My Interview with Ted Allen

Food expert, culinary writer, TV personality all can be used to describe Ted Allen, host of the Food Network’s Food Detectives.  As I name-dropped a while back I had been granted an interview with Ted Allen.  Unfortunately, Ted’s flight back to the city had been delayed and he had to cancel several of his scheduled interviews.  Today, Ted called and I got to spend about 20 minutes chatting with him.

The questions that I asked Ted will be published soon enough on either Paper Palate or Edible TV.  Don’t worry Cate and Sandy, I won’t delve into them now.  Instead I will just elaborate on what a great interview Ted is.

Ted has that vibe that you have known him for a while and I guess for most foodies it is kind of true.  Ted has been gracing our screens for many years now.  First on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, then as a judge on cooking shows like Top Chef and Iron Chef: America and now on Food Detectives.

Ted seemed as interested in learning about me as I was about him.  I guess that is why he is an award winning writer, because he understands that every place you go and every one you meet has a story of their own.  In the twenty minutes or so that we spoke we talked about the cuisines of Europe, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Nashville, Africa, the Midwest, and the Third Coast.  We discussed the creativity of Masaharu Morimoto, Bobby Flay, and Michael Symon as well as the brilliance of Alton Brown.  In all honesty, if the lunch rush hadn’t demanded that I get back to the kitchen I think I would have been on the phone with him all afternoon.  I even agreed to e-mail him a copy of the recipe for West Indies Salad.

Business aside, we were two foodies sharing a common passion.  Ted is my second interview with a Food Network celebrity (the first was Bobby Flay) and I am overwhlemed with how down-to-earth to he is.  Sorry, I just had to throw that cliché in; I think it’s a law.  Now I’m going to sit back and watch another episode of Food Detectives and follow it up with an ICA (Cora v Psilakis) where Ted was a judge.  It is fun for me to see how differently I view a personality after I have met them.

This Weekend’s Food Festivals

Once again I drew on the resources at foodreference.com to get a list of this weekend’s food festivals.

August 13-17, 2008  Delcambre Shrimp Festival
Delcambre, Louisiana
Always the 3rd full weekend in August. Home to one of the area’s most productive shrimp fleets.

August 14-16, 2008  Hot Chili Days, Cool Mountain Nights
Red River, New Mexico
4 Corners Regional Chili Cook-Off And Music Festival.

August 14-17, 2007  98th Annual Fisherman’s Feast
Boston, Massachusetts
This is Boston’s oldest continuous Italian festival. This is an annual event that began in Boston in 1911 and is based on a tradition that goes back to the 16th century in Sciacca Sicily.

August 14-17, 2008  Crested Butte Wild Mushroom Festival
Crested Butte, Colorado
The purpose of the Crested Butte (insert joke here) Wild Mushroom Festival is to educate people about wild mushrooms in the Rocky Mountains in a way that is informative, interesting and fun! We encourage experiential learning via forays, cooking classes, and other practical methods as well as hosting an array of traditional lectures and workshops.

August 15-16, 2008  Franklin County Watermelon Festival
Russellville, Alabama
Miss Watermelon and her Court reign over the festivities, concert, antique car & truck show. Always the 3rd weekend in August (Fri-Sat)

August 15-17, 2008  Flint Hills Beef Fest
Emporia, Kansas
Blues & Barbecue cookoff, Ranch Rodeo, Cattle Judging, Cow Chip Toss and Catch

August 15-17, 2008  Sutherlin Blackberry Festival
Sutherlin, Oregon

August 15-17, 2008  America’s Best: Celebrity Food Show
Anaheim, California
A gathering of more than 175 exhibiting companies sampling and selling products and services in preparation of the biggest outdoor season of the year.

August 16, 2008  Watermelon Day
Vining, Minnesota
Craft show, children’s games, petting zoo, food, bingo, musical entertainment, free watermelon

August 16, 2008  Wild Edibles
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Learn what common plants growing in northern Minnesota forests are edible and how to harvest and prepare them. Nature hike and demonstration cooking.

August 16, 2008  San Rafael Food & Wine Festival
San Rafael, California

August 16, 2008  Lafayette Peach Festival
Lafayette, Colorado
Come and bring the entire family for a full day of peach Festival Fun including Live entertainment! Free Admission

August 16, 2008  Summer Harvest Festival
Pittstown, New Jersey
Peaceful Valley Orchards. Celebrating Jersey’s Best Fruits & Vegetables

August 16-17, 2008  Fairborn Sweet Corn Festival
Fairborn, Ohio  (no website)
Sat. 11am. – 7 pm; Sun. 11 am. – 6 pm.
Community Park East, 750 Dayton Yellow Springs Rd, Fairborn, Ohio 45324.  Lots of fresh sweet corn. Corn eating contests, local food booths, arts & crafts, entertainment and activities for all ages.  More info 937-305-0800.

August 16-17, 2008  Seafood Festival 2008
Landisville, New Jersey
This is a free admission event featuring live music, wine tasting, winery and vineyard tours, kids activities, and much more.

August 16-17, 2008  Charleston Seafood Festival
Charleston, Oregon
Featuring local seafood, mall market vendors, food vendors, dunk tank, children’s fishing pond. Wine/beer garden, boat tours on the bay.

August 16-17, 2008  17th Annual Tomato Festival & BBQ Championship
Fairfield, California
Draws over 45,000 people; West Coast 3rd Annual BBQ Championship; Tomato Festival Cooking Contest; entertainment, arts & crafts.

August 17, 2008  2nd Annual Latin Food Festival
Las Vegas, Nevada
The festival is a food tasting which brings together Latino restaurants, food companies and beverage companies as well as other professional companies for a fun and exciting day of sampleling food and drink from the Latino culture.  Also it gives companies a chance to cross market with each other.
For more info: (702) 592-7219  Email: marklvlcc@yahoo.com

Good Morning, Emeril

Originally posted at Edible TV on August 12, 2008.

I watched Emeril this morning on Good Morning America.  He was on to showcase the five finalists in Emeril’s Potato Salad Challenge sponsored by Good Morning America.  I love potato salad and I am always eager to try a new version.  If you would like to view the five recipes. click HERE.

The problem was that to get my seven minutes with Emeril, I had to endure a half hour of the Jonas Brothers.  These kids are, at best, okay musicians and I guess they are cute, so the girls like them but 30 minutes is just too much.  They even had them doing the weather.  I understand that ABC is a Disney property but half an hour?  Seriously?

ABC, if you want your adult audience to watch the Jonas Brothers, stick them the kitchen at Po on a Friday night and let Mario Batali get them ready for their post-Disney careers.  That would be compelling television.

I also caught a few minutes of the Today Show gang learning what the Chinese eat for breakfast, but I honestly don’t remember much except that the guy they got to teach them must get paid by the ”uhm.”  In doing a little reasearch on the today.msnbc.msn.com web site, I did find this funny blurb:

Savor the simmering stock of Chinese hot pot
Ming Tsai of ‘Simply Ming‘ shares her take on the popular dish from Beijing

Her?  I wonder if the Today Show webmaster thinks Ming Tsai was Lucy Liu’s character on Ally McBeal?

Documents: Julia Child part of WWII era spy ring

From AP:

By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE and RANDY HERSCHAFT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Famed chef Julia Child shared a secret with Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg and Chicago White Sox catcher Moe Berg at a time when the Nazis threatened the world. They served in an international spy ring managed by the Office of Strategic Services, an early version of the CIA created in World War II by President Franklin Roosevelt.

The secret comes out Thursday, all of the names and previously classified files identifying nearly 24,000 spies who formed the first centralized intelligence effort by the United States. The National Archives, which this week released a list of the names found in the records, will make available for the first time all 750,000 pages identifying the vast spy network of military and civilian operatives.

They were soldiers, actors, historians, lawyers, athletes, professors, reporters. But for several years during World War II, they were known simply as the OSS. They studied military plans, created propaganda, infiltrated enemy ranks and stirred resistance among foreign troops.

Among the more than 35,000 OSS personnel files are applications, commendations and handwritten notes identifying young recruits who, like Child, Goldberg and Berg, earned greater acclaim in other fields — Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a historian and special assistant to President Kennedy; Sterling Hayden, a film and television actor whose work included a role in “The Godfather”; and Thomas Braden, an author whose “Eight Is Enough” book inspired the 1970s television series.

Other notables identified in the files include John Hemingway, son of author Ernest Hemingway; Quentin and Kermit Roosevelt, sons of President Theodore Roosevelt, and Miles Copeland, father of Stewart Copeland, drummer for the band The Police.

The release of the OSS personnel files uncloaks one of the last secrets from the short-lived wartime intelligence agency, which for the most part later was folded into the CIA after President Truman disbanded it in 1945.

“I think it’s terrific,” said Elizabeth McIntosh, 93, a former OSS agent now living in Woodbridge, Va. “They’ve finally, after all these years, they’ve gotten the names out. All of these people had been told never to mention they were with the OSS.”

The CIA had resisted releasing OSS records for decades. But former CIA Director William Casey, himself an OSS veteran, cleared the way for transfer of millions of OSS documents to the National Archives when he took over the agency in 1981. The personnel files are the latest to be made public.

Information about OSS involvement was so guarded that relatives often couldn’t confirm a family member’s work with the group.

Walter Mess, who handled covert OSS operations in Poland and North Africa, said he kept quiet for more than 50 years, only recently telling his wife of 62 years about his OSS activity.

“I was told to keep my mouth shut,” said Mess, now 93 and living in Falls Church, Va.

The files will offer new information even for those most familiar with the agency. Charles Pinck, president of the OSS Society created by former OSS agents and their relatives, said the nearly 24,000 employees included in the archives far exceeds previous estimates of 13,000.

The newly released documents will clarify these and other issues, said William Cunliffe, an archivist who has worked extensively with the OSS records at the National Archives.

“We’re saying the OSS was a lot bigger than they were saying,” Cunliffe said.