Erwin Dreschler's restaurant to close July 1. *** 2:10 p.m. UPDATED BELOW WITH AN INTERVIEW WITH DRECHSLER *** Longtime Chicago chef Erwin Drechsler announced in an e-mail to customers that his eponymous Lakeview restaurant would be closing July 1 after 18 years. Drechsler's culinary influence around town have rippled long and wide. His acclaimed restaurants in the 1980’s — including Metropolis Cafe and Metropolis 1800 — were a training ground for future James Beard Award-winning chefs like Paul Kahan and Mindy Segal. Drechsler's cooking was influenced by the likes of Alice Waters, but to a greater extent, Jeremiah Tower and Wolfgang Puck, chefs who ushered in California cuisine.
"Erwin was the first guy who took me to a farmer’s market and taught me the ins and outs of seasonality," said Paul Kahan, who spent seven years cooking at three of Drechsler's restaurants. Said Mindy Segal of HotChocolate: "Erwin was one of the best chefs I ever worked for. Reservations are being taken now until dinner service Sunday on July 1. Bread As Body Parts: Artist Kittiwat Unarrom Bakes Gruesome Forms (PHOTOS) These images of work by Thai artist Kittiwat Unarrom are alarming, but don't call the cops just yet. What appear to be severed human body parts covered in blood are actually loaves of bread baked in grotesque form. The series has been around for awhile now -- this post on the blog Shape+Color dates to 2008 -- but it's making the rounds again thanks to all the gory events in the news recently.
Kittiwat is the son of a baker and has been making such creations since 2006. In 2010, he explained to CNN why he does it. “My family is in the bakery business and I learned to bake when I was about 10,” Kittiwat said. As of when the CNN article published, Kittiwat was selling his creations -- feet, hands, heads, internal organs and more -- at his family's bakery. See Kittiwat Unarrom's gruesome bread creations for yourself in the gallery and video below.
Loading Slideshow. Los Angeles: A Stylish Farewell to Foie Gras. A simple foie gras crostini. Are you mad at that? Last week, a group of food-enthusiast friends gathered in Los Angeles to bid farewell to a beloved icon of culinary history. The foie gras ban, which goes into effect statewide in California on July 1, is a relief to some and a tragedy to others. In this circle, the consensus was definitely "keep on stuffing. " Hathanh Nguyen, 26, from Pasadena, celebrated passing the bar exam last week by purchasing a pound and a half of goose liver from Gelson's, a California specialty market, with the intention of sending it off in style. Nguyen invited friends who would appreciate her efforts (and sizable investment) towards memorializing the delicacy. An avid cook, Nguyen kicked off the dinner with a simple foie crostini with Irish butter, salt and pepper, then moved on to apricot and bourbon-glazed chicken wings, pan-fried, stuffed with foie and briefly roasted.
Some were unaware that foie gras was even under fire. Countered Phan: "Stuff double. " James Beard Award-winning chef John Currence plans to open restaurant in Birmingham. Chef John Currence BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- James Beard Award-winning chef John Currence of Oxford, Miss., is teaming with Birmingham’s Fresh Hospitality Group to open a second location of his popular Oxford restaurant Big Bad Breakfast here. “We’ve always liked the breakfast-lunch concept and never really saw a brand that we really got excited about (before),” Michael Bodnar of the Fresh Hospitality Group said Tuesday. “We really like what John is doing, so it fit very nicely with us being able to expand our brand here. “It gave us a broader base without really any crossover from what we are already doing,” Bodnar said. “We’re not in the breakfast business anywhere. That is a huge opportunity for us.” The Fresh Hospitality Group’s current properties include Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafe, Riff Burgers and the new Little Donkey Mexican restaurant that opened in Homewood earlier this year.
Currence was in Birmingham on Tuesday to look at the space with his new Fresh Hospitality partners. Food Trucks Add American Flavor to Paris. In France, there is still a widespread belief that the daily diet in the United States consists of grossly large servings of fast food. But in Paris, American food is suddenly being seen as more than just restauration rapide. Among young Parisians, there is currently no greater praise for cuisine than “très Brooklyn,” a term that signifies a particularly cool combination of informality, creativity and quality. All three of those traits come together in the American food trucks that have just opened here, including Cantine California, which sells tacos stuffed with organic meat (still a rarity in France), and a hugely popular burger truck called Le Camion Qui Fume (The Smoking Truck), owned by Kristin Frederick, a California native who graduated from culinary school here.
“I got every kind of push-back,” said Ms. Frederick, 31. “People said: ‘The French will never eat on the street. “And, ‘You will never get permission from the authorities.’ ” But Ms. Mr. Ms. 2012 Atlanta Rising Star Pastry Chef Aaron Russell of Restaurant Eugene. Biography Growing up in the mountains of North Georgia, Pastry Chef Aaron Russell developed an appreciation for all nature had to offer—and particularly for the seasonal flora of his native Southern home.
With that love of nature firmly rooted in his soul, Russell turned toward the kitchen, and a career that meant working with his hands. He worked his way through culinary school while baking bread at night at Atlanta’s . After graduating, Russell became pastry chef for Johannes Klapdohr at , the first restaurant in the Southeast to receive four Mobil Stars. Four stars led to five when Russell earned a spot on the pastry team at in the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead, one of only 15 restaurants in North America with five Mobil Stars. Russell lived up to the pressure and took his experience to Guenter Seeger’s eponymous restaurant. Interview I started out as a savory chef. My style is what I like personally, what I do is aimed at pleasing the guests who come in here. Bay Area's La Boulange bakery sold to Starbucks. Bay Bread Group's La Boulange Cafe & Bakery, the San Francisco bake shop known for its French pastries and sandwich menu, was sold Monday for $100 million to Starbucks Coffee Co.
La Boulange's founder, Pascal Rigo, will remain general manager of both Bay Bread and La Boulange, while Starbucks plans to take the fast-casual restaurant chain national and fill its coffee shops with breads and pastries produced by the bakery. "It's a superb opportunity to bring high-quality food into Starbucks," said Cliff Burrows, president of the Seattle coffee company's United States and Americas division, adding that La Boulange also will start selling its own special Starbucks coffee blend.
As far as expanding La Boulange, Burrows said they "will take it one store at a time" and have not determined future locations. "Wherever opportunity takes us," he said. "It would have taken us much more time," Lépinard said. "Having Starbucks come in is an amazing opportunity for La Boulange and Bay Bread. " We’ve Got the Eats. Neta - NYC - Restaurant Review. Atlanta Restaurant Blog. Chef Shaun Doty demonstrates how to get the most out of a pastured chicken. Bizarra Capital restaurant review by Jonathan Gold. I'm not sure if it was the influence of some carne asada fries during a recent trip to San Diego or a dinner at Guelaguetza accompanied by a particularly potent dose of mezcal, but I had a dream about mole fries a few weeks ago.
It was a rather vivid one, where the potatoes crackled with hot life, tangles of melted cheese stretched into infinity and whorls of ink-black sauce carried with them intimations of the yawning void. It wasn't dinner on that plate — it was a cosmology summarized as a plate of drunk food. I awoke feeling still and small and a little scared. Did it register that mole fries were actually on the menu when I visited Bizarra Capital in Uptown Whittier a few days later? I'm not sure that it did. I had come to the restaurant because I had been tipped off to the existence of fried huauzontle there.
I had bought huauzontle myself a couple of times from growers at the Stanford-Avalon Community Garden in Watts, but my attempts to cook it had been pretty unsuccessful. Prices. Why Soybeans Sit On The Bench While Corn Takes The Field : The Salt. Hide captionCorn has the Nebraska Cornhuskers, but nobody's naming football teams for the soybean. beatboxbadhabit/Flickr.com Corn has the Nebraska Cornhuskers, but nobody's naming football teams for the soybean. Pity the poor, almighty, soybean. It's the nation's second blockbuster crop, corn's only serious rival, but nobody throws it a party. Think about it. Ines Prodöhl, a cultural and economic researcher at the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C., says it has no cultural resonance because it was for many years simply an industrial ingredient.
To demonstrate how little love there is for soy, she went to the Library of Congress's American Memory site, an amazing online repository of cultural artifacts, and searched for "soybean" or "soy. " Invisible, that is, unless you happen to be driving through the American Midwest or parts of Brazil and Argentina, where soybeans cover vast sections of prime farmland. Hide captionA Mozambique woman harvests soybeans Dan Charles/NPR. Doughnuts vs. cupcakes. Preserving Cabrini-Green's images In the sharp sun of an April afternoon, Nate Lanthrum walks through the remains of Cabrini-Green giving away what he has taken. He looks out of place, a white guy carrying a $1,500 Nikon D700 camera, but the residents are used to him by now and greet... Blackhawks thrilled to have Brent Seabrook back Starting with Game 6 Sunday, Brent Seabrook's timeout will be over and the defenseman will be back on the ice — so long as he promises to play nice.
The Blackhawks have done pretty well in Seabrook's absence, winning all three games the NHL... NFL draft preview: Defensive ends As the NFL draft nears — it takes place May 8-10 — we're taking an 11-day, position-by-position look at what's out there and what the Bears need. In May 1974, Tribune delivered 2 Watergate bombshells Obama denounces racist comments reportedly made by NBA owner Cubs can't take advantage of Brewers' injuries Northwestern women win at Wrigley Blackhawks thrilled to have Brent Seabrook back. Atlanta Restaurant Reviews & Food Blog – Food & More | ajc.com.
Reader’s Favorite Dishes 8:26 pm April 14, 2014, by Alexa Lampasona This Friday, our annual Spring Dining Guide will be released and we are divulging some of our picks, chef’s and reader’s favorite dishes on served up in the restaurant scene. So here’s our question to you: What go-to dish do you order at your favorite restaurant? We want you to share your photos so we can include it in our photo gallery. Include your name, restaurant and dish and tag photos with #AJCWheretoEat. My latest craving? Continue reading Reader’s Favorite Dishes » Passover Dining Specials 1:00 pm April 14, 2014, by Alexa Lampasona chocolate covered matzah Passover begins tonight at sundown, and for those observing, the holiday entails one week of keeping kosher.
For a quick lunch: MetroFresh is known for their rotating soups, and this week they are serving up a Guinness and brisket soup. For one night only: For dinner: Rosa Mexicana does an annual Mexican Passover menu that will run from now to the 22nd. Alon’s makes a … Is Skyr The New Greek Yogurt? That's right — 0% milk fat. Add skyr to your mashed potatoes to make them extra creamy. Noma may have raised the profile of Scandinavian food overall, but when it comes to the cuisine of Iceland, few people know it from a hole in the ground.
In fact, many people still associate Icelandic food primarily with the putrefied shark meat that comes from a hole in the ground. Anthony Bourdain, he no like. Skyr is a cultured dairy product that is thick and creamy and tangy like Greek yogurt. Actually, skyr is not yogurt. Skyr is said to date as far back as the 9th century, when Norwegian settlers first landed in Iceland. So, what can you do with skyr once you’re done marveling at how it sticks to your spoon upside down and feels like velvety pudding in your mouth? At the risk of sounding skyr-crazy, I would also recommend tossing a dollop of it into your mashed potatoes, as well as using it to replace half the butter in just about any cake recipe. More about yogurt on Food Republic: