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Chew On This: Hangover cures that work? Debunking the food myths... - 23 Dec 2008
It's official. A fry-up and an aspirin won't cure a hangover. New Year's Eve revelers, you have been warned. On the plus side, eating late at night doesn't make you fat. Debunking the myths... read more...
Chew On This: The most unhealthy $1 burgers? - 10 Dec 2008
If you believe that a $1 burger being pushed at you from junk food purveyors taking advantage of money fears induced by the economic slump is a good deal, at least pick the one that's least harmful to your health. Washington's non-profit Cancer Project has assessed their nutritional value and come up with a handy top 5 of the most bad for you. Or rather, bottom 5. read more...
Chew On This: Alzheimer's and junk food link - 2 Dec 2008
Junk food linked to Alzheimer's? Fuggeddaboutit, do I hear you jest? Well, feed a mouse on a diet rich in fat, sugar and cholesterol for nine months and you'll have a mouse with chemical changes in its brain that mimic Alzheimer's. read more...
Chew On This: Making sure 'organic' means organic - 25 Nov 2008
For anyone feeling at sea about how to make themselves heard on food concerns, now's your chance. The USDA has just released an agenda describing what they call 'significant and not significant regulations' being developed in its agencies. Two are of serious interest to anyone worried about the dependability of the National Organic Program (NOP)'s meat and dairy product certification.
Your paying over the odds for organic produce and products is no guarantee that they are in fact organic. read more...
Chew On This: Will Obama eat right? - 19 Nov 2008
The two-year election campaign is usually a struggle for the contenders and their staff to keep their weight down to a minimum while sharing congenial meals with voters in every community they land in. But we read in Newsweek's behind-the-scenes report on the running of the campaign that while Hillary's willingness to accept the food she was offered exacerbated the willingness of her waistline to spread, the President-Elect actually lost weight. read more...
Chew On This: Oatmeal for breakfast keeps weight off - 12 Nov 2008
No excuse now to avoid oatmeal in favor of Lucky Charms. Lower energy dense breakfasts (that's stodge to you and me), high in nutrients, not only help maintain a healthy weight but help with better food choices during the rest of the day. So says the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. read more...
Chew On This: We just love our tartrazine - 5 Nov 2008
Of all the food dyes stuffed into what we eat, the shade of yellow created by tartrazine seems to cause the most allergic reaction. If you suffer from asthma or aspirin intolerance, or are feeding children, you - and the rest of us - had better be aware of what it's in. Which is a startlingly long list. Oh, and by the way, the UK's the Foods Standards Agency has called for its voluntary removal by 2009. FDA, are you listening? read more...
Chew On This: Are your/her breasts shrinking? - 22 Oct 2008
Are your breasts shrinking? Then you're drinking too much coffee. read more...
Chew on This: Alinea - Cirque du Soleil on a plate? - 14 Oct 2008
In Chicago this week, I've eaten a 'beef', a 'brat', several 'sammitches', a 'dawg' or three, and plan on a deep dish pizza before I leave. I've also eaten at award-heaped Alinea and Charlie Trotter's. And I confess I'm a tad stumped. read more...
Chew On This: Pringles tweaks our charitable side - 8 Oct 2008
Here's a master stroke of marketing: just in case you're giving up Pringles in favor of no or healthier snacks, Pringles have come up with a reason this approaching holiday season to carry on munching: if we don't, we'll deprive a charity caring for children in hospitals across America. read more...
Chew On This: A call for food rationing in the developed world - 1 Oct 2008
If we don't limit ourselves to four modest portions of meat and one liter of milk a week, says a report by the Food Climate Network considered the most thorough yet, there's no way we'll avoid run-away climate change. read more...
Chew On This: 75 million more go hungry and we scoff fortified foods - 24 Sep 2008
920 million people are undernourished, and with the current financial crisis that figure will rise. Meanwhile our hunger in the U.S. for "functional foods" with their added nutritional values will push sales to $60 billion next year. Something wrong with this picture? read more...
Chew On This: Bread from June is fresh? - 17 Sep 2008
This week Wegmans had to widen its recall of store-made bagels and bialys announced originally on September 10, because of the possible presence of bits of metal in them. Now the recall includes challah bread, bialys, rolls and bagels baked in store. More striking than the fragments of metal in the dough and how they got there is the information that the period the recall covers is from June 19 to September 11. Is bread from June 19 still hanging around the place? Yours or theirs? read more...
Chew On This: Organics threatened by rising feed costs - 10 Sep 2008
One impact of the rising cost of food has been on organic meat and dairy farmers - who are leaving the market because they can't afford organic animal feed. Consumer demand for organic meat and dairy continues to grow. But supply is becoming limited as dairy, beef and pig farmers leave organic farming - some of them even leaving farming altogether. read more...
Chew On This: USDA says 'No' to BSE testing - 4 Sep 2008
Hot on the heels of Chew On This of August 20’s report on new tests to detect BSE in cattle comes news that the government can prevent meat packers from testing their animals for mad cow disease. read more...
eatDordogne: Week 7, the end of summer - 3 Sep 2008
Final tally of duck consumption: 7 duck confits; 5 helpings of duck foie gras poelle, flash fried and served with a swirl of honey and balsamic vinegar; 1 duck roasted in red wine; 2 pots of duck rillettes; 1 helping duck cassoulet; 4 home-made terrines of foie gras; 1 large Quiche au Confit de Canard; 3 servings of foie gras brulée from Le Vieux Logis; 4 plates of duck gésiers (confited gizzards - no, they're very nice indeed); copious slices duck salami; copious spoonfuls of duck fat in the Pommes Sarladaises.
Feet definitely growing webs: it's time to come home. read more...
Chew On This: CSPI wants dyes out of foods - 26 Aug 2008
In the 1990s I had an English friend whose small child suffered from petit mal - minor epileptic fits. Her doctor advised her to lay off any foods with colorings declared on the labels. The fits disappeared - until the family was posted to the U.S. when they returned with a vengeance, since many labels don't fully declare food content. Her pediatrician dismissed her questions about food colorings. read more...
eatDordogne: The diary of a summer, week 6 - 26 Aug 2008
Stéphane Pécal is an award-winning baker. He shows up at the farmers' night markets where local producers cook for you whatever they've grown or slaughtered, hours before the picnickers to fire up the stove for his bread baking. Pastries from the patissier at his Castelnau bakery are also on sale. Some of them are the result of failure, he says. He likes a good mistake. read more...
Chew On This: Test to detect BSE? - 20 Aug 2008
There may at last be a test to monitor at the point of slaughter the presence of BSE in a cow's brain or spinal cord. BSE - Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy - leads to Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) in humans. First discovered in 1996 in the UK, up to now suspected and proven cases of the disease have been diagnosed in 166 people in Britain. read more...
eatDordogne: The diary of a summer, week 5 - 19 Aug 2008
It's the week of the Tennis Club 'Mechoui'. This is an excuse for the eaters and drinkers of the area to hunker down in the newly refurbished (courtesy of EU donations) metal hut that constitutes the Tennis Club and tuck into a roast wild boar with copious amounts of Percharmant wine. It's all cooked by the village men of the club who only sometimes wield a tennis racket but can always raise a glass of whisky. Which they do at around 6 a.m. ceremoniously to toast the boar as they set fire to the pyre of logs beneath it. read more...
Chew On This: Dirty dining in our restaurants - 13 Aug 2008
Washington's Center for Science in the Public Interest has come up with an intriguing proposal: public access to a restaurant's health-code grades. The recommendation comes in a report titled "Dirty Dining: Have Reservations? You Will Now", just published. read more...
eatDordogne: The diary of a summer, week 4 - 12 Aug 2008
We're overrun with snails. Fat, juicy slithering lumps of elastic, they ooze through the undergrowth. They munch their way through the cabbages, the melons, the zucchini in our potager, leaving the vegetables looking like someone has been at them with an acid drip. In revenge, and because nothing should go to waste, I took a leaf from their book and decided to eat them. read more...
Chew On This: French women DO get fat - 6 Aug 2008
Whatever elegant Mireille Guiliano, who wrote "French Women Don't Get Fat" believes, they do. Half of all women in France between 35 and 74 and two thirds of French men are thought to be overweight, according to a study released in June. One fifth of all French adults are obese. read more...
eatDordogne: The diary of a summer, week 3 - 5 Aug 2008
The wages clerk at the Town Hall has run away with a long-distance truck driver. She took the camper van she had won in a national lottery not some weeks before and headed south. The town is agog, not least because only she knew who on the public payroll is to be paid what. read more...
eatDordogne: The diary of a summer, week 2 - 30 Jul 2008
The local village came to dinner. The chief of police stood up and sang "Do you do you do you Saint Tropez" - one of those songs the French think are the coolest thing and leave foreigners baffled. read more...
Chew on This: Food marketing makes kids fat - 30 Jul 2008
Guess how much money the largest food and beverage companies in the U.S. are spending in marketing their products to children between 2 and 17? $1.6 billion. And you thought the food industry was doing its best to lower childhood obesity rates? read more...
eatDordogne: The diary of a summer - 21 Jul 2008
This summer's first visitor has just left. And packed his sheets to take with him. He said he was a poet. He seems to have been a thief. He came shrouded in one of those family names from the lesser known Stans where groups of consonants are joined by a single 'y'. The prime attraction of the wife stowed at home may have been her own nation's lenient immigration policy. The village is now speculating what would have been behind this wanton act. Perhaps he's assessing the thread count by candlelight in the town on the freer side of the mountains backing up to his Stan to gauge how many nimble fingers can be put to the copying. At least they weren't a pair of the antique monogrammed linens. Before the advent of cheap air fares out of the UK and the Netherlands, you used to be able to pick these up at flea markets for less than the cost of a polyester set. Should I send him a bill? Perhaps they'll come back through the mail, laundered, packed into soft tissue and tied in raffia.
His visit meant the first of the summer's duck feasts. If you stay long enough in the Dordogne, you will leave with webbed feet. read more...
Chew on This: A fish industry collapses as American obesity rises - 20 Jul 2008
Unless we've had our head in the sand of our summer beach, the impact of the soaring cost of corn on the price of beef, pork and chicken won't have passed us by. But with corn and soybeans three times the price of two years ago, catfish farmers have begun draining their ponds, unable to keep up with the expense of feeding their stocks. This as Americans confess they're more obese than last year - and should be eating more healthily. read more...
Chew On This: Drink even more red wine! - 8 Jul 2008
Wine drinkers looking for an excuse for another glass know that resveratrol in red wine is a good source of antioxidants. Now a group of Hebrew University researchers in Jerusalem have discovered that when you pair it with certain foods, beneficial polyphenols can avert the harmful effect of certain molecules that emerge during the digestive process. Chug down a glass of Pinot Noir or other red wine with your juicy steak and the mix of the two in the stomach will prevent the formation of harmful oxidizing toxins released from red meat and other high-fat foods while they're being digested. read more...
Chew on This: Whose food healthier? Nature's or the food biz? - 3 Jul 2008
It used to be we asked no more of food than to make us feel full or cosseted or impressed by its skilful execution. Now we expect food to do more than just fill our stomachs. It’s got to have added value as a health remedy. We demand additives in the most unlikely of products, to cure us of existing frailties or protect us against the offset of new ones. It’s not enough to eat salmon or mackerel at least once a week to get our omega-3 fatty acids. We want them delivered by other means than a fish. read more...
Chew on This: Peking Duck heart disease cure? - 17 Jun 2008
Your starter for 10: The latest magical ingredient to cut the risk of heart disease is --- what? That food coloring that turns Peking Duck its glowing chestnut red.
Didn't get the answer? Back to the bottom of the quiz. read more...
Chew on this: Sickening tomatoes - 16 Jun 2008
The tomato, that friendly fruit romantically called (by pedants, mostly) the love apple, has been almost as poisonous to 228 people in 23 states as the apple her stepmother proferred to Snow White. read more...
On The Road: 4 days in Portugal - 5 Jun 2008
Traveling north from Porto the mountains in spring are so thickly blanketed in egg-yolk-colored broom and purple heather there's no room for goats and sheep to graze. The wine is wonderful - spritzy enough to convince you you're just sipping a summer lemonade and light enough not to do too much damage. The food is less so. If you're catching fish this fresh, why not leave it to show off. read more...
Chew On This: Jamie Oliver pirated on the internet? - 4 Jun 2008
A 100-plus page file is dropping into e-mail boxes claiming to be a Jamie Oliver cookbook. It's not the first time it has circulated. It made its first appearance on the web in summer 2003. Now it's back. read more...
Phyllis Richman - Queen of Washington restaurant reviews - 3 Jun 2008
Phyllis Richman pads barefoot across her front porch and curls up on the porch swing, tucking her red-painted toes beneath her. She smiles and rocks there like a very gentle version of the Cheshire Cat. She has good reason to smile. Retired now from years as The Washington Post’s restaurant reviewer and food writer, she’s been honored with the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington’s Duke Zeibert Capital Achievement Award. read more...
Chew On This: Cow patting relieves stress - 2 Jun 2008
Feeling stressed? Go ride a tractor. Your anger and hostility levels, if you're harboring any, could diminish by 70 percent, not to mention those feelings of confusion and depression. These may slump by as much as 80 percent. read more...
Chew On This: Too little salt bad for the heart? - 27 May 2008
Remember the ‘Butter bad, margarine good – oops, wrong: margarine bad, butter good’ debate? Now salt is the victim of contradictory research. Studies have shown reducing salt intake could cut the long-term risk of cardiovascular disease by up to 35 percent. Last week, the Journal of General Internal Medicine reversed that conclusion, saying too little salt could increase the risk of CVD. read more...
Chew On This: USDA against private BSE testing - 20 May 2008
Sometimes you have to wonder whose interests the United States Department of Agriculture represents. The USDA currently tests around one percent of slaughtered beef cattle for BSE. Creekstone Farms Premium Beef doesn't believe that is anywhere near enough. It tests every single one of its Black Angus cattle for BSE - bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which the Brits, its first known victims, call Mad Cow Disease. Creekstone pays for the testing itself. You'd think the USDA would applaud its public spirit and safety drive. No. It took Creekstone, a Kansas meat packer, to court to prohibit the company from running private tests. And won the case. read more...
Chew On This: Obese blamed for food and climate crisis! - 16 May 2008
Breaking news 5.16.08: The World Health Organization predicts the global obese population will double to 700 million by 2015. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has calculated the obese consume 18 percent more calories than average. Therefore they're driving up food and fuel prices. How? They provoke an increased consumption of oil by the agriculture and transport industries harnessed to supply their demand for food! Wow. That's quite a twist on the discussion. But it's reported by prestigious journal The Lancet. read more...
Share Our Strength chefs' cook out! - 9 May 2008
When you next feel hungry, consider some of America's kids. Share Our Strength does. It's a nationwide community of chefs, activists, food programs and people in the wide culinary field working to try and ensure no child in America grows up hungry. On Thursday 15 May, Chef Charlie Palmer is hosting Share Our Strength’s A Tasteful Pursuit presented by Lexus at his restaurant Charlie Palmer Steak at 101 Constitution Avenue, NW, in downtown D.C. Six other prime chefs will be cooking alongside him. read more...
Phyllis Richman - 8 May 2008
Phyllis Richman spent 23 years as the restaurant critic of the Washington Post, eating out on our behalf. Think how much money she saved us by guiding us away from restaurants or chefs that weren't meeting the mark, and how many good meals she encouraged us to seek out and enjoy.
So it's only right and proper that the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington is honoring her at the 26th Annual RAMMY Restaurant Awards Gala with the Duke Zeibert Capital Achievement Award. read more...
Chew on This: Chicken abuse - 8 May 2008
You need a strong stomach to watch this undercover video of the mistreatment of chickens released this week by Mercy for Animals, a Chicago-based animal rights group. It was taken with a camera hidden by one of the non-profit's investigators who worked at a major California egg-factory farm for two months. read more...
Chew on This: We drank more bottled water than beer last year - 29 Apr 2008
As environmentalists plea for a reduction in bottled water consumption, Beverage Digest recently announced that last year we drank more bottled water in the US than beer. At 8.82 billion gallons -- that's 22.5 gallons each -- it's worth $11.7 billion to the bottled water industry. It didn't quite beat out soft drinks, consumption leaders at 49.3 gallons a head. But it came in 0.3 percent higher than beer, an increase of 7.1 percent on 2006. Beer only went up by 1.4. percent. Coffee, in sixth place below milk, went down by 1.2 percent, at 16 gallons a head, with milk at 20.1 gallons. Milk's lead probably means a lot of those coffees are lattes and cappuccinos, not that we're chasing after an easy source of calcium. read more...
Co Co. Sala - Three-course chocolate - 29 Apr 2008
Washington is getting its own chocolate lounge. Personally, I've had my very own chocolate lounge for years. It's the sofa in front of the TV. But it'll be good to dress up to go out specifically for chocolate. Co Co. Sala opened May in Penn Quarter. read more...
Chew on This: Buttering up your tastebuds - 30 Jan 2008
It’s a tough time of year for cooks. Seasonal produce isn’t especially interesting. Once you’ve done everything possible to Chioggia beets, everything else is restricted in color to what Fifth Avenue calls “griege”. At least it means our food budgets will be lower without the cost of seasonal asparagus, strawberries and baby pattipans. So it’s a good opportunity to spend a little more, without too much pain. Buy some really decent butter. read more...
Chew on This: A dish on style and content - 25 Jan 2008
Does the shape of a dish deliberately distract from its contents? Are hot new restaurants so over-designed we no longer focus on what we're eating? In some spots, the whole dining experience can often seem to be more about style than taste. You need the will to survive the elegance of the chill woman in the severe Mao suit who leads you to your table, the demanding attention of a room designed to within an inch of its minimalist feng shui'd life, and cutlery sometimes so cutting edge in shape it's uncomfortable to hold and hard to balance on the side of the plate. read more...
Chew on This: Kids' cooking classes compulsory - 23 Jan 2008
Childhood obesity isn't just a real concern in the U.S. In China 10 percent of children are obese, a figure that's predicted to increase by 8 percent a year. In the UK, one in four 11 to 15 year-olds are overweight. But the Brits are doing something about that. The government has just announced that cookery lessons will be compulsory in Middle Schools. 11 to 14 year-olds will have to take one hour a week for one term and learn to cook and what's good in food and bad. Will the U.S. follow the Brits' lead? read more...
Chew on This: Eco farm 15 miles from DC - 16 Jan 2008
Eight miles as the crow flies from the Washington Monument, hidden behind the houses of a residential subdivision, lies the farm of Mike Pappas. Only 2 1/2 acres of Eco Farms' 16 acres are cultivated, but they are a potent spread of organic, bio-intensive produce. read more...
Chew on This: 1. Too fancy to eat; 2. Too cheap to miss - 14 Jan 2008
Some restaurant food is getting silly. There's something wrong with a menu when waiters need to memorize a script each night. But Restaurant Week is far from silly: it's a great opportunity to eat really good food cheaply - $20.08 at lunch, $30.08 at dinner. Here's my meal, at Ristorante Spezie, on Monday, January 14... read more...
Chew on This: Hens relaxed, cans canned, ice cream for the radiator - 10 Jan 2008
Two new supermarket initiatives in Europe might spark discussion in the U.S.: comfort for egg-laying hens and eco-friendly food packaging. And so might ice cream containing anti-freeze... read more...
'Organic' abuse? - 7 Jan 2008
Perhaps Organic Batter Blaster is actually organic. But how horrendous. The idea that you can point a can of it at your griddle and cook up a pancake seems a long way from the principles of organic eating. Besides, how time consuming and difficult it is to make pancake batter from scratch? And what do we do to remain in 'organic' mode to dispose of the beastly container when it's empty? read more...
Bad news for chocolate lovers - 3 Jan 2008
Bad news for people like me who used medical findings as an excuse to up their chocolate consumption. Remember last year how we were told its flavanols could protect our hearts?
An editorial this week in top medical journal The Lancet reveals that because of the bitter taste these plant chemicals can impart to chocolate, many manufacturers remove them. read more...
U.S. no longer world's top fast food addict - 2 Jan 2008
A survey out January 2 finds the US overtaken by Britain as top of the world's list of "fast food addicts". It also reports that the people interviewed were "torn" between "food as fuel versus food as pleasure", and that people act in a conflicting manner when it comes to managing their weight. Wow! Who knew? Still, maybe this revelation might spur some of us on with sticking to any New Year's resolution to eat more wisely. read more...
A Christmas carp about salmon - 22 Dec 2007
When you're loading your festive brunch bagel with smoked salmon, consider this. Fish farming accounts for almost half the seafood consumed globally. But consumers increasingly concerned about the impact of conventional fish farming on the environment are putting pressure on supplies of fish farmed organically.
The difference between the two methods, though, seems tenuous. read more...
Talking turkey - its happiness and yours - 24 Nov 2007
For our guzzling pleasure, a mass-produced turkey has spent its condensed life immobilized by a breast Mae West would have envied, so top heavy it can barely walk. Killed by a cut to the throat, soaked in scaling water to make it easier for a machine to rip out their feathers, they're gutted while still hot then blast-chilled to cool them down.
Gravy with that, anyone? read more...
Red wine & chocolate - the new medicines - 23 Nov 2007
Red wine & chocolate - the new medicines! read more...
Joe Palma’s recipe for getting a good culinary training is simple. “Find the best possible people you can work for and shut up.”This became the Chef de Cuisine of the Westend Bistro’s game-plan once he’d discovered a passion for food. He earned money as a line cook while studying for degrees in Economics and Philosophy at the College of Charleston.
My favorite markets - Russian Gourmet
Butternut Squash Soup with Spiced Pumpkin Seeds and Tart Apple
Rules for drinking (and sex) to keep you out of trouble in 2009
New Year celebrations - something different
Ethan McKee - new Chef of Notti Bianchi and Circle One Bistro
This week's ingredient - Scallops
Broad Branch Market - one of my favorite markets
The dish - Goings on in the capital
Roasted Pennsylvania Pheasant Breast, Braised Red Cabbage, Maple Syrup Sweet Potato Mousse and Huckleberry Sauce
The Fishery - one of my favorite markets
Chew On This: Hangover cures that work? Debunking the food myths...
Seared Scallops with Nicoise Salad & Gribiche
Joe Palma - Chef de Cuisine of The Westend Bistro
This week's ingredient - Nems
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