A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

David Chan, Chinese Restaurant Fan, Eats Springfield-Style Cashew Chicken

(Photo from Springfield News Leader)

David Chan, the man who was profiled in L.A. went virule for having eaten at over 6,000 Chinese restaurants in his city,  traveled to Springfield Missouri last week as a guest of the Convention & Visitors Bureau to have a taste of the Ozarks.

He ate at Leong's on Saturday with both David Leong, creator of Springfield-style cashew chicken, and David's son, Chef Wing Yee Leong.

 

 

For the complete story, see this article in the Springfield News Leader:

http://www.news-leader.com/article/20120826/NEWS01/308260032/L-A-man-Chinese-restaurants-Springfield-cashew-chicken?nclick_check=1

For my personal Springfield-style cashew chicken and/or cashew chicken casserole recipes, click here:

http://afridgefulloffood.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/04/voice-of-america-embraces-springfieldstyle-cashew-chicken.html

 

New York City's Next Food Law?

 

Chocolate Company Qzina Builds 18,000 lb Chocolate Mayan Temple for 30th Anniversary

An 18,000 lb CHOCOLATE Mayan temple--in layman's terms:  WOW!

From the Qzina company website:

"IRVINE, Calif.– To celebrate our 30^th anniversary, Qzina Specialty Foods, has broken a Guinness World Record for building the largest chocolate sculpture. The sculpture models an ancient Mayan temple and weighs 18,239 pounds, far surpassing the previous record set in Italy in 2010 by more than 7,500 pounds. 

Qzina chose the Mayan theme because of the crucial role the culture played in the origins of chocolate.  The Mayans were one of the first civilizations to cultivate Cacao trees and discover the true potential of the cocoa bean. Realizing the delicious possibilities of this powerful discovery, the Mayans worshipped the Cacao tree and praised its beans as the food of the Gods.

Qzina’s Corporate Pastry Chef, Francois Mellet, was the lead architect on this massive project and MOF Stephane Treand (Meilleur Ouvrier de France or Best Craftsman in France) lent his artistic touch to the sculpture’s intricate design elements. Mellet, together with his team, spent more than 400 hours constructing this magnificent structure of solid chocolate that was created using an assortment of Qzina’s leading chocolate brands.

“Breaking a Guinness World Record for building the largest chocolate sculpture will be Qzina’s greatest masterpiece yet,” said Richard Foley, founder and CEO of Qzina. “We studied Mayan pyramids at great lengths to create an exact replica of the Temple Kukulkan 
at Chichen Itza to honor the original chocolatiers.It was important for us to create something memorable in celebration of our 30th anniversary and the grand opening of the Qzina Institute of Chocolate & Pastry.”

Extensive planning and research set the groundwork to accurately capture the details and intricacies of an authentic Mayan temple down to the exact number of steps and panels representing numbers significant to the Mayan calendar. Built proportionally to the ancient temple’s true size, the solid chocolate pyramid is six feet tall and its base measures 10 feet by 10 feet – exactly one-thirtieth the size. The sculpture’s base alone weighs more than 3,000 pounds.

“It’s amazing how far the company has come; from the basement of my family home to a key player in the specialty dessert industry,” said Foley. “From day one, I’ve been as interested in the story behind the chocolate we source as the quality of the chocolate itself. We’ve built a rich 30-year history in the world of chocolate and pastry and I wanted to commemorate this milestone in a big way while showing our appreciation for where it all began.”

The chocolate pyramid will be displayed at the Qzina Institute of Chocolate & Pastry, located in Irvine, California, and will be available to view beginning June 4, 2012 when the institute and product showroom is officially open to the public (Monday – Friday, 10:00 a.m. –  5:00 p.m.). Qzina plans to destroy the chocolate sculpture on December 21, 2012 when the Mayan calendar comes to an end. The method for destruction is yet to be determined.

To see pictures of the world’s largest chocolate sculpture, visit the Qzina image gallery: http://www.flickr.com/photos/qzina "

Move over Food Pyramid for Choose My Plate

 

I really like the way First Lady, Michelle Obama, has headed up replacing the old Food Pyramid style nutrition icon with the new Choose My Plate icon. To me, even though this lacks in depth information about calories, the simplicity and the heart of the message is much, MUCH better.  This is what a meal plate should look like, even breakfast.  The concepts of breakfast and lunch or easily seen and comprehended, breakfast is if you think in terms of omelet with veggies, fruit, and whole wheat toast or yogurt with fruit, carrot sticks, and half a whole wheat English muffin sort of thing.  The glass icon for the milk is good, although I wish a second glass was there for water.

I applaud this change.  Very nicely done.

What's for Dinner? Ground up Pink Old Chicken Parts Paste Anyone?

 

Photo from this morning's Springfield News-Leader.

This is yet another good reason why I'm doing everything in my power to never need to eat fast food again if I can help it.  Cooking all our meals at home can be a pain sometimes, in the least it's not very convenient, but the alternatives are disgusting and terrible for our bodies.

After all the people who left out McDonald's Happy Meals and photographed them day after day with virturally no changes in appearance (translated: didn't decompose) (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20019427-10391704.html)  here's another reason to stop eating at fast food restaurants: http://www.news-leader.com/article/20110509/LIFE04/105090314/-1/NLETTER01/What-s-really-in-a-chicken-nugget?&source=nletter-news  The chicken nuggets are only approximately HALF chicken meat, the rest is bones, cartilage, skin, and fat, all ground up into a pretty pink paste that has to be colored with food dye to even approach appearing like chicken meat.

I'm not picking on just McDonald's.  All of the fast food chicken nuggets are like this. All of the fast food buns and commerical breads are teeming with preservatives.  All of the sodas and juices high fructose corn syrups or chemical sweeteners.  These items may all be edible by the definition that they don't poison us right away but they are certainly not not food nor nutrition. It's amazing that we wonder why the cancer and obesity rates are so high in this country. We're a nation of obese but nutritionally starved people.  Including me. It's sad that I/you/we have to work so hard and pay so much more at the grocery store for actual food that is nutritious for our bodies.  Do the CEO's, marketers, and food scientists of these companies not have families?  How can they produce this crap that their own families consume with a clear conscience? The even sadder thing is that even with knowing what I know, I still eat it when it's convenient and a lot of it still tastes good to me, but I am phasing it out. I'm hoping the day will come when the taste and smell of burgers and fries nauseates me.

 

Disney Chef Helps Celebrate The Royal Wedding

 

Disney Swan & Dolphin Resort just posted this photo of Princess Diana's tiara (top) along with the edible version Chef Branlard made entirely from pulled sugar (bottom).

Gorgeous! That is just incredible.  I keep staring at it, so impressed with his talent and the beauty that can be food.

Here's a link to their facebook page:  http://www.facebook.com/swananddolphin

How many folks here in the U.S. are planning to get up at crack of dawn's hiney to watch?  That's 0500 here in the midwest.  Yes. I will either get up or stay up and watch.  I can't help it. There is still something glamorous that speaks to my little girl heart about the pretty and seemingly nice girl who walks in the church a commoner and leaves as a princess.

Health & Wellness Done Right: Crapeteria to Healtheateria

I admit, and have often lamented on these pages, that our hospital's cafeteria didn't offer more healthy choices and higher quality food. Everybody I know bitches about  observes the same thing.  You would think a place where they put the patients on health-restricted diets would have plenty of healthy choices available to the employees and visitors but many hospitals offer the same transfat-laden, grease-heavy, processed food items that you can get at any fast food or diner type outlet.  If we're not going to be leaders in healthy eating, we should at least have healthy choices available to those who want them.

Well....

We got a memo today that hopefully proves that those with the power are paying attention to the employee surveys...

As of yesterday, I'm proud to say that my hospital cafeteria is now using only 90/10 lean ground beef, is doing away with hot dogs, doughnuts, pastries, and all but a few fried items (french fries), and will offer at least two entrees a day of higher quality, low processed, healthy meals.  They've also added a new cooler that has tons of house-made grab-n-go items like fruit and cheese plates with cottage cheese or yogurt (I get this all the time! Yum!),  and be-still-my-heart greek yogurt (and in my favorite: plain!  No added sugar!!!), grilled chicken wraps on whole grained tortillas, fruit parfaits, veggie/dip snack plates, etc.

I'M LOVING THIS!!!!!  Thank you!  This is the kind of food I eat at home, want to eat at work, and am proud to be a part of leading the way in healthy wholesome dine-out food. 

Kraft Foods to Increase Amount of Whole Grains in Its Products

http://www.news-leader.com/article/20100727/BUSINESS/7270316/-1/NLETTER01/Kraft-Foods-to-increase-whole-grain-in-products?source=nletter-news

Who Needs Jamie Oliver? The Eureka Springs Arkansas School District has had their own Food Revolution for Years

Chicken noodle soup.  Photo courtesy of Eureka Cool School Cafe
 

Much attention has been brought to school lunch programs lately through the efforts of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.  His goals are admirable even if parts of the mini-series are at times too reminiscent of reality TV stunts-for-the-drama for my taste (but I also realize that there are others above Jamie controlling that part of the show's content.) His message is this: 

"I believe that every child in America has the right to fresh, nutritious school meals, and that every family deserves real, honest, wholesome food. Too many people are being affected by what they eat. It's time for a national revolution. America needs to stand up for better food!"  --Jamie Oliver