When my husband hears the words, “whole grains,” he makes a face.
You might as well be uttering the words, “pickled eyeballs,” because he’ll make the same expression of disgust.
All too often, he fears “whole grains” means “too healthy to possibly taste any good.”
But Kodiak Cakes made a believer out of him.
The Salt Lake City, family-owned company recently sent me samples of its whole grain pancakes/waffles, cookies and brownie mixes to try.
Celeb chef cookbooks may dazzle on the coffee table and instructive cookbooks may be must-haves on the shelf.
But here’s a food book that is so captivating you’ll be hard-pressed to put it down.
“What I Eat” (Material World/Ten Speed Press) is a fascinating around-the-globe look at what 80 people eat over the course of one day.
The authors are Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio, whose work you already might be familiar with, as they also were behind the James Beard Award-winning, “Hungry Planet” (Material World), which examined what families around the world eat over the span of one week.
In their newest book, the couple, who lives in Napa, spent three years chronicling the diets of these spotlighted individuals, who range the gamut from a sumo wrestler in Japan to an arctic hunter in Greenland to a model in the United States to an astronaut in space.
Each profile is accompanied by stunning photos, as well as every item each person consumed (from supplements to cigarettes), the total calorie count (from as little as 800 to as much as 12,300), and demographic information such as age, height, weight, occupation and activity level.
For instance, the 99-pound, 5-foot-2-inch Chinese acrobat (top photo) buys yogurt, European-style cakes and fruit for breakfast, then has a hefty lunch of deep-fried pork ribs, noodles, tea-cooked egg, stir-fried cucumber, rice and a salty vegetable broth with green onion in the Shanghai Circus World Employee Cafeteria. The 16-year-old doesn’t eat dinner because most days, she’s performing in a nightly show. Typically, she practices five hours a day and performs seven nights a week. In all, she consumed 1,700 calories that particular day.
Anyone who has ever suffered through a cold knows how unappealing food gets when you can neither smell nor taste it.
Now, imagine that condition possibly lasting permanently.
And happening to a chef, of all people.
That’s exactly what befell one of San Francisco’s most well-known Italian chefs, Carlo Middione, whose condition forced him to close his 29-year-old Vivande Porta Via on New Year’s Eve 2009.
Middione lost his senses of taste and smell, following a car accident three years ago a block from his home in San Francisco, in which his Toyota Corolla was rear-ended by a Toyota Tundra driver who was allegedly speeding and talking on a cell phone. In the impact, Middione’s brain was jostled so severely that the neurons that connect to his olfactory nerve, which is instrumental in the sense of smell, were sheared off.
A noted cookbook author and long-time culinary instructor, Middione hasn’t worked since closing his restaurant. But he is eager to do so again, he says, as a consultant to train staff or organize kitchens.
“I’m not the type to tell people that I broke a tooth, so I didn’t talk a lot about the accident publicly,” Middione says. “I was on so much medication the first month that I wasn’t really eating. But four weeks later, I noticed I couldn’t taste anything.”
Indeed, this is the first time Middione has talked at length about what happened to him. Read all about it in my story in today’s San Francisco Chronicle.
Loss of smell can occur because of head trauma, viral infections and from aging, explains Barb Stuckey, an executive with Mattson, in Foster City, the largest independent food development firm in the country, who is writing a book, “Taste What You’re Missing’’ (Free Press), which will be published next year and will feature a chapter on Middione. Eighty percent of people over the age of 80 suffer from some sort of smell loss, she says.
Chipotle Mexican Grill has teamed up with UK Chef Jamie Oliver for a clever Halloween promotion to expose just how scary processed foods can be.
Just visit any Chipotle restaurant between 6 p.m. and closing on Oct. 31, dressed as a horrifying processed food product, and you’ll be treated to a burrito made with naturally raised ingredients for just $2.
Proceeds from the “Boorito 2010,” up to $1 million, will benefit “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,” a campaign to get people to cook and eat fresh, healthful food.
Chipotle also will host an online costume contest, where customers can be photographed in their frightening processed food costumes at Chipotle’s, then can post the pic online here.
The grand prize winner will receive $2,500; five runners-up will get $1,000 each. And 20 honorable mentions will receive a burrito party for 20 guests at a Chipotle’s of their choice.
Better get cracking now on that one-of-a-kind costume to win.
Yankee Pier in Larkspur invites kids to come in, Oct. 28-31, for its annual pumpkin-carving contest.
There will be various prizes for different age ranges, including giveaways of toys and bookstore gift cards. Contest winners will be announce on Oct. 31 via Facebook.
This week, the Lark Creek Restaurant Group also will be concluding its annual “Pumpkin Festival” of dishes that showcase fall squashes.
As you race to catch the train home after a day that’s left you running on empty, wouldn’t it be great to pick up a fresh, nourishing, convenient meal for the ride home?
You can if you stop at the San Mateo Hillsdale Caltrain station, where Luke’s Local opened this spring in an old, vacant ticket office.
This is a convenience store that’s all about local and sustainable food products, as well as gourmet-to-go meals, made fresh daily by a former San Francisco restaurant chef. We’re talking Dungeness crab mac ‘n’ cheese, skirt steak with creamed corn, and chicken stuffed with chevre — all precooked and packaged (at $7.99 each) for you to take home to heat up easily.
Or grab a dripped-to-order Blue Bottle coffee, a pastry from San Francisco’s Sandbox Bakery, an organic locally grown apple, a Free-Trade banana, or a chorizo breakfast burrito ($3.49) that you can nuke in the microwave there to nosh on your morning commute. And yes, Caltrain does allow food and beverages on its trains.
Sure, the Palo Alto Caltrain station boasts a gourmet coffee kiosk. And the San Francisco station has a coffee stand and a Subway sandwich shop. But the Hillsdale station, where 1,300 passengers go through daily, is the only one with meals like this, prepared by Adel Benmahdi, who used to work at Orson in San Francisco.
