Republican Candidates Offering American Voters Quite a Menu of Choices

Currently Republican Party members in the United States are watching an interesting array of candidates all vying for their party’s 2012 nomination against the popular U.S. President Barack Obama.  

After 19 angry debates the field has narrowed to four still eager contestants – Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum.

And while their suggested policies for improving existing economic conditions ranging from voluntary self-deportation for non-citizens to a fantasy manned lunar space colony, perhaps their political points of view (and personalities) are most clearly reflected in their choice of favorite foods.

Ron Paul loves healthy organic soups and salads. Mitt Romney enjoys traditional New England baked beans while Rick Santorum likes a plain grilled cheese sandwich.  And Newt Gingrich, well, he loves ice cream with everything on it.

The above is not exactly a menu (or an array of candidates) that will likely delight insightful diners or thoughtful Republican Convention delegates as they contemplate the actual needs of the 21^st century.

It seems there are only two choices possible – ones that any experienced chef would recommend: (1) change the menu or (2) get ready for an empty dining room (and a massive electoral loss).

The results of the American presidential election is a matter that effects more than just the United States. As every chef who sources his or her products from around the world knows, we live within a very connected community on this small planet.

It is vital that the American people reach beyond a simplistic diet of phrases and political rhetoric to a larger cuisine of inclusive understanding and mutual respect.   

Without such a choice, well, we're all going to need a very big drink in the very near future to make it through the darkening evening of our very legitimate concerns.

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2012

Texas Food Trucks Go Big with Small

Forget about bratwurst, wurst and any other kinds of sausages -- döner kebaps (sometimes spelled with a final 'b') have overtaken all other traditional German fast food as that country’s favorite new on-the-go meal. Even such esteemed European leaders as Germany's very busy Chancellor Angela Merkel take time out to enjoy this legendary sandwich on a regular basis.

But less you think that Germany is having all the culinary fun, just look towards the US state of Texas where big is better and now even the small has a chance for success.

The Verts Kebap, a Berlin-style restaurant in Austin, Texas, is now offering these savory grilled meat snacks, first brought to Germany by Turkish immigrants during  the 1970s.

Each large sandwich features slow roasted meats wrapped in pita bread and topped with shredded lettuce, tomatoes, onions  and a wide variety of dressings.

As you might guess, döner kebaps are a great hit with both the penny-watching students from the University of Texas and the rushed legislators from the nearby state office buildings. 

But just when it seems that everything in Texas is about big-bigger-biggest, take a look at the unique food trucks this innovative restaurant is using.

When not serving their tasty sandwiches, the restaurant's owners have been working with a team of German engineers to modify a small e-car into the world’s smallest a food truck. Unbelievably, each mini food truck contains refrigerator units, food warmers and sinks – all to code!

But to be totally fair, it should be noticed that on arrival the staff sets up a tent, which gives them a little extra space (and some coverage from the mighty Texas sun).

The mini food trucks are such a hit around the city that extra drivers are currently being hired. All in all it just might be that the new big is small no matter what ‘state’of mind one is in. 

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2011

Warner's Food Landscapes Are Perfect for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas Displays

Well, we should correct that title - actually Carl Warner's imaginative landscapes, crafted entirely from edible foods, are absolutely eye-catchers year round. 

And his stunning images created from piles of cheese and pieces of bread more than prove that point. Trained as a photographer, he uses silver fish fillets to create a simmering sea and bacon to reproduce a country waterfall.

Add in a skilled support staff at his London studio and the latest in digital imagery software and results are those that any chef can envy (and want to duplicate).

If you are inspired, check out his recent book, Food Landscape - it is truly amazing and can reminds us all that true creativity is boundless and exciting. 

Why not then create something different this holiday season and truly put your culinary talents 'on display'?

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2011

You Will Be Inspired by the New Film THE WAY

Our profession is not a mere job, done for dollars. Rather it is a journey about life’s meaning learned along the way every day.

Now there is an outstanding new movie, The Way, starring Martin Sheen and directed by his own son, Emilio Estevez shares that experience step by step, frame by frame.

Sheen plays a busy corporate father - too busy to be a father. On learning that his only son has died while walking the pilgrims’ path on Spain’s famed Camino de Compostela, Sheen’s character Tom decides to complete the journey to honor his lost son’s memory.

Among the way, among the welcoming plates and glasses of Spanish food and wine that he’s offered, the grieving father finds more the past, he finds the very ingredients of meaning that are sadly missing in his own life.  

Those of us who have spent a lifetime within the industry know that what we do is about more than mere profit or product produced.

It is about an alchemy that involves our very lives, the meaning of our days well spent – a magic made from the everyday, dish by dish, choice by choice. Like the pilgrims in the movie The Way, we also walk a path of discovery, a journey of exploration that in the end is about who we have chosen to become through the amazing medium of our profession.  

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2011

Recent Culinary Trends Are Back to Basics from the Caveman Diet to Better Butter

The hottest new culinary trends now include both the very old to the newest of the new.  Just consider, for example, the newest dietary trend – the caveman diet. Yes, that’s right, the caveman diet.

Called the “Paleo Diet” by academics such as Loren Cordain of Colorado Sate Univeristy, it focuses on a return to the 10,000 year old diet of Stone Age hunters and gatherers. As a result, it is heavy on meat, restrictive of most modern grains and devoid of processed or cultivated foods.

Initial reports suggest the diet can assist in alleviating such modern health issues as obesity, Tyoe-2 diabetes and an assortment of coronary problems. But there’s just one problem – you have to have the physical activity level of a caveman to burn off the accumulated calories from so much protein.

Ouch! In our far more sedentary modern lifestyle, few of us have the time to equal the effort of a bison hunt via exercising at the gym.

In addition, few individuals from the Paleolithic era lived past 30 years of age. Maybe the short lifespan made eating all that very rare meat and gathered berries bareable.

Also making a return from the past is better butter.  For a long time the best butter came, like so many things culinary, from la belle France where it is revered like fine wine and cheese with its own AOC classification, based on region and butterfat content. 

Sadly, America has suffered through margarine and over-commercialized butter with reduced butterfat and added salt and water. The result was higher profits for the manufacturers and poorer pastries for the consumer.

If you doubt this is a serious matter on the food front, just consider that embattled US dairy farmers staged a “Margarine War” in a valiant effort to limit the sale of the butter substitute.  They gladly prosecuted and sent any bootleggers of fake butter that they encountered to jail!

But it’s the French who literally declared war on margarine. During World War I French soldiers were so enraged at supple officers, who forwarded margarine instead of real butter to the front lines, they loaded it into their 75mm howitzer cannons and shot it over to the Germans! (The famed 75 Champagne Cocktail was created in Paris to honor those very guns and was a favorite of the young American reporter Ernest Hemingway).

America, however, can now take heart. With the rise of artisan cheese has come the availability of better butters, many matching the famed butters on France in butterfat (83% and above) and flavor.

Hurray and congratulations to these fine producers.  All is not lost. But take heart, if you long for the modern. Jean-Louis Hecht, a baker from northeast France has invented and installed a 24-hour automated baguette dispenser.

Yes, yes, it does allow access to “fresh” bread during the evening, over a holiday or when many of France’s 33,000 bakeries take their August vacation. But is this really what we want? Bread from a machine, not a bakery – a place traditionally filled with the heavenly smell of all that’s best?

Perhaps absolutely ancient and equally so hip modern, are extremes too far.  Humanity has struggled for endless centuries to reach enjoyable cuisine.  Let’s not throw away the best for over simplification or excessive modernization.

Here’s to cheese, bread, butter and all at makes life enjoyable!

 Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2011