News and links… and a contest!

I am soooo excited. They’re going to make a Canadian edition of Top Chef! And the Food Network wants people to contribute their ideas.
Article on food paparazzi (a.k.a. people who take photos of their food while at restaurants), and more detail from Grant Achatz himself. My #1 rule. DON’T USE YOUR FLASH. You generally get better photos without it anyway. And it prevents your camera from irritating other diners. Other things – turn off that annoying beep noise on your point and shoots. Ask permission if you think you might be rude with your photos/video. And who on Earth brings tripods to dinners??
Anthony Bourdain and Frank Bruni discuss becoming too obsessed with your food
Turkish doner kebab becomes Germany’s favourite fast food
Author Michael Chabon’s Quest for Poutine in Toronto
And just in time for Earth Day, The Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers is installing two exercise bicycles hooked up to generators. If you hop on and make enough electricity you will get a free meal.

And lastly, I am happy to announce an official Brûlée Blog contest!

The kind folks at Sobeys have offered to give one of my readers 1375 Club Sobeys points, which works out to approximately $10.00 in free groceries. Yes, I said free groceries!

Club Sobeys is Sobey’s free loyalty card where you can earn reward points through your purchases and redeem them for groceries, appliances, gift cards, and Aeroplan Miles. Since September 2008, more than 2.2 million Club Sobeys members have collected over 6 billion Club Sobeys points, and redeemed them for over $26,000,000 in free groceries. If you don’t already have a Club Sobeys card, you can sign up for a free one right over here. Please note that the points (and therefore also the contest) are only available to residents of Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Ok so how can you win these wonderful points? Simply follow any of these three options:

1. Post a comment here. And make sure to include your e-mail address in the e-mail address line so that I can tell Sobeys who the winner is! If you don’t want to post a comment, feel free to send me an e-mail instead at bruleeblog@{no-spamming}gmail.com (remove the stuff between and including the fancy brackets).

2. Talk about this contest on your blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc. and post a link to it here in an additional comment. No limits as to how many of these you do.

3. E-mail your friends and have them mention your name when they post their comment.

This contest closes at end of day May 7th.

Disclaimer: I have not been paid anything nor given anything to promote Club Sobeys.

News and links

Win a set of Jaime Oliver cookbooks and cookware!
Chinese ban Canadian canola
40,000 salmon escape B.C. farm
China’s haunting soups
Ever wanted to eat a (really, really) giant cookie? Then maybe you should consider picking up one of these Williams-Sonoma Sandwich Cookie Cake Pans. Very cute.
Archeologist discovers campsite that offers window into ancient lives, and a 2000 year old soup recipe.
The Christmas on the Square Holiday Light Up will be on Saturday, November 14, 2009 starting at 1 p.m., where you will get a chance to do some downtown farmers’ market City Market shopping for one day only, along with other Christmas festivities.
How to behave badly at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market, and ruin the experience for everyone else.
Two reality TV people get food-related TV shows – Bethenny Frankel of The Real Housewives of New York City will show off her natural foods chef background as the cameras follow her every move,” and Fabio Viviani, from Top Chef season five will star in Fabio: A Catered Affair, which will focus on the expansion of his restaurant and catering business.

I know there’s lots of other things happening around town, but Sharon at Only Here for the Food already does such a great job of recording all that already. So instead today you get links that I stumble upon and find at least mildly interesting.

News and links

My last Vegas post is taking a while to write. So to tide you over, here’s some news and links.

Okay not food related, but interesting for travellers – Gary from Everything Everywhere, who has been travelling around the world since 2007, is coming to Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver in a couple of weeks or so. If you’re interested in meeting him, keep an eye on his website and twitter account.
The bloggers at Foodosophy have a great post up about sushi – what makes it great, what makes it authentic, etc. The comments are as interesting as the post itself, so make sure to take some time to read it through!
A Canadian study has found that enhanced blueberry juice helped manage — and even prevent — obesity and diabetes in mice. Interesting, because I’ve had dietitians recommend avoiding juice and eating fruit instead, due to caloric intake from juice and the higher fibre content of fruit.
Eat Me Daily does a roundup of upcoming cookbooks, including Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc, Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s America, Ree Drummond’s The Pioneer Woman Cooks and Cooking with Coolio (yes, that Coolio). There’s also a food-related non-cookbook list as well.
Some Sigg water bottles marketed as BPA-free actually weren’t – Sigg liners only changed last summer
After 48 Years, Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking finally made its debut at #1 on the New York Times best-seller list of Aug. 30, in the advice and how-to category. And My Life in France is #1 on the paperback non-fiction list.
Mother Jones writes about the rise and politics of FIJI Water. And FIJI Water responds back.
And lastly, something fun – what happens when Sandra Lee and Anthony Bourdain end up in the same room?

Okay I lied, one more thing. I feel the need to complain about Food Network Canada‘s website and advertising. We all know the new fall season of tv shows are coming. They’ve even been advertising them in their commercials, but did you notice that they don’t give any dates? And they don’t have a feature on their website saying when shows start either. When I asked their Twitter account about it, I got back a reply that I should look at their daily schedule. And then they offered to tell me personally if there were specific ones I wanted to know about. Great for me, but sucks for everyone else wondering about what’s going on. Did you know that Top Chef 6 starts on Sept 7? Well I didn’t either, until I scoured the schedule.

Also, I got tired waiting to find out if they were going to broadcast Top Chef Masters, so I recently started watching it online. Am half way through the episodes, and loving it.

News and links

Hershey kisses vs an upscale Champagne kiss by Jacques Torres
David Lebovitz recently took a chocolate making class at Valrhona. Yes, I am very envious.
baking masterclass by Dan Lepard – cookie and biscuits baking tips
Heston Blumenthal set to open first London restaurant?
Food writer and cookbook author Fuchsia Dunlop and Bar Shu owner Shao Wei open new London restaurant Ba Shan, which serves a mix of Xi’an and Sichuan cuisine.
Serious Eats posted photos of seriously creepy looking dried skate rays called Jenny Hanivers. Don’t click on it if visuals haunt you in your dreams. I can’t believe people actually make them look like that!
Bacon won So Good’s Meat Madness (click on the link to see the completed bracket chart and percentage breakdown). I wonder if bacon would have still won if the news about the swine flu had broken before the end of the competition? The misconception about how you can catch it is hurting pork product sales.
It has been confirmed that the rumours are true; the next season of Top Chef will be filmed in Las Vegas. Too bad filming will be done before my trip there! It would have been fun to catch a glimpse of them running around.
And speaking of Top Chef, here’s a “Where are they now” article on past cheftestants (from last year so no idea if it’s outdated).

Top Chef – methinks she doth protest too much

So the claws are coming out after the Top Chef finale aired.

Casey wrote this oh so polite e-mail. Make sure to skim the comments to see fans arguing back and forth, someone quoting Carla’s graceful comments, and one of Casey’s friends trying to come to Casey’s defence. And apparently on Casey’s website she’s saying that the magazine reporter did not identify themselves as looking for a quote for publication.

Come on. You know this person is a writer. You should know there is no such thing as “off the record.” You should know e-mails, Facebook posts, etc. can live on FOREVER in today’s 24/7 Internet day and age. At very least, you should have immediately posted an apology for your words – words that probably should not have been written to your best friend, let alone an “acquaintance” as you claim the reporter to be.

More fan arguing can also be found at Chowhound, among other places.

Meow indeed.

Updated to add: The web site that posted the quote is defending themselves against her accusations.

The Brûlée Blog

My adventures with food

Top Chef

News and links… and a contest!

News and links

News and links

Top Chef – methinks she doth protest too much

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: