Media watch: Jamie Oliver calls Sarah Palin a 'froot loop'; Ludo's pop-up TV show; Anthony Bourdain in Haiti

 
Jamie Oliver fights fire with fire: In an interview with the Associated Press, Jamie Oliver countered the barrage of finger pointing by conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin against the Obama administration's healthful eating agenda, claiming that Palin was a “froot loop” when it came to the nation’s food issues. Oliver, who is currently filming the TV show "Jamie's Food Revolution" in Los Angeles, lamented that the nation is in a “really dark moment” regarding childhood health and nutrition, insisting that the lack of healthful eating options and awareness in the U.S. bears the significance of a “civil rights issue.” Then there’s Rachel Ray’s take: "How could you criticize the idea of children playing in the sunshine and eating healthy food?"

Ludo on the Sundance Channel: Ludo Lefebvre has parlayed his pop-up restaurantconcept into a television show on the Sundance Channel. Set for July, the mini-series takes place in six different cities. Lefebvre and his wife/business partner, Kristine Lefebvre, will set up pop-up dinner events within a six-day time frame that revolve around the local community’s regional cuisine. Ludo and his wife are no strangers to the camera, having appeared on "Top Chef Masters" and "The Apprentice," respectively. With the circuit starting up in Alabama, Texas and South Carolina, all eyes will be fixed on how the French chef will merge his high-end repertoire with local comfort foods such as BBQ and fried chicken. Don’t blink, it's a short run -- just six episodes. As ever, Ludo is here today and gone tomorrow.

Anthony Bourdain in Haiti: Kicking off the seventh season of "No Reservations," Anthony Bourdain broke with his more familiar landscape of sunny beaches and Mai Tais for hard-hit Haiti. Following Sean Penn around at the sprawling tent city of his J/P HROPétionville camp, Bourdain avoided painting any fuzzy pictures of joy among the rubble. Encounters were often uncomfortable and intense, including somebody getting whacked with a belt when Bourdain tried to hand out food purchased from a street vendor. Nonetheless, the episode had a strong impact on viewers, causing the website of Penn’s relief organization to crash at one point from the flood of responses.  Selecting locations that include Nicaragua and Cambodia for the new season, Bourdain has certainly grasped the notion that venturing to emotionally charged locations can raise awareness beyond his typical media antics.

-- Max Diamond 

Photo of Jamie Oliver by Pat Carter/Associated Press; photo of Anthony Bourdain by Tom Pelling.

Coca-Cola says 'This American Life' failed to reveal its secret formula

 
Relax, everyone. The radio program "This American Life" came close with its attempts to reveal Coca-Cola's top-secret formula. But the formula is still very much safe, and still very much top-secret.

So says Atlanta-based Coca-Cola. The soft-drink giant has been bombarded with queries, e-mails and phone calls from around the globe ever since this weekend's edition of "This American Life" that suggested that the top-secret Coca-Cola formula was not-so-secret at all and added that "...we think we may have located the recipe."

'This American Life' says it's revealed Coca-Cola's top secret recipe [Updated]

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"This American Life" -- the popular public radio program -- says it's uncovered Coca Cola's secret recipe.

If true, it would appear to blow the lid off one of the most closely guarded secrets in U.S. corporate history. After all, legend has it that the recipe is tucked away in a bank vault, and that no more than two executives ever know the full recipe at any given time, as a safeguard to keep rivals from stealing it. According to the radio program, some of the ingredients that give Coca-Cola its unique taste include coriander and cinnamon. Click below to read the full recipe.

But here's where this story gets weirder, and why we'll need to keep tabs on it: "This American Life" is supposedly quoting the recipe from a 1979 article that ran inside the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which is the hometown paper to the Atlanta-based Coca Cola Co. We called and e-mailed Coca Cola for official word. We will keep you posted on what they say. And you can be sure there will be more to say: The flood of interest has apparently overloaded the radio program's website.

Best headline we've seen so far comes courtesy of those wags over at the Daily Mail: "Is this the real thing?"

I, personally, will reserve judgment. But if "This American Life" gets credit for revealing the secret recipe to Coca-Cola after it ran in the Atlanta newspaper 30 years ago, I would like credit for "discovering" the Grand Canyon on the trip I took to Arizona.

-- Rene Lynch
Twitter / renelynch

Photo: Joshua Lott / Reuters

Santa Monica's ban on plastic bags: What it means for you

The Santa Monica City Council approved an ordinance Jan. 25 prohibiting the distribution of single-use plastic carryout bags for most purposes. This will significantly affect the city's four certified farmers markets when it takes effect Sept. 1, but vendors and customers are just beginning to understand the ramifications. Click here to read David Karp's weekly Market Watch report on what it all means.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend: New government diet guidelines land Monday

Yes, the Dietary Guidelines are coming!

I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself all weekend because those meanies at the USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services are waiting till Monday to release them.

As to what they will contain: I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the guidelines will tell us to eat lots of fruits and vegetables, possibly in a rainbow of colors.

-- Rosie Mestel

Photo: The Dietary Guidelines invariably recommend we eat more produce than most Americans do. Credit: Beth Hall / Bloomberg News

Dennis Kucinich sues over a sandwich

When I first saw this story about U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) suing over a sandwich, I thought what you probably thought: "This country is lawsuit happy." But I stopped snickering when I read some of the details:

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is suing the operators of a House cafeteria for alleged negligence stemming from a 3-year-old incident involving a sandwich he says left him with significant dental injuries.

Kucinich is seeking $150,000 in damages... A copy of the suit obtained by the Cleveland Plain Dealer documents the April 2008 incident, in which Kucinich purchased a sandwich wrap he says was "represented to contain pitted olives." After consuming it, Kucinich found the olives were not pitted, causing "serious and permanent dental and oral injuries" that required "multiple surgical and dental procedures."

Now, my first question is this: Don't those fat cat politicians have Cadillac dental care? So is Kucinich actually out any dough? If so, how much? $150,000 is a lot of money. (But have you had any extensive dental work done lately, especially those involving "surgical...procedures"?)

I have no idea whether this suit is meritorious, as they say. But if you bought a sandwich that contained olives, would you expect them to be pitted? And if you crunched down on an olive with pits, and cracked a tooth or teeth or a bridge...would you just chalk it up to buyers' remorse? Or would you be a little more peeved than that?

What do you think? Does Kucinich have a point? Or is he taking advantage of the system?

--Rene Lynch
twitter.com/renelynch

Photo: Associated Press

Poll: Are you feeling foodie fatigue?

I'd answer in the affirmative, but I'm too tired.

Make some time to read this humorous and insightful piece written by our colleague Christopher Borrelli over at the Chicago Tribune. It's a heart-felt plea -- enough already! -- for calm in foodie nation. It's long, but it's worth it as it takes a look at the tiring "food-knowledge-as-competition thing, the fetishizing of "Top Chef," the debates over home sous-vide machines, the Twitter wars between chefs, farm-to-table dinners, lardcore, whoopie pies, raw milk, bitters."

This quote in the piece captures it best:

"Having more people interested in good food is never a bad thing," said food writer Amanda Hesser, who recently assembled "The Essential New York Times Cookbook." But what she can't stand, she said, is eating dinner with people who "only want to talk about food and every place where they ate, like, doughnuts or something, and where the best doughnuts are secretly found. Knowing a lot about food culture is a good thing. That cataloguing of food experience is becoming tiresome. I'm pro-food experts. I'm just not so sure I want to have dinner with them or have them judge me on the coffee I drink."

I also plead guilty to participating in some of this foodiot hysteria. What do you think? Are you guilty too? Or are you just tired of it all and glad that someone finally pointed it all out? Weigh in: 

--Rene Lynch
Twitter / renelynch

Photo: Molecular gastronomy meets Super Bowl buffalo wings in this dish by "Top Chef"-er Michael Voltaggio. And while I do suffer foodie fatique, I doubt that I'd ever get tired eating this (or anything else he serves). Photo credit: Krista Simmons / Los Angeles Times

Restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila photographed and kicked out of Red Medicine

Our restaurant critic has been unmasked.

S. Irene Virbila, the L.A. Times’ restaurant critic for the last 16 years, was visiting Red Medicine restaurant in Beverly Hills on Tuesday night when she was approached by managing partner Noah Ellis, who took Virbila’s picture without her permission and then ordered Virbila and her three companions to leave, refusing them service.

Ellis posted her picture on the restaurant’s Tumblr site, explaining that she was not welcome there.

No surprise that the posting immediately ricocheted throughout the blogosphere, generating plenty of discussion along the way. Over at food blogs Eater LA -- which also published Virbila's photo -- and Squid Ink, there were dozens of comments. Some called it a petty, vengeful act and a desperate bid to cover up persistent problems at the restaurant, while another praised Virbila as "an island of constancy in a sea of ever-changing food 'reviewers.' " 

There were also comments siding with Red Medicine: "... their reasons were grounded in the idea that no one person should have enough influence to take down an establishment, and sadly that is how things sometimes work in this fickle, fame obsessed town. i have seen people show up at restaurants with s.irene's reviews cut out so the[y] know what to order, as if they don't have an actual brain and the ability to decide for themselves, and then be upset when the menu has changed or something is not in season."

Ellis said he was intentionally trying to take away Virbila's anonymity because he does not like her reviews: “Our purpose for posting this is so that all restaurants can have a picture of her and make a decision as to whether or not they would like to serve her. We find that some her reviews can be unnecessarily cruel and irrational…"

Virbila said she and her companions had been waiting for 45 minutes past their reservation time when Ellis approached her, camera in hand. Ellis said on the site that Virbila arrived “in the middle of a particularly hairy service  … and because we had guests lingering, were not able to sit [her party] immediately.”

Ellis added, “We’re writing this to make everyone aware that she was unable to dine here, and as such, any retribution by her or on her behalf via a review cannot be considered to be unbiased.”

Times Food editor Russ Parsons said Virbila contacted him after the incident and was upset by it. It was humiliating to be confronted in such a manner, Parsons said, and Virbila felt violated to have her picture taken without her permission. But mostly, he said, “She was upset because she has worked extremely hard for more than 15 years to maintain her anonymity in the L.A. restaurant scene.”

Parsons said that a truly anonymous restaurant critic is increasingly rare in a world that revolves around instant communication and a camera is as close as your cellphone. Some media outlets say true anonymity is impossible and, as a result, no longer try to go to great lengths to hide a critic’s identity.

Anonymity is important because restaurant critics function as consumer advocates and want to ensure their meal closely mimics the meal and dining experience that anyone else would get if they were to show up at that restaurant. If the critic is known, the staff can go out of its way to give them special treatment.

To that end, Virbila makes reservations under a different name, never uses her own phone number and even pays with a credit card issued in a different name. She never accepts free meals for herself or her companions.  Review protocol calls for her to visit a restaurant on three separate occasions and sample a wide variety of menu options so that her reviews can truly inform readers.

“Restaurant meals can cost a lot of money,” Parsons said, “and we want to make sure that when one of our readers goes to a restaurant they can expect the same experience the critic received.”

The Times will continue with its plans to review Red Medicine. The restaurant was chosen for review, Parsons said, because of its pedigree –- Ellis has worked in the past with noted chef and restaurateur Michael Mina. And, Parsons added, “We had hopes that they would be doing interesting things with Southeast Asian food. We will still review them.”

As for Virbila? “Virbila has been our restaurant critic since 1994. We consider her to be one of the premier restaurant critics in the U.S.,” he said.

--Rene Lynch
Twitter / renelynch

Photo credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Flame retardant chemicals found in butter

 
Does Paula Deen know about this?

Flame retardant chemicals that are known to be harmful to health have been found in a package of butter sampled in a Dallas grocery store. This is the first reported case of food contamination that is thought to have resulted from the chemicals used in the food packaging. Our Health section has more.

Photo: Flame retardants were found in a box of butter. Credit: Gary Porter / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / MCT

 

Animal rights activists plan to disrupt Providence dinner, foie gras menu

 

Animal rights activists plan to march outside Providence restaurant Tuesday night, protesting a menu at a special fundraising dinner that is slated to include foie gras.

The restaurant is holding a fundraising dinner in honor of the Bocuse d'Or USA Foundation, which selects and supports the American team that competes in the Bocuse d'Or, the international culinary competition named after chef Paul Bocuse, and considered the food world's version of the Olympics. Providence chef Michael Cimarusti is a culinary councilmember of Bocuse d'Or USA. According to the restaurant's website, the menu for the event -- tickets cost $150 per person -- will feature several noted L.A. chefs offering their interpretations of Bocuse's signature dishes. Among the multi-course menu items: duck stuffed with foie gras.

Providence co-owner and general manager Donato Poto said he was surprised to learn of the protest, but added that the menu would stand.