cookiesinheaven

“The trend in restaurants is that folks are trying to cater menus to healthier, fresher options, and given that we’re in health care, it was important for us,” said Gina Weldy, vice president of real estate for Northwestern Memorial. “In the work environment we’re in now, people eat three meals a day near the office. These concepts give us the ability to offer that.” 

Those objectives for the hospital align nicely with a fast-casual restaurant’s operating conditions, Matros said. 

“I like that it’s a 24-hour environment,” he said. “While we’re not 24-hour, there are people [at the hospital] all the time, during [our] breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack [dayparts]. For the people working the midnight shift, their breakfast might be at 7 o’clock. It’s not just doctors and nurses, either. There are lots of support staff, biotech sales reps and pharmaceutical sales reps.” - NRN

Happy birthday, California Homemade Food Act.  

Jan. 1 marks one year since AB1616, signed into law in September 2012, was implemented, and it has created quite a stir in home kitchens throughout California. The law allows Californians to make and sell certain non-hazardous foods out of their kitchens. According to a story in the Independent, foods that don't include cream or meat — such as bread, fruits, baked goods, jarred goods and dry mixes — could now all bypass commercial production and be sold out of a home kitchen, according to the law.  

More than 2,000 cottage food permits have been issued throughout California, and of those, 860 were issued in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties. 

...After sampling what kitchenpreneurs are cooking up, items at your local grocery store will seem overtly massed produced, unappealing, unfortunately bland and uninspired. 

With all this talent and incredibly unique food items, what prevented these individuals from launching their own food business before this law went into effect? The answer is simple: money. The cost of working in a commercial kitchen ranges from $30 to $40 per hour plus a commitment to a number of hours per month to maintain the time slot. - Huntington Beach Independent

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) is warning consumers not to eat Harry’s Berries Salsa (mild or hot flavors) or Harry’s Berries Dilled Beans, packed by Gean Farms, Inc., because they may have been improperly produced, making them susceptible to contamination with Clostridium botulinum. No illnesses have been linked to any of the affected products at this time.  

Gean Farms, Inc., of Oxnard, California, is voluntarily recalling the products after CDPH discovered they were produced without the required controls to prevent botulism toxin. Ingestion of botulism toxin from improperly processed foods can lead to serious illness and death. These products were sold under the Gean Farms, Inc. label and packaged in one-pint glass canning jars with screw-on metal lids, labeled as “Harry’s Berries Salsa” and “Harry’s Berries Dilled Beans.”  

These products do not contain production or date codes. Additional product information, including photos of affected products, can be found on the CDPH website. The products were sold between May 2011 and November 2012 at certified farmers markets in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. - Marler Blog

A disturbing nationwide decline in oysters and the life-giving reefs that they build is particularly dramatic in California, where the once-abundant native species has been virtually wiped out, according to a recent scientific study.

The report, published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, said Olympia oysters, once an integral part of the Native American diet and a staple during the San Francisco Gold Rush, are functionally extinct. 

"Essentially, today, the number of oyster reefs is zero," said Rob Brumbaugh, restoration director for the Nature Conservancy and co-author of the study. "It's the complete elimination of a key species and habitat on the West Coast." - SFGate

Classes are conducted for 3–6 students. This is truly a hands on experience where you learn to combine spices and spice roasting techniques, as well as creating authentic spice blends such as Garam Masala and other “curry powders.”

Together we will choose three to four dishes from a selection of authentic regional classics from my menu. You might opt for spicy mulligatawny soup, thakkali isso (shrimp in a coconut-tomato curry), annasi (curried pineapple with cumin and fenugreek), chicken tikka masala, deviled beef with cardamom and cloves, or fried rice with eggs and turmeric.

The classes start at $75 per person and Dinesh provides the selected organic food, spices and expertise.

We will cook several superb dishes and then enjoy your creation together

Invite a few of your friends, form a class, and we will journey into the sumptuous world of spices. Ask about wine pairings for your menu.

Contact Dinesh, set a date, and let the culinary journey begin!

(805) 448-7961

dinesh@thespicygourmet.com

YouTube content historically has been dominated by low- and no-budget user generated videos. But Seidel, a former top executive at Food Network who oversaw the launch of its sister network, Cooking Channel, said HUNGRY will feature professionally produced videos worthy of any network.

At launch, videos will stick mostly with YouTube convention, running one to three minutes, with new episodes posted weekly. Seidel said they also are eager to explore longer format videos. By the end of the summer, the channel hopes to have close to a dozen series, all produced in partnership with multimedia studio Electus-IAC, which is responsible for the channel's content.

One of the series will feature fellow Food Network alumnus Duff Goldman, the cake master behind that channel's reality show "Ace of Cakes." Goldman's YouTube program, "Duff's Food World," will be a sometimes irreverent variety show focused on food pop culture, including visits to unusual restaurants and spotlights of humorous food clips from the web and TV. - HuffPo

3. Healthiest eaters: Santa Barbara, Calif. What can you say about a town where even the local soup kitchen is 90 percent organic? Women eat 36 produce servings per week (four more than in the average city), and there are also 80 percent fewer fast food restaurants, four times more organic-food producers and nearly 40 percent more farmers' markets.

Santa Barbara also has nearly double the average number of food co-ops. Agricultural consultant Laurie Constable, 46, runs one on land right off Highway 101, preparing weekly baskets of green beans, broccoli, husk cherries and more for 80 member families and four schools. "Most people don't know what fresh lettuce or vine-ripened tomatoes really taste like," she says. "If everybody experienced fresh produce regularly, that alone could revolutionize our dinner plates."

Avocados. Fruit, or vegetable?

...."It's a fruit," she says matter-of-factly. "And did you know that it has the highest protein content of all fruit?"

These are just two of the pronouncements to come from Cusick, a seemingly mild-mannered marketing director and mother of 11-year-old twins for whom the Avocado Diva has become not only an online business but an alter ego intent on changing the way we eat — and think about — avocados.

"Avocado Diva specializes in heritage avocados from small ranches and farms," she said. "Sometimes there may be only one or two trees, but what they are growing is unique and delicious. "

Cusick's inner green diva emerged after a chance meeting with rancher Jim Lewis at the Moorpark farmers market.

Lewis grows the popular Hass avocado in addition to such lesser-known varieties as Bacon, Frey and Zutano on his 12 - acre property on La Loma Avenue in Somis.

Lewis' Hass avocados typically are spoken for by a cooperative that sells them to mainstream supermarkets and other outlets. But Lewis told Cusick he was having so much trouble selling the other varieties on a similarly large scale that he was thinking of tearing out the trees, some of which date back to the ranch's original plantings nearly 60 years ago.

This struck a dissonant chord with Cusick, who laments that there are no Moorpark apricots growing in Moorpark, and that the Peach Hill neighborhood has no peach trees, she said.

"I'm a fourth-generation Ventura County girl. My great-grandfather came out here during the Dust Bowl. And my grandfather worked on the Lynn Ranch, as well as others. Hearing a farmer talk about ripping out his heritage avocado trees just tugged at me," said Cusick.

"I decided to try and sell them online as a way to make money and to help preserve these kinds of avocados before they all go away," she added.

Thus was born Avocado Diva.com, the website through which Cusick sells fruit she has found growing in a patchwork of small orchards stretching from Ventura County to Morro Bay near San Luis Obispo. - Ventura County Star