Today’s history lesson is about salads and salad dressing.

Disturbing and fattening at the same time: 10 statutes made out of butter.

via Kiplog’s Food Blog.

Chow.com has a great overview of whole grains, what they are, how to cook them and more. They call it “Whole Grains 101“.

This article from Reason posits that eating local may sometimes produce more carbon emissions that shipping food from other countries. Here is an excerpt as some food for thought:

via Arts & Letters Daily

A true sign of these tricky economic times, Bloomberg reports on the collapse of the white truffle market.

Chow has put together this handy backgrounder on the various types of cheeses that are out there.

Here is an interesting diversionary read, Melanie Berliet writes in Vanity Fair about the experience of being a naked sushi model.

Here is a perfect example of a “why didn’t I think of that.” Coffee and liqueur ice cubes. Get the recipe here.

Gordon Ramsay will be opening a restaurant in either Vancouver or Toronto.

Remember Coolio? He’s the MC behind mega hits ‘Fantastic Voyage’ and ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’. Then he kind of disappeared. Well, Coolio is kind of back with an web-based cooking show, aptly called Cooking With Coolio.

I have not watched an episode yet and not sure that I will. I don’t have anything against Coolio, but this Slate review is not so encouraging.

Some of you will find the program offensive, pointing to the air of inner-city minstrelsy that attends to the proceedings and the objectified women lingering around them. The production gives you a feel for what it might be like were Flavor Flav to host This Old House. For instance, Coolio taps out his spices from small plastic baggies as if he had bought them not at Whole Foods but in his dealer’s Escalade. Next, a pair of women from Coolio’s stable of “sauce girls” are always at his side, and the sauce girls—possibly taken in from a home for the mute—are not to be confused with actual sauciers. What the sauce girls do, mostly, is stand around in heels, sometimes wearing aprons, sometimes wearing a bit less than aprons. They were permitted to fondle some baguettes in an episode featuring “ghettalian garlic bread.” That’s the one where the star and his sous-chef pretended to abduct a college boy off the street. “We’re gonna find a hungry, broke-ass, malnutritioned, Top Ramen-eatin’ muthafucka, and we’re gonna teach him how to cook a healthy, inexpensive meal,” promised Coolio, intent, as always, on putting the M.F. back into MFK Fisher.

Check out Chow.com’s list of 10 things to cheaply outfit your kitchen:

When you think about outfitting your kitchen with professional tools, you might imagine a commercial-grade oven that spits out half a million BTUs or a $2,000 set of knives hand-forged by alpine elves. Ask chefs, and they’ll probably tell you that many of the tools they can’t do without are small and can be picked up for under $10 apiece.

Last week Martha Stewart’s company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. has purchased the rights to Emeril Lagase’s cookbooks, television programs and kitchen products for $50 million in cash and stock. That seems like a hefty sum considering Emeril no longer has a show on the Food Network.

The Michelin Guide (the gold standard of chef and restaurant reviews) has recently expanded its breadth of consideration to include the restaurants of Tokyo and is also being published in Japanese. As welcoming as this may seem to local chefs, the guide is not finding favour amongst local chefs.

Many prominent figures of the Tokyo food world, however, are saying to Michelin, in effect: Thanks for all the attention (which we deserve), but you still do not know us or our cuisine.

Food critics, magazines and even the governor of Tokyo have questioned the guide’s choice of restaurants and ratings. A handful of chefs proudly proclaimed that they had turned down chances to be listed. One, Toshiya Kadowaki, said his nouveau Japonais dishes, including a French-inspired rice with truffles, did not need a Gallic seal of approval.

“Japanese food was created here, and only Japanese know it,” Kadowaki said in an interview. “How can a bunch of foreigners show up and tell us what is good or bad?”

This article from Men’s Health questions whether saturated fats are really that bad for us. The thesis is that no one has actually proved their ill effects.

I am not so sure if a latest trend in beer brewing will catch on. As hinted in the title, brewers are launching higher-end beer products to compete with wine as a dinner drink (not that beer does not already accompany many, many, many meals). The twist here is the gourmet target. As Bloomberg reports, Carlsberg is launching a $400 bottle of beer.

The product, costing 357 times more than Carlsberg’s main Danish lager brand, has been developed to challenge luxury wines in the gourmet restaurant market and capitalize on rising individual wealth. Denmark, a country of 5.4 million, has 16 dollar billionaires, according to a list published this month by Berlingske Nyhedsmagasin magazine. The number of billionaires worldwide rose 21 percent last year to 946, Forbes magazine said.

“We’re trying to raise the bar for what a beer can be,” Jens Eiken, the brew master at Jacobsen who developed the product, said today by phone. The beverage is “cheap” considering the amount of time the brewery spent developing it, he said.

Eiken wouldn’t disclose how long Vintage No. 1 took to develop, saying only that the amount of time spent on it was such that the company doesn’t expect the project to be profitable.

The beer contains hints of prune, caramel, vanilla and oak tree from the French and Swedish wooden casks in which it is stored, Eiken said. It has a chestnut brown color, little foam and goes well with cheeses and desserts, he said.

While no where near as expensive as Carlsberg’s new flavour, Interbrew NV has released a higher-end Stella Artois brew – Nobilis. It sells for around $10 Canadian for a 750 ml. bottle (same size as a wine bottle).

What what have here is an example of ‘premiumization‘.

Chow.com has 10 kick-ass variations on hot chocolate that seem like the perfect respite from the latest cold snap. Recipes are included.

Let’s get something straight: Hot chocolate and hot cocoa are not the same. Hot chocolate is made with real chocolate; hot cocoa is a watered-down version based on cocoa powder. You’ll understand the difference once you savor this indulgent recipe for basic hot chocolate. Then try your hand at any of these riffs.

The AP write about a new restaurant located in/on the Eiffel Tower. The restaurant, called Jules Verne, operates under different circumstances than a typical eatery given its location.

Though only 410 feet up, there’s no gas cooking because of safety concerns. All the decor had to be light so as not to weigh on the 118-year-old iron structure. And because space is tight, food is washed and prepared in an underground kitchen

Tonight’s dinner ended with dessert and tea. That is not the interesting part (or even intersting to begin with – this is just the segue). While we were enjoying the chocolate cake, my brother in-law raised a quite perplexing question: what is the difference between icing and frosting? None of us had the answer. The closest that we came had nothing to do with the difference, but a similarity. This being that both labels are cold related. So what is the answer? If seems that there may not be conclusive opinion out there in the there. The best answer, though, that I found came from this Christmas cookies site:

There is a big difference between frosting and icing. Frosting is thick and holds shapes like rosettes and shells like those you see piped around the edges of a birthday cake. It remains soft to the touch and has a creamy texture, and most people think it tastes better because of the creamy buttery flavor. Icing, on the other hand, is a thinner, more liquid substance, and as it dries it thins out, becomes very smooth across the surface of your cookie, and hardens. This is the icing to use for the most beautiful, professional results.

So there we have it. There is a difference between the two.

Stop Smiling magazine’s interview with Nigela Lawson is available online.

She describes herself as “clumsy” in the kitchen. Often deprecating, Lawson is quick to point out that — despite the monikers bestowed upon her — she isn’t a trained chef. “I’m a writer — and what I want is for people to get lost in the narrative [of my cooking]. When it comes to food, I’m not just interested in the formula. I like the story behind it. What’s challenging is you’re using words to describe an experience that has nothing to do with words.”

Call it a blessing or a curse. But to her credit, Lawson has done quite a job verbalizing otherwise indescribable sensations. For example, she uses terms like “green and fragrant ointment” to describe cilantro chutney while scoffing at the “flat, sludgy lentils” her mother once favored.

Often accused of being highfalutin, she has been quoted as saying she doesn’t shop at supermarkets (she fears where things come from) and was rumored to have lost a radio gig appealing to everyday folk after saying she had her shopping done for her. To be fair, she never claimed to be lowbrow. For her, it’s “flowing, vicious yolks” on soft-boiled eggs — or bust.

“I’ve never regarded my career as life or death,” Lawson said as our interview concluded. And she has no intention of doing so now. If it’s Julia Child you want, check out the reruns and leave Lawson to concoct (and greedily sample) a meaty ragout.

Chow.com gets it straight from Anthony Bourdain (chef, restauranter, TV personality) in this short Q&A. Follow the link to read his answers to such questions as “Why don’t you do endorsements?”, “What’s been the best show for you?’ and “How’s your cooking these days?”