Daily Loaf

Max McCalman didn’t plan on becoming a cheese guy. While working at the famed restaurant Picholine in New York City, the chef asked for volunteers to help him start a cheese program in the restaurant. It fell to McCalman almost by default. Now, 15 years later, McCalman has written two definitive books on cheese, with the new Mastering Cheese ($40, Random House) his third.

Mastering Cheese is somewhat of a departure from the previous two books, however. Instead of a cheese primer, or an encyclopedia of the world’s region’s and styles, McCalman has put together a fairly exhaustive course of study for readers who want to make the leap from cheese fan to true connoisseur. It’s almost laid out like a modern textbook, with dense text, lots of photographs, informative sidebars, and a bullet point recap at the end of each chapter as study guide. No pop quizzes, thankfully.

McCalman’s smart enough to string together the serious work of understanding cheese with plenty of narrative to keep a reader interested. He’s also passionate about his subject, especially when it comes to taking restrictive food regulations that limit the importation or production methods of raw milk cheeses. He’s preaching to the choir in this book, I imagine.

What makes Mastering Cheese so inherently useful, Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe Michelle and Barack Obama were strong-armed into having an organic garden on the White House lawn by tough punks like Alice Waters, but Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack made his without any public opinion campaigns to twist his arm. Yep, there are two governement garden in DC, the second one run by the USDA itself.

On 1,250 square feet a few blocks from the Washington Mall, Vilsack and USDA employees have planted a “People’s Garden“, with the crops all going to local food banks. They’ve even created cooking projects around it. USDA pickles, anyone? Not for sale, though, because that would probably violate some regs. Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Sherman was the St. Pete Times restaurant critic for 17 years, until he decided to give up the gig at the end of 2006 because of ongoing health problems. He remained a staff writer for the Times and became the restaurant editor and travel writer for its sister publication, Florida Trend Magazine, where he hands out the generically illustrious Golden Spoon Awards.

Now, as of November 1, he’s blogging for big Bay area wine and spirits shop B-21. Does that constitute a conflict of interest, considering his work at Florida Trend? Eh, it certainly wouldn’t here at CL, now that we’ve trended towards giving a voice to people in the community on our blog and in the paper. Although it is curious that in his first post, when he mentions his work at the St. Pete Times, the outgoing link goes to B-21’s weekly newspaper ad, not the Times site.

Sadly, there will be no new Top Chef Las Vegas episode tonight – how will I get my Bryan Voltaggio fix? Luckily, we will be graced with a Top Chef All Stars Reunion! That’s right, now we get to catch up with some of the most loved (and loathed) cheftestants from seasons past.

First of all, I have a soft spot in my heart for the Italian stallion, Fabio (season 5), but why did they choose him to host the show? Yes, his mispronunciation of most English words and phrases is adorable, but we could barely understand him the first time he was on the show. Maybe they chose him to host because of his innocence and aloofness when pushing peoples’ buttons (see videos below) when asking why they were such jerks on their seasons and bringing up past rivalries. That way he might have a lesser chance of getting punched in the face, perhaps?

Be sure to check out the clip (below) where he interviews the biggest jerks (and least favorite contestants) from seasons 1 through 4: Tiffany, Marcel (still sporting the Dragonball Z hairdo), Hung, and Stefan. This is obviously just the beginning of tonight’s drama.

Also notice in the dinner party clip that all of the aforementioned jerks and hot heads from past seasons are seated at the center of the table and the nice guys, like Richard Blais, are at the very end. Who wants to hear from the people who stirred up the least drama anyway? (And why is Dale there at all?)

Finally, I’d just like to say that I’d pay to see Fabio put the smackdown on Marcel. As Bravo’s catchphrase goes: “Watch what happens!”

Tune in to Bravo tonight at 10 pm EST/9 pm C, check out our own live Tweets during the show (Jeff: @TheStew, Katie: @culinarypirate), and listen to our podcast when we return next week! (You can now download on iTunes and check out Jeff’s Top Chef Flickr page.)

Videos after the break:
Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, I wrote a post about BPA (Bisphenol-A) being found in plastic bottles and food containers and its harmful effects on humans, it also being linked to causing aggressive behavior in children. Use of this chemical has been banned in Canada and in some parts of the US.

Now you don’t have to look much further to get your daily dose of BPA – just open a can of soup or tuna! Tests recently performed by Consumer Reports showed traces of BPA in almost all of the 19 name-brand cans of soup, tuna, vegetables, and juice. There were even some cans labeled “BPA-free” that contained the chemical. And don’t think your organic canned foods are safe either – the chemical showed up in some of those as well.
Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, the UK’s climate chief and leading authority on global warming, Lord Stern of Brentford, released a report on the raising of cattle and pigs, and how its production greatly affects greenhouse gases and climate change. Bentford said that, “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

Stern reports that meat production at about 18 percent of global carbon emissions. He also hopes that “a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.”

This is proving to be yet another topic to send Glenn Beck on a tirade. Beck plays the meat-loving victim and asks, “Are we going to stand for that? Are we going to put up with this?” He also goes on to mock the Meatless Monday movement and makes it sound like more of a punishment for school children than something that would help teach them to make healthy food choices.

Video after the break:
Read the rest of this entry »

Last week’s episode sure got my hopes up. I hate to keep complaining about what a snooze-fest this season is, but seriously, it is. Is it the contestants? Is it the editing of the show? Why can’t someone cut themselves or make out with another contestant like last season? Oh, it’s supposed to be about the food – right.

This week’s Quickfire consisted of creating a TV dinner (in a plastic tray, even) inspired by a classic television show. Redbeard (Kevin) gets The Sopranos, so he makes meatballs. Okay. Eli gets Gilligan’s Island, so he makes macadamia nut-crusted shrimp. Fitting. Ceveech (Jen) gets The Flintstones, so she makes a chicken roulade. Huh? And Jersey Mike has never even seen Seinfeld so he just pulls something out of his ass. I understand that most of the shows are a bit before their time, but seriously, who isn’t familiar with them? Maybe I expected some of them to be a little more cultured and up-to-date on their classic television (excluding Jersey Mike). Anyway, Redbeard takes the win. Big surprise, though I was a little amazed that he didn’t use pork in his dish.

For the Elimination Challenge, the chefs were let loose in Tom’s restaurant, Craftsteak, where they go apeshit over all of the choice proteins they think they’re going to use. Then their guest judge is introduced: Natalie Portman! And guess what? She’s a vegetarian! (Didn’t we see this in Top Chef Masters?) The cheftestants’ faces then immediately took on the “oh shit” look and they all turned white.

Jersey Mike claimed to be an expert on vegetarian cuisine, Redbeard said he doesn’t eat meat during Lent (meaning: he doesn’t eat pork products), and Eli proceeded to give vegetarians a lovely compliment by saying that they’re “lower human beings”. In the end, Jersey Mike tries to pass of undercooked leeks as a protein and gets the axe, while Redbeard takes the win with his “manly” veggie dish.

More fashion foibles this season: Padma’s tube top/pant suit atrocity, Ceveech’s tube top dress and open-toe ankle boots ensemble a la Pretty Woman, and Gail Simmons’ green prom dress circa Dynasty ‘86.

Podcast highlights: Natalie’s colorful language at the dinner table and her lack of ethnic friends, Ceveech’s “Philly Camaro” hair and falling self-esteem, and a plethora of ”That’s what she said” jokes.

Hear the hilarious podcast after the jump:
Read the rest of this entry »

According to this Reuters article, “Hog producers have lost, on average, nearly $23 for each hog marketed since September 2009, ‘and things look bleak going forward,’ said NPPC president Don Butler at House Agriculture subcommittee hearing.”

You might want to blame this porcine problem on idiots who believe that they’ll contract H1N1 from ham, but the National Pork Producers Council website actually says that the industry has lost $23 per hog since September, 2007. What? Amidst the greatest outpouring of love for the humble pig by restaurant chefs, television food celebrities and people like me, pig ain’t selling?

Actually, sales haven’t been the real problem until recently. Grain prices started rising dramatically during the international food crisis that started a couple of years ago, thanks to the rise of environmentally unstable bio-fuels. And that grain makes up 60 percent of the cost of raising a hog, according to the NPPC. Add in a ban on U.S. pork imports by China and Russia — ostensibly because of H1N1, but more likely political maneuvering — and the industry suffers.

Why, you may ask, should I care? Read the rest of this entry »

As we saw in last week’s episode of Top Chef Las Vegas, the stakes and drama are getting higher and it’s getting harder to predict who will be going home next (with the majority of the weak links now gone). We’ve seen some of the heavy-hitters, like Ceveech (Jen), slipping up and some of the underdogs, like Robin, excel. I’m just excited that we’re finally getting to the meat of this competition, after cutting away the fat like Phranc (Preeti), Mary Kay Letourneau (Eve), and cleaner of Picasso’s paintbrushes, Ash.

Tonight’s episode looks entertaining because the cheftestants are getting all kinds of curve balls thrown at them. Their Quickfire Challenge is to cook a TV dinner (complete with plastic tray) inspired by a classic television show, i.e.: M*A*S*H, Gilligan’s Island, etc.

After viewing the preview video below, it looks as if some of the chefs are out of their element, like Eli who claims to have never eaten a TV dinner. And why would he when he lives at home with his mother who probably waits on him hand and foot? Our one-time favorite, whom some of us had in their top three, Ceveech, looks like she’s drowning in self-doubt again this week as well. Will this affect her power ranking or even her spot in the finale? (I know I’m changing my bet on the finale trifecta.)
Read the rest of this entry »

Alright, maybe the recently launched Dunkin Donuts Kimchi or Lentils Curry Croquettes aren’t exactly donuts, per se, the fundamentals are there: stuffed, fried dough. And they take a spot right in the middle of the rest of the company’s sweet stuff.

Imagine if our domestic Dunkies took a more progressive stance and started offering international street food versions of their usual banal fare.

Here’s my fantasy menu: Read the rest of this entry »

The Food Network’s first mainstream video game — Cook Or Be Cooked ($39.99), for the Wii — is almost out. Just a glance at the title might make you think that it’s a cooking game, likely with a nasty cannibalistic undertone probably injected by Rachael Ray’s know predilection for “long pig”. But no, it’s both more and less than that.

Hitting stores on Nov. 3 — you have yours pre-ordered, I assume — Cook Or Be Cooked “is designed to teach players real, practical cooking skills using their Wii Remote and Nunchuk.” That means it will have a number of Wii-style mini-games where you flail your arms about attempting to Read the rest of this entry »

Like me, most of you Top Chef fans probably get a little anxious by this time of the week – it’s been how many days since the last episode?! Well, I’m here to give you a Top Chef fix to help you get through the next few days. Since the Restaurant Wars episode aired last Wednesday, I have come across some very exciting news about  future seasons and a few stupidly entertaining videos from the current season.
Read the rest of this entry »

If you don’t understand the definitions of each of the terms, you may not end up buying what you are looking for!

Here’s what you need to know…

The USDA enforces proper organic production and categorizes the terms in the following manner:

-Products with the “100% Organic” seal include products with 100% organically produced (raw and processed) ingredients.

-Products with the “USDA Certified Organics” seal are made with 95% or more organic ingredients. Read the rest of this entry »

You’re buying more organic food these days, maybe for health reasons or just because it makes you feel like you’re making a difference. But did you know that most of the organic brands you find in the grocery store, like Cascadian Farm, Kashi, and Back to Nature, are owned by some of the biggest names in the food production business? That’s right, Cascadian Farm is owned by General Mills, Kashi is produced by Kellogg’s, and the number one food producer in the US, Kraft, owns Back to Nature. (Check out this chart from GOOD to see which organic brands belong to which big food company.)
Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, the USDA announced a new initiative — called “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” — aimed at linking consumers with local agricultural products. The organization said that there’d be $65 million in funding for the program announced within the next week.

Impressive? Sure, but keep that number in perspective. The USDA’s 2010 budget will likely top $134 billion, making KYFKYF a meager .5% of total expenditures. And that’s only if we assume that $65 million will be spent in a single year, which, likely, it won’t.

Perhaps the most exciting quote from the press release, however, is a promise to Read the rest of this entry »

Chef's Special Congee

As a chef, you’re only as good as your last meal. And for most of us, the memory of a bad meal tends to stick around a lot longer than the typical experience. I can describe to you every single detail of a terrible dinner that I had two years ago, but I probably couldn’t tell you what I had for lunch last Monday.

I sometimes wonder why the memory of a bad meal has such an effect on me, and two thoughts come to mind. One: Every meal is an event. It’s a small celebration of the carnal pleasures of life and it’s something I look forward to. So when I am served a bad meal, it feels like someone robbed me. And when someone is robbing you, you want to remember every single detail so you have a good description to give the police. Two: I’m generally more irritable when I’m hungry!
As a chef, I know that it’s impossible to serve impeccable, perfect food. But I also know what the standards should be, and I’m not afraid to call a chef out on a bad outing. Is this article bad karma? Maybe. But I figure if some day someone writes a bad review about my food, I probably deserved it.

Chef’s Special Congee:
It’s ironic that my first article in the “worst meals” series is written about one of my favorite restaurants Read the rest of this entry »

As I wander through the grocery store, immersing myself in the complex challenges of one-ply or two, I am sometimes struck by food non-sequitors. Here are four that I couldn’t get out of my mind, and the answers to those food mysteries.

The questions.

Why, do hot dogs come 10 to a package while the buns come in packages of 8?

I’m not the first to ask this question — judging by the amount of “net noise it apparently it has been a topic of interest for over 50 years.

Meatpackers sell by the pound and most hotdogs weigh in at a tenth of a pound. Buns are typically baked in eight roll pans. I have no idea why the manufacturers haven’t gotten together on this. But if you need them to come out even purchase five bags of the 8-pack buns and four of the 10-pack hotdogs. Time for a Labor Day cookout!

Why do yeast packages come in threes when all you need for most recipes are two packages? Read the rest of this entry »

Tampa has seen a couple of cupcake bakeries pop up in the last couple of years, so I set out to compare their products; specifically, the simplest of all these sweets: a vanilla cupcake.

In Westchase, there are now two places that offer cupcakes. When Swirls on Race Track Road first opened, they had multiple cupcake flavors as well as several other baked goods. Currently, they seem to be concentrating more on gelato, coffees and a few lunch items. Good thing, because the cupcakes were awful. The cake was dry and oddly solid, as if previously frozen, and the frosting was greasy and flavorless. Thankfully, their gourmet gelato, including unique flavors like Guinness and avocado, are worth the visit.

On Linebaugh is Read the rest of this entry »

Datz Deli: Salt of the Earth. Despite what some may say, Datz wants to teach you that “from fleur de sel to kosher, all salts are not created equal.” Learn how to use this humble ingredient to enhance the flavors of every bite you eat. Free. 6 p.m., 2616 S. MacDill Ave., Tampa (813-831-7000)

Z Grille: Offers 1/2 price bottles of wine every Monday, to go with its fantastic food, which you can enjoy on the cheap as well with this new happy hour food deal: Read the rest of this entry »

I walked into the seafood store the other day to pick up some salmon and tuna for sushi. I can spend hours just looking at fish, whether it be at the pet store, at the aquarium, fishing magazines or when I’m fishing or snorkeling in the ocean. This interest has come in very handy in my career as a chef in getting to know the who’s-who list of fish. The fish monger, however, is not as enthusiastic as I am, and usually becomes quite impatient with my loitering.

I spotted some familiar looking white fish fillets next to the salmon being sold as “swai filets”.  I smiled to myself and wondered, “How many more names can this fish possibly have?” I recognized the fish as basa right away, and asked the fish monger (for my own amusement) to tell me about this fish. Instantly he went on a sales pitch about this new, rare and delicate fish from Australia called swai ,and suggested that (at $5.95 per pound – dirt cheap by Floridian seafood prices – but expensive for what it is) I must try it. I then remarked how “I can get these basa filets in Toronto for $1.99 per pound!” He sunk down for a few moments and then confessed, like every contraband dealer eventually does!

No matter what it is called, this is a white, almost odorless, firm-fleshed fish. It is a beautiful fish to cook with, as its firm flesh holds together well but is yet delicate enough to incorporate into fine recipes. You can fry it, broil it, batter it, poach it, and incorporate it into rice dishes (such as paella), sauces and soups.

Most of it comes from fish farms and rivers in Vietnam, although recently it’s coming from Australia too. But this is the type of fish that I would rather expect to find at a knock-off market in Hong Kong next to the fake Gucci wallets and Armani suits. It is a fish that, due to its wide versatility in texture and taste, can and has been passed off as many other fish and goes by several different names.

I have personally bought this fish as basa, smooth dory, swai, catfish, vietnamese catfish, and pangasius. And I have been the knowing victim of chefs trying to pass it off as snapper, bass, and black cod. I’m sure it goes out in restaurants all over the world, dressed in many different costumes by many different names. It’s the quality of this knock-off that is its saving grace.

When first introduced into the American market, basa threatened to put the catfish industry out of business by being sold as “catfish” to unsuspecting buyers. If the American fish industry hadn’t fought back so swiftly and sternly to boycott the sale of basa as “catfish”, I’m sure they would have been finished. To tell you the truth, I would rather eat a mild tasting, fried basa filet any day than a stringy, mud flavored catfish filet! But I guess you have to defend your local crop – don’t get me started on the blunders we have committed to keep the American corn farmers in business (high fructose corn syrup and ethanol but to name a couple).

In short, I am actually very much a fan of Basa. Not only because of the exciting, undercover, knock-off life it lives, but also because when push comes to shove, its quality is superior to many other fish worth two or three times as much.

So the next time you’re in your local fish store, give basa a try. You won’t be disappointed!

By Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

(This is the first in a series of posts where we look behind the curtain at how omnivores, vegetarians, vegans and raw-foodists justify what they eat. No value judgments, just information.)

If you chose a vegetarian lifestyle to avoid playing a part in the millions of animal deaths necessary for meat production, you’d better put down that hard-boiled egg. If you eat mass-market, free-range, organic or local eggs — or even raise some chickens in your backyard — you are contributing to the slaughter of potentially hundreds of millions of chickens every year.

Eggs only come from hens — female chickens. Seems obvious, but have you stopped to think what happens to all the roosters born in hatcheries? Read the rest of this entry »

The sushi chef has prepared a beautiful plate of salmon sashimi (raw sliced salmon). Trusting its quality and freshness, you dab a little wasabi on it, dip it in the soy sauce and toss it back. The buttery flavor melts in your mouth and, after $50 worth of sushi, you realize once again that you’ve had way too much! Did you ever stop to think where that salmon came from?

Now picture yourself walking through the fresh wilderness of British Columbia. You come to stand on a pile of mossy rocks. Behind you stands a forest of tall pines hiding in the mist, and before you is the cold Pacific Ocean. You take a deep breath of fresh air and think, “Man, this is nature at it’s best!” You walk along the rocky shore and spot one of British Columbia’s salmon farms off in the distance. You go in for a close look expecting to find salmon swimming busily about in their natural habitat. Instead, you find out something not-so-natural. Read the rest of this entry »

Halfway through this rich, artfully written memoir, I began booking a trip to Tuscany. In Passion on the Vine, author Sergio Esposito put his Italian hook in my soul and it is yet to be removed. A Neapolitan wine importer and retailer from New York City, Esposito’s love letter to his native homeland gets to the heart of a wine and food culture little understood (although certainly appreciated) outside its gorgeous borders.

Esposito fluidly weaves together his endless trips through Italian wine country like a novel, as if he only made one trip. He writes of the intimate, family-like relationships he developed over 20 years with the most legendary names in Italian wine –Bartolo Mascarello, Franco Biondi Santi, Enrico Scavino, Gianfranco Soldera — with a surprising insight into what makes these great men great. (Read more about my love of Tuscany and its wines)

Throughout the memoir, he infuses charming, funny stories of the food and wine culture so crucial to the Italian outlook. He began eating fresh vegetables, pasta and cheeses and sipping watered-down sangiovese at an early age — encouraged by his family to savor the earth’s bounties. But it wasn’t all that easy. Read the rest of this entry »

Seven days of food and drink coverage, shortened to a series of pithy links. Eat it up.

Holley Sinn’s Stinky Drinkers combine alcohol and running!

Chef Gui improves your cooking with ten tips, then helps you with plating techniques!

CL’s Top Chef Masters podcast continues its obsession with sex! And food, I guess.

Lael Hazan loves Israel’s food and restaurant culture!, and relates a perfect day in Venice, Italy (with a recipe for fried zucchini blossoms from her husband Giuliano Hazan).

Rishi Ramkissoon eats and fights his way through Bangkok!

Chef Cristian Ferer tells you five things you may not know about food!

Taylor loves Argentinean malbec!

Bethany Sherwin reviews Avery’s Ellie’s Brown Ale and interviews the founder and brewmaster of Terrapin Brewing!

Erica Miller previews Wood Fired Pizza Wine Bar!

Colleen Sachs makes locally-raised braised rabbit!

Israel is becoming a surprising food Mecca (yes, I enjoyed writing that). Israelis enjoy traveling and are demanding higher food quality and variety when they arrive home. That, combined with an influx of peoples from all over the globe, has started a food renaissance that makes eating in Israel a surprising joy.

Standard Middle Eastern fare has become anything but. Instead of just one “Middle Eastern” food experience, there are many wonderful variations. The Jews from Arab lands brought their own method of cooking and regional dishes with them when they moved to Israel, like summaq salad from Iraq; a lamb stew called harira from Morocco; fatoush, a salad made of eggs, olives, bread and lettuce from Syria; maraqa, a ragout of quince and lamb from Tunisia; as well as the more commonly known hummus, pita, and kebab each made with a slight variation in honor of the country of origin of the maker. There is care in the preparation of the food, and I — who tend to not like the hummus that I’ve had in America- couldn’t get enough of it in Israel.

What really surprised my food educator husband was the quality and variety of the less traditional food. Read the rest of this entry »

Nothing is more entertaining at a social gathering than paying close attention while someone divulges previously unknown facts about a certain subject. We’ve all gathered around in a circle to hear what our suit jacket has in common with the space station, and how the shoes you’re wearing can help provide energy for a small town in Africa. And although I don’t plan on sharing those particular tidbits with you, here are five things about food that you can enlighten your friends with at your next gathering.

Why is beef tenderloin so tender?
Any butcher will tell you that the most used muscles turn into the toughest cuts of beef. By that same token, the least used in an animal will yield the softest cut. Both cows and bulls have tenderloin muscles, used by bulls to mount the cow during mating. Since cows are female they obviously don’t mount anything, so that muscle remains virtually unused, making it the softest muscle and providing you with delicious, tender steaks.

What does ‘No MSG’ really mean? Read the rest of this entry »

Reducing your beef (or all meat, for that matter) consumption could make quite an impact on not only your health, but also on the environment.

Beef contains high levels of cholesterol and saturated fat, as well as chemicals and growth hormones. Many scientific studies have linked the consumption of red meat to heart disease, stroke, and breast and colon cancer.

According to the National Research Council, beef has the highest levels of herbicides of any food food sold in the US. This is obviously due to all of the pesticides used on the corn and soybeans that is then used for cattle feed. The NRC says that beef rates as second highest on the list of foods that pose the greatest risk of cancer due to pesticide contamination (tomatoes being the highest on the list). Their studies also show that over 95% of all cattle in the US are receiving growth hormones and other pharmaceuticals, many of those then showing up in the cuts of beef we buy at the grocery store.
Read the rest of this entry »

I get tired of seeing people caught up in these diet fads that amount to unrealistic starvation and improper nutrition and an absence of physical activity.  Unless you seriously get into modern pharmaceuticals (another post) you just can`t sit around and lose weight on diet alone. Not healthfully, at least.  It is important to make your diet work for you instead of against you, and one such way is to look for certain power foods  I love supplementing my major meals with small snacks that are high in protein, such as yogurt.  Yogurt, with its fats and proteins is a good way of both staving off your appetite and improving your probiotic health. However all yogurts are not equal. Read the rest of this entry »

Choice. Angus. Natural. Organic. Humanely raised. Grass-fed. Prime. Wagyu. Kobe. These days, there are more marketing terms associated with beef than ever before, all of which attempt to separate you from your food budget with promises of better quality or better moral character. And it’s important to know what those terms mean, especially if you’re concerned about greening your meat.

But for most folks, taste is the deciding factor. We might buy prime for the intense marbling, or Kobe and Wagyu for the promise of massaged, beer-drinking cows with intensely tender flesh. Grass-fed beef provides more old-school beef flavor, while organic gives us happier — and possibly more tasty — cows.

We cut through the marketing lingo straight to the meat of the matter by pitting six different, readily available, supermarket steaks against one another: Angus from Sweetbay, choice from Publix, humanely-raised from Publix Greenwise, humanely-raised from Whole Foods, prime and American Wagyu from Mazzaro’s.

Each steak, all NY strip, with one exception, was simply seasoned with the same amount of salt and pepper (by size) and each was grilled to medium-rare (although the thickest gave us a few problems). We then assembled a crack team of CL carnivores — foodies and amateurs — to sample the steaks in a blind tasting and rate the meat.

The results surprised the hell out of us. Find out the winner after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently read Michael Pollan’s impassioned (and alarming) book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, that explores “our national eating disorder.” It’s difficult to be a proud carnivore (or a fast food eater) after reading it, but somehow I didn’t plunge headfirst into a vat of vegetarianism.

In one section, Pollan insightfully reports about the deplorable living conditions of factory-churned, corn-fed cattle, so shortly after reading it I earnestly sought out humanely-raised, grass-fed meat. I figured if I was going to continue to assert homo sapien’s food-chain dominance, I could at least do it with a clear conscience.

Essentially, grass-fed means the cattle are born, raised and harvested to meet USDA Approved Grass-fed Protocol. This edict forbids the use of artificial hormones, confinement feeding, animal by-products and antibiotics. Turns out, there’s not a helluva lot of places you can buy grass-fed beef in Tampa Bay. In fact, I only uncovered one reliable place: Whole Foods. And Mark Malowski, Meat Team Leader at the Tampa location, reports their three-month-old grass-fed beef program is booming. Their weekly delivery sells out every Monday, the day it hits the cooler. Read the rest of this entry »

Among people who are concerned about where their food comes from, and how that affects the daily lives of everyone in the world, there are some fundamental issues that are a given: the ills of factory-farming animals; the insidious prevalence of corn-based products in almost everything we eat; the consolidation of our food supply under just a few corporate entities; what happens when organic goes corporate; the looming specter of Monsanto; and the causes of the West’s diabetes epidemic. Everyone’s already up on all that, right?

Then again, considering the growing market-share of fast food dollar menus, maybe not. That’s where the newish movie Food, Inc. comes in handy with its glossy and shallow take on the usual suspects in America’s maimed relationship with food. Think of it as the Greatest Hits of our disfunctional food supply, complete with legends Michael Pollan (Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) back to reprise their roles as the last decade’s most influential food figures. Read the rest of this entry »

After vacating their longtime location on South Howard in August of 2008, Whaley’s Market looked for a new place to call home. They landed at Paul’s Meats on Kennedy Boulevard in Tampa, but apparently, didn’t stay open long.

In my ignorance, I called Whaley’s today in a search of great beef for CL Meat Week (stay tuned). And got Todd Whaley on the phone.

At his home in Lutz. Read the rest of this entry »

What is it about bacon that we love? It seems the food world has had an obsession with it lately, from bacon vodka, to Bacon Salt, to the infamous Bacon Explosion. But have you ever thought of pairing bacon with something on the sweeter side? What about bacon in candy?

I dared to go there when I purchased the Mo’s Bacon Bar. I had read about it before on the trusty food porn sites that I peruse and salivate over daily, but had never seen it in stores. “Bacon and chocolate?”, I thought, “What a great combination!” I love the pairing of sweet and salty in food – like SnoCaps and popcorn at the movie theater – and I am a bacon fanatic. This was also the item that spawned the idea for my Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes. I was bound and determined to find this candy bar.
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I am still deciding whether to accuse McDonald’s of blatantly pandering to the green consumer or applaud them for one of their most recent initiatives to open what it bills as the “first green restaurant” in Cary, North Carolina on July 14th.  It has the potential to be industry changing, or also just another joke aimed at fat people.

Gizmodo reports McDonald’s says the facility will not only be built using all green construction materials, but will be complete with free-to-use charging stations for your electric vehicle.  That’s right, while you wash down those tasty, salty chunks of charred animal flesh and yummy, deadly fried potatoes with your favorite sugary beverage, you can help the environment by charging up your eco-friendly car simply by pulling up, plugging in, and pigging out.
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I tear the wrapper off a 3-Euro bottle of Cotes du Rhone with my teeth and push the cork inside with my guitar capo. It’s midnight here in Nice, and the fireworks are blazing out of a lighthouse in celebration of our American Independence Day. In the States it’s still the third, but this is as much a French holiday as American, I suppose. This is all besides the point, since my tale is actually set in Slovakia where I sampled delicious pig brains.

I say delicious with no twang of sarcasm. I ate them breakfast, lunch, and dinner for two days straight. Try them on a nice piece of rye bread with a side of tea. Mmmm! But In order to get them, you need to do some serious slaughterin’. Care to know more? Read the rest of this entry »