cookiesinheaven

Kitchen (not so) Confidential
Two years after San Francisco restaurant inspectors began doling out scores of one to 100 for food safety, and posting them on the Internet, it's hard to judge if the new system is affecting the bottom line anywhere in the city's most precious industry.

What it is doing is improving food safety, at least according to inspectors who get up close and personal with rats and cockroaches, sacrifice their shoes to sewage backups, and sniff out rotting rutabagas in murky refrigerators, all so you don't wake up sweating and heaving, or worse, after dining out. - SFGate

Labels: Food Section, Newspapers, Super Bowl

JANUARY/FEBRUARY NATIONAL BAKING CLASS TOUR

Pasadena, California - January 31, 2007

Ventura, California - February 1, 2007

Ontario, California - February 2, 2007

Irvine, California - February 3, 2007

Labels: Chocolate, Education, Flour, King Arthur, Torres

Labels: Books, Chef, Desserts, White House

Terry Tedder looked forward to helping his 8-year-old daughter sell Girl Scout cookies in their St. Louis neighborhood Tuesday night. He'll never forget their second stop.

Tedder said when he knocked on the door, a man started yelling profanities and told him to go away.

"I said, 'Hey I got my daughter with me,' said Tedder. "I said, 'We're just selling Girl Scout cookies.'"

Tedder said he started walking away when the door opened, revealing an unwelcome surprise.

"It was his mother and she was pointing a double-barreled shotgun at me and she's like, 'I'm going to shoot you so I took off running,'" said Teddler. - WCSH6.com

Labels: Cheesecake, Cookies, Girl Scouts

Food imported to the UK by air may be denied the lucrative "organic" label under proposals being put forward today by the Soil Association.

The UK's main organic certification body is concerned about the "food miles" involved in importing goods by air, which, environmentalists argue, contribute to global warming.

...In the past, most food labelled organic in UK shops was more likely to have been sourced relatively locally, typically from smaller farms. However, with the boom in popularity of organic food, bigger firms have become involved and the use of air transportation has grown, allowing some firms to sell food that is out of season locally. - The Guardian

Labels: British, Carbon footprint, Environmental, Organic

Cheerios, originally called Cheerioats, were invented by Lester Borchardt back in 1941, but Cheerios almost didn't happen.

Les and his team were working on the machine to puff cereal, like Cheerios, but his boss wanted them to stop the project. Les insisted they go on, and two months later, Cheerios was born.

"Some people referred to him as a genius, and I do think he was," said Les' Daughter-in-Law Mary Borchardt.

Years ago Les' granddaughter drank a bottle of furniture polish. Cheerios may have helped save her life.

"So we took her to the emergency and had her stomach pumped. The doctor came out and said if she hadn't had such a good breakfast of Cheerios and milk, she would have not made it," said Mary Borchardt.

Les' family said he was humble and didn't talk about all his inventions and patents. He had 11 of them and he also helped come up with the process to fortify milk with vitamin D.

He worked at General Mills for more than 35 years and his daughter said he ate Cheerios just about every morning of his life. - WCCO

...In a brief autobiography he wrote after retiring, Borchardt said he took pride in bucking his corporate bosses when he felt it was necessary. He discussed one research team's work on a piece of equipment used in the production of breakfast cereals like Cheerios.

A worker came up with an idea for increasing the machine's output, so Borchardt decided it was worth pursuing to see whether it would work.

"Two years and $150,000 later my superior passed on to me the word that his superior felt that the time had come to terminate the projects," Borchardt wrote. But Borchardt said his staff thought they were close to a breakthrough, so he stood his ground.

Two months later, the project was a success. At the time he retired, Borchardt said, the company estimated the process was saving it $1 million a year. - St. Paul Press

Labels: Borchardt, Cereal, Cheerios, General Mills, Passings

• Santa Barbara County Wine Notes
• Dine and Dish
• Rurality
• Kate in the Kitchen
• Food Porn Watch
• 360Eats
• Sweet Nicks
• Food Blog S'cool
• Foodblog Blog
  

Labels: blogroll, blogs, links

Williams-Sonoma Inc., the owner of kitchenware stores and the Pottery Barn home decor retail chain, has hired Goldman Sachs to explore strategic options, which could include the sale of the company, people familiar with the matter said Tuesday. Goldman declined to comment. San Francisco-based Williams-Sonoma didn't return several calls seeking comment. Williams-Sonoma's contact with Goldman is seen to be in its early stages, and sources were not aware of any buyers at the doorstep. But sources said the company was expected to attract the interest of private equity firms drawn to its popular brand, cash flow and prime real estate.

Labels: gourmet food, Williams Sonoma, WSM

The panel truck parked outside Moscone Center Sunday morning bore the message "Snaccident Prevention."

Fat chance. With 1,100 companies from 35 countries displaying their wares inside the center's cavernous halls to tempt 16,000 expected specialty food buyers, snacking -- on everything from glorified H2O to cheeses, cereals, rice mixes and a zillion sweets -- was the order of the day.

Spice company McCormick teamed up with some of the nation's hottest chefs, television cooking personalities and cookbook authors to create the McCormick Flavor Forecast — their top 10 list of flavors for 2007. McCormick predicts these trendy flavor pairings — spanning sweet, hot, tangy, bitter, sour and everything in between — will be influencing the foods eaten this year and in the future.

...The following is their top 10 list of flavors:

• Clove and Green Apple
• Thyme and Tangerine
• Tellicherry Black Pepper and Berry
• Sea Salt and Smoked Tea
• Lavender and Honey
• Crystallized Ginger and Salted Pistachio
• Cumin and Apricot
• Toasted Mustard and Fennel Seeds
• Wasabi and Maple
• Caramelized Garlic and Riesling Vinegar

y'all agree? Talk amongst yourselves.

Alarmed because the DHL shipping label had the wrong address for the Clinton's house, the post office summoned Secret Service agents, police officers and the Westchester County, N.Y., bomb squad thursday, the White Plains (N.Y.) Journal-News reported saturday.

The post office was closed until a portable x-ray revealed no bomb inside the box, which turned out to be packed with cookies, authorities said.

The treats were turned over to the Secret Service.

It was not known whether the cookies ever made it to the Clintons' Chappaqua, N.Y., home. - upi

MIAMI OPEN CALL: Sunday January 21st / 12pm to 4pm Johnson & Wales University - Florida Campus 1701 NE 127th Street North Miami, FL. 33181 University Center Building

NEW YORK OPEN CALL: Sunday January 28th / 12pm to 4pm The French Culinary Institute 462 Broadway at the corner of Grand Street New York, NY 10013. The International Culinary Theater 2nd floor

LOS ANGELES OPEN CALL: Sunday, February 11th / 12pm to 4pm Les Deux 1638 N. Las Palmas Hollywood, Ca 90028

Ben Leventhal and Lockhart Steele are a pair of bloggers fighting a guerrilla war against the city's publicists. Nearly every day, the two provide restaurant information on their popular Web site, Eater.com., posting tidbits that publicists aren't ready to release and traditional journalists haven't managed to print.

Thanks to an army of hungry tipsters, Leventhal and Steele are irking restaurateurs, chefs and reporters alike with their timely scoops. They have broken stories about restaurant closings and the comings-and-goings of chefs, and their success has led to a new venture in Los Angeles.

There is also talk of stalking San Francisco's eateries and possibly delving into one or two other major cities.

The bar, called Tastes of the Valleys, a SIDEWAYS wine bar, is slated to open later this month in Santa Barbara County. In addition to wines featured in the movie, patrons can check out the map to see where the Sideways characters actually spent their time in town.
...The group behind the Santa Barbara bar hopes that this location will be successful enough to lend itself to additional SIDEWAYS wine bars.