an idol soon?

We have an additional Gordon Ramsay fan in the house. I'm the first. Normally, I wouldn't like him all that much. If Hell's Kitchen were all I saw of him, I'd get awfully sick of the yelling and dramatics. Thank goodness for BBC America. It seems that BBC's presentation of Kitchen Nightmares is much less edited for drama's sake than when it's on Fox, and much more sincere. I also get to watch The F Word, which is a great show. It's not just a bunch of Gordon Ramsay pacing about and yelling at his kitchen staff. There are guest spots, interviews, contests, and even clips of Chef at home being playful and sweet with his family. I don't see him as a mean guy who just goes around yelling and cussing at people. He just gives a crap about good, quality, fresh-prepared food, quality control, and not wasting; whether it's at home or out to eat. We'd all be better off with more people like that. Last evening, I flipped the TV to one of my other favorite shows which just happens to be on BBC: Top Gear. And a certain somebody just happened to have a guest spot on that particular episode. I didn't think Tiegan was paying attention, but much to my surprise, she gasped... "MOMMY! Is that Chef Ramsay?" "Yes it is... how did you know that?" "I like him." (with a sheepish grin and giggle) "Oh you do, huh? Why's that?" "I dunno... he's just... he has blonde hair like mine." (still with the silly grin) So, in summary, my 3 year old daughter has a crush on Gordon Ramsay. That's not a bad thing, right? I mean... at least they bleep out the bad words on TV.

Joined at the hip

2 news items this morning on BBC Radio 4 struck home: secondary school canteen providers are up in arms declaring that meeting the new food quality regulations for the meals they deliver, will reduce variety and the children will go elsewhere. [Over a 3 week period school meals will have to reach a certain level of 14 vitamin and micronutrients such as iron, calcium and zinc.] The second item was an interview concerning the credit crunch effects on youth violence, where the interviewee described the relationship between the UK and the USA as joined at the hip! Here in the UK, Jamie Oliver & his ilk have caused a sea-change in the government's attitude to school meals but it's not joined up thinking. In some places school canteens have been provided, in others school kitchens have closed in order to free funds to pay for another teacher to provide cover for lesson planning time (how do you resolve two conflicting edicts within a limited budget!?). So if we really are joined at the hip, I wondered what was the take-up of school meals in the USA and did they have to meet certain nutrient  levels"¦..is it indeed only the variety of food on offer that determines pupil take-up  or is it the cost or,  just maybe, its  the amount of time allocated to eating the meal and the canteen facilities (seating, ability to "hang-out")....

Review: L’Ardoise

I must strongly disagree with your 4 and a half stars. For me, L'Ardoise is a great example why French 'brasseries' have taken a hell of a beating in the last couple of years, closing left and right; while Italian, Indian, Thai, Japanese restaurants, just to name a few, went from strength to strength. Put simply, L'Ardoise is boring and overpriced. By like 40%. The decor and service are just enough appropriate for the price range, and I think the food 'quality' (=ingredients) are ok as well. Problem is that the restaurant is not 'special' in any way, the menu is not inspiring, the food is not 'oh-my-god', and yet you will pay twice as much as in an Ambiente restaurant. Why would you want that? L'Ardoise will give a steady, but not exceptional, dining experience at prices that merit more. If you HAVE to eat French and Brasserie M is too far for you, AND you have money? Ok. Fine. But if not, there are tons of restaurants in the area where you will have the same kind of experience at lower price, or a better experience at a higher price. For example, compare L'Ardoise (French) with Enoteca Il Giardino (Italian), which is 200m away. Similar quality of decor, food and service. However, Enoteca has a more interesting menu (= easier to understand) and is 40% cheaper. A gem. Or compare Aromi, which is the same price range, but is like a category higher in terms of a rewarding dining experience. But ok. Most of the times I agree with your reviews and you made me discover amazing restaurants such as Noi and Fosil, for which I thank you. Even though I find that you give way-inflated stars.

What people think about emerging food technology

The science behind the story Nanotechnologies Nanotechnology is the manufacture and use of materials and structures at the nanometre scale (a nanometre is one millionth of a millimetre). There is some interest in using nanometre scale materials in food packaging, which could keep food fresher for longer, or monitor the quality of the food. Nanotechnologies can also be applied to food to help better absorption of vitamins or to help reduce fat or salt content of our food. Functional foods This is a loosely defined marketing term that is applied to foods containing added ingredients that have a supposed health benefit. Examples might be probiotic yoghurts, or cholesterol-lowering spreads. Synthetic biology Synthetic biology is a developing area of science, where it may be possible to build completely new organisms or biological systems by assembling genes in a laboratory. This is very much at the experimental stage and there are no current or proposed food applications. Genetically modified (GM) food Genetic modification involves altering a plant, animal or micro-organism's genes or inserting genes from another organism - that is, a living thing. Genes carry the instructions for all the characteristics that an organism inherits. They are made up of DNA. A number of GM foods have been cleared for use in the EU, although the use of these GM foods is not widespread in the UK. Cloned animals Cloning involves the creation of an animal (the clone) that is an exact genetic copy of another (the donor). Clones occur in nature and many plants, such as strawberries, reproduce in this way. Some animals also clone themselves, such as amoeba (a microscopic single-celled organism) and some insects, such as greenfly. There is no cloning of animals for food production in the UK and marketing of food from cloned animals would require authorisation under the novel foods law. Irradiation Irradiation can be used to kill the bacteria that cause food poisoning. It can also delay fruit ripening, help stop vegetables such as potatoes and onions from sprouting and delay other deterioration. It is a process that produces a similar effect to pasteurisation, cooking or other forms of heat treatment, but irradiation only raises the temperature of food by a few degrees and so there is less impact on taste, look and texture. Novel food processes This is a general term that applies to new ways of processing foods. Examples from the recent past include the use of microwave ovens to heat and cook foods, and the use of high pressure processing as a low-temperature alternative to pasteurisation e.g. for 'fresh-tasting' long life orange juice.

At Last Café Offers Delicious Fare at a Reasonable Fare

Master Class When it comes to delicious fare at a reasonable fare, any restaurateur could take a lesson or two from John McLaughlin-s At Last Café. I-m not a restaurateur, but if I were, I-d want to pick John McLaughlin-s brain. A man who has worn many hats (of the tall, white variety, that is), McLaughlin is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park, a caterer to the Academy Awards, an executive chef at many prestigious Southland restaurants and a culinary instructor at UC Irvine. But it is in his latest position as owner/chef of At Last Café"”the buzziest Long Beach restaurant right now"”that he has become a local legend. McLaughlin levies roadside-diner prices for gourmet-quality food. Like a magic trick, At Last Café seems to operate on negative profit margins. His most expensive offering: $12.25 for a steak dinner complete with made-from-scratch smashed potatoes and freshly sauted veggies. Everything else averages about $10. And the value pricing isn-t a knee-jerk response to our recession, nor is it part of some Restaurant Week deal. These are his regular fares, firmly set when he opened the place last year. Understandably, the response has been overwhelming. First-time customers turn into instant devotees. The 18 or so seats are usually filled nightly. Those who didn-t think to snag a reservation either wait it out on the street or order to-go. Whatever you do, budget about 30 minutes to find parking, which is frustratingly scarce and the inevitable topic of conversation for the first few minutes of your meal. The rest of the time, you-ll talk about the food and how McLaughlin manages to charge a fraction of what other establishments of this caliber would. The group sitting next to us was having the same discussion. At one point, after shoving massive spoonfuls of McLaughlin-s apple crumble into his mouth, one diner said to the other, "So, are we going to put this on our menu?" His companion shushed him and looked around nervously to see if anyone heard the slip. Lucky for them, I was too entranced by the wonder that is McLaughlin-s Brick Chicken to care. Here, I thought, is the apotheosis of what At Last Café is all about: Take a simple dish, charge a fair value, do it better than anyone else. For his poultry masterpiece, McLaughlin meticulously debones a half-chicken, cooks it under the weight of a brick, and serves it with smashed potatoes, veggies and pan gravy made from the drippings. The result? A chicken dinner that is one of the best I-ve ever had: crispy, mahogany skin reminiscent of the best Armenian rotisserie hen and meat so juicy it bursts. The cost for this soon-to-be-famous bird: $9.25. His meatloaf retails for the same price and comes in two, flavor-packed, thick-as-a-textbook slices"”every bit as delicious as we said it was when we proclaimed it Best Meatloaf in our 2008 Best Of issue. The flatiron steak I mentioned earlier is of steakhouse quality"”covered in mushrooms and onions almost wilted down to syrup, tender even though it is sliced along the grain. McLaughlin-s $10.95 center-cut pork chop is formidably enormous, seared to a crusty brownness, split in the middle so it looks like Pac-Man with his mouth crammed full of sweet apple-herb stuffing. The creamy bowl of mac and three cheeses, sprinkled with crunchy, seasoned breadcrumbs, can feed two people for $7.95. His French pot roast features three fist-sized boulders sitting atop fettuccine and a smattering of vegetables. Every tender, meaty strand you tear away is as good as mom-s. At Last Café also does burgers, sandwiches and salads. But wisely, McLaughlin only offers one appetizer a night. Since he-s the only one cooking, he can-t let himself get bogged down on more than that. But that doesn-t mean he phones in the one he does. On our visit, it was a cardoon gratine, pleasantly bitter, celery-like stalks of artichoke broiled in a ramekin with a soupy cheese sauce. On my way to the restroom, I saw him making the dish. The studio-apartment-sized restaurant is half-kitchen, so to use the lavatory meant having to go through the sacred space. I shimmied past McLaughlin as he was cooking my dish along with others on his tiny stove. He said hello and bowed as I tiptoed around him. McLaughlin-s success is not built on secrets"”it was all right there for anyone to see: well-made food made affordable, at last. At Last Café at 204 Orange Ave., Long Beach, (562) 437-4837; www.jmchefcatering.com. Open Tues.-Sat., 11:30 a.m.-8 p.m. Main dishes, $6.75-$12.25. Wine; no corkage fee.

10 Mold Prevention Tips

People complain when smog lies thick over a city. They complain when a factory or plant pumps curling, black smoke into our air. It is ironic then that the air quality of our homes often gets overlooked. The majority of our breathing is done inside. And our inside air can be just as polluted. How can you tell if your air is quality air? According to the EPA, there are three basic methods. Hopefully, your home has very few indoor air quality problems. An ounce of prevention is all it takes to keep it that way. More on Green Air Quality How Indoor Air Quality Affects Your Health What You Need to Know About Caulking and Health How to Use a Radon Test Kit