Army Wife, Dietitian Urges Healthy Food for Kids

By SUSANNE M. SCHAFER - Associated Press

FORT JACKSON, S.C. -- Kim Milano is the wife of the general who runs the Army's largest training post, but she's also known on Fort Jackson as the woman who teaches second-graders how to cook "roasted monster brains."

"The kids just loved it," Milano said with a laugh, describing her cooking demonstration for roasting cauliflower.
The 53-year-old pediatric dietitian has spent two years at this military installation in South Carolina helping military families learn to cook and eat healthy food.

"I tell people that if they eat better, they will feel better, and they will be able to handle stress better," she said.
Milano has taken her passion around the globe while raising two boys and managing 17 moves during her husband's 33-year military career. Repeat moves, last-minute, no-notice deployments and life on military bases often far from large cities means many military spouses find it difficult to maintain any kind of full- or part-time job, let alone a career.

Milano said she has been able to work or volunteer at various military schools and local hospitals during their many moves, so she has kept abreast of research and trends in her field and maintained her accreditation.

"Parents are much more willing to change for their children than for themselves, so I've focused on kids as much as I could," she said.

Her message of proper nutrition and eating is timely, given the military's health issues and budget concerns.
The Department of Defense reports that nearly a quarter of entry-level candidates for military service are too overweight to serve or make it through their first enlistment. And medical care related to excess weight and obesity is costing the Defense Department $1.1 billion a year.

Earlier this month, first lady Michelle Obama joined Pentagon officials at Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas to introduce a program to serve more fruits, vegetables and low-fat dishes in military dining halls. It is the military's first major attempt in 20 years to help its men and women, their families and retirees make better nutrition choices, said Jonathan Woodson, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.

Fort Jackson, located outside Columbia in central South Carolina, is the largest of the Army's basic training bases, with more than 60,000 soldiers annually attending its schools and courses. More than half the Army's female soldiers are trained there.

On the post, Milano holds cooking classes for spouses and helped develop the school course that introduces new fruits or vegetables to students over several months.

The children took a survey to find out which foods they didn't like or knew little about, so unfamiliar foods like cauliflower, beets, spinach, apricots and blueberries were chosen.

Milano said she talks about how each food is grown, why it has the name it does, and shows them how to cook or prepare various dishes. Recipes including the ingredient go home to parents, the commissary puts the ingredient on sale when it's being studied and it's served in the school cafeteria.

Read the complete story here.

Read more here: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/2012/02/26/2682886/army-wife-dietitian-urges-healthy.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/2012/02/26/2682886/army-wife-dietitian-urges-healthy.html#storylink=cpy

Wounded Vets Regain Bit of Camaraderie in Kitchen

HYDE PARK, N.Y.—Julio Gerena is in a wheelchair, his long career in the U.S. Navy and Army forever behind him. But the 52-year-old recaptured some of the old military camaraderie while peeling potatoes and chopping cilantro in a crowded kitchen.

Gerena was among the first 16 wounded veterans who served during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to take part in a healthy cooking "boot camp" sponsored by the advocacy group Wounded Warrior Project. Former service members once consumed with patrols and sentry posts learned how to poach and saute at the Culinary Institute of America, the renowned cooking school on the Hudson River.

The veterans learned some kitchen tips, but seemed to enjoy even more the chance to spend four intense days with people who have faced similar hurdles.

"There are some things you can't really get into words, but the Wounded Warrior program is to me what being in uniform was before: the camaraderie, the trust," Gerena said after a long morning in the kitchen. "I met some of these people just a few days ago, but I share what they went through."

The Jacksonville, Fla.-based organization runs a range of programs for wounded veterans at locations ranging from college campuses to ski slopes. The group brought its first batch of veterans into the kitchen last week in partnership with the culinary institute. Most of the students served in the Army, but the Navy and the Marines were also represented. Their service-related wounds ranged from spinal cord injuries to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Over four days, they were lectured on the finer points of knife work or braising before heading to a classroom kitchen to turn the lesson into something edible for lunch or dinner.

On a recent morning, the veterans scrambled to pan-sear salmon and saute chicken breasts under the guidance of Chef John DeShetler. As they clattered pans and joked about a return to kitchen patrol duty, DeShetler shouted out tips on carrot dicing and meat slicing.

"Now this is a flank steak! There's only two per animal, that's why they're so damn expensive...! They used to give this away!" DeShetler bellowed.

As DeShetler walked the kitchen, 24-year-old Steve Bohn carefully sauteed mushrooms for a ragout in a pan.

The Peabody, Mass., resident had cooked for a Whole Foods Market before the death of close friend in Iraq inspired him to join the Army in 2007. Bohn was severely injured the next year in Afghanistan when a dump truck packed with explosives collapsed the building he was in. He suffered severe spinal injuries and required reconstructive bladder surgery.

Bohn no longer needs a leg brace but he still had a hitch to his step as he moved through the kitchen. He knows that he cannot resume his old kitchen career because he can't stand for long or lift heavy boxes. But he liked the feeling of pushing his limits and being behind a burner again.


Read the complete story here

A Culinary Journey Propelled By Presidents' Tastebuds

Presidents. Have you ever wondered about the tastebuds of these powerful gentlemen who ran our country?  You might be surprised.  In honor of Presidents’ Day TravelsinTaste created a virtual culinary roadmap throughout Las Vegas, a city where people and presidents alike can find a modern adaptation of their favorite bites.

Our Founding Father George Washington may not have actually cut down a cherry tree, but his tie to cherries has lasted for centuries. For these reasons, he’d most likely enjoy libations such as the non-alcoholic house-made cherry yuzu soda at Jean Georges Steakhouse or the Cherry Limeade at Fleur by Hubert Keller.

 Thomas Jefferson and John F. Kennedy were both major fans of fine French cuisine, who isn’t?, and often had it served in the White House. President Kennedy even hired renowned French Chef Rene Verdon to run the White House Kitchen. If they visited Vegas, we think they’d be delighted by Le Cirque at Bellagio’s new Executive Chef Gregory Pugin, formerly of Veritas in New York City, a protégé of Gault Millau’s Chef of the Century Joël Robuchon. They might even try the classic Terrine de Foie Gras Poire Belle Hélène which is lillet marinated foie gras terrine with poire williams gelee, almond and orange blossom bavaroise, and a chocolate nougatine, Better yet try the Chef of the Century’s signature  La Langoustine, a truffle langoustine ravioli with chopped cabbage, at Joel Robuchon Restaurant.

 Theodore Roosevelt was a traditionalist who preferred simplicity in hearty helpings and might have truly enjoyed a meal at NOBHILL TAVERN by Michael Mina at MGM Grand. Perhaps trying either the Shelton Farms Chicken Breast with cauliflower puree, roasted cauliflower, golden raisins and chicken jus or a 12 ounce wood-fired ribeye. Two of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s favorite foods were cheese and fish, so perfect restaurants for him would be Onda Ristorante & Lounge at The Mirage for its extensive cheese menu and signature seafood dishes or Julian Serrano at ARIA Resort & Casino where Chef Serrano lovingly prepares ceviches and a Spanish cheese platter celebrating his homeland.

 Lyndon B. Johnson was a big steak eater, so he’d love Jean Georges Steakhouse at ARIA, especially with its special February Beef Tasting Menu. Executive Chef Robert Moore has created an exquisite five-course tasting menu highlighting beef from Rangers Valley in Brisbane, Australia. The region’s cooler climate provides a stress-free life for the cattle under the watchful eye of certified Japanese Kobe ranchers, allowing for the production of extraordinary cuts of beef. Chef Moore’s menu features Rangers Valley Angus 300 beef prepared in four cooking styles: Hand-Cut Wagyu Steak Tartare, Charred Chili-Rubbed Angus 300 Rib Eye Skewers, Angus 300 Braised Short Rib and a 21 Day Dry Aged Grilled Angus 300 NY Strip.  The divine JG Candy Bar adds a sweet, finishing touch for dessert.

Read about other presidential culinary traditions here.

Food Trucks Spread 'New' Cuisine, Shake up Restaurant Model

Movement Is Helping to Expand America's Palate While Offering a Lesson in Social-Media Marketing

By: Maureen Morrison

Ethnic food -- from Korean to Thai to El Salvadoran -- has become more familiar to the average U.S. consumer, and increasingly people are finding out about these cuisines not from mom-and-pop restaurants or specialty stores, but via food trucks. The movement is helping pave the way for the increasing popularity in ethnic street cuisine "because of how food trucks work.

They've allowed those flavors to more easily surface and spread through cities and allow more people to try them," said Kazia Jankowski, associate culinary director at Sterling Rice Group, an agency that tracks restaurant and culinary trends. "They've allowed for those flavors to enter the mainstream via a different way and we're seeing those kinds of flavors make their way into more brick-and-mortar establishments."

Ms. Jankowski pointed to Chipotle's test concept, Shop House, and Spanish chain 100 Montaditos, which now has a small U.S. presence (with hopes of opening another 4,000 American units in the next five years), as larger players that are leading the way for this new style of "global street food."

"Food trucks have changed the conversation about the way international casual food has been able to become part of our regular dining experience," she said. Phil Lempert, a food-industry expert who runs Supermarket Guru, said that part of the appeal of food trucks for consumers is that often the operators are cooking their own culture's food, thereby making the fare more authentic. And food trucks and their cuisine are important to millennials, a demographic that likes to experiment with new tastes.

In the Technomic 2011 Food Trucks Innovation report, 42% of consumers surveyed ages 18 to 30 said they visit food trucks at least once a week; 38% of consumers ages 31 to 40 answered the same way. Of course, food trucks are not solely responsible for the interest in ethnic street-food, but they've helped create the supply to satisfy the demand that the popularity of food and travel programs has helped generate, said Kevin Higar, director-research and consulting at Technomic.

For now, so-called international food is largely untapped by most fast-food chains (Jack in the Box is one exception), but there are two areas of potential growth for food-truck operators looking to expand their own franchises: brick-and-mortar establishments and a move into supermarkets.

After leaving the fast-casual chain he founded, Spicy Pickle, Kevin Morrison in May 2010 started a food truck in Denver called Pinche Tacos. The truck sold what he called "Mexican street food," and was a precursor to the permanent Pinche Tacos that opened five months later. "It was a very inexpensive way of getting into the business to kind of test out the market to see what kind of feedback I got before I went brick-and-mortar."

Read the complete story here.

Chefs Looking to Start Small Carve Out Temporary Quarters in Established Kitchens

by Naomi Martin

Facing high risk, stiff competition and the need for expensive startup capital, entrepreneurs opening new restaurants in New Orleans have never had it easy. But now, with the recession causing banks to tighten lending, financing a new restaurant can be harder than ever.

 Enter the "pop-up restaurant."

A chef "pops up" a temporary restaurant -- usually just one night a week -- inside the shell of another restaurant during its off-hours. Using the host restaurant's silverware, linens and cooking equipment, the pop-up's staff serves customers a limited menu of usually five options. Having swept through New York and Los Angeles, the phenomenon is now emerging in New Orleans.

For some chefs, pop-ups are a way to test-drive the local market and gauge demand before investing in a full-scale restaurant. For others, it's a way to try out life as a chef, while still maintaining a day job.

"Eleven years ago I opened up Dante's, and that was a hell of a challenge," said Eman Loubier, owner of Dante's Kitchen in Uptown New Orleans. "But the timing then was better than it is now. Banks were a little easier with loaning. It was a little easier to get financing."

Loubier recently opened a pop-up restaurant called Noodles and Pie, serving items like braised duck noodle soup and honey-pine nut pie with lavender whipped cream. Noodles and Pie opens Monday nights inside Coulis, a breakfast restaurant Uptown that typically closes at 2 p.m.

"It was really just a matter of necessity, not us wanting to do something trendy or cool," said Mike Friedman, who runs Pizza Delicious every Sunday and Thursday night out of a shared Bywater kitchen.

So far, there are about a dozen pop-ups on any given week in the city. Many are so popular that they routinely sell out of food within hours, a lofty goal that many traditional restaurants can only dream of.
That popularity owes much to the rise of social media. Each pop-up has hundreds of Facebook fans and Twitter followers, making it easy to update a mass audience on the upcoming week's location, hours of operation and menu. Even just a few years ago, it would have been nearly impossible for an unofficial restaurant to attract enough customers to stay viable, said chef Peter Vazquez, who runs a pop-up out of Stein's Deli on Magazine Street every Sunday night.

Read the complete story here.

Farewell to Argentina's Famed Beef?

by Nancy Shute

When I think of Argentina, I think of beef from cows that graze on the endless pampas, tended by watchful gauchos. That grass-fed beef has been the centerpiece of Argentina's most famous dish, a slow-cooked asado on the parilla.

But while in Buenos Aires last week, I discovered that the pampas-raised beef of my reveries is practically a thing of the past. Today, most cattle in Argentina are raised in feedlots, just like in the U.S. That transition has been driven by soaring prices in the global grain markets over the past decade, making it far more profitable to raise soybeans, wheat and corn than herd cattle.

That may be good news for grain farmers, but it's not a welcome change for the chefs of Buenos Aires. "It's politics, not gastronomy," says Javier Urondo, chef and owner of Urondo Bar and Restaurant in the Parque Chacubuco neighborhood.

Urondo would much rather buy grass-fed beef, but says it's impossible because the industry doesn't identify meat by production method. "There's no way of knowing," the affable 54-year-old told me over a late lunch at Bar Seis in the Palermo Soho neighborhood. "Even my butcher doesn't know."

And because the change has been gradual, Urondo says, most customers don't notice the difference. (That thought was seconded in a September report on Argentina's beef production by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service.)
  Dan Perlman, an American chef and writer living in Buenos Aires who runs his own "secret" restaurant, Casa SaltShaker, has also noticed the difference. "When I first came to Argentina, I said, 'This is what beef is supposed to taste like!' Now, it's just steak," Perlman says.

 How exactly does grass-fed beef taste difference from grain-fed beef? As NPR's Allison Aubrey has reported, the meat from cows that dine on grass may be chewier and less fatty. She also cites a recent analysis from the Union of Concerned Scientists that found that grass-fed steak has about twice as many omega-3s as a typical grain-fed steak.

The flavor used to be a selling point for Argentina, which has a long, proud history as the world's great exporter of beef, starting way back in the 1800s. But in recent years Argentina has ceded that crown to Brazil.

Government policies are also helping shrink the country's beef exports. For years, the price of beef was kept artificially low to encourage domestic consumption.

But that didn't suit the cattlemen too well. "The producers have responded by saying, 'we're going to switch to producing grains'," says Michael Boland, director of the Food Industry Center at the University of Minnesota. He's been following the transformation of Argentine beef closely, both as a researcher and as someone who loves to eat. "The Malbec and the beef," he recalls wistfully. "That, to me, is Argentina."

Read the rest of the story here.

Turning Star Chefs into Must-See TV

At a recent meal at Jean Georges restaurant in New York, Charles Pinsky pushed a dish of foie gras on brioche with spiced fig jam toward his dining companion. "You eat mine. It's delicious, but I've had it about 200 times," said Mr. Pinsky, shrugging. Describing dining at El Bulli in Spain shortly before it closed, and attending the restaurant Chez Panisse's 40th-anniversary party, he waved his hand, muttering, "Yeah, yeah. I'm over it."

Being cynical about star chefs and immune to the glamour of haute cuisine may sound like the kiss of death for a producer and director of food television. But being easily bored may be Mr. Pinsky's greatest asset.
Throughout his 20-year-plus career, which has included four James Beard awards and dozens of public television cooking series and specials—with chefs and celebrities like Mario Batali, Jacques Pépin and Gwyneth Paltrow—Mr. Pinsky, 61, has been on a continual search for the "the next new idea."

Before he takes on a project, Mr. Pinsky said, he asks himself how it will be different from what he has done before. This principle pushed him into a series that he is developing with Phil Rosenthal, a comedy writer and the creator of the television show "Everybody Loves Raymond." The attraction to Mr. Pinsky is figuring out how to combine comedy and food.

 To flesh out an idea, Mr. Pinsky schedules many long conversations with a potential collaborator, often over restaurant meals. In late August, he went on a four-day eating journey through Los Angeles and San Francisco with Mr. Rosenthal, whom Mr. Pinsky describes as "a skinny guy who can out-enthusiasm and out-eat just about anybody." The pair began at Mozza restaurant in Los Angeles, then flew to San Francisco to eat eggs with pork and kimchi at Boulette's Larder. Over the next couple of days, they came up with a series idea in which Mr. Rosenthal will accompany famous chefs as they live out their ultimate food fantasies, while providing comedic, direct-to-camera narration.

 Each series begins with a scouting trip. As he scouts, Mr. Pinsky takes pictures with his BlackBerry of interesting characters or scenes, and writes a two-to-three-line description about who and where they are. Then he emails these mini-portraits, sometimes one or two per day, to a list of about 20 friends, including chefs Mr. Batali and Gary Danko, cookbook authors Mark Bittman and Julia Turshen and Mr. Pinsky's two sisters. There's little science to this method—Mr. Pinsky doesn't count votes—but he said that a big cheer from his list will usually lead him to shoot the story.

Scrolling through his BlackBerry, Mr. Pinsky landed on a picture of an elderly Korean woman in traditional dress stooped over a cauldron. She was demonstrating how to make cabbage and pork soup, a combination of ingredients that Mr. Pinsky's star, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, grew up eating in France. Mr. Pinsky said that his email panel loved the image and the idea that a world-famous chef and an old Korean lady had a comfort food in common. These scenes became a high point in a show he produced in Korea about the chef, his Korea-born wife and actors Heather Graham and Hugh Jackman.

Read the rest of the story here.

Kitchen Ink: Tattoos A New Part of Culinary Culture

Stephanie Izard looks like the girl next door, all T-shirt and curly pony tail. Until she wipes the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. And then you see it.

The fish tattoo.

“Cooking is an art and tattoos are another form of art,” says the chef-owner of Chicago’s acclaimed Girl and the Goat restaurant, showing off the delicate drawing on the inside of her wrist. Roll up her pants and a pea tendril struggles up her calf, a tiny plant becoming strong. A bright green gecko sits on one hip. A dolphin resides somewhere unshowable. And across her back, the piece de resistance — a blossoming basil plant encircled by cartoonish flying pigs.

“People come into our restaurant and say ‘Do you only hire line chefs with tattoos?’” says Izard, the first and only woman to win Bravo’s “Top Chef.” ‘’No, we just happen to have lot of them covered in them.”

Once considered the province of sailors, bikers, ex-cons and, of course, college hipsters, tattoos have become standard attire in professional kitchens, a symbol of culinary culture as surely as a toque. Whether the drawings are egg beaters, lemon meringue pies or ancient tribal motifs, body art in the kitchen is now so mainstream that everyone from lowly kitchen rats to celebrity chefs proudly display their work on television, magazine covers, high-end catalogues and in the pages of their cookbooks, making culinistas ever more like rock stars.

“It used to be those cockamamie chef hats that denoted an expertise with a spatula,” says Rocky Rakovic, editor of Inked magazine, a publication dedicated to tattoo culture and that has featured several chefs. “But now time in many kitchens is represented by the amount of tattoos one has.”

Meat cutting diagrams — the different cuts of a pig or cow denoted by dotted lines — and kitchen knives done like daggers are popular with chefs, tattoo artists say. Cupcakes, hot dogs, pies, equipment — a stand mixer showing a reflection in the stainless steel bowl receives raves from tattoo connoisseurs — are standard when you’re talking food tattoos. Food Network chef Duff Goldman, also known as The Ace of Cakes, has a whisk.

Hugh Acheson, chef-partner of three acclaimed Georgia restaurants, who has four tattoos himself, including the names of his wife and children, as well as a Mayan god he got during a trip to the Yucatan peninsula when he was 16 (he swears he was sober). His favorite is the radish on the inside of his left forearm, which commemorates the first plant he grew at his house more than a decade ago, and which gets the spotlight in his new cookbook’s food photos.

But lots of chefs make little or no reference to their profession. In those cases, the ink — and the reasons for getting it — are as individual as the chef.

Bryan Voltaggio, the 35-year-old chef-owner of Volt Restaurant in Frederick, Md., and a finalist (along with brother Michael) on season 6 of “Top Chef,” has six tattoos, including a nautical star to guide him. The names of his children and their Chinese zodiac signs celebrate their births. And his lightening bolt — a tattoo he shares with even more heavily tattooed Michael — celebrates their friendship with childhood buddies (who also have the same tattoo).

Marc Forgione’s eight tattoos represent turning points in his life or career: the Navajo art that inspired him to open his own restaurant; the “1621” on both biceps documenting his recreation of the first Thanksgiving, the meal that cinched his 2010 win on the Food Network’s “The Next Iron Chef”; the tribal infinity symbol his parents gave him on his 18th birthday.

“I use them almost like a roadmap of my life,” says the 32-year-old chef-owner of Restaurant Marc Forgione. “They all have their own little story. It’s a badge of memory.”

Chefs with tattoos are nothing new, Rakovic says. What is new is their emergence from the bowels of restaurant life onto television and into the spotlight. But industry watchers like Dana Cowin, editor-in-chief of Food & Wine magazine, say the volume of ink has definitely increased during the past five years or so — and it should be no surprise.

“If you look at a chef with beautiful tatts you might also be looking at a chef that presents very beautifully plated food,” says Cowin, whose July 2009 cover featured the elaborately inscribed arms of chefs Nate Appleman and Vinny Dotolo and drew fire from a few readers who thought it was in poor taste. “So the opposite conclusion can be drawn: not ‘They’re heathens,’ but, ‘They must be appreciators of art.’”

Which is exactly why chefs like them. “Chefs are artistic people who get inspired by things and that has a lot to do with tattoos,” Forgione says. “We’re kind of artistic, rebellious, a little crazy.”

Read the complete story here.

George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation (1789).....Happy Thanksgiving

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANKSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish Constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.

No Need to Gripe About Tripe

The French term jolie laide translates to "pretty ugly," and refers to the striking beauty found in what would conventionally be deemed unattractive.

Bandied about in the fashion world, the phrase has a place now in food too. Suddenly, the ugly ducklings of ingredients, such as odd meat cuts, are the gourmet swans. Case in point: tripe—a word with sour enough connotations. Calvin W. Schwabe's "Unmentionable Cuisine" describes it as "the beef stomach…actually all four stomachs of cattle, sheep and other ruminant animals."

Among the four digestive chambers hoofed creatures possess, it is the cow's reticulum lining that is getting all the culinary play, particularly its protein-rich "honeycomb" lining (shaped and textured like the bee variety).

Recently, Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi of Manhattan's Torrisi Italian Specialties teased the cow tummy into a calamari-like state. "It is very thinly sliced tripe that has been boiled for several hours," said Mr. Carbone. "We toss it with currants, peanuts, fermented chili and an emulsion of lemon peel."

Andrew Carmellini, chef of the Dutch in Manhattan, serves Barrio Tripe, cooked "low and slow with a lot of love and attention," he said. Simmered in beer—then garnished with avocado, lime and a Fritos dusting—his tripe dish has a Mexican foundation.

Meanwhile, in Oxford, Miss., John Currence of City Grocery Restaurant Group, is cooking tripe like chitterlings, frying the whole piece and serving it with either a Creole-spiced romanesco or a Southern-spiced harissa. (Chitterlings, or "chitlins," are pig intestines.)

San Francisco's offal overlord Chris Cosentino takes tripe still further. "We grill it, fry it crispy, even make dessert with it," he said.

In Italy, according to Jacob Kenedy, chef of London's Bocca di Lupo, tripe is an omnipresent cut served distinctly in each region. From Lazio, in central Italy, his is one of the most straightforward preparations -Trippa alla Romana balances the gut's strong taste with tomato, guanciale, mint and pecorino.

The cardinal rule of "tripery"? Pre-cook it for at least two hours. (Fill a stockpot with water, add lemon juice, some salt and turn on the gas.) A savory, warming bowlful proves the sumptuous ends justify the malodorous means.

Find a great tripe recipe here. 

Say Goodbye to 'One of the Good Guys"

The message dated Nov. 6 was simple and poignant: "Your Neighbor's Garden is closed."

The email and Facebook post made the rounds of the local food community following the death of Your Neighbor's Garden owner Ross Faris after a bicycle accident last Saturday.

As the message explained, "The family and staff have decided it best to end our season early and close the market as we take time to grieve."

It's OK. We understand.

We're grieving, too.

Anyone who met Ross at a local farmers market or stopped by Your Neighbor's Garden over the years can't help but feel the loss.


The City Market's Stevi Stoesz certainly does. She met Ross in 1996 when he helped her develop plans for the popular Downtown farmers market.

"He was my very first vendor and biggest cheerleader," said Stoesz, "for not only the farmers market at the City Market, but all the great area markets."

Local food activist, writer and consultant Wendell Fowler said simply, "I'm heartbroken. Ross was one of the good guys."

And R Bistro's Erin Kem spoke for all local food fans when she said, "I can't imagine a growing season without him."

Read more of Jolene Ketzenberger's tribute to this amazing and inspirational man here.

Good Old American Cooking — the Way the Native Americans Used to Make

For years, unless you lived on or near a reservation — or happened to be visiting the cafe at the National Museum of the American Indian — you were unlikely to be able to go out for Native American food. 

But now, residents of Denver, Colorado, are able to feast on Indian tacos, green chile stew, wojapi (a thick berry dessert) and more, thanks to Osage Indian Ben Jacobs and his restaurant Tocabe: an American Indian Eatery.

"I want native food to be much more in the public eye," says Jacobs, 28. "Feasting is a big part of our culture, and eating together is important to us, just like for many other cultures." Judging by Tocabe's success, Jacobs is getting his wish for many more Americans to experience indigenous eats.

Read the complete story here.

Top Military Cooks Embrace Week at Culinary School

When Sgt. Arturo Torres joined the U.S. Marine Corps five years ago, he wanted to be an infantryman. After all, the Marines' reputation is largely built on the expertise of its infantry.

But the 18-year-old's mother didn't like the idea one bit - especially in wartime.

When Torres explained that to the recruiter in his hometown of Dallas, the recruiter made a suggestion: food service.

At first it didn't seem that exciting. But when Torres was deployed to Iraq three years ago and got to cook for then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, food service took on a whole new shine.

Air Force Senior Airman Ashleen Cacciatore thinks her last name might have had something to do with the reason she's now feeding 500 people a day at McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, a joint military base in Trenton, N.J. The 26-year-old originally wanted an assignment in mental health but was sent to the kitchen. Now, getting told "35,000 times a day that Air Force food is so much better than any of the other armed forces' grub" has more than convinced her it was the right decision, she said.

Torres, Cacciatore and 23 other cooks from the Marines, Air Force and Air National Guard were selected by the Hennessy Travelers Association's Educational Foundation for the annual Armed Forces Forum for Culinary Excellence at the  Culinary Institute of America Greystone campus in St. Helena.

For a week the military cooks hone their skills at the venerable chefs school, learning everything from chopping techniques to how to prepare healthful meals. And Hennessy, an association of volunteers from the food-service and hospitality industries that raises hundreds of thousands of dollars from private donors each year, is picking up the entire tab, said Carmen Vacalebre, a Connecticut restaurateur and president of the group.

The group's mission is to promote educational opportunities for members of the armed forces serving in hospitality as well as help military cafeterias run more efficiently and effectively. The organization also helps former military cooks pursue careers in food service in the civilian world.

"These 25 individuals chosen for the forum have been identified as the cream of the crop," said Jack Kleckner, a Hennessy group member.

The hope is that the young cooks will go back to their mess halls and motivate others with their food and proficiency, said Art Ritt, an officer with the association. "We're trying to teach them how to think out of the box," he said.

One day this week, they were learning how to tart up leftovers, with Greystone instructor Tom Wong showing them how to use up yesterday's tomatoes by making salsa.

"It's a chance of a lifetime," said Jamie Schoewe, a staff sergeant in the Air National Guard in Milwaukee who spends one weekend a month cooking for the troops. "I can take everything that I'm learning back and teach everyone else."

Schoewe, 24, said she requested her kitchen assignment, which sometimes involves cooking meals for as many as 1,200 troops a day.

"There's something about preparing a meal for the people around you," she said. "It's nurturing."

She got some kitchen training in the Air Force's technical school, "but it was nothing like this," she said about the courses she's attended at the Culinary Institute.

Read the rest of the story here.

Food Trend Alert:: Ancient recipes

Had enough bacon ice cream and Korean barbecue? The next food trend-in-the-making may be for you—Ye Olde Recipe.

Chefs are raiding ancient Roman texts, Renaissance manuscripts and 19th-century American cookbooks in search of authentic old recipes with which to tempt jaded foodies. Many of the recipes call for unfamiliar—and somewhat unappetizing—ingredients like songbirds, veal brains, the ancient herb hyssop and "preboggin" (pray-bo-ZHAWN), a fancy name for wild greens, also known as "weeds."

Some chefs have an insatiable appetite for recreating really old, hard-to-get recipes. An Italian restaurant in Chicago prepares a meal inspired by a 4th Century gourmand. Is history really worth resurrecting? Alina Dizik has details on Lunch Break.

With food-truck cuisine, Asian fusion and other blockbuster trends starting to feel a bit stale, adventurous foodies are drawn to the back stories and unusual ingredients of historic cuisine. In many cases, the trend overlaps with the slow-food movement's interest in unprocessed, home-prepared foods. For restaurants, recipes unearthed from the past are a fresh way to attract attention and boost sales.

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, open since January in the Mandarin Oriental in London, specializes in dishes from Britain's past: Rice and Flesh (c. 1390), Savoury Porridge (c. 1660), Roast Marrowbone (c. 1720) and Spiced Pigeon (c. 1780). At Next, a creation of Alinea's Grant Achatz that launched earlier this year in Chicago, a rotating prix fixe menu features dishes such as Duck with Blood Sauce, in which duck parts are put through an antique duck press. The dish is based on a 1906 Paris preparation inspired by August Escoffier's 1903 text Le Guide Culinaire.

At Pensiero, a modern Italian restaurant in Evanston, Ill., chef Brandon Baltzley is putting together an historic menu for a 10-course, $140-a-person dinner later this month. The inspiration is the 10 tomes of Apicius, a collection of Roman recipes believed to date from 4th and 5th centuries. "[People] are bored," says Mr. Baltzley who found the books in a university library. "They like to do something they can say no one else is doing."

So far, Mr. Baltzley has confirmed he'll prepare the Meat Mincer, a gory second course of langoustine sausage, spelt and veal brains. For other dishes, he wants to experiment with pig udders and pig wombs—although they are highly unlikely to appear on the final menu because they aren't inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and farmers can't sell them. "You need to find a crazy farmer that will give it to you," Mr. Baltzley says.

One recipe he won't bother to explore: Stuffed Dormouse.

But with historic-menu ingredients costing as much as double those of a regular meal, chefs are pursuing the trend mainly in reservations-only tastings and other events during hours when a restaurant is usually closed.

Sarah Lohman, founder of Four Pounds Flour, a blog devoted to "historic gastronomy," recently posted recipes for Baked Alaska and a tamale recipe dating from 1890s New York. "We want to be eating the food that our forefathers ate," Ms. Lohman says.

If some old recipes sound less than scrumptious, here's why. People "ate more parts of the animal and more parts of a plant that today we'd throw away," says Francine Segan, author of "Shakespeare's Kitchen," a 2003 book of updated Renaissance recipes. The idea that cinnamon and nutmeg hid the taste of old meat isn't true, she says. "They wouldn't put expensive spices on top of rotten meat."

Marco Frattaroli, a Portland, Ore., chef, recently hosted a dinner inspired by the Renaissance at his restaurant, Bastas Trattoria, where he spit-roasted pig, rabbit and quail, rather than the robins and other songbirds specified in the old recipe. He is basing future menus on dishes from the Roman era and the Jewish Diaspora in Italy.

Read the complete story here.

Grilled Chicken, That Temperamental Star

by David Segal

THE sauce will not behave. 

It is supposed to drip twice, on cue, from the bottom right-hand corner of a forkful of tortellini — first as the fork is lifted above the plate and, second, after the fork pauses briefly in the air and starts to rise again.

Two drips. A sequence that lasts a second and a half, tops.

A dozen men at MacGuffin Films, a studio in Manhattan, are struggling to capture this moment. For more than an hour one recent afternoon, they huddle around a table rimmed with enormous stage lights, fussing over a casserole as if it’s a movie star getting primped for a close-up.

“Lights. Roll. Action. Drip!” shouts Michael Somoroff, a veteran commercial director who has shot television ads for Red Lobster, Burger King, Papa John’s and dozens of other fast-food and casual-dining chains. A specialist in the little-known world of tabletop directing — named for the piece of furniture where most of the work is set — Mr. Somoroff is hired to turn the most mundane and fattening staples of the American diet into luscious objects of irresistible beauty.

If you watch television, you’ve seen his work, and the work of the five or six other major players in this micro-niche of advertising. These men — yes, they’re all men — make glossy vignettes that star butter-soaked scallops and glistening burgers. Their cameras swirl around fried chicken, tunnel through devil’s food cake and gape as soft-serve cones levitate and spin.

Few outside the business know their names. But given the more than $4 billion in television air time bought by restaurant chains and food conglomerates each year, these directors arguably have some of the widest exposure of any commercial artists in the country. In a typical week, tens of millions of viewers see their work.

“Aside from movie directors,” Mr. Somoroff says during a break in shooting, “I don’t know anyone with an audience as large as mine.”

On this particular afternoon, he is filming a commercial for a chain that did not want to see its name in this article. And you can sort of understand why. If you’ve ever been to a restaurant and thought, “This does not look like the dish in the ad,” here’s the irony: The dish in the ad doesn’t look like the dish in the ad, either.
This casserole shot, for instance, is an elaborate tango of artifice, technology and timing. The steam wafting over the dish comes not from the food, but from a stagehand crouched under a table with the kind of machine that unwrinkles trousers.

The hint of Alfredo sauce that appears when the fork emerges from the pasta? That’s courtesy of tubes hidden in the back of the dish and hooked to what look like large hypodermic needles. Moments before each take, Mr. Somoroff yells, “Ooze!” That tells the guy with the needles, standing just outside of the frame, to start pumping.

As for that quarrelsome drip from the fork, it is the responsibility of Anthony DeRobertis, a special-effects rigger who holds his own hypodermic of sauce and is having a hard time synching with a hand model, a young man with a military haircut who is clutching the fork.

“Anthony, the second drip is about 10 minutes after the shot is over,” says Mr. Somoroff after five or six takes, sounding faintly annoyed.

“I’m right on it,” Mr. DeRobertis says.

“You’re on it, but it’s not dripping when it has to drip.”

A break is called and a tube is attached to Mr. DeRobertis’s sauce injector, which is then taped near the bottom tine of the fork, in a way that’s invisible to Mr. Somoroff’s immense Photo-Sonics camera.

Sauce and fork are finally in unison. After a few more tries, Mr. Somoroff has a take he likes enough to show to reps from the client and its ad agency, a group of whom are waiting in a nearby room that is decked out with a large high-definition TV. The pasta appears moist, the steam organic and the minuet of drip and hand nothing more than a diner on the verge of a blissful bite.

“I make my living basically taking food and painting a reality with it,” says Mr. Somoroff, leaning back in a chair in his office as the team preps another set-up. “And if I succeed in a given moment, you’re going to go buy that dish because you’re going to identify with the experience we’ve created. To do that with something as banal as food is the challenge. I mean, it’s easy to go out and shoot a beautiful sunset or a beautiful girl. They’re beautiful, O.K.?”

He gestures toward the middle of the studio.“I’ve got a noodle over here.”

THIS is a good moment to be a tabletop director in the big leagues, particularly if you specialize in food. Low- and mid-priced chain restaurants are one of the few segments of the economy that decided, during the recession and in its aftermath, to spend as much or more on advertising than they did in the years before.
Fast-food, casual-dining and pizza chains, as well as what are lumped together as “doughnut and coffee restaurants,” spent $300 million more on TV ads in 2010 than they did in 2007, according to Kantar Media, a market research firm. If patterns hold, the numbers will be even larger this year.

“Generally speaking, restaurant chains spend about 3 percent of revenue on advertising,” says Michael Gallo, an analyst at C. L. King & Associates. “Because these restaurant systems are large and have density, television is an easy way to reach customers in a cost-effective way.”

And any restaurant chain that forswears TV ads is in serious trouble.

“If you come off television, when your sales dip, it takes a long time to get them back to where they were before stopped advertising,” says Michael Branigan, vice president for marketing at Sizzler. “There are a ton of studies that show this. You lose brain share of your customers, and it is expensive to get revenues up again. If I stopped advertising, Sizzler’s revenue would be down, minimally, 10 to 15 percent for the year.”

Typically, companies use television commercials to introduce new products or to remind consumers about old ones. Regardless, the goal is the same: show the product, and do it in a way that makes people want to eat the TV.

Tabletop directors don’t handle the part of the ad where the family walks into the restaurant, or where Mom looks for a whisk. That’s farmed out to someone else. But say you’re the Checkers chain and you want to unveil “Chicken Bites,” a fried-chicken offering. You need to distinguish these “poppable” treats from a few dozen others on the market. And you need to give a hint of what they taste like.

“It’s breaded, seasoned chicken, so to the naked eye you can’t really tell,” said Kris Miotke, senior director of marketing at Checkers. “The question was, How do you define a fun, bite-size product in a way that shows both the inside and the outside?”

How about a hand tearing open a Chicken Bite? “Me, personally, I don’t want hands in my shot. I want the food to speak for itself.”

To solve this problem — how to create a hands-free, fried-chicken reveal, if you will — Checkers hired Michael Schrom. For 11 years, he has worked in 16,000 square feet of space in silvercup Studios in Long Island City, Queens, in the same building where “30 Rock,” "Gossip Girl" and other shows are filmed. Nearly all his clients sell food or beverages, among them Domino’s, McDonald’s, Applebee’s and Smucker’s.

“That took about 40 takes,” says Mr. Schrom of the Chicken Bites shot. There was no sleight of hand; each bite was cut open, pushed back together, then dropped on a table. The goal was to see moist white meat when it bounced.

“It’s far harder to get a cookie break with chocolate chips,” Mr. Schrom says. “We went through 100 cookies for Nestlé’s on one shoot. We knew when we got it because we could hear the clients in the other room, applauding.”

Mr. Schrom has the eyeglasses of an architect and the relaxed, contented air of a man highly entertained by his job. On this day, he is filming for a national chain — one that also requested anonymity — capturing what he calls “flavor cues.” In one shot, a stagehand pours chocolate syrup over a sheet of caramel. (You can almost hear a voiceover purring, “Chocolate.”) In another, cream bubbles up in a cup of coffee. In real time, these moments barely register. In slow-motion playbacks, with a digital camera that shoots up to 1,600 frames a second, the images are almost erotic. Which is no accident.

“You’re using the same part of your brain — porn, food,” Mr. Schrom says during a break. “It’s going in the same section; it’s that visual cortex that connects to your most basic senses. What we’re trying to do is be the modern-day Pavlovs and ring your bell with these images.”

He has several food stylists who work in a huge kitchen next to his set. They start with the very same food and recipes used in the restaurants and stores.

In part, this is a truth-in-advertising issue. Everyone knows that in 1970, the Federal Trade Commission settled a complaint against the Campbell Soup Company after its ad agency slipped marbles into a bowl in ads featuring its vegetable soup, apparently to force more veggies to the surface. That put a scare into the industry that endures to this day.

Anything that flatters the food, of course, is fair game, and that includes gimmicks you’re unlikely to find in a fridge. Glue is used to keep spaghetti on forks and pizzas in place. The ice in a beverage might be made of acrylic and cost $500 a cube. The frost coming off a beer could be a silicone gel, mixed with powder and water.

The difference between enhancement and fakery, though, becomes a little murky, and some directors tiptoe right up to, and well past, the marbles-in-the-soup line. If the tomatoes in a client’s red wine reduction aren’t visible, some fresh ones may be sliced up and tossed in. On rare occasions, the food you see on screen is merely a facsimile of the product.

Read more about the production of food porn, a.k.a. food styling, a.k.a."tabletop directing" here.  (N.Y. Times, tiered subscription model)