Small Bites: Seamless launches iPad app and Chef José Andrés takes to the streets

An iPad app that makes ordering restaurant deliveries seamless and a new food truck from an award-winning chef are the subjects of recent USA Character Approved Blog posts.

When it comes to ordering in, I am a Luddite. Menus stuck to the fridge with magnets and the Google are my go-tos. Programming our neighborhood Chinese place and The Brown Sack into my cell phone was a technological breakthrough for me. So imagine my excitement, skepticism and trepidations when I ordered dinner on an iPad recently. Continue reading “Small Bites: Seamless launches iPad app and Chef José Andrés takes to the streets” →

Small Bites: Growing new farmers and the Beard Foundation celebrates the “Best of the Best”

Stone Barns Center’s efforts to mentor young farmers and a new cookbook celebrating winners of the James Beard Foundation’s annual Outstanding Chef Award are the subjects of recent USA Character Approved Blog posts.

How you gonna keep them down on the farm? As America’s population of farmers ages, this question is keeping some food producers—and consumers—awake nights. The average age of American farmers is now 57. In Medium Raw, Anthony Bourdain makes the point that even if we “bring monstrously evil agribusinesses” to their knees and free up “vast tracts of arable land for small, seasonal, sustainable farming,” we don’t have enough people actually willing to farm. The Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture is working to change that. Continue reading “Small Bites: Growing new farmers and the Beard Foundation celebrates the “Best of the Best”” →

Small Bites: Fight climate change in the dark and alternative spring breaks

Turn out the lights this Saturday night for Earth Hour. And students spending their spring breaks fighting hunger and supporting sustainable food are the subject of my latest USA Character Approved Blog post.

In 2007, 2.2 million people and more than 2,000 businesses in Sydney, Australia turned off their lights for one hour, marking the first Earth Hour. Last year, more than 5,200 cities and towns in 135 countries worldwide switched off their lights, sending a powerful message for action on climate change. It also marked the start of something new—going Beyond the Hour to commit to lasting action on climate change.

Earth Hour is organized by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), one of the world’s largest and most respected independent conservation organizations. WWF’s mission is to stop the degradation of the Earth’s natural environment and encourage people to live in harmony with nature. Continue reading “Small Bites: Fight climate change in the dark and alternative spring breaks” →

Small Bites: Pressure cookers rehabilitated and a fruitful life in food

Modern, non-exploding (and even programmable) pressure cookers and celebrating Women’s History Month with the woman who launched Julia Child’s career are the subjects of recent USA Character Approved Blog posts.

My mom had a pressure cooker. She loved it. But for the rest of us, it was kind of like having Mt. Vesuvius in your kitchen. You didn’t know when it was going to blow, but you knew it would be bad. More than once, I remember my mom cleaning stew or pot roast or something off the kitchen ceiling. She took it in stride. Mom took lots of stuff in stride, as I recall.

Still, I have to think she’d love the new generation of pressure cookers. They’re just as efficient at cooking foods up to 70 percent faster and don’t involve as much potential drama. Find out more about these classic timesavers made safe in my latest post on the USA Character Approved Blog. Continue reading “Small Bites: Pressure cookers rehabilitated and a fruitful life in food” →

Black History Month: Two chefs trade restaurant kitchens for activism

As Black History Month draws to a close, two chefs who’ve taken very different career paths—one trying to turn at-risk youth around, the other trying to turn nutritionally at-risk communities around—are subjects of recent USA Character Approved Blog posts.

Many chefs are exposed to cooking and what will become their careers in their mother’s or grandmother’s kitchens. For Jeff Henderson, it was a prison kitchen. He was serving a ten-year sentence for drug trafficking and was assigned to kitchen duty as punishment. That punishment turned his life around. He quickly discovered a passion for cooking and developed a head for business.

Upon his release from prison, Henderson talked his way into a dishwashing job in the new Los Angeles restaurant of a prominent African American chef. From there, he eventually worked his way up to Chef de Cuisine for the restaurants of Caesar’s Palace. Then he walked away from it all. Continue reading “Black History Month: Two chefs trade restaurant kitchens for activism” →

Black History Month: Tiffany Derry shows just how far hard work and talent can take you

Talent alone can take you only so far. Same thing goes for hard work. But put them together and you’re practically unstoppable. Chef Tiffany Derry, the subject of my latest USA Character Approved Blog post, proves that.

Some time ago, I went to see Anthony Bourdain do a reading from his then new book, Medium Raw. Seated next to me was a young woman very excited to be seeing him speak. We had a long wait and so struck up a conversation that took the usual “and what do you do” path. She was a student at one of the pricier private universities in Chicago. She had just switched her major to something writing related that wasn’t actually journalism plus some culinary stuff (I wept inwardly for her parents).

When I asked what she wanted to do, she pointed at Bourdain’s picture on the cover of the book I was holding and said, “What he does.” Being both a parent and a former teacher, I launched into talking about things she could do, such as starting a food blog to develop her writing chops and build a portfolio. She was polite, but less than enthusiastic. Turns out she didn’t actually want to write—she wanted to be paid to be on TV, travel to exotic places and eat cool food. You know, what Bourdain does. Only without all the years of insane long hours in the kitchen—or at a laptop, for that matter. Continue reading “Black History Month: Tiffany Derry shows just how far hard work and talent can take you” →

Small Bites: A taste of NOLA in St. Louis and Black History Month cooks

Riverbend Restaurant & Bar brings New Orleans to St. Louis, and African American wine director Brian Duncan makes wine accessible, enjoyable. Both are subjects of recent USA Character Approved Blog posts.

One of my favorite passages in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the one in which Mark Twain describes St. Louis as Huck’s raft glides by at night on the Mississippi River. It’s not a long or detailed passage, but it always takes me home when I read it. I grew up in St. Louis and can tell you firsthand that the river’s influence on the city cannot be overstated.

Happily, much of the Mississippi’s influence has actually flowed upriver from places like Memphis and New Orleans. Marion and I heard our first zydeco music in St. Louis. Fernest Arceneaux and the Thunders had packed the beer garden of the Broadway Oyster Bar, and our friend Sharon, who tended bar there, called us and said, “Get down here now.” We did. And we still thank her for making that call. Continue reading “Small Bites: A taste of NOLA in St. Louis and Black History Month cooks” →

Fighting food deserts and taking the week off

Holidays, birthdays, houseguests and other pleasant distractions have kept us preoccupied in the kitchen this week. We’ve mainly been whipping up reliable favorites or ordering in pizza to keep everyone fed and happy. So no recipe this week. But don’t worry, we’ll cook up something fresh next week.

Instead, I’d like to tell you about my latest USA Character Approved Blog post. One of the great things about writing pieces for this blog is discovering cool new things in food—everything from chefs to trends, restaurants, cookbooks and people working to help us all eat healthier. Stockbox Grocers is one of the coolest stories I’ve come across in a while. Continue reading “Fighting food deserts and taking the week off” →

Kids teaching kids to cook and a Last-Minute Holiday Gift Guide

A new web series starring cooking kids is the subject of my latest Character Approved Blog post. And some last-minute holiday gift ideas from the king of the procrastinators.

Our girls were introduced to the kitchen early. I remember Marion sitting on the kitchen floor with them when they were toddlers, mixing bowls and measuring cups spread out around them. The girls would spoon, stir, mix and measure ingredients that would become a gingerbread or cake or some other delicious baked treat.

Lately, getting kids cooking is being seen as a powerful tool for teaching good eating habits. And as the epidemic of childhood obesity and its attendant health risks continue unabated, those good eating habits are more important than ever. Continue reading “Kids teaching kids to cook and a Last-Minute Holiday Gift Guide” →

Small Bites: Recycled homes for baby oysters and Top 10 for 2011

Efforts to restore Chesapeake Bay’s once plentiful oysters and my best attempt at a Top 10 List for food are subjects of recent Character Approved Blog posts.

Ever wonder what becomes of those oyster shells after you’ve slurped the briny, delicious mollusks from them? If you’re dining in a Mid-Atlantic restaurant, chances are they’ll be recycled into homes for spats (baby oysters) in Chesapeake Bay. This year alone, non-profit Oyster Recovery Partnership collected 7 million shells from restaurants, cleaned them up and used them to introduce half a billion spats into the bay.

Oyster Recovery Partnership isn’t just replenishing decimated populations of sustainable seafood—they’re working to restore the health of Chesapeake Bay. Oysters once filtered the waters of the entire bay every few days. Now it takes years. Continue reading “Small Bites: Recycled homes for baby oysters and Top 10 for 2011” →