The big news on the international spirits scene today is that the country of Sweden has sold state-owned Absolut Vodka to French conglomérat de boisson Pernod Ricard for $8.9 billion after a competitive auction. From Reuters:

Pernod beat the favourite, Jim Beam bourbon maker Fortune Brands (FO.N: Quote, Profile, Research), to win control of Sweden's Vin & Sprit VSG.UL, owner of the fast-growing Absolut brand, and gain a bigger presence in the U.S.

"The combination of a full price and the amount of debt to be raised definitely seems to have unnerved certain investors," said Stephen Surpless, senior analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald.

According to a report earlier this month, the three most popular drinks in the United States are martinis (with vodka or gin), mojitos and Red Bull with vodka. The New York Times just ran a big feature on feminine-oriented vodkas in Russia, which might work for Absolut, with its mastery of marketing and its wide variety of infused flavors.

For its part, Pernod Ricard expressed confidence in its new brand's market strength. From its press release:

In the United States, Absolut is the top premium spirits brand, selling more than 5 million 9 litre cases. It has a unique brand image built around values of creativity, innovation and cultural leadership.

In the rest of the world, with close to 6 million cases sold in 2007, Absolut is one of the most global brands in the industry with a significant presence in all the continents and a strong perception as a leader in the premium vodka category.

Pernod buys Absolut vodka [Reuters]
Traditional Martini Ranks Most Popular [Wine and Spirits Daily]
Russian Vodka with a Feminine Kick [NY Times]
Photo: Absolutini [Absolutdrinks.com]

Soon you'll be able to get your Whopper in some fancy new digs. Burger King is unveiling the Whopper Bar, which will offer more Whoppers but fewer of the other typical BK menu items:

The menu and size of the Whopper Bars will be smaller than a typical Burger King, but they will sell Whoppers not typically available at all times in the chain's traditional restaurants. Executives say they haven't finalized the menu, though it could include as many as 10 types of Whoppers, such as the Western Whopper, the Texas Double Whopper and the Angry Whopper, a version topped with spicy onions. One menu sketch has a section called "Pimp Your Whopper," where patrons can chose from additional toppings like jalapeno peppers, bacon and barbecue sauce.
Russ Klein, Burger King's president, global marketing, strategy and innovation, said he began thinking about the concept about four years ago when he visited a Burger King in Germany that had knocked out the back of the restaurant and created a bar section. Mr. Klein said the Whopper Bar is akin to McDonald's Corp.'s creation of McCafe coffee bars, except that it is built around the chain's signature sandwich.

Burger King Whopper To Be Feted [Wall Street Journal]
Burger King [Official Site]

You know it happens, but it's still disturbing to be reminded of it: News came across the wires Friday that a cook and Seahawks fan in the Seattle suburb of Port Orchard, Wash. allegedly spit in a burger ordered by a customer wearing Steelers gear. From the Kitsap Sun:

Deputies said the 37-year-old man in Steelers garb took his daughters to a Mile Hill Drive fast food restaurant Saturday evening, and "began trading friendly barbs about his team and their victory over the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XL," reports said.

One employee told the man that he'd "better not say that to the guy that's making your food," but the man thought it was a joke, reports said.

That is, until he opened his "clamshell-style" hamburger container and discovered what he called a "loogie" on his hamburger.

The manager, hilariously, told Kitsap County sheriff's deputies his 24-year-old employee might just have hawked something into the food. What the deputies were hoping to find in the way of evidence of the crime when they searched his home, we couldn't tell you, but they found some marijuana when they got there, and brought the guy in.

The man also confessed to spitting in the 37-year-old's hamburger container to "gross him out ... because he was a Steelers fan," deputies said.

With a new sports season just starting and a lot of old rivalries coming back into the spotlight, we're here to remind diners to keep it civil and maybe wear neutral colors if you're in enemy territory, at least while picking up short-order food. It's not right that a few disgruntled sports fans/kitchen employees play like that, but you'd be naive if you thought they didn't.

Cook Accused of Spitting on Fan's Burger [AP]
Seahawks Fan — and Fast Food Cook — Arrested for Spitting on Steeler Fan's Burger [Kitsap Sun]
Opening Day 2008 [MLB]
Photo: The Hamburger Method Of Criticism [N8tip]

• Lopsided economy drives record nationwide food stamp use [NYTimes]
• Food prices up 9% since last year; pork bellies mostly flat [Forbes]
• Asia's stomach rumbles as rice prices have doubled in the past year [AsiaSentinel]
• Record high profits for egg co. led by record high egg prices [CNBC]
• Absolut, once produced by the Swedish gov't, bought by Pernod for $9b [Guardian]
• Californian megadairy proposal for NW Illinois gets mixed reception [Tribune]
• DC woos Fancy Food Show away from NYC starting in 2011 [WaPo]

As you probably read in the FYI roundup, the U.S. is sending some health inspectors to Honduras to try to get a handle on a crop of tainted cantaloupes that have given a handful of Americans and Canadians salmonella. The melons, sent over by grower and packer Agropecuaria Montelibano, have of course been recalled, but not before they were distributed pretty widely, with 50 illnesses reported in 16 states.

But Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said the fruit was just fine, according to CNN.

"It's not in our fruit," he said about last week's report by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that some Honduran cantaloupes may be contaminated with salmonella. "It's not true what they are saying. Logically, we believe it is an error."

"Permit me to make a demonstration," he said, then cut open the fruit, sliced off a chunk, put it in his mouth and chewed vigorously.

"I eat this fruit without any fear," he said with his mouth full. "It's a delicious fruit. Nothing happens to me!"

The FDA recommends that consumers take the following steps to reduce the risk of contracting Salmonella or other foodborne illnesses from cantaloupes:

* Purchase cantaloupes that are not bruised or damaged. If buying fresh-cut cantaloupe, be sure it is refrigerated or surrounded by ice.

* After purchase, refrigerate cantaloupes promptly.

* Wash hands with hot, soapy water before and after handling fresh cantaloupes.

* Scrub whole cantaloupes by using a clean produce brush and cool tap water immediately before eating. Don't use soap or detergents.

* Use clean cutting surfaces and utensils when cutting cantaloupes. Wash cutting boards, countertops, dishes, and utensils with hot water and soap between the preparation of raw meat, poultry, or seafood and the preparation of cantaloupe.

* If there happens to be a bruised or damaged area on a cantaloupe, cut away those parts before eating it.

* Leftover cut cantaloupe should be discarded if left at room temperature for more than two hours.

* Use a cooler with ice or use ice gel packs when transporting or storing cantaloupes outdoors.

FDA Warns of Salmonella Risk with Cantaloupes from Agropecuaria Montelibano [FDA Press Release]
US Health Inspectors Sent to Honduras [AP]
Honduran president defends melons by eating one [CNN]
FSIS to Host Public Meeting to Discuss Challenges and Solutions for Reducing the Incidence of E. coli O157:H7 in Raw Beef [USDA Press Release]
Photo: Askobac [Flickr]

• Scallops cooked in Kewpie Japanese mayonnaise. Sounds...interesting. [Daily Cocaine]

• Deborah tells of dining deals at Farradday's and Bragozzo Osteria Wine Bar in Pompano. [From the Test Kitchen]

• Looks like the crowd was pretty good at Red Light's opening last night. [Chowhound]

• Italian mozzarella contaminated with dioxin [BBC]
• Honduran cantaloupes with salmonella [AP]
• New Zealand tahini with salmonella [NZHerald]
• New Zealand honey with toxic tutu nectar (!) [Times]
• North Dakota venison with lead particles [StarTribune]

Hilarious: We have been giggling over these cereal boxes on Serious Eats all day. They got it from xkcd. Thought it was only appropriate to share:

Honey Bunches of Goats? Amazing. Truly.

Meat Cereals [Required Eating]
xkcd [Official Site]

Good news: Kris Wessel has been given the go-ahead from Tallahassee and will be opening Red Light tonight at 5 p.m. No menu yet, though we'll try to have one by the weekend.

In the meantime, check out our interview with the chef from last week.

Ask The Chef: Kris Wessel [MP: South Florida]

There's a short interview with Michael Schwartz on US News & World Report's "Inside Job" blog that's pretty entertaining. They give him the beginning of a sentence, and he has to finish it. Our favorite:

1. My job title should really read... "camp counselor and head baby sitter."

• Enrique Fernandez gives the homey cuisine at Two Chefs Too three stars. [Miami Herald]

• Lee Klein loved the appetizers and dips at Ariston, which is in Ouzo's old spot. [Miami New Times]

• Oasis Churrasco Steak House is a bit out-of-the-way (unless you happen to live inside the Doral gated community where it's located), but the food is worth the drive. [Miami Herald]

• The story of a woman who gave up her career to make cupcakes and spend more time with her daughter. Given that she's now got a kiosk at Dadeland Mall and a number of regular restaurant/bakery customers, we'd say it was a smart move. [Miami Herald]

• So the service is spotty. At least the seafood and decor at Sake Room are good. [Miami New Times]

• Gail Shepherd gives a long history/description of Mexican mole in her review of El Chamol. [Broward-Palm Beach New Times]

• Rochelle Koff deems Christine's hype-worthy and awards it three-and-a-half stars. [Miami Herald]

Sad news to report. Herb Peterson, creator of McDonald's uber-popular Egg McMuffin, died on Tuesday of natural causes. He was 89 years old. A longtime advertising reprentative for McDonalds, he actively pushed the restaurant chain into expanding into the breakfast market. He eventually became a McDonald's franchisee. BY the time he passed away, Peterson was co-owner and operator of six McDonald's franchises in Santa Barbara and Goleta. From the International Herald Tribune:

Peterson came up with idea for the signature McDonald's breakfast item in 1972. He "was very partial to eggs Benedict," Fraker said, and worked on creating something similar. The egg sandwich consisted of an egg that had been formed in a Teflon circle with the yolk broken, topped with a slice of cheese and grilled Canadian bacon. It was served open-faced on a toasted and buttered English muffin. The Egg McMuffin made its debut at a restaurant in Santa Barbara that Peterson co-owned with his son, David Peterson.

Egg McMuffin inventor Herb Peterson dies in California at 89 [International Herald Tribune]

[Image via McDonald's]

• New USDA plan: to tell us less about meat recalls! [AP]
• Apparently, college students have poor food safety habits [Reuters]
• Much of the Asian Brown Cloud caused by cooking-related pollution [NYTimes]
• Chilean salmon factories rife with viruses, poor oversight [IHT]
• Training fish, in Pavlovian fashion, to swim towards a dinner bell? [Tribune]
• Inventor of Egg McMuffin makes it to the reassuring age of 89 [AP]

Remember all of those possible James Beard nominees we wrote about last month? That list has been whittled down to the official nominee list, which includes just three area chefs, all competing against each other in the Best Chef: South division:

• Zach Bell of Cafe Boulud
• Michelle Bernstein of Michy's
• Douglas Rodriguez of Ola

There are only five nominees in the division, so the chances are pretty good that one of these three will bring the award home. We'll have to wait until June to find out.

2008 Nominees for the James Beard Foundation Awards [Official Site]
Your List Of Possible SoFla James Beard Award Nominees [MP: South Florida]
Cafe Boulud [MenuPages]
Michy's [MenuPages]
Ola [MenuPages]

A fantastic read today in Slate got us thinking about this Chez Pim post from a few days ago. Both are about Spanish avant-garde cuisine, but while Slate wonders out loud whether technology-based trends such as foaming will make lasting marks on the food landscape even after their stellar popularity, Pim declares, in no uncertain or complimentary terms, the lasting impression a certain such restaurant left on her.

From Slate's Lisa Abend:

At its best, the Spanish version of "molecular gastronomy" stokes the emotions, shocks the senses, and, in the words (if not exactly the intentions) of that hedonistic gourmand Claude Lévi-Strauss, is "good to think." It's also often delicious.

But, from the beginning, some critics have scorned a mode of cooking that relies, in their opinion, too heavily on technology (as if an oven weren't a machine) and often chooses form over substance.

But Pim's complaint seems to cut to the heart of the matter: At "quite possibly the worst meal of my life" at Miguel Sanchez Romera's L'Esguard, north of Barcelona, she describes a meal that seems almost totally divorced from anything that seems like real food. With most dishes packaged in a gelatinous "Micrifilm," and served with what sounds like more attention to appearance than to taste, Pim pointedly complains about the chef's "grand idea:"

But you know what? Sometimes all we care about is if your grand idea tasted any good. Because if it isn't, then it's just a big pile of crap.

As for Slate's question of whether the 20-odd-year trend in hyper-experimental Spanish cooking will leave a long-lasting mark, well, we'll probably have to stay tuned. Likely, some techniques will become part of the long-term landscape, while others go away to die. What will become of Micrifilm? We'll let Pim cover that one.

Fish Foam and Spherified Mango Juice: Will Spanish Avant-Garde Cuisine Stand The Test Of Time? [Slate]
L'Esguard: Quite possibly the worst meal of my life [Chez Pim]
Photo: Salmon wrapped in Micrifilm at L'Esguard [Chez Pim]

According to Frodnesor over at Chowhound, the Nexxt Cafe on Miracle Mile, which has been open for just a few months, is now sporting a sign that says "permanently closed." Guess they never quite recovered from the health code violations in late 2007.

What would you like to see come to the Mile next?

Nexxt Cafe (on Miracle Mile) [Chowhound]
Nexxt Cafe [MenuPages]
Nexxt Cafe [Official Site]

Photo of the Thai steak salad at Nexxt: brandon shigeta [Flickr]

We imagine our parents laughing while reading New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov's article over whether or not to let his 16- and 17-year-old sons drink wine with dinner. He consults experts, some of whom tell him to give them sips, others who advise enforcing a strict no-alcohol policy until 21. (One even wishes the drinking age were 25!)

This was one issue that our parents never thought twice about, which is why, perhaps, Asimov's hand-wringing seems a little silly. Alcohol was never forbidden; if we wanted a sip of something, we could have it. For as long as we can remember, we had our own wine glass at dinnertime — it was just a lot less full than the other glasses. We were never offered beer or cocktails until we were 18 and had returned from college.

The other MenuPages editors had similar stories. MP: Boston's Leila was allowed a glass of wine with dinner throughout her teenaged years. Adam of MP: San Francisco was still in elementary school when he started taking sips from his parents' cups, although he didn't begin drinking wine or beer with dinner until he was 18. Neal of MP: Philadelphia was 14 when he was allowed a glass of wine on holidays and special occasions, and Adam of MP: Chicago wasn't all that interested in wine when he was first offered it at 14 or 15, but by 17 he was drinking wine with dinner and by 20 was sharing scotch with his parents.

So it's not exactly a representative sample, but it's telling that none of us has had any real drinking problems. Sure, we all drank more than we should have in college (didn't everyone?), but there are no stomach-pumping incidents or DUIs to report. Just a few bad hangovers. Which makes us think that Asimov should just chill out and let his kids have a glass of wine.

Can Sips at Home Prevent Binges? [New York Times]

Photo: gakrid [Flickr]

Look at the color on that thing. All sorts of seafood and rice in a gorgeous broth. You'll find this moqueca, a Brazilian seafood stew, at Sushi Samba Dromo on Miami Beach, where it comes with shrimp, squid, cod, crayfish, coconut milk, cashews, dende (palm) oil and chimichurri rice. The restaurant offers a lunch portion of the stew for $20 (it's $24 at dinner time). Cacao Restaurant in Coral Gables also features a lunchtime moqueca for $15. And for $14, you can get the catch of the day cooked moqueca-style at Oba Oba in Coconut Creek.

Moqueca [Wikipedia]
Sushi Samba Dromo [MenuPages]
Cacao Restaurant [MenuPages]
Oba Oba [MenuPages]

Photo: Masala Cha [Flickr]

• USAID cutting non-emergency food aid as prices soar [AllAfrica]
• Burmese refugees in Thailand going on an unexpected diet! [IHT]
• Illegal garbage dumps poison Italy's buffalo mozzarella industry [NYTimes]
• Ill. ties hunting and fishing licenses to child support payments [Tribune]
• Underground sugar economy taking hold in Calif. schools [Telegraph]
• Honduran president defiantly eats salmonella melon [CNN]

We try to cover every inch of South Florida from Jupiter to Key West, but it's hard. Which is why we need your help. We're looking for a stringer to expand our coverage of Broward and Palm Beach County restaurants. We'd like someone who'd be able to supply one post per day about restaurant happenings in the area, suggestions on where to eat in certain neighborhoods, and what kinds of bargains can be had at high-end restaurants, among other things. Pay is competitive and on a per-post basis.

To apply, e-mail a 200-word sample blog post about the three best places to eat in your immediate neighborhood to southflorida_editor AT menupages.com.

While celebrity chefs and other food personalities don't seem to be hurting for gigs and endorsement deals, actual restaurants are feeling the economic pinch right about now. Does that mean that food porn is more popular than actual food?

Over the weekend the trade magazine Restaurants and Institutions linked on its site an article from the Baltimore Sun that made the case that a faltering economy is leading to scrimping among restaurant customers:

Amid gloomy economic trends - falling real estate values, layoffs and stock market volatility - many consumers are changing their spending habits. And eating out is among the first expenses they look to trim in times of economic uncertainty, economists say. Consumers can adjust "in terms of frequency, spending levels and venues," said Bob Goldin, executive vice president of Technomic Inc., a food industry consulting and research firm.

But even as the trade rags paint a bleak economic picture for restaurants, restaurant-related media shows no sign of slowing down. Last month, the Baltimore Sun reported on the continuing popularity of the Food Network:

Now, almost 15 years later, the Food Network is going strong. In 2007, it had 90 million subscribers, which, according to Derek Baine, cable analyst with SNL Kagan, puts it on a par with such cable stalwarts as ESPN, Nickelodeon and MTV.

But for all the public's appetite for food media, where is its appetite for food? Perhaps the glossy pictures, lingo-filled dialogue and industry gossip work as a stand-in for the real experience for those unable to spring for frequent restaurant meals in these lean times.

Frankly, we hope not. Eating out is a good way to make a regular old evening special and can be done on the relative cheap. Part of the fun in eating out comes with discovering that perfect menu for your budget. We happen to know a great website that can help with that. Just saying.

CONSUMERS CUT WHERE THEY CAN; AREA RESTAURANTS, SMALL BUSINESSES SUFFER [Baltimore Sun, via Restaurants and Institutions]
Stagflation [Waiterrant]
From 'dump, stir' to reality, Food Network still cookingFrom 'dump, stir' to reality, Food Network still cooking [Baltimore Sun]
The Fat Pack Wonders if the Party's Over [NY Times]
Abstract: Chef on the Edge [New Yorker]
Photo: Courtesy of Sisudave [Flickr]

We were perusing the daily drink specials over at Hooligan's Pub & Oyster Bar in South Miami when our eyes caught "$1 pitchers." Initial reaction: WOW. Then we saw: 12 a.m. to 2 a.m. Unfortunately, that's a little past our bedtime, especially on a Tuesday night. But hey, if you're up at that hour, that's a pretty awesome deal. There's also a beer pong tournament at midnight. Makes sense, of course, since it's college night.

If you're like us (i.e. not a night owl), Hooligan's has happy hour every day from 3 p.m. until 8 p.m., when 20-ounce drafts are $4.75-$6.75. Show up after 5 p.m. and the oysters are $4.95 per dozen.

Hooligan's Pub & Oyster Bar [MenuPages]
Hooligan's Pub & Oyster Bar [Official Site]

Photo: minntyfresh [Flickr]

The Comoros, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean halfway between Mozambique and Madagascar, recently squashed a coup attempt on one of its three islands in a rather hilarious manner. Reuters reports that no one was injured in the invasion, and the rebel leader "was believed to have dressed up as a woman and to be trying to escape by boat to the nearby French-run island of Mayotte." They always try to escape to Mayotte! We make light of this because Comoros has had bloodless coups and coup attempts on average of once a year since it declared independence from France in the 1970s. National motto in this beautiful but isolated country of 700,000: "there's nothing to do, so let's have a coup!" (Their actual motto is "Unity - Solidarity - Development," but very few of those things have happened.)

This is a perfect opportunity to bring up the country's delightful and virtually unknown cuisine. Its basis is the standard Swahili assortment of coconut-based curries served with grilled meats and fish, fortified with Indian snack food and graced with a dollop of the French sandwich aesthetic. When we visited a few years ago, our very favorite food item was a particular sliced hard-boiled egg and cucumber sandwich, served in shops around the capital on fresh-baked baguettes (France's most laudable colonial legacy) with mayonnaise and spectacularly ripe tomato. We might have been biased toward the sandwich since we had been stuck in Africa for several months without decent bread, but we will say with some surety that it is was an artful combination of simple, fresh ingredients, and thoroughly satisfying to eat with two hands.

Our second favorite dish was tuna sambusas, which are basically like samosas but less flaky:

On mainland Africa, they're usually filled with beef or lentils, but here, it's a lot easier to source tuna than cow or pulses. At four to the dollar or so, one could really go to town on these.

Our third favorite dish was a beverage: tap water. After a few days, we were running low on funds to pay for the incredibly expensive French bottles that were the only available water supply in the marketplaces. Why no local bottled water like in every other country, we wondered? How do the people afford it? Surely they weren't drinking tap water, the septic scourge of the global South! But after several locals told us it was okay, we tried a glass and a light bulb went off: the country is a volcanic island chain, and we were sipping pure volcanic spring water! Don't tell anyone, or the next thing you know it'll be crawling with Fiji executives.

Oh yes, they also have crazy-looking lobsters for you to eat:

If you go, avoid: the incredibly sour injera-like sponge cakes they try to serve you with fish curries. Ask for rice instead. Also, manioc; it's just not a very good tuber. [Um, untrue. – Ed.]Finally, plan your trip around avoiding election day &mdash they close all the roads in the country, and you'll have to hitch a ride with the Army. But it turns out the soldiers are quite friendly!

Comoros Claims Control Of Rebel Island [Reuters]
Comoros [Wikipedia]

[Photos: Lunchtime spread &mdash aidjihad/flickr; tuna sambusas &mdash kaysha/flickr (even though kaysha calls them samosas, they're really sambusas); lobster &mdash hughdoulton/flickr]

• Food writer Michael Ruhlman stops by Forte Di Asprinio and is pleasantly surprised. [Michael Ruhlman]

• Sara falls in love with Indomania in Miami Beach. [All Purpose Dark]

• Paula gives us gorgeous photos of green mangoes on a street cart in Cartagena, Colombia. [mango&lime]\

• That TV dinner at the Big Pink is a lot of food. [FoodTastic!]

• How many times must we say breakfast cures obesity? [NYTimes]
• Portly Wales bans junk food from its hospitals [BBCNews]
• There's some kind of crazy poison honey going around NZ! [NZHerald]
• Note to Jared Diamond: corn's been in S. America 4eva [ScienceDaily]
• Canada's McD's to celebrate Earth Hour by dimming lights [NewsWire]

We have no idea what the seared tuna dish shown above tastes like, but we so badly want to sink our teeth into it, mercury levels be damned. You can find this dish, which comes with vegetable wraps, at Abokado in Mary Brickell Village.

We love the concept of Latin/Sushi fusion, although initial reviews have been fairly lukewarm. Here's what consumable Joy had to say about it after a visit this weekend:

All the food was beautifully presented, and it tries hard to be great. It may be trying a little bit too hard. We loved the way the food looked, and we enjoyed getting the plates with multiple flavors. Not all the flavors worked however, some overwhelming their bases they were supposed to be carrying, and others simply not carrying much flavor at all. The "nachos" -- tempura shiso leaf with sort of a tuna tartare on top -- were "pretty good" according to the DH, but "not so-shiso-y" because the batter was a bit too much for the delicate leaf. The rolls were ambitiously designed and fun to eat, but none of them have stuck in the mind enough for us to recall their precise names.

Abokado [MenuPages]
Abokado [Official Site]
First Visit: Abokado [consumableJoy]

Photo: miami fever [Flickr]

Since reading this week's New Yorker profile of Momofuku chef David Chang, we've been fascinated with the idea of eating ostrich eggs. Early in the piece, Chang describes trying to cook one, with unappetizing results:

I wanted to pretend I was Fred Flintstone. So I got a big rondeau, put like two inches of oil, and I was gonna deep-fry the motherfucker, but there was so much water content in the white that it just sort of dispersed. It looked like cottage cheese.

We poked around online to see if there are any success stories of ostrich egg eating. After all, people have been trying to make ostriches a commercially viable livestock product for years, so there must be somebody out there promoting the eggs. We found some basic guidelines from the Indian Point Ostrich Ranch in Tehachapi (Kern County), Calif. Also a Chowhound thread on the topic. But our quick search couldn't turn up any in-depth recipes using the massive protein balls.

Meanwhile, the profile on Chang is great. Aside from the ostrich egg thing, he's inspiring both as a chef and a manager of people. The transcript of his speech to his staff is simultaneously riveting and shaming as you realize you don't even come close to understanding the word "dedication" as he does.

Abstract: Chef on the Edge [New Yorker]
Ostrich Eggs Are Edible [Indian Point Ostrich Ranch]
Ostrich Eggs?!? [Chowhound]
Momofuku Noodle Bar [MenuPages]
Momofuku Noodle Bar [Official Site]
Photo credit: Bartly2005 [Flickr]

[Above: First Lady Laura Bush with 2008 state Easter eggs]

The White House has a lot of great food traditions, from the presidential pardon of a Thanksgiving turkey to the traditional cheeseburger pizza enjoyed by George W. Bush. There's also, of course, a great to-do over holiday meals, not the least of which is Easter brunch. Thanks to Time magazine, we're pasting this year's menu below. Don't you wish you'd been invited?

Also, check the link below the menu to the 2008 state Easter eggs.

THE WHITE HOUSE

OFFICE OF THE FIRST LADY

MENU FOR

EASTER BRUNCH

Honey Baked Ham with Maple Mustard Sauce

Eggs Benedict

Bacon

Biscuits

Spinach Salad

Waffles

Sautéed Asparagus

Cheese Grits

Fresh Fruit Platter

Double Coconut Layer Cake

Lemon Curd Trifle with Fresh Berries

2008 State Easter Eggs [White House]
White House Menu for Easter Brunch [Time]
Photo courtesy of the White House

The state is expected to face a $3.5 billion budget shortfall, so Stuart Blumberg, president and CEO of the Greater Miami & The Beaches Hotel Association, suggested that restaurants pick up the slack with a two percent tax on all food and beverage sales.

It also resolves an inequity between hotels and restaurants, he says. "By agreeing to a bed tax, the hotels have been carrying the burden for 30-plus years. Our partners in the restaurant industry haven't contributed anything except sales tax."

Not so fast, argues Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association President and CEO Carol Dover. In 2007, restaurants paid $3.9 billion in taxes. Furthermore, bed tax revenue must be used for tourism-related activities, such as ad campaigns and convention center expansions, not budget shortfalls, Dover says.

And unlike hotels, where the customer base is mostly from out of state, it's locals who fuel the restaurant industry. "Stu's contention that this will only affect tourists is just wrong," says Dover.

And in other news, remember that toilet paper bill the Florida legislature was considering? The state House of Representatives decided to drop the bill, since state regulators already include bathrooms in restaurant inspections.

Hotel lobbyist proposes 2% restaurant tax [Orlando Business Journal]
House discards toilet-paper bill aimed at restaurants [Orlando Sentinel]
Fla Legislators Wasting Time On Toilet Paper [MP: South Florida]

• Popeye's founder dies at 64 of scary saliva gland cancer [LATimes]
• KFC, bowing to healthy eating craze, introduces grilled chicken [USAToday]
• A primer on umami, if you've been living under a culinary rock [Tribune]
• After talking a good game, WFP now really needs emergency $500m [AFP]
• Nestle complaining that biofuels wiping out our food supply, etc. [SwissInfo]

Big news on the labor front from a big chain that's been all up in the headlines: After losing a big huge class-action suit in California, Starbucks has to pay more than $100 million to about 120,000 current and former baristas in that state whose tips it diverted to shift supervisors.

In California, owners, managers or other “agents” of business owners can't share in tips. In the first phase of the class-action suit, [San Diego Superior Court Judge Patricia] Cowett ruled that shift supervisors were essentially agents under state labor law, and therefore the company's policy allowing them to share in tips violated that law.

The company argued that shift supervisors were not managers or supervisors, that they performed many of the same tasks as baristas, and should share in the tips.