrup and aren’t compacted into a six-ounce item on a dollar menu. Thoughts, kids?

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Emeril is done shooting Emeril Live, and there was a great piece on the Food Network written up in The New York Times. Here’s the skinny that you didn’t read: After years and years of making dozens of shows a se