November 23, 2009 | 10:10
pm
The TV queen of Southern food gets whacked with a ham at a charity event while Food Marathon leads intrepid gluttons on an epic restaurant crawl -- and more in today's food news roundup.
-- Sushi fraud! DNA tests reveal that "tuna" is often fake or endangered species. Wired
-- 13 restaurants in 11 hours: the 11 in 11 Food Marathon
-- From poutine to New Mexico cuisine, a look at Portland's food carts. Los Angeles Times
-- Hershey considers making a bid to buy Cadbury. It needs more than $17 billion to top offer from Kraft. Wall Street Journal
-- Salon launches a food section
-- Paula Deen hit with flying ham! WHEC
-- Pennsylvania police will withdraw theft charges against two students who refused to leave a tip at a pub for what they said was bad service. The Morning Call
-- Ben & Jerry's debuts Maple Blondie ice cream in honor of Vermont native and Olympic gold-medalist snowboarder Hannah Teter
-- Gift suggestion for beer lovers: "The Naked Pint." Brand X
-- OpenTable unveils list of 70+ L.A. restaurants that offer private dining services
-- The four acts of Ondal's spicy crab soup. Eat, Drink & Be Merry
-- Six reasons bacon is better than true love
-- Elina Shatkin
Photo: Dr. Billy Ingram / Getty Images
November 20, 2009 | 5:15
pm
The charming 3rd Street bakery Kiss My Bundt, which we have featured a few times in this blog (since its bundts and cupcakes are so tasty) is in a bit of trouble. Due to the recession and the rising cost of ingredients such as milk, butter, sugar and Belgian chocolate, the little bakery is struggling to stay afloat.
Last week, investor Erin Hill sent out an e-mail saying in part:
Chrysta [Wilson], the owner of the bakery, has been fighting valiantly since things got tough in January, but hasn't been able to build the business fast enough. So it has come down to the next few weeks, in which she has to sell about 5000 mini bundts to raise the money to keep her doors open into the Christmas season, when business will hopefully pick up.
It's surprising news, since the bakery has become a favorite with a lot of dessert-loving people I know and is often mentioned on popular blogs. Wilson even has a "Kiss My Bundt" cookbook coming out over Thanksgiving.
-- Jessica Gelt
Photo: A maple bacon bundt cake from Kiss My Bundt. Credit: Noelle Carter / Los Angeles Times
November 19, 2009 | 8:04
am
El Churrero -- the Churro Man -- sidesteps tamale carts, squeezes between bumpers and beggars, working 24 lanes of idling vehicles.
He walks through shimmering exhaust clouds, hawking sombreros teetering atop his head and sweets held aloft in a blue basket. His churros are warm and moist. "Churros here," he yells. "If they're not hot, you don't pay."
Deciderio Mauricio Cantera first waded into the sea of traffic at the gateway to California in 1968 and set eyes on the bored and the hungry as they waited, fidgeted and honked, inching toward the San Ysidro Port of Entry.
This isn't a traffic jam, thought Mauricio. This is a swap meet on wheels.
To American border crossers, the ragtag knots of vendors have long evoked wonder, pity and annoyance -- symbols of disorder and desperation at the shabby entrance to the developing world.
But there's much more to it than that. Read the rest of Mauricio's story here, in this special report from the border:
Photo: Deciderio Mauricio Cantera moves through traffic at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. Credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times
November 15, 2009 | 11:07
am
On most days, Andrea Deckard can be found in her home office, digging through stacks of coupons and grocery receipts for money-saving tips and recipes that she can share with readers of her Mommy Snacks blog.
That is, when the stay-at-home mom isn't being wined and dined by giant food companies.
Earlier this year, Frito-Lay flew her to Los Angeles to meet celebrities such as model Brooke Burke and the Spice Girls' Mel B, while pitching her on its latest snack ad campaign.
More recently, Nestle paid to put her and 16 other so-called "mommy bloggers" -- and one daddy blogger -- up at the posh Langham Huntington hotel in Pasadena, treated them to a private show at the Magic Castle in Hollywood and sent packages of frozen Omaha Steaks to their families to tide them over while the women were away learning all about the company's latest product lines.
In return, Deckard and her virtual sisterhood filed Twitter posts raving about Nestle's canned pumpkin, Wonka candy and Juicy Juice drinks.
"People have accused us of being corporate shills," said Deckard, a Monroe, Ohio, mother of three whose junkets also have included a free trip to Frito-Lay's Texas headquarters. Deckard, noting that she is up front with her readers about such trips, said they were educational for her and her fans, and "just fun."
Read more here:
Photo: Andrea Deckard, a stay-at-home mom in Monroe, Ohio, points to a post on her Mommy Snacks blog. Both Frito-Lay and Nestle have brought her to Los Angeles this year to be entertained and to learn about their products. Credit: Samantha Grier / Dayton Daily News
November 9, 2009 | 10:41
pm
Aaaah, the glamorous life of being an international sports star ... full of European travel and dining at the finest restaurants. Well, in theory anyway. One of the highlights of ESPN's TrueHoop basketball blog is the occasional report from former Virginia Tech basketball player Coleman Collins, who is now playing for Ulm in Germany's Bundesliga.
A 6-foot-9 (2.06-meter) center for the team, Collins is also a wonderfully gifted writer. But not so much of a cook. Think he's dining on schnitzel and sauerbrauten? Then you probably don't know any twentysomething basketball players. In his latest post, Collins turns to food writing, extolling the pleasures of Maruchan instant ramen (apparently hard to find in Germany!) and, when all else fails, lunch at IKEA.
Something tells me this isn't exactly the way Kobe Bryant eats.
-- Russ Parsons
Photo courtesy of Ulm Basketball
November 5, 2009 | 3:17
pm
How will two-buck Chuck compete against 7-Eleven's new wines? How does someone steal 70 cases of pizza? How do you open a bottle of wine with nothing but willpower and your shoe? All this and more in today's food news roundup.
-- How to open a bottle of wine in France: For those times when you've been up all night, you're drunk and all you want to do is drink another bottle of wine, but you're in the street, you have no corkscrew and the stores aren't open yet. Happens all the time. YouTube
-- Speaking of which ... 7-Eleven's making its own wine. Oh, thank heavens. Dallas Observer
-- Hotel and nightclub impresario Sam Nazarian slams into ugly financial reality. Could this be part of the reason behind SBE's recent split with Brent Bolthouse? Wall Street Journal
-- Auntie Em's tops list for best cupcake shop; Sprinkles left out. LAist
-- A $47,000 lunch tab from Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. Buzzfeed
-- In the ongoing Tavern on the Green saga, the venue hosted the Halloween party from hell, say booted patrons. New York Daily News
-- BBC's "MasterChef" cooks critically endangered eel. Oops. The Telegraph
-- It's cloudy with a chance of record-setting meatballs in New Hampshire. Yahoo! News
-- Tasting ecstasy and agony at Le Cordon Bleu in Ottawa. New York Times
-- 70 cases of brat pizzas stolen from Wisconsin company. Sheboygan Press
-- A preview of the apocalypse: Boston Markets will all run dry. Consumerist
-- Elina Shatkin
Photo: Meatball appetizers, distant cousins of the New Hampshire record setters, at the Crow Bar and Grill in Corona Del Mar. Credit: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times
October 30, 2009 | 10:17
am
A tiny insect that threatens California's $1.6-billion citrus industry has been found near one of the state's commercial citrus growing regions.
The Asian citrus psyllid, which has ravaged orchards in Florida as well as overseas, was found in Valley Center in rural San Diego County, the closest the bug has come to a major concentration of citrus groves. Read more here.
Photo: Los Angeles Times
October 3, 2009 | 12:16
pm
Rocco DiSpirito just might be the bravest man alive.
The celebu-chef -- who did not appear to be carrying any firearms or other form of self-protection -- sauntered into the middle of several hundred hooting, hollering, amped-up-on-coffee food bloggers, and attempted to sell them on frozen food. That's right, he was pitching Bertolli's new line of frozen foods to a group of (mostly) women who spend their spare time crafting recipes, cooking, and photographing, blogging, reading and commenting about all manner of food, glorious food.
I told you he was brave.
Rocco was one of the bold-faced names on hand for BlogHer Food '09, the first BlogHer conference dedicated solely to food bloggers. About 300 people were in attendance for the sold-out Sept. 26 event at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco. It was so successful that discussions are already underway for a second food-dedicated conference, said Lisa Stone, co-founder and chief executive of BlogHer, an online community hub for more than 22,000 female bloggers on a variety of topics including politics, news, technology, family and, obviously, food.
September 29, 2009 | 7:30
pm
In today's paper the very prolific Dan Neil writes about
a new Burger King ad campaign that Neil points out goes a long way toward shattering one of advertising's most effective illusions. That would be that when a celebrity endorses a product, he or she is probably lying about loving it.
In the ad, which will be broadcast live during an Oct. 20 webcast, NASCAR driver Tony Stewart will be hooked up to a polygraph machine and asked, "Does Tony really love Burger King's Whopper sandwich?" Neil goes on to point out that folks in front of the TV don't actually believe that Sarah Jessica Parker uses Garnier, or that Paris Hilton loves Carl's Jr. The list goes on and on. If Stewart passes his Whopper-love test, that might have to change.
And it probably won't be hard for him to pass a polygraph test. Stewart looks like a guy who really does eat a Whopper every now and again. That said, I'll probably still be suspicious if he passes. Who knows if the machine being used in the webcast really is a polygraph machine? And maybe Stewart is actually on a macrobiotic diet. You really can't believe anything you see on TV.
-- Jessica Gelt
Photo: Burger King
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September 25, 2009 | 5:03
pm
Is Sona restaurant closing? A Sona representative said the West Hollywood restaurant's "management company has exited the fine dining business resulting in a public sale of their assets," scheduled for Wednesday. All inventory, furniture, fixtures, equipment and any other assets of Sona LLC will be sold, according to a notice of public sale.
Sona chef-partner David Myers has formed a new management company, David Myers Group LLC. The new company includes "a team of professionals currently involved with his restaurants." David Myers Group plans to announce the opening of a new restaurant this fall.
Meanwhile, Sona is still open and is operating as usual.
-- Betty Hallock
Photo: David Myers at Sona. Credit: Christine House / For The Times
[Updated 6:08 p.m.: An earlier version of this post omitted that Sona is still open.]
