Top Chef’s Jeff McInnis, cooks, sings and gets down with pasta

Chef Jeff McInnis is more than his boyish good looks, he can really cook. Proof of that was his cooking demonstration for the Fernando Pensato Gourmet Food line at the International Fancy Food Show this week. It isn’t easy being squished in a 10 x 12 booth, doing a live cooking demonstration when three quarters of passersbys want the free eats.

Check out the video cooking demonstration and the rest of the story:
Top Chef’s Jeff McInnis, cooks, sings and gets down with pasta

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Fourth of July dessert: gluten-free chocolate chunk cookies fuel for the fireworks

Are you looking for gluten-free dessert options with mass appeal for this 4th of July- look no further, this recipe is compliments of the Exotic Car Examiner, Kae Davis. Featuring her favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, it might come as a surprise that these cookie treats are absolutely friendly to all tummies and taste buds equally -- and can be eaten by those with Celiac disease.

Click here for entire story and recipe::
Fourth of July dessert: gluten-free chocolate chunk cookies fuel for the fireworks

Photograph copyright Charles M. Wrenn III

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Your virtual tour of the International Fancy Food Show - video

Here is your opportunity to take a virtual tour on the Summer International Food Show that was held the beginning of this week in New York City. Foods from around the world as well national are spotlighted, sampled and promoted. As an experienced attendee taster, I tend to stick with the savory items, not the sweets.

Read the complete story and view the video:
Your virtual tour to the International Fancy Food Show - video

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photograph by Dara Bunjon

A drive-by post from the Fancy Food Show

Sorry for the delay on getting you this post. I was working from the MAC Store at 5th Avenue and Central Park at 1 a.m. I wasn't up to the cut and paste. So here were some quick notes for the International Fancy Food Show.

New York and the Fancy Food Show has been amazing. Honeys, teas and gluten free are the buzz words. Saw an amazing cracker line made with sweet potato. I had a quick chat with Ina Garten. Jeff McIinnis from Top Chef 5 was a doll and let me shoot some video. He is too gorgeous for words. Rose Levy Beranbaum of the Cake Bible fame chatted on video as well. Tonight we saw Jackie Mason at dinner.

A drive-by post from the Fancy Food Show

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Thinking ice cream, think Italian ice cream

Italian Ice Cream by Carla Bardi

Mostly Food Journal is probably the largest Europe-based cookbook review site, with more reviews added every day. The editor/writer, Chrissie Walker, has received popular acclaim for her book reviews, food articles and restaurant reviews, and was recently nominated for a prestigious food writers' award. Chrissie is currently working on a project about Korean food and culture. Chrissie has generously agreed to share her review of the cookbook Italian Ice Cream by Carla Bardi just in time for summer enjoyment.

Read the complete story:

Thinking ice cream, think Italian ice cream

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Great recipe, slow cooked and easy on the purse

While my clients have me inundated with work and deadlines, my food friends are donating stories, recipes and tales to keep you entertained. They are as diverse in their backgrounds as they are in their subject matter, so I hope you’ll jump in and give them a read.

Today’s guest poster is chef and restaurant consultant, Anthony Marini:

Great recipe, slow cooked and easy on the purse

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Aaaah chocolate, food of the gods

Baking is not my forte, though my friend, Maria Springer is amazing and she has agreed to share some of her baking and chocolate wisdom today in this column.

Maria Springer excels in creating Viennese pastry and I have been the lucky recipient many times as well as a attending a selection of her cooking classes. Maria started her Maja’s Viennese Kitchen Cooking School 16 years ago in Baltimore County. She has been an active member of IACP (Internatonal Association of Culinary Professionals) for a number of years interfacing regularly with other renowned cooking instructors. Here is Maria's story. She is a great teacher and what a baker!

Read the entire story:
Aaaah chocolate, food of the gods

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Do you remember and whatever happened to?

I should be doing one of my tidbits columns but I’ve become fixated on food items of the past and wonder where they are now.

I think about those ready-made hamburgers you would get from a vending machine and put it in a special oven (precursor to microwave). How about the hot soup from the vending machines that tasted like Lipton’s chicken noodle soup? I miss the old time coddies, the really good ones and fountain cokes with chocolate or cherry syrup. A select number of people would add ammonia to cokes but I never had the heart to taste one.

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Do you remember and whatever happened to?

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Johnny Depp leaves a waiter a $4000 tip

Hot off the internet is a post on Radaronline.com, an exclusive story that Johnny Depp left a $4,000 tip for his waiter at a Chicago restaurant.

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Johnny Depp leaves a waiter a $4000 tip

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There is .com, .edu now .food - new food domains

Food entrepreneur and Chef Wolfgang Puck has partnered with Mind+Machine to create .food domains. Part of the proceeds will be donated to Meals on Wheels. Dot food will show you how to eat healthier, meet the farmers and will help with healthier life style.

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There is .com, .edu now .food - new food domains

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Chicken Cacciatore – rant and recipe

Chicken cacciatore was the first dish I fixed for my boyfriend who eventually became my husband. And after all these years together he remembers that was the dish I prepared. If it sealed the marriage deal I don’t know but it surely helped.

Read the full rant and get my recipe:
Chicken Cacciatore – rant and recipe

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Before you could say farm-to-the-table, there was my daddy

My daddy, never dad or father but daddy, loved to grow vegetables that along with fishing were his joys. I can’t rant and rave about his cooking skills, he could ruin a steak or burger on the grill in a New York minute but he could grow veggies. It was never one variety of tomatoes it was plum, big boy, cherry, yellow and other varieties or the cucumbers were the regular ones you know from salads, pickling cucumbers and lemon cucumbers. Corn and peppers, you name he grew it, out in our backyard in suburban Baltimore county.

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Before you could say farm-to-the-table, there was my daddy

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Good food, good cause

Dr. Dean Kane is stepping into the chef’s clogs on Thursday, June 25^th at Sotto Sopra Restaurant to help raise funds for Race for the Cure. Under the tutelage of the restaurant’s executive chef Bill Crouse, Dr. Kane will be preparing a four course Italian dinner with portions of the proceeds going to the charity. Local and internationally recognized singer/songwriter, Tony Scuitto, has donated his time and will be performing throughout the evening. Dr. Kane will be auctioning off a selection of his Photo Pop Art as well.

Check out the menu and details:
Good food, good cause

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Photo Pop Art courtesy and created by Dr. Dean P. Kane

Roy Rogers' Come and Get It Gang in Westminster

Tweeting has its advantages. This morning I get a tweet from Roy Roger's that their "Come and Get It Gang" chuckwagon looking truck will be in Westminster, Maryland today and tomorrow near Westminster City Park. I am assuming there will be coupons or food. Updates if and when they come in.Roy Rogers' Come and Get It Gang in Westminster

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Colorado Health Department warning on raw Nestle cookie dough

I was reviewing my other Dining Examiners stories from around the country and the St. Louis Restaurant Examiner had posted a warning from the Colorado Department of Public Health warning Coloradians not to eat RAW Nestle Toll House Cookie Dough because of a possible contamination with E. Coli 0157:H7. I thought it was worth mentioning here, don't you?

Read the complete story here:
Colorado Health Department warning on raw Nestle cookie dough

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Photography courtesy of Jelene Morris

TapaTini Fridays - five dollar tapas and martinis

What to do tonight, what to do? Need to find the place to go and things to do? If you are open to suggestion, let me tell you about TapaTini Fridays at TapaBar. They have recently started TapaTini Fridays where they offer five dollar tapas and five dollar martinis from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m every Friday evening.

Check it out:
TapaTini Fridays - five dollar tapas and martinis

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NEW video clip from Julie & Julia

Julie & Julia is movie that chronicles the lives of the great Julia Child and Julie Powell, the young lady who cooked every recipe in Julia’s cookbook and blogged her way to celebrity. I’ve posted the movie trailer previously but this is new, a brand new clip, an amuse bouche as one would say in the food industry- something to whet our appetites.

Catch the video:
NEW video clip from Julie & Julia

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Velleggia’s – Oldest Italian Restaurant in Baltimore - Est. 1937

Enrico and Mary Velleggia came to the United States from Porto San Elpidio, a village on the Adriatic Sea. They opened a small tavern where Mary prepared the dishes that she grew up eating. She made the sauces that her mother’s mother made; food from her homeland, a city by the sea. Enrico’s friends would come and dine and eventually others from the neighborhood that is now called Little Italy.

Read the entire story and view photo album:
Velleggia’s – Oldest Italian Restaurant in Baltimore - Est. 1937

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