A small Tunisian family farm run by the Mahjoub family produces some of the world's finest extra virgin olive oil. The family has been making olive oil for over a century. CNN's Ben Wedeman reports on how the family uses old techniques - slowly cold-pressing the olives and then ladling the oil by hand - to create high quality olive oil. It is a more labor intensive process but the family believes it gives more life and flavor to the final product. Abdel Majid Mahjoub says that by keeping the olives cold, the olive oil's antioxidant qualities are preserved. Take a look:
The New York Timesreports that Petrossian is selling caviar in a cubes. The pressed caviar is made from farmed California white sturgeon.
Now, Petrossian is making pressed caviar from farmed California transmontanus, or white sturgeon. It looks like shoe polish and is spreadable, with an intense flavor. A slick of the spread works on toast with some fromage blanc.
Petrossian has also started making little cubes of pressed caviar and packing it in jars of oil. They can decorate canapés, left, or deviled eggs, or be tossed with pasta. The oil also takes on flavor and can be used for seasoning.
The caviar cubes, called the Caviarcube, cost $45 for 20 grams, which is about 16 to 20 cubes. They can be purchased on Petrossian's website.
Chef Edwin Bellanco, the executive chef of the Morrell Wine Bar & Cafe in New York City's Rockefeller Plaza, shows The Today Show's Natalie Morales how to whip up some delicious Superbowl food. For the Saints, Edwin makes spicy Creole shrimp and for the Colts, he makes beef and ricotta sliders. Take a look:
You can see Chef Bellanco's recipes for Beef and ricotta sliders and Shrimp Creole here.
The Nation's Restaurant Newsreports that the number of U.S. restaurants declined again in the fall of 2009. There were 1,652 less restaurants in fall 2009. However, the decline was smaller than the loss of 4,000 restaurants in the spring 2009 report.
According to The NPD Group's ReCount data released Wednesday, the total number of U.S. restaurants declined 0.3 percent, or by 1,652 restaurants, to 578,353 locations in the fall of 2009, compared with the fall of 2008. ReCount tracks commercial restaurant locations twice a year, in the spring and fall.
Restaurant closures were more severe in the spring of 2009, when the total number of U.S. restaurants fell 1 percent from a year earlier, reflecting the loss of more than 4,000 eateries.
Midsize and minor sized chains as well as independents were the hardest hit restaurant types according to the chart located here on nrn.com.
Now that the world's second largest food company has won its bid to buy Cadbury, it has to find a way to pay for the deal. Kraft announced it will issue
$4 billion in corporate debt to pay for it.
Kraft may sell at least $4 billion of notes due in 3.25, 6, 10 and 30 years, said a person familiar with the offering who declined to be identified because terms aren't set. The Northfield, Illinois-based company won the approval of Cadbury’s shareholders for the 11.7 billion pound ($18.6 billion) acquisition on Feb. 2.
Kraft is marketing its debt as yields on investment-grade corporate bonds rose to 4.623 percent on average yesterday, the highest level since Jan. 13. Investors concerned about the strength of the U.S. economy may favor the foodmaker's debt because its businesses aren't highly susceptible to recession, said William Larkin, who helps manage $500 million at Cabot Money Management in Salem, Massachusetts.
"The food business is less economically sensitive, so it's the perfect play in this kind of marketplace," Larkin said. "Could banks have another leg down? It's possible, if unlikely. Will Kraft be around in 10 years? It's very likely."
The Wall Street Journalreports that the debt will be in the form of corporate bonds, which will provide the cash portion of the $19.2 billion sale price.
Most analysts think that Kraft will have no problem selling the bonds.
Chef Andrew Carmellini says pasta is a great dish for a Super Bowl party. Chef Carmellini showed Al Roker how to whip up some delicious, filling pasta instead of boring old chicken wings. Take a look:
You can see Chef Carmellini's recipe for Orecchiette with Shrimp, Toasted Garlic and Hot Peppers here.
For the first time in sixteen years, California wine shipments have dropped overall by 1.6%. The biggest export market for California wines is the United Kingdom which has been hard hit by the recession, according to researcher Gomberg, Fredrikson & Associates.
The global shipment volume of wine made in California dropped by 1.6 percent, to 236 million cases, according to 11 months of data and December estimates from Jon Fredrikson, who heads the wine research firm in Woodside, California.
Shipments to the U.K. plunged 36 percent because of the recession, high taxes, rising duties on imports and the drop in the value of the pound, which boosted California wine prices, Fredrikson said today in a telephone interview. Shipments in the U.S. fell 0.4 percent. Revenue for California wineries, whose biggest product is Chardonnay, probably fell more than shipment volumes as shoppers sought out cheaper bottles, he said.
"Today, frugality is hip," said Fredrikson, who hasn't yet estimated 2009 revenue for the industry. "There's a lot of heartburn going on among industry planners."
The IMF says that the global economy shrank by .8% in 2009. Although exports were down, California wineries sold more wine in the U.S. last year. So, apparently everyone's still drinking wine like crazy, but they're buying local not imported wine.
The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower in Mumbai continues to recovery from the Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008. Three of the five star luxury hotel's restaurants reopened at the end of last month. They include the Wasabi by Morimoto, Harbour Bar and the Golden Dragon.
The Wasabi restaurant offers authentic Japanese cuisine. The old menu has been retained and 14 new dishes have been added, including new kinds of sushi, salads, cold dishes and an authentic Japanese Curry. The restaurant has also introduced 12 new varieties of Japanese rice wine.
The new menu at the Golden Dragon includes 20 different kinds of Dimsums.
The Dimsum with Caviar, will entice even the most reluctant palate, while the Dimsum with soup, can actually be drunk with a straw first! The Peking duck gently cooking in the open kitchen oven will tempt the guest with its aromas. Six grain noodles, cumin lamb, steamed sea bass in chilly mustard sauce are some of the other additions to the menu.
A true Sichuan meal is always accompanied with tea that is perfectly paired with the foods. The Golden Dragon offers around 8 different varieties of the teas in the menu. To make the meal truly exclusive the Golden Dragon will serves its meals in Narumi crockery, with gold brush strokes and will encourage guests to use delicate ivory and wooden chopsticks with hints of embedded oyster shell.
A photograph of the Wasabi restaurant is pictured above and a photo of a table at the Golden Dragon restaurant is pictured below. It is good to see the restaurants are back up and running following the 2008 attacks.
The walu is known for its "rich, buttery flavory" and is billed as the "white tuna" by fish copanies but a Hawaiin lawmaker thinks the fish should be banned from sale because of its extreme laxative effect. The lawmaker has drafted a bill that would ban the walu fish, which is also known as the ex-lax fish. KRQE says the walu contains a "high-level of wax esters in its tissue that are beneficial to its deep-sea survival, but can be unkind to humans." The walu is already banned in Japan and Italy. Take a look:
China's new chocolate theme park continues to turn out chocolate wonders. The World Chocolate Wonderland Theme Park in Beijing already has a chocolate life sized BMW Replica and a chocolate Great Wall. Now China's chocolate tourism destination has an edible model of the Terracotta Army. Take a look:
A six liter bottle of 1982 Chateau Lafite sold at auction for $46,700 ($363,000 Hong Kong dollars) at a wine auction in Hong Kong. That was twice the presale estimate for the wine. Bloomberg reports:
The 10-hour sale yesterday of more than 800 lots tallied HK$52.9 million, beating host Sotheby's own forecast of HK$40 million. Bidders at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel drank glasses of Louis Roederer Blanc de Blanc 2003 and Haut Brion 1998 as they competed with online bidders for choice items, such as twin 1.5-liter bottles of Chateau Petrus 1982 that fetched HK$435,600, against the lot's top estimate of HK$130,000. Estimates don't include commission.
As economies such as China show signs of inflation while the government increases spending to sustain growth, some buyers are converting their currency into assets such as fine wine to protect their wealth, said Agnes Hon, a private-equity investor and wine collector who bought several lots at the sale. Others buy simply to enjoy their purchases, said Kevin Ching, Sotheby's Asia chief executive. That's especially true of mainland Chinese buyers, who won at least a quarter of the bids at the auction, he said in a telephone interview.
In February, 2008, Hong Kong abolished duties on wine which has energized the wine market. Last year, Hong Kong held fourteen wine auctions. Hong Kong is now the second largest market after New York, according to Sotheby's.
The latest battle in the chocolate wars is over -- at least for now. Cadbury shareholders accepted Kraft's increased bid to buy the British chocolate company. Hershey's issued a statement today saying it will not be making a bid as a result of the Cadbury shareholder vote. Bloomberg reports:
Hershey Co. abandoned a plan to bid for Cadbury Plc after the U.K. confectioner accepted Kraft Foods Inc.'s 11.9 billion-pound ($19.2 billion) offer.
Hershey doesn't intend to make an offer, the company, based in the Pennsylvania town of the same name, said in a statement today. The decision not to consider an offer was made at a Jan. 20 board meeting, according to people familiar with the matter.
Kraft said Jan. 19 that its cash-and-stock offer for Cadbury won the U.K. candy company’s approval, after Hershey's board had spent months debating whether to bid and on what terms. U.K. takeover regulators gave Hershey until Jan. 25 to announce a bid or back out.
"It was always going to be a long shot for Hershey to get all their ducks in a row for a bid, and even if they put one together, they were up against a much larger suitor in Kraft," B. Craig Hutson, a corporate bond analyst for Gimme Credit in Chicago, said yesterday.
Warren Buffett, a big shareholder in Kraft through his company Berkshire Hathaway, is unhappy with Kraft's bid. He said Kraft is overpaying. But Cadbury had fought off Kraft's hostile bid because it said the price was too low and that it didn't want to be owned by a giant food conglomerate.
But now Cadbury will be owned by Kraft; chocolate lovers everywhere are hoping that Kraft doesn't change the recipes or the manufacturing process.
It took four tons of chocolate to make this replica of a BMW which will be featured at the World Chocolate Wonderland Theme Park in Beijing. The exhibit is located next to the bird's nest stadium that was built for the Olympics. The attraction will also feature a replica of The Great Wall of China, made from chocolate. Take a look:
Your crowded kitchen probably doesn't need any more specialty appliances but this mini cupcake maker from Small Planet looks like a lot of fun. The non stick cupcake maker can make mini cupcake treats in five minutes. You can makes up to seven tiny cupcakes at a time. The mini cupcake maker can be purchased from What on Earth and on Amazon.com. Small Planet also makes a mini donut maker.
Venezuelan Chef and restaurateur Lorena Garcia stopped by The Today Show
to whip up some Churrasco steak with baby arugula salad and semi-sweet chimichurri sauce. Lorena uses skirt steak, which is very inexpensive. It's actually a tough cut of meat, so be sure to slice it very thin and don't overcook it. Take a look: