On Wall Street: Dominic Rushe: Everything you want to know about McDonald's

The Sunday Times, Focus: USA

JUST a guess, but I bet they are not doing all that many children’s parties in the McDonald’s off St Mark’s Place in Manhattan.

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Junking their fast food addiction

The Sunday Times, Review

Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, tells Karen Robinson how companies like McDonald’s are now targeting the young.

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Chicago takes foie gras off menu

The Guardian

By Ewen MacAskill in Washington

Chicago is not famous for being squeamish about food. Its slaughterhouses once turned it into the meat production capital of the world, earning the nickname Porkopolis.
But that was then. Today, Chicago has taken a lead in humane food production. The city council voted this week to ban the production and sale of foie gras, the first US city to do so.

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Fast food - no junk

The Guardian

As part of the Guardian's food week, we asked readers to nominate their favourite healthy fast food joints. Here are 50 of your suggestions...

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Distillers cheer ban on labels of 'Scotch' produced in India

The Times

By David Lister, Scotland Correspondent

SCOTLAND’S whisky industry toasted a landmark legal victory yesterday after a court blocked an Indian company from claiming that its whisky was Scots-made.
The Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) said that its members would be protected from unfair competition by the decision of a court in Delhi to stop Golden Bottling, a company based near Jaipur, from using the name “Red Scot” on one of its brands.
The ruling could have major ramifications for attempts by Scotland’s whisky producers to increase their share of the spirits market in a country with more whisky drinkers than anywhere else in the world.

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Feeding 24,000 athletes? They deserve a medal

The Times, s2

By Sheila Keating

Catering for the Olympics is quite a challenge
When London’s Olympic village opens its gates in 2012 to around 24,000 athletes, coaches and officials from more than 200 countries, it will also unveil the world’s biggest restaurant, catering around the clock to the global elite.

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Tartan Army horror at 1966 World Cup whisky

The Sunday Times, Scotland

Marc Horne

IT MAY have happened 40 years ago, but England’s World Cup win against West Germany at Wembley remains a painful scar on the Scottish psyche.
Now a Highland distillery has committed what some will regard as the ultimate act of betrayal — dedicating a whisky to England’s greatest sporting triumph.
The Tullibardine distillery in Blackford, Perthshire, is to launch a 1966 vintage single malt. It aims to use the occasion to encourage Scots to support England at this summer’s World Cup in Germany.
Almost 400 bottles of the 1966 World Cup Vintage, complete with a label eulogising England’s triumph, will go on sale next month.

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McDonald’s to flip tactics as health fad bites

The Sunday Times

By Mark Kleinman

Restaurant closures and new-format eateries herald a change in vision for Europe by the fast-food giant.

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The Thomas Cubitt

The Times

By Giles Coren

"How grim to skulk in the shadows all one’s life like some hooded urban phone-grabber?"
For the past couple of weeks, all the talk between mouthfuls in that scary world where gastronomy and literature mix (and generally curdle) has been of a book called Garlic and Sapphires, Ruth Reichl’s memoir of her years as restaurant critic of The New York Times. Indeed, if I had a pound for every literary editor who has asked me to review it for him, I’d have two pounds.

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The Neapolitan timebomb

The Guardian

A Chef's Guide To Italy
By Giorgio Locatelli

It is, perhaps, the Neapolitans we have to thank most of all for making the rest of the world aware of Italian food. When people think of my country's cooking, they think immediately of pizza or of spaghetti with tomato sauce - both native to Naples. However, the renown of those dishes has sometimes worked against Neapolitan cuisine in that they have tended to overshadow many other great dishes from the region.

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Five Best: British cookery courses

The Independent

By Lucy Taylor

Perfect your pavé - then sit back and watch the star chefs at work.
1. Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, Oxon
2. Nick Nairn, Perthshire
3. Rick Stein, Cornwall
4. New Angel, Devon
5. L'Enclume, Cumbria

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Culinary pleasures, literally

The Guardian

Jeremy Wayne books the best tables for reading and eating.
Cinnamon Club
Library At The Rubens
Langan's Brasserie

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Eat up or pay up

The Guardian

One London restaurant is cracking down on greedy customers who pile up their plates, then leave loads of food. It fines them. Emily Ashton finds out why.

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Camel's milk could hit UK shelves

BBC News

Camel's milk could become the latest super food to hit the shelves of health food shops and upmarket retailers.
The United Nations is calling for the milk, which is rich in vitamins B and C and has 10 times more iron than cow's milk, to be sold to the West.
Camel's milk, which is slightly saltier than traditional milk, is drunk widely across the Arab world and is well suited to cheese production.
Harrods and Fortnum & Mason are said to be interested in the product.

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Chef's tips

The Times

Some tips by BRETT GRAHAM, Head chef, the Ledbury (020-7792 9090)

* The night before you cook rhubarb, dust it with sugar and orange zest. When you cook it, wrap it in tinfoil, lay it on a tray and cook at 130C for about 50minutes. The rhubarb will be able to cook in its own juice and keep more of its flavour than if it was boiled.
* To peel tomatoes easily without a blow torch, first score the tomatoes, then hold them to a naked flame with a skewer. After a few seconds, put them in iced water.
* Instead of boiling potatoes before you mash them, bake them. Scoop out the potato from the skins and put the potato through a drum sieve or a potato ricer. The mash will be drier, so you can add more butter, cream or milk. It will also have a stronger potato flavour.
* When you are making parfait, crack open a few peach stones and extract the kernels. Toast them in the oven, then chop or crush them and blend them into the parfait cream. It will give an extra almond taste to your parfait.
* To keep herbs fresh for longer, wet a clean J-cloth with cold water and wring it out, then wrap the herbs in it and keep in the fridge. This works best with soft herbs such as parsley, chervil, coriander and basil.
* If you are trying to get soft-boiled quail’s eggs out of their shells, soak them in malt vinegar at room temperature for a minute. The shells should peel off easily afterwards.

The original article

Marketing Green & Black's: Organic plus luxury adds up to the taste of success

The Independent

Easter means chocolate, and for ever-growing numbers of consumers, chocolate means Green & Black's. Ian Burrell reports on one of the greatest marketing triumphs of recent years.

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Food & drink special: When Michael met Elizabeth

The Independent

In 1966, Elizabeth David was a culinary legend who guarded her privacy fiercely. Michael Bateman was a young food writer. Securing this rare interview was the coup that made his name.

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Why we cough up for a cup of coffee

The Sunday Times

Reviewed by DAVID SMITH

THE UNDERCOVER ECONOMIST by Tim Harford
Little, Brown £17.99 pp288

The question why a cup of coffee costs so much has engaged philosophers and pundits, particularly in America, for years. How did Starbucks get people to pay $2 for something they were used to paying 25 and 50 cents for? The answer, of course, has implications beyond caffeine. Without the $2 cup of coffee there would not be a Starbucks (and similar coffee chains) in every town and mall in America. And without that, it is doubtful the coffee phenomenon would have spread to Britain and around the world.
Tim Harford, in his entertaining application of economic principles to everyday life, takes us back to David Ricardo, the great English classical economist, to explain coffee prices.

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Chocolate: The food of the Gods

The Independent

It was revealed this week that we are the biggest chocoholics in Europe. As we prepare to eat 80 million Easter eggs, Jonathan Brown and Eleanor Barham examine the lure of brown gold.
The history
The production
The health debate
The cultural significance
The new wave

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Britons are Europe's biggest chocolate-lovers

The Independent

By Louise Barnett

Britons are the biggest chocoholics in Europe, munching through an average 10kg (22lb) per year, figures show.
The national sweet tooth cost an average £72 per person last year, compared to the Italians, who spent £18, the market analysts Datamonitor said.

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Monster egg goes on sale in Piccadilly shop for £50,000

The Independent

By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent

Even by the standards of a London food scene that has marketed such extravagances as an £108 bowl of soup, the cost of this chocolate Easter egg may shock the unsuspecting shopper.
The "Diamond Stella Egg" going on sale at the Piccadilly shop La Maison Du Chocolat outshines previous examples of gourmet conspicuous consumption - with a price tag of £50,000. Two guards will protect the egg when the shop opens at 10am today.

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Bully for you, El Bulli

The Guardian, G2

By Heston Blumenthal

I heard that my restaurant the Fat Duck had come second in the 2006 World's 50 Best restaurant awards a couple of days ago, and I have to say I think it's almost a better result than last year, when I won. And I'm really pleased that Ferran Adrià's El Bulli has won. He and I have been good friends for years. ...

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A boozy dinner is best way to break the ice

The Times

By Julian Evans

RUSSIANS have a reputation for being cold and unfriendly.
But nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, they are a warm and emotional people.
The key to doing business in Russia is getting things on to a personal footing. You could do this by bringing a present from Britain to your business client. Russians love all things British, particularly luxury items from Harrods, Fortnum & Mason and Burberry. Souvenirs from Chelsea Football Club also go down well.
Having a boozy dinner is the best way to break the ice. Proposing long and sentimental toasts is also a good idea, but never sip your vodka — it should go down in one gulp.

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How does the £85 sandwich taste? In a word: rich

The Guardian

By Maev Kennedy

* Huge lunch on sale at London department store
* It's not a gimmick, says chef who created it
The women stopped, gaped, peered more closely to make sure they hadn't missed a decimal point, and then laughed. The fat sandwich, under a glass dome on the Selfridge's deli counter, was indeed labelled £85.

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In praise of ... Heston Blumenthal

The Guardian, Leader

His restaurant, the Fat Duck at Bray, was only voted the second best in the world this year after being chosen as the very best in 2005, but that is something he can live with. To finish in the top two for two consecutive years is something Heston Blumenthal - and the rest of the country - can be truly proud of. This year he lost to the celebrated El Bulli in Spain, which has been in the top three every year since Restaurant Magazine started the exercise in 2002.

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Fat Duck loses out to El Bulli in world top 50

The Guardian

By Patrick Barkham

After winning last year, British chef Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck had to settle for second place in the World's 50 Best Restaurants awards as Ferran Adria's El Bulli in rural Spain returned to the top spot it first claimed four years ago.
Blumenthal fared better than many British chefs under new rules devised by Restaurant Magazine. Last year, 14 of the top 50 were British; this year, there were six. Nobu was 12th, and Gordon Ramsay at 68 Royal Hospital Road, 14th.
Michel Roux Jr's Le Gavroche won an outstanding value award, while St John and Hakkasan were also in the top 40.

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It should have been one of the great vintages - but they just couldn't leave well alone

The Times

From Jane MacQuitty in Bordeaux and Adam Sage in Paris

IT WAS predicted to be a classic vintage to rival the best postwar clarets and to rescue vineyards in decline. To the winemakers of Bordeaux, 2005 was going to be their saviour.
Heady comparisons with the great years of 1961 and 1982, which set new standards for the world’s finest and largest red wine region, have been rife.
But, while many vineyards will have the claret of the century on their hands, as many as a quarter of the region’s 14,000 wine producers could have bungled the opportunity by excessive use of high- tech equipment and clumsy techniques.
They had a textbook vintage, created by sunny days, cool nights and a long, disease-free growing season that culminated in a warm, dry harvest. But some producers could not resist the temptation to meddle with their wines and, in doing so, they have caused another setback for Bordeaux and the French wine industry.

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'Most expensive sandwich' on sale

BBC News

Hungry shoppers are being offered the chance to eat a gourmet sandwich, but the £85 price tag might be too much for some to swallow.
The McDonald sandwich - named after its creator Scott McDonald, the chef at London department store Selfridges - is said to be the world's most expensive.
Its cost is down to the Wagyu beef that makes up most of the filling, packed in a 24-hour fermented sour dough bread.

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Photo from BBC News

Culture choc

The Times, S2

By Sarah Vine

It's no longer just chocolate, it's a fashion statement. So what does your Easter egg say about you? Our correspondent explains, and our tasting panel gives its verdict on a dozen eggs.

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A chocolate a day...

The Sunday Times
Comment

The ancient Mayans drank it for fertility, and the Spanish conquistadores ground it into paste and ate it to calm their stomachs and cure catarrh. Now the good news is that we are encouraged to eat chocolate to stay healthy. A London professor is prescribing chocolate to patients with cardiovascular disease to test whether the flavanols in it improve their condition, chocolate’s beneficial effects on blood flow being known. Mars is developing a chocolate-style medicine to be used to treat diabetes, strokes, dementia and heart disease. A few chocs daily may prevent fatal diseases or even improve sex drive. We wish.

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Sweet taste of Britain's A-list? Sorry, it's off

The Observer

UK menus ruled the World's Top 50 last year. This year we are nowhere. Restaurant critic of the year Jay Rayner asks why.

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Soundbites: Pasta master

The Guardian, G2

By Alex Kapranos

There's a wok full of pasta tubes glistening green on the stove. They're delicious. Jessica is cooking tonight. Her husband Bill is rewiring a 10-channel Flickinger pre-amp into Sly Stone's old mixing desk. Sly's old roaches still lie among the circuitry. Bill and Jessica own the Key Club Studio in Benton Harbor, Michigan, where we are recording for a few days.

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New rules issued to ensure food safety

The Independent

By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent

Restaurants have been told to stop preparing gourmet dishes consisting of raw eggs and half-cooked poultry to eliminate any risk of catching bird flu.
The Food Standards Agency is advising the food industry and the public only to serve meat where the juices run clear and eggs that have solid whites.

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Blumenthal's online archive to preserve recipes for posterity

The Independent

By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent

Heston Blumenthal, the self-taught chef whose restaurant in Berkshire has been judged the best in the world, is starting an internet archive to record his food experiments.
The cook has two full-time staff extending the boundaries of culinary science in a kitchen laboratory, but until now their work has been filed away. The computer database will help Blumenthal analyse the results of his experiments and preserve them for posterity.

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Why we have a high old time on chocolate

The Times, S2

By Dr Thomas Stuttaford

People have always enjoyed the effect of cocoa. As the Easter egg season approaches, we explain why
Bacchus, the god of wine, is often linked with regeneration. Nothing looks as dead as a vine in winter, but come the spring few other plants look so bright and vernal. It is an annual example that out of death comes life. Whereas the followers of Bacchus had vines and wine as examples of everlasting life and annual renewal, we now have to make do with chocolate Easter eggs.
Every year spring is heralded by the appearance of Easter eggs at sweet shops, supermarkets, newsagents and garages.
If wine was Bacchus’s tipple of choice, the Aztecs and Mayans opted for cocoa.

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Fancy lunch? Great ... what's your name?

The Guardian, page 1

By Oliver Burkeman in New York

Jared Nissim wanted to make one thing clear. "This is definitely not a dating service," the 32-year-old New Yorker explained, as a motley group of 18 men and women, many unknown to each other, gathered around a long table at a Manhattan restaurant.
"If I ran this as a dating service, you'd just get a bunch of guys trolling for women. And then the women wouldn't show up, because they'd know it was just a bunch of guys trolling for them. So eventually there'd be no women to troll for. And at that point," he concluded, with unarguable logic, "even the guys wouldn't show up."
Exactly the opposite has happened with the Lunch Club, the organisation Mr Nissim founded in 2001 to combat his isolation as a bachelor living alone and working from home in New York. He wasn't looking for romance, just for friends, so he posted a speculative message on Craig's List, the website millions of Americans use to arrange everything from apartment rentals to random sexual encounters. Did anyone, he inquired, want to join him for lunch?

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Food companies 'failing to tackle diet crisis'

The Independent

By Cahal Milmo

The world's 25 biggest food companies are failing to take the global crisis in diet seriously and often only change their practices when faced with adverse publicity that could damage their sales, a new study claims.
From Wal-Mart to Aldi and McDonald's to Coca-Cola, the world leaders of the food industry are accused of a "pathetic" performance on meeting targets set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2004 to tackle obesity, heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

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Blogger's culinary odyssey awarded literary honour

The Independent, Home, P. 17

By Cahal Milmo

The Blooker Prize, established to reward books born on the web, aims to highlight the potential of the blogging culture to create, if not poetic gems, then at least mainstream fiction and non-fiction.
The award was given to Julie Powell, a former secretary in New York for her book, Julie and Julia, based on her blog which chronicled her campaign to cook all 524 recipes in a classic French cookbook in her small kitchen in a year.
Since publication, the blook has sold 100,000 copies and secured its author a publishing contract.

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Sweden's pungent herring treat is grounded by airlines

The Independent, Europe

By Jerome Taylor

Surstromming, the highly pungent but much-loved Swedish dish of fermented herring, has a habit of offending the uninitiated with its peculiar taste and overpowering smell of rotten garbage.
But now the national favourite, traditionally devoured in the summer months with large quantities of highly alcoholic liquor, has fallen foul of the airline industry which has asked passengers not to take it on board, saying it poses a safety risk.

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The cookery rules that are made to be broken

The Times, Times 2

By Joanna Weinberg

In the kitchen there are no absolutes: For me the most joyful, terrifying, engaging, deflating fact about cooking is its disregard for exactitude.

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Wild harvest: the edible delights of the countryside

The Independent, Life&Culture, Green Pages

By John Andrews

Miles Irving forages in the countryside for edible plants - then sells them to top chefs. It's a perfect marriage of conservation and commerce, he tells.

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Châteauny Blair: Labour's staggering £1m wine bill

The Independent, Home News

By Marie Woolf and Raymond Whitaker

It's one of the Government's most closely guarded secrets. But we can reveal the contents of the fabled Whitehall cellar.
Nearly 40,000 of Britain's most closely guarded secrets are held in the vaults of Lancaster House, just off The Mall in London. The details are so sensitive that the Government has resisted several attempts under the Freedom of Information Act to have them made public.
Today, however, The Independent on Sunday is in a position to lift a corner of this shroud of secrecy. Since Tony Blair took office in 1997, we can reveal, New Labour has spent almost £1m of taxpayers' money on replenishing the supplies cellared under Lancaster House.

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Fantasy kitchens

Sunday Times

By Katrina Burroughs

With gas-lift hydraulics, steam ovens, leather and platinum, cooking in style is as important as practicality in the latest statement room.
The kitchen has always been the heart of the home; it’s also the place to really make a design statement and, if you have the cash, the sky’s the limit. Bespoke budgets often hit six figures. Chef Gordon Ramsay reportedly spent £500,000 on the kitchen at his home (including a £67,000 Rorgue cooker), but a beautiful kitchen is a must even for those who rarely lift an oven glove.

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School meals revolution hits home

Sunday Times

By Deirdre Fernand

The dinner lady who teamed up with Jamie Oliver to kill off Turkey Twizzlers in schools is now encouraging children to take the message to their parents.

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Obituaries: Michael Bateman

The Times

Michael Bateman: March 25 1932 - March 26, 2006

Gregarious food journalist who adventured in search of unfamiliar flavours and exotic ingredients.

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