D.C. resident Jacques Tiziou has a taste for cicadas. Watch him as he collects and prepares the young, tender, winged insects for brunch
Bija Gutoff writes about the technology behind San Francisco's Hippy Gourmet:
This is not your typical celebrity-kitchen show. In fact, it’s not typical TV at all. “The Hippy Gourmet” eschews the frantic pace of most TV programs and doesn’t measure its success by ratings alone. “We don’t do three-second edits like MTV,” Ehrlich says. “‘The Hippy Gourmet’ creates a new tone for TV, one that’s about relaxing and seeing what good can be done in the world.” Beside preparing meals, the show promotes such causes as sustainable agriculture, social welfare and environmental activism.It’s a philosophy that has earned “The Hippy Gourmet” millions of fans on the West Coast. Now in its third season, the 30-minute show broadcasts via 24 public access cable stations from the Bay Area to Lake Tahoe. And, through talks underway with PBS and The Food Network, Ehrlich expects to soon boost his audience nationwide. He credits the show’s high visibility to the production standards enabled by his Apple tools. “We could not have created this show without the Mac and Final Cut Pro,” states Ehrlich.
Fascinating series on the making of California wine:
"Over two years, Chronicle writer Mike Weiss documented the making of the 2002 Ferrari-Carano Fumé Blanc. The glory of spring in a verdant vineyard. A couple who risk a fortune on a dream. The subtle science of nurturing flavor from soil. The tale of migrant workers from a Mexican village. This serial saga will continue Monday through Friday in Datebook. The story opens today in a New York restaurant, where the first bottle of the vintage is to be finally uncorked."Photo Gallery
Julie Leung . This book is a fascinating look at the origins & cultural implications of the fast food business.
Fast Food Nation dates to 2001, but is well worth reading today.
In 1979, Christopher Kimball was a gangly 28-year-old getting ready to launch a food magazine out of the garage of his Weston, Conn., home. He didn't have much experience at publishing; he didn't have much training as a cook. What he did have was $110,000 raised from investors, a stubborn dedication to home cooking and a shrewd business sense that his ideas would eventually pay off.
Twenty five years later, they have. Kimball, who at 53 is still gangly and stubborn, heads up a publishing empire that racked up $25 million in sales last year, thanks to its flagship, advertising-free, magazine Cook's Illustrated, a bimonthly that has turned obsessive recipe testing into a gold mine. In the past five years, the magazine has expanded its success with a spinoff public television show, "America's Test Kitchen," plus two subscription Web sites (cooksillustrated.com and americastestkitchen.com), and a steady flow of cookbooks. Washington Post
A pair of Californian entrepreneurs want to turn an empty lake bed just east of town into a non-polluting dairy farm for 90,000 cows, and to convert the cows' prodigious produce of manure and flatulence into a renewable form of energy. This “cowtown”, which will cover 1,900 acres, is the brainchild of William Buck Johns and Henry Orlosky.
See also the Harper Lake Energy Project.
