"foie gras" news and stories

Raj Vaidya. Photo: Michael Harlan Turkell

In a career that has included wine jobs at haute dining and wine destinations Per Se, Cru and, since June, the head sommelier at Daniel Boulud's flagship New York eatery Daniel, Raj Vaidya has paired more than his share of his duck with vino.

Born in Jersey, and raised in his parents' native Bombay and Singapore, Raj's wine tutelage began well before he was of legal drinking age, enjoying vino and good food with family and company. It laid the groundwork for post-college (a degree in political science and philosophy from Rutgers University) career in the wine business, where he first started working at New Jersey's Ryland Inn and did time in the biodynamic fields at Robert Sinskey Vineyards in Napa.

As fall quickly approaches, we caught up with Raj to discuss the different elements one needs to consider when pairing wine with all those preparations of this wonderfully fatty, gamey bird, creamy foie gras and bloody duck à la presse.

Passion fruit. Photo: Andréia, Flickr

• A passion fruit's flavor and acidity make it a welcome addition to savory dishes such as coconut mahi mahi.
• Mo's Bagels & Deli offers hard-to-find classic deli fare to pair with a "Crossing Delancey" movie night.
• Blue, boozy tastiness -- aka a Brazilian, made with acai-blueberry vodka and lemonade.
  
• A guide to the best pizza in South Florida, from Anthony's Coal-Fired Pizza to Sosta.
• Forget California! The Upper Mississippi River Valley boasts America's biggest wine region.
• Traumatized by bad bill-splitting? The Herald offers some tips to fend off the bill-paying drama.
• A talk with Mark Caro, author of "The Foie Gras Wars: How a 5,000-Year-Old Delicacy Inspired the World's Fiercest Food Fight," about the ethics of consuming the controversial delicacy.
• Restaurants: Jay Zhou's Hong Kong Noodles brings North Miami Beach food that will satisfy "to your heart's content;" Bin 595 serves a memorable mix of Caribbean, Latin and American cuisines; and Bancroft Supper Club in Miami Beach boasts an organic, global menu.
  

Doug Sohn, owner of Hot Doug's. Photo: William Couch/ Flickr.

Frankfurter maestro Doug Sohn, the man behind the beloved Chicago eatery Hot Doug's, is a stickler for putting the same care into his hot dog toppings that a top chef would a béarnaise sauce.

"Whatever you pair, you want it to taste good," he says. "We caramelize our onions in real butter. We get the freshest tomatoes."

Sohn is a trained chef who bypassed life in a haute restaurant to grill haute dogs. He's been on the wiener beat for nearly a decade, and remains an undeterred champion of foie gras in the wake of a since-overturned Chicago-wide ban. His sought-after pups feature tantalizing names like the "mighty hot" Keira Knightley and the "mighty, might, mighty hot!" Salma Hayek andouille sausage.

With grills heating up for the Fourth of July, here are Sohn's thoughts on how to spruce up that old dog.

Sohn on bringing his own dogs to Cubs games and the awesomeness of foie gras franks after the jump.

•Volcanic vino – a critic samples wines sprung from the ashes of Italy's still-bubbling Mt. Etna.

•Charcuterie: Have we gone totally hog wild for cured, salty meats or is it merely a passing fancy?

• Japanese pizza hits Canada; critic pans it as the "Hello Kitty" of slice-ville.

• It's maple syrup season for our neighbors to the north, which they celebrate by visits to "sugar shacks" and concocting syrupy treats like "maple sponge toffee."

• British PM Gordon Brown, in a nod to the unsavory financial climate, picks Jamie Oliver -- aka "The Naked Chef" – to whip up a frugal (or at least foie gras-free) feast for G-20 finance bigwigs. Read more about that here.

According to recent reports and contrary to popular belief, French people can, and do, get fat. In fact, the French government is worried enough about the problem that they're considering raising taxes on food that are higher fat, sugar, and salt.

According to this report on MSNBC.com, the French government has been worried about obesity, especially childhood obesity, for a while now. Some campaigns they've tried in the past have been to encourage commuters to take the stairs instead of the escalator and to put prominent warnings on junk food packaging.

With a huge hole in the state health care budget to plug,though, some officials want to put higher taxes on unhealthy foods. The question that remains to be answered is, what constitutes "unhealthy"? Will the new taxes, up to 19.6% from 5.5%, apply only to processed junk food with high fat and sugar contents? Or will Frances traditional high fat cheeses and foie gras be included?

These questions are yet to be decided, but I personally cannot see the French government slapping high taxes on traditional foods for which the country is famous. How will it look when the French can't even afford their own cheese? Not only that, as Elastic Waistband points out, taxes don't dissuade that many people from doing, or eating, exactly what they want. Do you think the French government will put high taxes on its traditional foods?