Your Friday Food Buffet

By Laura Oppenheimer in Food on Feb 16, 2007 5:00PM

Today is the last day of the work week, which means it's time for your weekly Friday Food Buffet. Not hungry? Too bad, because a healthy diet can help you avoid getting that nasty cold that we (and everyone we know) has.

An Interesting Local Amateur Chef: We met Jason VonGerichten at a Ghetto Gourmet event this week. He cooked the main course for the evening, a delicious Asian-South American inspired platter that included both lamb chops and flank steak. We started talking to him about cooking and blogging, which is when he told us about his blog, The Imperfect Palate. Interestingly enough, VonGerichten has no sense of smell, hence the "imperfect" aspect. His blog can get a little rambling, as all blogs can, but we still are fascinated by the idea of a chef who can't taste half of what he cooks.

There's Something Fishy Going on Here: A survey of 24 Florida restaurants by investigators found that 17 of them were serving something other than the grouper advertised on the menu. We think we might notice if we were served Tilapia, Asian Catfish, Emperor or Painted Sweetlips instead of grouper, but you never can be too sure. And it gets worse: "In many instances, not only is the 'grouper' in fact farm-raised Asian catfish from Vietnam or other species that swim with grouper, but the filets have shown signs of salmonella and illegal traces of carcinogenic fungicides, NOAA law-enforcement officials said."

Local Boy Makes Good with Americone Dream Ice Cream: If your ice cream has been lacking a certain level of truthiness, look no more. Ben & Jerry's has announced a new flavor, "Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream," saying it will offer "the sweet taste of liberty in your mouth." The ice cream will have a vanilla base with fudge-covered waffle cone pieces and caramel. According to Colbert, "I'm not afraid to say it. Dessert has a well-known liberal agenda. What I hope to do with this ice cream is bring some balance back to the freezer case."

Making Poultry Safer One Bird at a Time: Illinois poultry and game-bird producers will be asked to have their
flocks tested for the bird flu virus, under a voluntary program
announced last Friday. The program targets smaller organizations who wouldn't normally be able to afford bird flu testing; most larger producers are already taking care of business.

Groundbreaking Discoveries from CHOW: CHOW joins the Alinea lovefest with a slide show showing the multiple steps that going into making “Short rib—beets, cranberry, Campari.” Holy crap, that's a lot of steps. We thought it was a nice way to understand the complexity of a "typical" dish served there.

Image via Kevin Cornell.