"JamieOliver" news and stories

British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver called Sarah Palin a "Froot Loop" during a panel at Food Network's South Beach Wine and Food Festival this weekend for criticizing the Obama administration's healthy eating initiatives, and said getting healthy foods to kids is a civil rights issue.

Continue reading: Jamie Oliver: Sarah Palin a 'Fruit Loop' for Criticizing Michelle Obama on HuffPost Food.

Jamie Oliver's new 30-Minute Meals cookbook is literally selling faster than hot cakes. The book, much like his American TV spots, is based on "a revolutionary approach to cooking good food fast," and contains 50 recipes that follow through on that promise.

As Daily Mail UK reports, despite the book's hefty price of £26 (that's close to $45), it has remained on bookstores' bestseller's lists every week since it was released, just two months ago. It has already sold 735,000 copies, they say, which is "an average of 10,500 a day." In fact, it's the fastest selling non-fiction work -- ever.

That means it already beat out the "ten-week sales record previously held by comedian Peter Kay's memoir The Sound of Laughter which sold 483,000 copies" after it came out in 2008, reports the Mail. And in the past week alone, the book sold "well ahead" of The Guinness Book of World Records and The Simples Life, another British high-seller. It won't be beating out the highest selling book ever (the Bible) anytime soon, but there is speculation that it may bump another TV chef out of the running: Britain's Della Smith, whose book How to Cook is the reigning king with just over one million copies under its belt.

Jamie's publisher told the Mail: "Jamie proves [his approach], by mastering a few tricks and being organized and focused in the kitchen; it is absolutely possible, and easy, to get a complete meal on the table in the same amount of time you'd normally spend making one dish!" That's good enough for this year's Christmas tree, we think.

Congress has made First Lady Michelle Obama one happy woman, and likely even made Jamie Oliver cry a little, in a good way. After a unanimous vote in the Senate back in August, then a delay in the House, the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act finally reached the President's desk by a House vote of 264-157, yesterday afternoon.

This is huge. As previously noted, the bill's extended budget of $4.5 billion will account for the first raise in funding for school lunches in 30 years, which amounts to an additional 6 cents per meal. So schools can maybe spring for greens and "real" chicken rather than the stand-by frozen pizzas and processed nuggets. The bill will also fund nutritional education programs, expand the number of low-income students accepted into the school lunch program, and rid school cafeterias and vending machines of junk food (think new-age carrots).

Sorry Sarah Palin, but you lose. Apple-a-day for the win.

"Flash salt" your tomatoes, as blogger nami-nami does in this recipe, for added flavor and less juice in your salad. She took a tip from chef Jamie Oliver, in his book Jamie at Home, and sprinkled tomatoes and red onion slices with sea salt and allowed them to season and drain for 15 minutes. Another unique touch to this salad is flowering oregano, which is not only visually beautiful but offers an even more vibrant taste as it reaches the flowering point.

There's no better time than August to play with tomatoes, and Kitchen Daily has a world of tomato recipes to share.

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool for a shot of having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.

Parting is such sweet sorrow -- as in, refined, artificially colored, high-fructose sorrow. Now that Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution has reached the end of its special six-episode run on ABC, it's time to reflect upon what we've learned. So in the spirit of the show, here's a few CliffsNotes from Jamie's eating-revolution lesson plan.

Lesson 1: You can keep the kids away from the strawberry-flavored milk, but you can't keep the strawberry-flavored milk away from the kids.

In this last installment, Jamie's been away from the high-obesity burgh of Huntington, W.Va. for about three months, long enough for him to promote his cause on a zillion talk shows, and long enough for those pesky prefab junk-food suppliers to weasel their products back into cafeterias.

Read more of our take on the season finale of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution after the jump...