the grilled cheese gourmet

While growing up in Saudi Arabia, I would watch our cook as he prepared complex, gourmet meals. It was not only a distraction in a place without neighborhood parks or television, but also a cultural adventure into his native Filipino culture, as well as romps to Italy, France and home to the U.S. I'd watch, fascinated, as he would remove the meat and bones from a whole chicken's skin, mixing the meat with vegetables and seasoning, and then somehow get it all back into the skin before stitching the floppy bird back together and roasting it.

I have never understood how a person could not know how to cook. Friends ask me to teach them a recipe or two, so before dinner parties, I call them into the kitchen. They are inevitably more concerned about what we are drinking, and are often back in the living room within five minutes.

What not to buy at supermarket

It goes without saying that I prefer shopping for my groceries at the supermarket more than any other type of store, particularly since I enjoy the game of grabbing the best bargains with store promotions, coupons and even the occasional rebate thrown in. You can't beat getting some items absolutely free when you know how to use supermarket promotions together!However, a TV reporter recently asked me to give her a list of items that you should not buy at the supermarket, assuming you are focused on getting the lowest prices for your groceries. I haven't been asked that question before, so I had fun giving it some thought and doing a little research. Some of the price comparisons surprised me, and have changed my mind about where I will buy some items in the future.To clarify, when I compared prices for these common supermarket items to other store alternatives, I assumed that the items were selling for their full price to compare apples to apples.

Space Golfer Crew Returns Back To Earth Just In Time For Golf Season

TORONTO, April 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Element 21 Golf Company ("e21") (OTC BB: EGLF & Frankfurt (FWB): BJQ) the manufacturer of advanced Scandium Sc(TM) Alloy golf equipment, announced today that the ISS Mission 14 Team consisting of the Russian Cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin and NASA's Michael Lopez Alegria, will be returning home this coming Friday, April 20th after a 6 month stay on the International Space Station. Mikhail Tyurin and Michael Lopez Alegria made headlines around the world last Thanksgiving, when they hit an e21 golf ball into orbit around the .

Power to the plate in DC

Washington has always been a top destination for museums and monuments, but a culinary destination? Not so much. For years it was considered "lacking" and "conservative." Some even went so far as to call it a "wasteland."
Fortunately, a few good -- culinarily skilled -- men and women are changing that.
"I think it's one of the most interesting restaurant towns in the country," says Colman Andrews, a contributing editor for Gourmet magazine. "I would rate it in the top five," says Mr. Andrews, who is based in Riverside, Conn. "It's really become a food destination."
Zagat -- the popular consumer-comment-based national restaurant guide -- apparently agrees that Washington's restaurant star is rising.

Gourmet Guys get guts growling

Chefs fine-tuned their recipes for competition, guests reviewed the menu, money flowed from pockets, and the feeding frenzy began Sunday at the Gourmet Guys fundraiser at the Center for Active Generations in Sioux Falls.

It was the sixth year for this fundraiser for the center, and the smell of a good meal enticed hundreds.

The event gathered more than 40 Sioux Falls men to serve up their own special recipes for guests. Money goes to support programs and services at the center.

Tom Hanson, KDLT-TV anchor, is in his fourth year, and said it is amazing how much the crowd has grown throughout the years.

Friends share dinners in all seasons

The word "progressive" can have many meanings, usually related to "progressing, advancing or moving forward, making progress." But how many people in today's busy world connect the concept of "progressive" to a gourmet meal, unless maybe it's moving to new and different restaurants for various parts of one meal?

Bernie and Dolores Fiegel of Lewes were both career workers in the Washington, D.C. - Maryland area employed by a company that had defense contracts. They also had three children. They were busy but still, because of their mutual lifelong interests in good food and good wines, they shared, from time to time, gourmet meals with friends.

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Recall spurs use of homemade pet food Pet owners turning to ...

SAN MATEO — As Tom Oborne stood before a gleaming glass-encased meat counter at a gourmet grocery store, he told the butcher he's had it with canned dog food.

"You can't trust it," Oborne told the butcher, during a visit to Draeger's Market in San Mateo last week.

Instead, he ordered packets of ground veal, lamb and beef from the butcher for Buddy, his 15-pound black miniature poodle.

That night, Buddy dined on ground lamb sauteed with carrots and rice.

"He loved it," Oborne said. He might go back to canned food one day, he said, but not anytime soon.

If Amazon.com rankings for book sales are any indication, thousands of other Americans like Oborne have become home chefs for their pets, following the recent deaths of pets from tainted canned food.

The book "Real Food for Dogs" on Friday ranked No.

Food Notes Food Notes

New Rivers Bistro in Providence probably will be closed for a month while repairs are made to the kitchen, the site of a fire last week, owner Bruce Tillinghast reported. The fire on April 9 did relatively little damage to the building at 7 Steeple St. but it will take time and money to restore things to normal in the restaurant, he said. The cause of the fire remains under investigation, he said, though it seems to have begun in duct work and some of the kitchen's hardwood charcoal used for cooking. Tillinghast wasn't at the bistro at the time of the 8 p.m. fire. He said he had left the restaurant at 5:30 p.m., gone for a swim at the Y and was home making dinner at the time he was called by his staff who said the flames were quickly extinguished. The restaurant was serving dinner at the time.