Maria Liberati and The Basic Art of Italian Cooking: Visiting Second Life

Maria Liberati, former super-model, now celebrity chef, stopped by Athena Isle today, as guest speaker for the Writers Club weekly meeting. She has just launched her second book, The Basic Art of Italian Cooking, available in stores and online at Amazon.

The format of a roundtable made this particularly enjoyable. Before long, there were quite a few of us sitting around Cybergrrl Oh’s magical table (a new chair appears every time someone sits on one). Maria proved to be very comfortable fielding questions and moving around. Considering this was her first time in Second  Life, I was impressed. We touched on various topics, from the use of fresh ingredients as the key to Italian cooking, to the Slow Food movement, very common in Europe, and now gaining a foothold in North America. Maria explained that her book is not so much a collection of recipes, as a story, or a collection of stories related to various dishes and foods in Italy.

Maria has a few plans in store, including a podcast and a television series featuring celebrities talking about what they like to eat and favorite recipes. The full transcript of the chat will be available a little later this week on the Second Life Writers Club website. Maria is one of the latest author to make Second Life a stop on a book tour.

Smarties smarten up…

I was enjoying one of my favorite combination of flavors this week, chocolate and orange, when I noticed something different about my box of Smarties. There, in both French and English, a gentle reminder about the benefits of a balanced diet and physical activity. With obesity reaching epidemic levels, this effort by candy manufacturers to raise awareness is commendable. Just wondering how widespread this practice will become?…

From flexible butter to flexible foie gras – when cooks turn to science

Its uncanny how, at times, stories seem to emerge on a specific theme all at once. In the Science section of the New York Times today, Kenneth Chang looked at how some famous chefs are turning to those strange sounding ingredients, usually found in processed foods, to develop new dishes. I was familiar with the molecular cooking of Homaro Cantu at Moto, but the thought of a knot of foie gras on a plate is certainly intriguing. Hydrocolloids seem to be at the crux of this fascination with redefining how foods are cooked, reprocessed and presented in fine dining. Click here for a slideshow on what’s in the works with Chef Wylie Dufresne at WD-50 restaurant in New York.

Pop goes the schnitzel!

German meat producers Toennies has announced they have successfully developed a schnitzel that can be cooked in a toaster. The product wil be introduced in German supermarkets in 2008. Other countries will follow later on. Story from Taste.com.au. (Photography by Ben Dearnley)

Hummmm…Roasted hedgehogs….

A slew of traditional English recipes were uncovered recently by researchers from the Food Science department of the University of Wales Institute in Cardiff. A recipe of nestle pudding was dated at 6,000 BC.

“The stodgy concoction, which was made by combining crushed leaves with flour and water to make a dough…”

Other recipes include a variation of Haggis and pastry-wrapped hedgehogs.

Details and recipes at The Independent on Sunday newspaper site.

Would you care to sniff the straw?…

The new wine tetrapaks are slowly making their way into liquor stores, gaining quite a few fans in the process. French Rabbit hit the shelves earlier this year in the Lower Mainland and rapidly sold out. Cordier Mestrezat Grands Crus, a century-old French wine maker is taking this packaging even further by adding a special straw. According to Max Colchester of The Wall Street Journal:

“…it announced plans to sell wine, dubbed Tandem, in an 8.5 ounce carton that comes with a special straw with four holes, designed to spray the wine into the mouth. The company says it gives a similar sensation to drinking from a glass. The red, white and rosé versions come in shiny red, green and pink boxes made by Swiss packaging company Tetra Pak SA. “

The company is currently testing the product in Belgium, with the plans of a French launch next year. The cost of the carton is $US2.50.
Can’t wait to see these little guys appearing in lunch bags at the office. Talk about a lunch packing a punch!…