Sometimes, doing a headstand works wonders, says Glyn Woolley. That is exactly what he did when tempers were running so high over a pay deal at the London milk depot where he was working in the 1970s that the delivery men threatened to strike. “I said: ‘If I stand on my head on the table, will you go back to work?'” He promptly upended himself and the milkmen were, it seems, impressed. “They went back to their milk rounds and came back the next day for a proper discussion in a much calmer atmosphere,” says Mr Woolley.
Today, in a cramped office in an industrial estate in Corsham, Wiltshire, Mr Woolley laughs as he recalls those events. During a lifetime in the dairy industry, he has had to be resourceful to become the owner-manager of Coombe Castle, a leading exporter of specialist UK cheeses , that sends products with names such as Stinking Bishop and Lord of the Hundreds as far afield as the US and Japan.
“I am a fighter and I don’t like to give up on anything even if it means a huge amount of effort,” he says. During the 2002 foot and mouth outbreak in the UK, for instance, that meant “days spent pestering” government officials, and getting the local MP to intervene so the company could sell cheeses from regions not affected by the disease.
Category: Food
French Chef Puts Spin On Thanksgiving Dinner
Chef Dominique Crenn was raised in Versailles, France. She now makes an incredible Thanksgiving dinner, but when she first came to the U.S., the entire holiday threw her off.
She sat down with NPR’s Steve Inskeep to discuss how she cooks for Thanksgiving.
“I was a little bit lost when I came here,” she told Inskeep. “I had no idea what Thanksgiving was about.”
In France, turkey is eaten at Christmas. So the American phenomenon of Thanksgiving turkey and dressing mystified her.
“Oh, a month before Christmas, we’re gonna eat Turkey?”
But now, she’s hooked. Crenn has been celebrating Thanksgiving for about 20 years. “This is a pretty cool holiday,” she said.
The Grillwalker Takes Berlin: Portable Restaurant…
Organic Dairies Watch the Good Times Turn Bad
When Ken Preston went organic on his dairy farm here in 2005, he figured that doing so would guarantee him what had long been elusive: a stable, high price for the milk from his cows.
Sure enough, his income soared 20 percent, and he could finally afford a Chevy Silverado pickup to help out. The dairy conglomerate that distributed his milk wanted everything Mr. Preston could supply. Supermarket orders were skyrocketing.
But soon the price of organic feed shot up. Then the recession hit, and families looking to save on groceries found organic milk easy to do without. Ultimately the conglomerate, with a glut of product, said it would not renew his contract next month, leaving him with nowhere to sell his milk, a victim of trends that are crippling many organic dairy farmers from coast to coast.
For those farmers, the promises of going organic — a steady paycheck and salvation for small family farms — have collapsed in the last six months. As the trend toward organic food consumption slows after years of explosive growth, no sector is in direr shape than the $1.3 billion organic milk industry. Farmers nationwide have been told to cut milk production by as much as 20 percent, and many are talking of shutting down.
BBQ @ Railhead
Indian Mother in Record Chilli Attempt
BBC:
An Indian mother is set for an entry into the Guinness World Records after eating 51 of the world’s hottest chilli in two minutes.
Anandita Dutta Tamuly, 26, gobbled up the “ghost chillis” in front of visiting British chef Gordon Ramsay in the north-eastern state of Assam.
Ms Tamuly told Associated Press she “felt terrible” – because she had managed 60 in an earlier local event.
Mr Ramsay tried a chilli but said “it’s too much” and pleaded for water.
He is in Assam for a television shoot of a global food series.
Why Sourdough is the Best Bread
San Francisco’s food scene is probably the most vibrant in the Americas. Whether they’re starting trends or perfecting them, Bay Area chefs have long been among the world’s most creative. But amidst all the innovation, there has been one faithful and beloved constant on the city’s many tables: sourdough bread.
It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t like sourdough, but even rarer are people who know what makes it so distinctive. It’s often thought to be a flavouring, or perhaps a baking technique, something pioneered in Gold Rush-era San Francisco. In fact, sourdough is simply bread in which the rise comes not from a package of shop-bought yeast, but from wild yeast that is in the air everywhere.
As the original leavened bread – all bread was “sourdough” until Louis Pasteur’s germ theory led to packaged yeast – sourdough has a long and storied past. But as a let-them-eat-cake epoch gives way to home pleasures and the local food movement, sourdough is equally suited to our own times. Classic, inexpensive and uniquely local, sourdough is as fascinating to kids and novices as it is to practiced bakers and mad scientists of all ages.
Sourdough is an ancient art, but with just two ingredients its simplicity is as remarkable as its heritage. Flour and water are mixed and left to stand on a windowsill or kitchen counter. In a matter of days wild yeast take over and the mixture begins to froth and bubble with life. If you’ve ever wondered at the origins of this or that cooking method – “who on Earth thought to try this?” – sourdough is that rare thing, a miraculous culinary phenomenon that won’t give you that feeling. With yeast naturally in the air, it’s easy to imagine how an afternoon’s forgetfulness in ancient Egypt led to the invention of leavened bread.
Just a touch and you’re dining gate-side
Apart from the fact that JetBlue Airways will offer passengers free Wi-Fi at its new Terminal 5 at New York JFK airport (as it does in Terminal 6), my favourite part of the new facility is…
The remote food ordering systems in the gate areas! Called re:vive, the touch-screen monitors let travellers order meals that are delivered directly to their gate-side tables.
Re:vive received a tremendous reception at Monday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, with plenty of “oohs and aahs” from the crowd.
Choc au Vin
he discovery that red wine is good for you has helped the tipple become more popular around Asia. And that has led to some interesting new brand extensions. Contributor Nicholas Frisch discovered Pejoy, a Japanese confection mixing wine and chocolate, in a Taiwanese Seven-Eleven.