Tag Archives: culinary

Local Gold?

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As the market has shown saffron at times has toppled gold with its price per gram and in ancient times was used as currency. Here’s a nice piece about very local “saffron” from LuckyPeach.com

I was in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, visiting my mom recently, when I spied a long-forgotten fixture of the local supermarket checkout aisle: a display of Mosemann’s saffron packages, each one carefully stapled to a card background, just beyond customers’ reach. We bought one, and as I examined the familiar Pennsylvania Dutch-styled packaging, I noticed that Mosemann’s saffron comes from Spain, which struck me as odd. I’d always believed it was locally grown in central Pennsylvania. It made me wonder: was “Pennsylvanian saffron” just a local legend?

 

White House Meeting Elicits Pledges to Reduce Antibiotic Use

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The Obama administration convened representatives of hospitals, food producers, professional medical societies and restaurant chains on Tuesday and extracted pledges to reduce the use of lifesaving antibiotics, whose effectiveness is waning because of overuse.

The meeting at the White House highlighted the problem of antibioticresistance, a public health crisis that every year kills at least 23,000 of the more than two million Americans who fall ill from infections that are impervious to the drugs.

The event was part of a series of efforts that began in the fall whenPresident Obama’s science advisers announced a national strategy to curb the overuse of antibiotics. It was the first time a presidential administration had taken on the problem, but consumer advocates said the strategy so far has fallen short of getting tough on antibiotic use in agriculture.

The FDA Bans Trans-Fats in Restaurants

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The Food and Drug Administration is expected to issue restrictions this month to snuff out the artery-clogging fats that ex-Mayor Mike Bloomberg banned in New York City eateries nearly a decade ago, sources say.

It was Bloomberg who led the charge to ban trans-fats, which have been outlawed in NYC restaurants since 2006.

The Piscivore’s Dilemma

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The oceans are in serious trouble, creating a tough question for consumers: Should I eat wild fish, farmed fish, or no fish at all? The author, a longtime student of marine environments, dove into an amazing new world of ethical harvesters, renegade farmers, and problem-solving scientists. The result: your guide to sustainably enjoying nature’s finest source of protein.

 

Another major player makes it’s way into the BKLYN food scene

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Wegmans to Open at Brooklyn Navy Yard

Not many grocery stores can claim cult followings, certainly not in Brooklyn, where the only options in some neighborhoods tend to be oversize bodegas carrying expired goods or overpriced green grocers full of kale, quinoa and craft beer.

Wegmans, the family-owned, Rochester-based chain of 85 stores concentrated in the Great Lakes region and the Washington Beltway, has that kind of following, inspiring fan websites, hashtags, T-shirts, even a high school musicalabout a couple who finds love in the aisles. The company is poised to open its first New York City store, and it has selected one of the most ripe locations: the derelict Admiral’s Row at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Big Meat: The indie butcher business grows up – Quartz

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Big Meat: The indie butcher business grows up – Quartz.

 

It turns out the challenge facing the meat business doesn’t come from the consumer side. Americans like meat. They didn’t need a primal food craze to convince them of that. But in places where the animals don’t come with a provenance, the butchery trade doesn’t attract new entrants because the labor economics just plain suck.

Have all the training grounds for chefs disappeared?

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In the 1990s, the handful of restaurants where talented up-and-coming cooks wanted to work were four-star (or aspiring to it), French, and run with precision. What distinguishes Lespinasse—the showpiece of the St. Regis Hotel from its opening in September 1991 until its closing in April 2003—is not only its position as a groundbreaking restaurant among its contemporaries, but also its storied reputation as a proving ground: the place where young, ambitious cooks were molded or broken.