They are trying to put Michael Schmidt , a dairy farmer, in jail for distributing fresh raw milk!
THIS REALLY PISSES ME OFF!

There is a movement with chefs Michael Stadlander and Jamie Kennedy involved in raising money for his legal fund and public awareness.
Lets get more chefs involved!

Government regulations should not restrict our free choice in obtaining whole, natural foods. Michael and his ” blue bus” are under surveillance by armed officers of the food police for distributing natural unpasteurized milk. The right of a well informed consumer to make their own choices on what to buy and eat is being totally trampled by a bureaucratic juggernaut.

Pass on this website link and info to more chefs and natural food lovers right away. Print out the petition, get signatures and pass it along.

http://glencoltonfarms.com/index.php?op … &Itemid=33

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can
change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever
has.” — Margaret Mead

Find out more about this issue, as chefs we have a responsibility to lead the dining public to better choices.

Thanks,
chefjono.ca
Jonathan McDonough.

The New Age Fruit Carica

If you have never seen this product before I really urge you to check it out.
I saw it at a roadshow promo at Sam’s club, and I am using it for a ginger-papaya dip with shrimp at the Gourmet Food and Wine show this weekend.
Beautifully packaged, in clear glass jars, this fruit called ” Carica” , car-ee-ka, is also called ” Mountain Papaya” tasting like a mix of papaya, melon and pineapple, it most importantly has a crisp nice texture, not too sweet, and has a delicate hard- to- define taste, perfect to go with prosciutto, wine or cheese. It is being featured on dessert menus at places like the Four Seasons, etc.
While most canned fruit is overly soft and packed in heavy syrup, this is still firm and is packed in its own natural sweet juices.
It sells at Pusateri’s and the Cheese Boutique, I will be sampling it with Thai Salad rolls, with Shrimp Cocktail and as a Gelato flavour.

Check out the website,
cheers jono.
http://www.tamayagourmet.cl/carica.htm
http://www.foodandwineshow.ca/

DISCOVER COOKING CLASSES

EVENTS & COURSES

Profiled personal chef Jonathan McDonough draws from his many years experience with dinner parties to show you how to prepare an elegant meal, using ingredients commonly found in most kitchens with little preparation time but plenty of the "wow" factor.

With some of his "chef secrets", Chef Jono will coach you in the preparation of Thai salad rolls, coconut shrimp with lychee-ginger dip, "wedding bouquet" cucumber salad, rib eye steak and even dessert.

Be prepared for plenty of information, education and fun as you learn how to cook up a party that looks like you worked for days and days to impress your guests.

Register for this class today, where one lucky registrant will win "a customized dinner for two" in his or her own home on a date mutually agreed upon by Chef Jonathan and the winner.

Fine Living: Hiring A Personal Chef

Link to the whole article in askmen.com>

http://ca.askmen.com/fashion/wine_dine_100/143_wine_dine.html

After a long day at work, most people don't exactly relish the thought of standing in front of a hot stove preparing dinner for the family. Usually there are groceries to be bought, meals to be planned and time to be spent preparing the food.

Imagine coming home every night to a freshly prepared gourmet meal. Thanks to personal chefs (not to be confused with private chefs who only work for one client), this trend is becoming increasingly common, as more and more people opt to hire their own in-house chefs. The benefits are obvious: having easy, convenient meals, and allowing you to spend more time with the family and less time worrying about what's for dinner.

How it works

Your first experience with a personal chef begins with a visit from the chef to your home. Since your chef will be spending a good amount of time in your home, he will need to spend some time getting to know you and your kitchen. In the initial consultation, the chef will sit down with you to discuss the basic information he needs to know to prepare meals for your family. Basic questions that he will ask include your family's food likes and dislikes and any nutritional or dietary concerns you may have, including food allergies. At the same time, the chef will be sizing up your kitchen to get a sense of what meals can easily be prepared in your home.

Based on the initial consultation, the chef will prepare a customized menu that you are encouraged to evaluate and fine-tune. On cooking days, the chef will make a trip to the grocery store to buy all the ingredients he needs and will spend the time in your kitchen to prepare the meals. It's not usually expected that clients are home at this time and any personal chef certified by the United States Personal Chef Association must adhere to the strictest ethical standards, so there's no need to worry about a thing.

Usually, chefs will prepare two-weeks worth of meals at a time and after cooking he will do a thorough cleanup of your kitchen and provide specific instructions for reheating the meals. Your personal chef will usually visit your home once or twice a month and you will be invoiced for his services on a biweekly or monthly basis, depending on your arrangement.

Need a personal chef? Let one of these recommended professionals whip something up for you” Next >>

The benefits

It's not hard to see the benefits of hiring a personal chef. For starters, all the grocery shopping for your main meals is done by someone else. Your family can enjoy perfectly customized menus made with the best and freshest ingredients. Finally, preparation is as simple as following basic reheating instructions, meaning that you are left with more free time to relax with your family and you never have to worry about what to feed the kids or after-work trips to the grocery store.

chef suggestions

Chef Jono

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

With more than 20 years of service in Toronto's fine-dining business, Chef Jonathan McDonough recently undertook the challenge of turning to self-employment in the culinary industry. The result is Chef Jono, a catering and personal-chef business run by one of Toronto's top classically trained chefs. With every meal, McDonough's aim is to bring out the best organic and single-source ingredients through classic and new dishes. Home-cooked meal packages start at $250 CAD for 20 custom-designed meals, and of better quality than anything you would ordinarily find at a restaurant. Main courses include fusilli with tomato cream sauce, spinach salad, shrimp oriental noodles with ginger sauce, original Texas chili with rice and beans, and mousaka.

Fine Dining Solutions

Alexandria, VA

The metro-DC area's Fine Dining Solutions is the brainchild of chef and owner Shanna Follansbee who has worked in many of the capital's best restaurants. The company offers personal- as well as private-chef services and a full range of catering services.

Fine Dining Solutions' personal chef menus, a selection of 40 or more entrées, are updated regularly and revamped entirely as the seasons change to accommodate seasonal ingredients. Meals are usually designed around a protein, with the addition of two sides, a sauce and hors d’oeuvres. Summer menu selections include: veal scallop sauté with tomato and rosemary-infused orzo, wilted watercress and lemon-caper vinaigrette, turkey breast roulade with green chilies and feta cheese with oregano-infused, long-grain brown rice and corn-bell pepper salsa. Prices range from USD $150 to USD $425.

More private chefs for hire… Next >>

La Cena

East Sussex, England

Carlo Albertoli, chef and owner of England's La Cena, isn't shy about the fact that he has no training as a classical chef, but feels that what he lacks in formal education is more than made up for by his experience and his passion for cooking. For the past 20 years, he has been wowing families and friends with his authentic, modern Italian home-cooking and he has since parlayed that talent to La Cena.

Albertoli prides himself on creating his own recipes using the best produce from the best importers, and even imports some of his own ingredients if they can't be found locally. The result is a palette of dishes that includes only the best local ingredients, prepared in the style of traditional Italian fare.

La Cena's signature dishes include linguine agli scampi using the freshest langoustines, cherry tomatoes and linguine, pork braised in milk with cream, porcini mushrooms and new potatoes, and bite-sized pieces of pork tenderloin stuffed with dried apricots and fennel seeds. Prices range from 25 GBP per head or 150 GBP per evening.

ReMARKable Palate

New York City, NY

Another proudly self-taught gourmand in the personal-chef business is Chef Mark Tafoya, the owner of ReMARKable Palate. A world traveler, Tafoya began his food education studying abroad in France. Born in the American Southwest, however, he found his real passion for food lay in that region's cuisine. Today, ReMARKable Palate, which specializes in Vietnamese, Thai, Umbrian, Tuscan, and Spanish cuisines, as well as French cuisine and the foods of the American Southwest, delivers meals of all varieties to customers in the New York City area.

Menu items include shrimp with stuffing (with a green salad with tangerine vinaigrette), Texican shredded pork in flour tortilla burritos, mushroom spinach crèpes, Thai massaman curry chicken with water chestnuts (with a side of steamed broccoli), and chicken enchiladas suizas with a green tomatillo sauce (with a side of Spanish rice).

personalized meals

If the idea of never having to worry about preparing another meal again appeals to you, a personal chef service may be the way to go. A personal chef frees up time for you and your family, and takes the worry out of balancing proper nutrition with everyone’s personal likes and dislikes. With all this convenience, it's no wonder the personal-chef business is booming.

References:

www.chefjono.ca

www.finediningsolutions.com

www.la-cena.co.uk

www.remarkablepalate.com

www.uspca.com

www.cdnpca.com

The Updated Menu; Tips and Tricks.

Menus over the years have gone through an evolution. In the days when all fine dining was French, titles of dishes reflected this, even in English speaking locations. Some dishes remain this way, like Crême Brule or Beef Bourguignon. Lately it has become a trend to take a classic title or method and use it to name a dish from a different course. An appetizer that uses layering might be called a " Napoleon" even though it has nothing to do with that famous multi-layered pastry.

Generally the use of menus with all foreign words are on the way out, as we have recognized it's a bogus marketing idea. In the sixties menus started changing with exaggerated adjectives. Now many of these descriptors scream fake. Terms like, " home-made, delicious, delectable, mouth-watering", are obviously not valuable as they don't give specific information about the item.
In the seventies exotic menu ingredients became all the rage, leading to many, many words to describe each item. Due to the " Arugula Revolution" (the proliferation of ethnic cuisine into the suburban supermarket) foods such as sun-dried tomatoes, lemongrass and cilantro have become common place and so are no longer as much of a selling feature.
This trend reached an extreme in the ’90s with pretentious menus piling on the little known or hard to get food components. Now we have started to realize that if you don't know what a menu ingredient is, all the clever menu writing in the world won't make it taste any better.
Some menus are written to the point where no ingredient is ordinary; " Meyer lemons, Royal-Thai basil, Carnaroli Risotto, Heirloom tomatoes," sometimes literally every single ingredient requires an explanation by the waiter to the food-illiterate diner. This won't necessarily make it taste any better and overboard descriptions while trying to help sell the product make the menu writer seem pretentious.
Verbs are very useful and have gone though phases. There is a gradation in class apparent here. Low to Middle level restaurants may still use terms like, " delicious, and phrases like, " Hand-made or lovingly prepared. We still see action terms in use like, " fire-roasted, spit-grilled, and flashed".
More upscale places try to use finesse, with terms like, " infused, drizzled, and silky". The current vogue with ultra high-end places, although already on the way out, is to go overboard with tales of how the food got to plate. When "Single Source" suppliers are being mentioned, it is called " foraging" as in "Lamb from Wellington County Smokey Creek Farms." Does it make much difference to the consumer if the goat cheese came from a particular farm in a particular county? It may, if that farmer is indeed a premium quality craftsman and well known, but probably doesn't mean much to the average restaurant goer.

Another recent, and welcome trend is to keep descriptions brief and to the point. "Lamb Chops with roasted garlic, fingerling potatoes and Asperagus", for example. Sometimes grammar is simplified to the point of just using commas and no descriptors at all.
"$29. Rib-Eye Steak, garlic, au jus, basil, fresh plum tomato, veal stock.", for instance.

In order to market a menu for a Catering company, different techniques apply.
In the first place, catering selections can't be quite a leading edge as trendy restaurants can.
With restaurants people choose and pick among popular dining spots and in many places expect to be impressed with new ideas. However a crowd that is attending a cocktail party or wedding may have as a majority
end- users who have less interest in trendy food selections and would be confused by a too far reaching approach.
A timeline is created whereby whatever was a neat idea five or ten years ago at a high end restaurant takes about that long to make it to a caterers' menu. As an example, Thai and other Oriental flavours are very popular with caterers now, and dishes like short ribs and Osso Bucco are now making way to wedding menus. As much as a chef wants to bring in new concepts and educate the consumer, one is reminded that; for example, if you own a sporting goods store, customers will be looking for skates and baseballs, so you have to offer what the client is looking for while at the same time elevating the dining experience
.In order to do this a catering menu can make great gains by highlighting the presentation or using terms that boost ephemeral attributes. Terms like, " Ruby-red tomatoes, dollop of crême Fraiche, cascading truffles, etc. use decadent and generous terminology to make a selling package. This has proven sales results. Also with catering one can mention the serving pieces, the mirrors, marble slabs, Chinese spoons etc. to offer a visual appeal to the prospective client.
Of course these days the Internet offers a great place to show off plenty of eye-candy, luring the clients with beautiful pictures, sound and even slide shows of performed events.

Here is a list of the words that make it to the " IN and OUT " list of menu writing for 2006.

OUT”
Tasty,
Veggies
Nippy
Zippy
Zesty
Scented or Perfumed
Cheesy
Nuggets
Bacon-Bits
Scrumptious
Enhanced
Mouth-Watering
Sprinkled
\ Juicy
Tender
Grilled to perfection
Combo,
Medley,
Morsels
Succulent
Yummy
Homemade
and BABY.

Difficult to sell Words
Curry- too strong for most people, will not sell, instead try " Indian, or Bombay or Silk Route"
Squid, try Calamari instead.
Deep-fried, try " Crisp"
Oxtail
Lima Beans
Okra
Cabbage

Sexy Words
Infused
Drizzled
Splash
Froth
Foam
Confit
Compote
Jam
Marmalade
Gremolata
Chutney
Salsa
Spicy
Piquant
Silky
Elegant
Brimming
Ribbons
Open fire grilled
Tucked with herbs
Free Range
Handcrafted
Rustic
Artisan
Finest
Classic
Summer-sweet
Heirloom
Lavish
Popular, ( go ahead and call a difficult-to-sell item popular using the power of suggestion)
Best Selling
Charred
Velvet
Lacquer- "highlighted by an Ice-wine Lacquer"
Essence
Shards
Puffs
Dusting
Flourish-synonym for garnish
Hint
Slaked
Companions
Dramatic
Nestled
Sliced Razor Thin- as in, "Roast Beef sliced razor-thin"

New Offer for Custom Meal Program for Clients

On a pre-arranged ‘Chef Date,’ your Personal Chef will shop for groceries, come to
your home and prepare custom-made meals
to last you two weeks.

*Gourmet Comfort Food featuring natural wholesome ingredients.

Menu Selection for Personal Chef Choice

Lasagna with Ground chicken and ricotta cheese.
Beef Bourguignon, green salad.
Chicken Cacciatore and roasted bell peppers
Beef curry with basmati rice, stir fried vegetables
Fusilli pasta - tomato cream -spinach salad.
Shrimp Oriental noodles with Ginger sauce.
Bolognaise pasta with red wine sauce.
Vegetarian Chili with cornbread.
Pad Thai, chicken-shrimp-peanut egg pasta.
Mexican rice and Pork tenderloin
Salad Niçoise with Poached Salmon
Pork chops with green beans, apples
and sautéed red onions
Chicken Marabella and rainbow rice
Spanish frittata with chorizo sausage

I very much enjoyed the following exchange on Egullet forums back from May of last year. The subject was whether fancy-shmancy food turns you on or not and I very much agree with Nyleve Baar when she comments that.

“..That’s exactly what I’m looking for when I go out to eat somewhere special. I don’t generally expect an entire meal to be absolutely stunning, but even a single dish that makes me stop in my tracks. It doesn’t happen often. In fact, I can probably remember every single time in my life that it HAS happened”.

Have copied some of the dialogue below, its quite good.
My take on all this is that when a regional cuisine is copied into a five star dining room the soul of the food is sometimes missing. I dined at Charlie Trotters in Chicago in the late 90's, which at the time was the peak of dining in the US. The food was beautiful and stunning to admire.
I left hungry.
Regional cuisine is meant to be eaten in a large bowl with a tablespoon.
On this tasting menu there was a particular lamb item I spotted, so I asked, ahead of time, knowing the portion would be microscopic, if I could obtain, and pay for, a double portion.
"No' was the simple answer to my simple request.
And indeed when the lamb came it was exactly one mouthful and left me very much disappointed that I couldn't have more.

With my food at chef jono, I try to re-create those warm family meals that were completely satisfying while at the same time introducing some newness, some intensity and some fun.

The following exchange at Egullet
LINK> http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=66844&st=30

May 9 2005, 06:25 PM Post #33
Touaregsand
legacy participant
Posts: 1,457
Joined: 19-February 05
Member No.: 27,565

In certain realms of cooking fancy shmancy food isn’t even really food anymore. I get the urge, the serious urge to cut a big one in the room when I read most reviews of top tier places. More often it has to do with tone of the writer than the food that is written about. Eeyore was always my least favourite pooh character. Not that pooh is my favorite, there is something disingenuous about him.

Too many chefs these days learn how to talk about their food before they actually learn how to cook, some never even really learn how to cook that well.

Somewhere along the line (I can actually trace this, but choose not to bore anyone here with it). The emphasis on ingredients turned into a wider trend of “shopping not cooking” which I don’t have so much a problem with. I had access to better quality stuff in the trade then I do as a retail consumer. The fundamentals and basic techniques of good cooking fell out of favour. Technique became extraneous (at least in cookbooks that are monuments to the chef and his restaurant) or it entered the realm of ’science’ in a studio, lab or garage. Then there is the food writer who needs new things to write about… that’s a whole other topic.

QUOTE
(Nyleve Baar @ May 9 2005, 02:42 AM) True - that last comment. That’s exactly what I’m looking for when I go out to eat somewhere special. I don’t generally expect an entire meal to be absolutely stunning, but even a single dish that makes me stop in my tracks. It doesn’t happen often. In fact, I can probably remember every single time in my life that it HAS happened.

And it’s not usually something complicated either. Perfect gnocchi, for instance, has made me go all cross-eyed. Pear and gorgonzola ravioli. Chicken tagine with olives and preserved lemons.

Yeah, I’m into peasant food. No question. Gotta hit me between the eyes like a sledge hammer. Sort of embarrassing, I suddenly realize.

QUOTE (
Nyleve Baar @ May 10 2005, 11:50 AM)I sometimes find myself believing that the ability to cook well is almost bred in the bone - not genetic, exactly, but a deep love that is learned in childhood - infancy, even. When I eat something that really has soul - as someone posted earlier (sorry, I just lose track of names) - I feel like I’m actually contacting the person who made the dish. It’s like a telepathic communication. Is this weird?

When I eat high-end restaurant food - highly constructed, ethereal dishes - I very rarely feel that contact. It is purely aesthetic to me. Beautiful, impressive even, but not real. I am not touched where it counts.