By David Newbury, Scotsman

Vegetarians are about a third less likely to suffer from heart disease, diabetes or a stroke than meat eaters, according to new medical research.

Those who shun meat and fish stand a better chance of not developing the high blood pressure and soaring levels of “bad” cholesterol that leads to heart and other problems, it said.

They have a 36 per cent lower rate of metabolic syndrome, the combination of symptoms that are a precursor to diabetes, heart attacks and strokes.

Even people who only give up red meat improve their diets enough to give them a slightly lower risk of developing these conditions, said the United States study.

To be diagnosed with metabolic syndrome, a patient needs to suffer three out of five risk factors – high blood pressure, high HDL cholesterol, high glucose levels, high triglycerides (fat levels in the body) and having too big a waistband.

Vegetarians are not immune to this; 25 per cent of those studied by researchers from Loma Linda University, California had metabolic syndrome.

Read the whole story

The 2nd annual Lake Tahoe Restaurant Week (Oct. 2-9), according to organizers, is a celebration of the scrumptious cuisine and culinary talent that has made the Lake Tahoe region the best mountain-dining destination in the country.

Local food aficionados and visitors may participate in three-course prix-fixe menus at exceptional values that incorporate organic, seasonal and local ingredients — all served up at Lake Tahoe’s eateries.

There are no passes, tickets or coupons needed to take part in Lake Tahoe Restaurant Week. Instead, guests simply visit their favorite Lake Tahoe restaurants (60-plus are participating), which are offering the prix-fixe menus for $20, $30 or $40 per person (tax and gratuity not included). Reservations are strongly recommended.

Last year’s restaurants included Manzanita a the Ritz-Carlton Lake Tahoe, Ciera Steak + Chophouse at MontBleu casino, Six Peaks Grille at the Resort at Squaw Creek, Edgewood Restaurant, Lone Eagle Grille at the Hyatt in Incline Village, Fresh Ketch, PlumpJack Cafe, 19 Kitchen & Bar at Harveys, Soule Domain, Friday’s Station at Harrah’s, River Ranch Lodge, Après Wine Company, The Lodge at Tahoe Donner and the Beacon.

To learn more about Lake Tahoe Restaurant Week, a list of participating dining establishments and their downloadable prix-fixe menus, lodging discounts and how to take part, visit the event’s official website or call Pettit Gilwee Public Relations at (530) 525-1164.

Today’s fast-paced lifestyle makes it hard to spend time in the kitchen or sit down as a family for a home-cooked meal. Chef 2 U, a personal chef service serving the Sierra foothills, offers a solution to this problem.

Chef David Mori, whose resume includes working as the pastry chef Cal Neva Resort and as a baker for the scientists on Antarctica, started the business to provide a quality at-home dining experience. Chef 2 U offers top quality meals at home for a fraction of the cost of hiring a full-time chef.

“The prices we offer through Chef 2 U are similar to what you will find in restaurants for the same quality meals, with the added convenience of being able to eat at home with the family on your own schedule,” Mori said in a press release.

Because menus are created especially for each individual client, Mori is able to cater to special diets and personal preferences.

For more information or to schedule a consultation, contact Chef David Mori at (916) 742. 3206.

By Debbie Arrington, Sacramento Bee

When it comes to this spring’s strawberry season, it’s better late than never.

In Northern and Central California, the unusual spring weather delayed planting – and picking – by two to four weeks. Despite hail and freezing temperatures, the crop will come through relatively unscathed.

“We won’t even put the plants out until next week,” said Jim Armstrong of Snowy Peaks Farm in Foresthill. “For us up here at 4,000 feet (elevation), we’re a month behind where we’re usually at. … Even in the Central Valley, they’re two to three weeks behind normal. It’s quite a big deal.”

We Californians are spoiled. With winter and early season crops coming from Ventura County and coastal areas, we can buy state-grown fresh strawberries virtually year round.

Local strawberry season usually lasts April through July – and those berries are a special treat because growers can pick the fragile fruit when it is more ripe.

But this year, Mother Nature put the chill on growers. “We had 4 feet of snow three times this year,” said Armstrong, who has been growing strawberries hydroponically for six years with his wife, Ginger, at their pick-your-own farm.

One part luxurious luncheon, one part chef-led cooking demonstration, and one part charitable fundraiser — the recipe for the Obesity Prevention Foundation’s “Life Inspired” event brings together some of the top chefs in the region to showcase local food for a good cause.

The May 21 fundraiser at Rancharrah, the exclusive and storied Harrah estate, is the Reno-based Obesity Prevention Foundation’s largest source of funding. The foundation fights childhood obesity through education and promotes healthy eating and exercise.

True to the foundation’s mission, the “Life Inspired” luncheon will promote healthy local, seasonal and fresh foods. Local farmers will display their seasonal produce for guests to browse before the chefs turn the farm-fresh items into a three-course meal served on the grounds of the Bill Harrah’s 147-acre Reno estate. As the chefs cook, they will demonstrate the connection between local ingredients and their fresh, healthy culinary creations.

Farmers from Nevada Grown, a Nevada farmers’ cooperative, and Whole Foods will provide the fresh ingredients for the luncheon.

The lunch is only one part of the day-long series of “Life Inspired” events at Rancharrah, which includes live music and a speech by NBC “Biggest Loser” contestant Michelle Aguilar and other events.

Lunch begins at 11am May 21. Tickets to the luncheon include admission to the all “Life Inspired” events. To register click here.

By Mark Glover, Sacramento Bee

For the second time in a year, a University of California, Davis, study has found that most olive oil imported into the United States fails to meet the international criteria for “extra virgin.”

The new study released by the Olive Center at UCD found that 73 percent of 134 samples of the five top selling imported extra virgin olive oil brands failed the International Olive Council sensory standards based on the results of two IOC-accredited sensory panels.

Sensory defects are indicators that the oil samples were oxidized, of poor quality or adulterated with cheaper refined olive oil.

A UCD study released in 2010 found that 69 percent of samples of imported olive oils labeled as extra virgin and sold in California failed to meet international extra virgin standards since the oils were too old, poorly made and/or adulterated.

Read the whole story

By Beth Howard, AARP

Got knee pain? Drink some soy milk. Sore back? Eat salmon. The right foods can ease your aches: Recent research suggests that some pack as much pain-fighting power as common pain medications like ibuprofen. “What we eat has a dramatic impact on levels of pain in the body,” says Beth Reardon, M.S., R.D., a nutritionist at Duke Integrative Medicine at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. Read on for the best pain remedies to put on your plate and try some delicious recipes.

Read the whole story

By Katrina Heron, Newsweek

For a wunderkind who began his career as a research assistant to Stephen Hawking, went on to become chief technology officer for Bill Gates at Microsoft, and now leads an invention brain trust, producing a cookbook might suggest, well, a half-baked anticlimax. Or would, if the work in question could by any plausible definition be called a mere cookbook.

There can be little fear of that for Nathan Myhrvold’s much anticipated Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, which goes on sale March 7. In size alone the six-volume set defies categorization, weighing in at 43 pounds (not counting a five-pound custom-made acrylic case). Then there’s the outsize price tag: $650. (Online retailers Amazon and Barnes & Noble are advertising a discounted price of $467.62 and free shipping, which will come in handy.)

At 2,438 pages, laden with illustrations and edibly explicit photography (from skinned animal carcasses to microscopic globs), Modernist Cuisine stakes its raison d’être on its title, seeking to establish the past, present, and—most important—the future of food preparation as a purely scientific yet inherently artistic endeavor. By turns breathless and pedagogical, it aspires to be to cooking what Le Corbusier’s Towards a New Architecture was to the building arts of the 1920s: a true modernist manifesto.

“Something much like this book could have been done earlier,” Myhrvold says, noting that many of the techniques and even a fair amount of the technology employed are not new. What he and his team bring to the table, he says, is “the attitude and outlook of the cuisine”—a way, in other words, to savor its intellectual and emotional impact on us, the eaters.

Myhrvold, 51, was on the hunt for such first principles when, back in 2004, he set out to learn the secrets of sous vide (a method of slow-cooking food inside vacuum bags in a water bath). From there, he pondered the greater mystery: why had the modernist thinking that revolutionized art, architecture, and design in the 19th and 20th centuries all but ignored the clanging in the kitchen?

Read the whole story

By Kathryn Reed

TWIN BRIDGES — It was hot, hot, hot at Sierra-at-Tahoe and it wasn’t just because the sun was beating down.

The fourth annual Salsa Showdown was April 10 at the ski resort. Thirty contestants entered this year’s event that drew a throng of people to the West Bowl area for much of the day.

Trays of salsa in little plastic containers kept being put in front of the judges with tortilla chips. Some judges were waving at their mouths and taking gulps of water to contend with the heat coming from the spicy entries.

All the ingredients for a salsa contest -- salsa, chips, margarita, water, scorecards. Photos/Kathryn Reed

This year the salsas were broken into two categories — spicy traditional and fruits.

John Rice, general manager of the resort and one of the judges, raved about a watermelon cucumber salsa he had just tasted. He was impressed with many of the fruit salsas.

Leah Rademacher won the fruit salsa category.

“I found two recipes online and merged them,” Rademacher told the crowd after being named the 2011 salsa champ. The honor earned her a season pass at Sierra for 2011-12.

Judges said it was unanimous for Rademacher to be the victor.

Brothers Rudy and Roman Pulido won the spicy contest. They were making the salsa right until the entry deadline Sunday morning.

Although Craig Lebaron was disappointed his entries didn’t win, he was generous with sharing his salsas with those lounging in Adirondack chairs in short sleeves. Contestants were only supposed to enter once, so he put one of his salsas under buddy Shaun Keay’s name.

Lebaron’s spicy recipe is below. Although I have not made it, I did try it. It goes down almost mild, but then has a lingering kick that makes me want to add this to my recipe files.

“The key is to put salt in and blend, then taste,” Lebaron said. “Salt is what gets you compliments.”

But he cautions to start slow with the salt and add as necessary. The same goes for the garlic.

Lebaron uses organic tomatoes because they are smaller and don’t have the waxy film on them.

La Sierra Salsa

8 tomatoes

6 jalapenos

10 Serrano chilies

Half onion

3 tomatillos

2 cloves garlic

50 cilantro leaves

Salt, to taste

Sear first five ingredients on stove or barbecue until slightly black.

Put roasted vegetables in blender with garlic and cilantro. Taste. Add more salt if necessary.

This is enough to fill one Mason jar.

ngg_shortcode_0_placeholder (Click on photos to enlarge.)

By Kathryn Reed

Sue often says she could skip the pancakes and just have the syrup. It’s something about being from Vermont.

I need something to go with my syrup. And every now and then I like her to try a new pancake recipe.

The recipe below we got while on our girls camping trip last summer. What makes it unique is the pastry flour was ground at the mill we visited in Calistoga. The package says “not for human consumption” because the mill doesn’t meet current day health codes. Still, everyone who has eaten these flapjacks in our house is still alive.

Sue first made them when my nephew visited last summer. They seemed a bit runny to her so she kept adding more flour. Plus, she didn’t think what was in the bowl would be enough for the three of us. Oliver and I were shaking our heads in amusement.

We had enough pancakes for days.

Next time Sue followed the recipe exactly. She proved the recipe could feed four. Of course the other two at the table were my mom and my sister – and neither are huge eaters. So, you might want to increase the quantities if people at the table are super hungry.

What is so much better about these pancakes is how light and moist they are compared to the stuff from a box. I’m going to guess they are healthier too – if pancakes can ever be healthy. Sue does add sliced bananas to her pancakes, so there is that nutritional component.

Even though we have this special pastry flour, any pastry flour should suffice.

Bale Mill Pancakes

1¼ C pastry flour

1 T baking powder

2 T sugar

½ tsp. salt

1 beaten egg

1 C milk (or buttermilk)

2 T vegetable oil

Mix all dry ingredients.

Mix egg, milk, oil and add to dry ingredients.

Bake on ungreased griddle.