NOYES

ARRIVERCI MEDITERRANEAN DIET?   The Mediterranean, home of all that is virtuous in food -- why a 2005 study found that a healthy man of 60 who regularly scoffed a diet of veggies, fruits, cereals, lots of fish and not much meat and dairy - could expect to live around one year longer than a man who did not. Think of it. ONE YEAR LONGER.  

Obviously cut little ice with the Meds who are now becoming obese on convenience foods, you name it, but call it Big Mac.

The UN is planning to defend the MED diet as endangered, the way French classic cuisine is endangered.  

Weight league: Europe's top 10

Greece: 75.6% overweight, 26.2% obese

Finland: 63.8% overweight, 18% obese

Germany: 63.7% overweight, 19.7% obese

Britain: 62.5% overweight, 18.7% obese

Austria: 59% overweight, 14.8% obese

Spain: 55.7% overweight, 15.6% obese

Portugal: 55.5% overweight, 13.1% obese

Italy: 51.9% overweight, 12.2% obese

Denmark: 50.7% overweight; 9.6% obese

Ireland: 50% overweight; 9.5% obese

Source: WHO Global InfoBase

More info?

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/fast-food-invasion-hits-mediterranean-diet-in-its-heartland-880327.html

It's all very well for The Take Back the Tap Water campaign, spearheaded by Food & Water Watch and Riverkeeper, to  call on New York City restaurants to ban bottled water.

New York City has excellent tasting water. Not perhaps as pure as the water in Vienna where you can turn on the tap in your bathroom and drink water straight from the pristine mountains. But good.

Not so Toronto. Toronto has safe water, it's tested four or five times a day, but in old buildings with rusty pipes, the water tastes horrible. I live in such a building and live on bottled water as do my neighbours. Restaurants often have to serve bottled water because of customer complaints about the taste. 


http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/restaurants-take-the-tap-water-pledge/?scp=1&sq=bottled%20water&st=cse

Are the "fine dining" critics out of touch with your hungry diner?

Recently the Chicago Rib Shack opened in London and got burnt to a crisp by the critics.  "This is, to put it simply, just so you don’t forget, terribly bad food. And it’s terribly bad food from the bad past," wrote The Sunday Times' AA Gill.

"As a restaurant, the food doesn't cut the mustard," says Will Fulford-Jones of Time Out and Metro's Marina O'Loughlin declared, the "food is almost uniformly ghastly".

From the Times Online...."It seems the underlying argument is that food and palates have evolved over the past 10 years. People now seek a sophisticated, cleaner, more wholesome dining experience as opposed to the caveman-like proportions of sizzling beef and pork, dripping in sticky barbecue sauce and deep-fried accompaniaments served up at the shack.

And yet, three months after opening, the 200-plus seat restaurant continues to pack its tables, night after night.

on Yantin, director and co-owner of the shack, said there was a place for American-style restaurants in London and turning over up to 1000 covers a day was testament to that.

"We weren't surprised by the reviews because of the style of the food we serve, but what did surprise us is how vicious they were. We're not a fine-dining restaurant and we never portayed ourselves to be one. You have to put it into context.

"You come here for the ambience, the atmosphere, the service, the vibe. The food is only one reason to visit. It's more about having a fun night out than purely a dining experience."



"It's all about fine dining these days. We are bombarded with messages that we should be eating healthily on something that resembles a small piece of uncooked fish.

"We are not this kind of restaurant. We're about big portions of fried food. We're not saying eat it every night, but why not have some fun once in a while."

More - go to

You Jest Scaramouche: Hard look at High Prices

Scaramouche’s dining room is non-pareil, a cannily designed split level with pictures windows overlooking the downtown city. The seats are comfortable. There’s no music! You can really have a conversation! Service is obliging, good wine list. Shame about the food.    more »

 I know I know, Berkeley used to be synonymous with crunchy granolas and wingnut lefties. Now it's got Marie Antoinettes.

Three Stone Hearth in Berkeley, Calif., is  a community supported kitchen, and reports the New York Times, "offers its customers the opportunity to make friends while making food from local, sustainable farms.

But if you don't have time to participate, Three Stone will deliver.

“It’s a very savvy crowd that understands how all the pieces of sustainable farming and nutrition fit together,” said Larry Wisch, one of five worker-owners at Three Stone Hearth. “But they don’t want the headaches of getting here.”


Or you could just have your private chef handle all your local food needs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/dining/22local.html?ref=dining

Daniel Gritzer has a very funny piece in Time Out New York -- Mystery Science Eater - on what's going into molecular cuisine.

Methylcellulose

THE FINE-DINING CREATION: Gels and Foams...
Of all the various agents (technically known as hydrocolloids) that chefs use to create gels and foams, methylcellulose is one of the more versatile. Derived from cellulose, the primary building block of plant matter, it gels when hot and melts when cold (making hot ice cream possible), and whips up into a shaving-cream–like foam.

At Tailor, chef-owner Sam Mason tops coriander-fried sweetbreads with white beer foam

THE INDUSTRIAL VERSION: Sexual lubricant, special-effects slime in pornos......

“A lot of companies use [methylcellulose] as a hot gelling agent, like in pie fillings, since the contents won’t leak out when the pie bakes,” says Mason. It’s also an effective laxative, a sexual lubricant, the main ingredient in the fiber supplement Citrucel, the special-effects slime in films like Ghostbusters and another kind of fake slime in pornos.

Can't Beat Em join Em....Paul Bocuse the father of Nouvelle Cuisine has converted to Fast Food!  He's opened counter service called L'Ouest at a movieplex on the outskirts of his hometown, Lyon, writes David Appell in the L.A Times. Can't Beat Em join Em....Paul Bocuse the father of Nouvelle Cuisine has converted to Fast Food!  He's opened counter service called L'Ouest at a movieplex on the outskirts of his hometown, Lyon, writes David Appell in the L.A Times.
http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-fastbocuse23-2008jul23,0,7490799.story

Of course, it isn't exactly like North American fast food. There's rigatoni with boletus mushroom sauce -- all pasta is cooked before the customers, a fresh chèvre sandwich on sun-dried-tomato ciabatta with olive-tomato tapenade, and a nicely balanced strawberry tart. Other sandwich offerings, all about $6.75, included sweet and prosciutto-style cured ham on pain de campagne (country bread), sliced roast chicken, and smoked Norwegian salmon (both on ciabatta). Crudités are served with tapenade and lemon tartar sauce (about $8.65); the daily entrée special on a recent visit was sliced chicken in a French Basque-style sauce of tomatoes, onion and sweet red Espelette pepper, with rice and salad (about $15).Wines include a Guyot Côtes du Rhône and Georges Duboeuf Mâcon Villages.




http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-fastbocuse23-2008jul23,0,7490799.stor

I have eaten several dry and tough grass fed steaks in the name of "healthy heart".  But more and more evidence is pointing to Gary Taube's contention (2002) that the flap about saturated fat is, as he said, a big fat lie.

Go to http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/good-news-on-saturated-fat/#more-344http:/

"Basically these trials are fundamentally tests of the hypothesis that saturated fat is bad for cholesterol and bad for the heart. They’re not just about which diet works best for weight loss or is healthiest, but what constitutes a healthy diet, period. (This is the point I made in my Times Magazine story six years ago). Specifically, these low-fat/low-carb diet trials, of which there are now more than half a dozen, test American Heart Association (A.H.A.) relatively low-fat diets against Atkins-like high-saturated-fat diets.

In this last test, the A.H.A. diet was about 30 percent calories from fat, less than 10 percent calories from saturated fat; the low-carb diet was almost 40 percent calories from fat, around 12.5 percent saturated fat. In this particular trial, as in all of them so far, the high-saturated-fat diet (low-carb or Atkins-like) resulted in the best improvement in cholesterol profile — total cholesterol/H.D.L. In this Israeli trial, the high-saturated-fat diet reduced L.D.L. at least as well as the did the A.H.A. relatively low-fat diet, the fundamental purpose of which is to lower L.D.L. by reducing the saturated fat content.

So here’s the simple question and the point: how can saturated fat be bad for us if a high saturated fat diet lowers L.D.L. at least as well as a diet that has 20 to 25 percent less saturated fat?"

Summerlicious gives me a chance to see how the city eats without having to review each place I go to. I have a chance to housekeep, to return to restaurants I haven’t been to in a while, pick up new ideas floating around. One great new idea that I have to write about is Kyle Deming’s Mojito Pannacotta at Starfish.   more »

Wonderful crazy patio madness in Toronto It doesn’t matter whether a delivery truck’s engine is vibrating in your ear, or whether a tapocketapocketa is going on next door, or the wind comes up a storm, or lightning strikes… I may have enjoyed my dinner under Boba’s purple and yellow striped canopy MORE because of the thudding downpour. Come summer, Torontonians HAVE to eat outside. Eating alfresco changes the rhythm, the tempo, the mood of Toronto dining. The word is unbuttoned. People who usually hurry through lunch are now drowsing under an umbrella as they sip pernod – and staying up later than usual to just absorb the warm inky night vibes.   more »

the port....   Mme Mouny..sole a la Dieppoise...Mowbray & Jim ..

Madame Mouny of  Port, a dishy little resto hard on the pretty port of Dieppe, is my kind of  acceuil.  

And my family agreed.  

Dieppe is an easy trip from England, a short ferry ride across the English Channel. You ask why the English insist on claiming La Manche as its own? Well, it's a matter of history. The French have failed to invade England since William the Conquerer, 1066 and all that,  and the English don't forget. Inscribed on the D Day memorial in Bayeux are the words (in Latin) "We, the descendents of William, have liberated your land."

We started our family reunion in Varengeville -sur-Mer at Dieppe, via the Eurostar. It was a brisk two-hour drive  from Calais. As we drive along the beachfront,my nephew Mowbray, whose greatest ever-school trip was touring the D Day beaches, says "Look at those German gun emplacements in the cliffs. No wonder the Canadians didn't have a chance." He was referring to the Dieppe disaster when Canadian troops were slaughtered during on an inept invasion rehearsal in 1942. The Normandie coast is drenched in world war II memorabilia which is profoundly moving.

Last time i was in Dieppe, about ten years ago, I remember eating the local specialty Sole a la Dieppoise, which is Dover Sole with mussels and a rich wine sauce. So after getting recommendations from my hotel's concierge, I set out to find it. Wasn't easy. Dieppe has more fast food joints, taco bells, than good French restos.

First resto said it didn't have any Dover Sole! Second resto was the New Haven,  the quality, and while they said they had Dover Sole, they were fully booked. The third place was the Port restaurant, a family place. I liked it right away. Madame Mouny, her son is the chef, immediately said yes, they had Dover Sole and while A La Dieppoise was not on the menu, they would bien sur cook it for me.

Our party had grown larger by the time we arrived. The restaurant was packed. But Madame Mouny wasn't fazed at all. She simply added a couple of stools to the table. Later she  shooed away people who'd booked the table next to us so we would be more comfortable.

 She had to be reminded what the ingredients of Sole a La Dieppoise were,  but once up to speed, she said no problem.

We had a lovely dinner. We felt loved which is not entirely usual in today's restos. She clucked over the wine, she urged the wonderful fresh fruits de mer as a starter, and she delivered with pride an irresistible Sole a La Dieppoise.

We ended with Calvados. She appeared with a huge bottle of the very finest . There'll always be a France  as long as there's Madame Mouny.

 Restaurant Port, 99, Quai Henri IV. Tel: 0033 235 84 36 64.

I posted a new photo to dieppe.

I posted a new photo to dieppe.

I posted a new photo to dieppe.

Guillaume’s amazing Garden…
Normandie’s horticultural treasure, Le Bois Des Moutiers

In early May, our family renunion took place in Varengeville-sur-Mer near Dieppe, the coastline memorialized by the impressionists, and where Georges Braque is buried. My Huguenot family meets regularly – a habit started with the French Huguenot diaspora in the 16th century – and this year we got together at Le Bois des Moutiers, a 30 acre spread along the Normandy cliffs where 110 years ago, Guillaume Mallet inspired the building of an Arts and
Crafts house with views stretching over woodland to the sea.

Guillaume may or may not have known he was making history – he simply had a vision of an Arts and Crafts house surrounded by a beautiful garden. But history came with Edwin Lutyens, then 29, just starting his career as the architect of empire, notably the layout and planning of New Delhi,  along with his associate, the most influential garden designer of the last century,  Gertrude Jekyll,  who helped Guillaume create a uniquely English garden. In those days, French Huguenot families were  close to their English cousins. My English father remembered French cousins called Pip and Topsy.

The house is whimsical Grimm’s fairy tales, while the gardens are
enchanting, laid out in what is now called the Jekyll style,  a series ofoutdoor rooms, informality enlivening formality, a long herbaceous border on both sides of a path and packed with perennials in waves of colour, clematisis draped over everything, and then great waves of lawn sweep down into woods.

The garden was mined during WWii when Nazis occupied the house. It took years for Mary Mallet, Guillaume's daughter-in-law to restore it with the help of her son Robert. He has  enhanced the original design with rare plantings, the largest collection of hydrangeas in the world, and carefully cultivated azaleas and 60 foot high rhododendrons enlivening bosky settings.  

Today gardeners, horticulturalists from around the world  make a
pilgrimage to Moutiers – and often compare it favourably with the
Sissinghurst of Vita Sackville West across the channel. It has the same idiosyncratic charm and family references. I spot an original Lutyens bench given to Mary Mallet by my cousin Philip who lives in a Lutyens house in Kent. Robert and his wife Corinne, the hydrangea expert, are at the gate, and Robert’s nephew Antoine is the one who knows where every plant is.

It’s a glorious day for the rassemblement – standing on the terrace scoffing champagne and foie gras canapés, you can see over the tops of giant budding rhodas a vivid blue glimpse of the sea. But who on earth are all these people? I only know a handful of the 126 who're here to celebrate our common ancestor, one Jehan Mallet, merchant of Rouen who hitched up his wagon to escape the Massacre of St. Barthelomew (1572) and headed for Geneva. Dull to be sure, church five times a day, but Calvin okayed moneylending. At a piffling 6 percent. Revenge was at hand. The indigent French king was always begging for cash. The Genevois obliged - at 23%. "We're descended from userers" cried a nephew in disgust. If only we'd kept the trade says another cousin.

Today we are all merged into the polyglot middleclass. Jim's a geneticist, butterflies his specialty, Victor's with the Financial Times in Madrid, Hugo's an opera singer, Mowbray's in advertising, Larissa's at Goldman Sachs, Mary from Connecticut is a pastry chef, Arthur from Versailles just went down with Bear Stearns, Amy's a freelance journalist in Hamilton, Ontario,  Steve's a carpenter in Hampshire, Peter from Georgia sports a ponytail...Mikkie is half Japanese, Charles is half Vietnamese.   We have one star, we reckon, my cousin John who has written the defnitive catalogue for the ceramicist Xanto of Maiolica. "What's Maiolica?" asks a millenial Mallet.  

We first assemble at the local Huguenot church, scarce as hens' teeth in these parts, and the pastor tries to connect the flight of the mallets to an illegal muslim trapped in Sangiatte seeking a better life - the English are enraged. "Typically French, they try to  shed their refugees by pushing them to England." Last time around at St Peter's in Geneva, the pastor urged the congregation to ethnically cleanse the world of Catholics OMG but our Catholic cousin Louis smiled blandly throughout. Just family.  

There's a bit of a tussle over history. Jim and Johnny from the English branch are compelled to correct the perfidious French cousin taking people round the house. "Cher cousin you are entirely wrong' they interrupt as he brushes over the role played by our particular ancestor, a crotchety upholder of liberty, a journo no less in the French Revolution. Competition continues when Alice, the chic daughter of the house, challenges everyone to go swimming. Mowbray, watched  with ambivalence by Swiss and American cousins, is the only one to jump in the freezing English channel or le manche as the French insist on calling it . "Call me icecube" he howls. Later he explains "A necessary gesture."

As the day winds on, so does speechifying. My grandfather's gen spoke French and English. Today, few of us do. So the speeches drag on in translation. The Americans are quarrelling over precedence, and one describes at length her bootlegger grandfather who wasn't actually a cousin.  Heads nod over the Calvados. An ancient cousin suddenly springs to life and waves his stick "Where's my cousin?" Just family.  



If you go: Le Bois des Moutiers, Varengeville-sur-Mer. Tel 33-(0) 2 34 85 10 02. Open March 15-Nov 15, 10 am-12.pm, 2 - 6 pm. House and Garden: $10 C. Garden is free.

From London, 6 hr drive including Eurostar crossing. By
train from Paris: 2 hrs.
We stayed at the ***Aguado on the beach, upwards of $100 a night but check
for deals. www.booking.com <http://www.booking.com>

Square Peg Colborne Lane makes its own niche in a round hole city. . Colborne Lane is the most controversial restaurant in Toronto. That’s a bad thing to be in a city which shrinks from controversy. Toronto is an uneasy blend of Babbitt (Sinclair Lewis’ satire on hometown boosterism) and pc dogma which rejects success unless it’s tied to doing good. Restaurants, one of the most efficient sponges of culture, reflect the dichotomy. Sometimes I wonder how Toronto’s chefs have time to tend to their restaurants - so busy are they cooking for charity.   more »