Like Water for Choclate uses Magical Realism to capture the transformative qualities of everyday food and drink into something more. Also consider reading (and enjoying) Joanne Harris' amazing Chocolat.
Once in the land of mass produced, high calorie foods, vegetarians were considered, well, just strange and marginal. But no longer.
Today veggies are seen as good and normal - part of an informed lifestyle choice. We should, of course, thank such culinary leaders as Alice Waters and Michelle Obama, who among others have helped to change the way we think about food.
As of last weekend, we can also thank Justin Timberlake and the creative team at Saturday Night Live who helped their millions of viewers to laugh and so take a trip to that once forbidden destination - Veganville.
Chefs will surely cheer (and so will the diners' doctors) - because now we can all "live longer and prosper".
Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2013
Why recycle? It's a simple question but one seldom asked. Recycling takes time and effort. Because of the resulting changes in schedules and additional duties, it may seem yet another burden in an already very busy day.
And isn't it the 'politically correct' thing to do? Maybe, but there is a larger reason that every hotel should recycle - life matters. Recycling shows an active and respectful engagement in the lives around us and no successful hotel stands in isolation from that experience.
Recycling enables that involvement to be a creative caring one, often for far less effort than one might think. Take for example the outstanding work of the Clean the World Program.
They will accept your used guest soaps, that many properties often throw away, clean and recycle them into new sanitary bars to those without something as simple as soap throughout the world.
Does it make a difference? Watch this video and decide for yourself. You can make a child laugh and live thousands of miles from your property by merely tossing those used soap bars into a recycling ben instead of the trash.
We all can make a difference - to show that it is people that are at the heart of our industry. Profit matters yes, of course, because that profit enables motion and extension, but towards what matters. And what matters? Not simply more money but a better world.
If we achieve that then our hearts (and hands) will sparkle brightly clean at the end of each and every day and we can be truly proud of what we do.
Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2012
Congratulations to Chef Thomas Keller! On March 29th he will receive France’s highest honor in acknowledgement of his outstanding work promoting an appreciation of French cuisine in America.
Famed French chef Paul Bocusewill present the medal in New York at Keller’s legendary Per Se Restaurant in the Time Warner Center. Once awarded, Keller will join a very elite group of only two other Americans. Alice Waters and Julia Child are the only other U.S. citizens from the culinary world to be so honored. Bravo Thomas!
The Legion of Honor (or Legion d’Honneur to use the correct French term) was established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802. The French Revolution had swept away the ancient merit system which honored only the “achievements” of the nobility. Napoleon wanted a new system that acknowledged talent, not birth or inherited family wealth.
With this intent in mind, Napoleon ordered the creation of the Ordre National de la Legion d’Honneur, the first modern order based on merit and creative contribution. Though most often given only to French citizens, exceptions have been made for those individuals who have honored the traditions and values of France around the world, despite their nationality.
One such person was the remarkable Josephine Baker, who dazzled the French with her singing and great beauty, but won their hearts with her courageous resistance efforts during World War II and her noble humanitarian efforts after the War ended.
Napoleon once said that medals and awards were but glittering baubles but that such things mattered because they inspire, they motivate, they tell us who is worthy to be followed. In awarding this great medal to Thomas Keller of French Laundry fame, they could not have chosen better.
Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2011
Monday, March 11, 2013 at 11:40AM 
