"No one should believe that most of the food in U.S. stores was grown or processed here" in the United States, writes former P-I investigative reporter Andrew Schneider, now with AOL News, after attending the Institute of Food Technologists Annual Meeting and Food Expo in Chicago. There, he writes, most of the world's top research chefs, scientists, food-safety experts and others gathered.

He notes:

A couple of hours weaving through the maze of 2,100-plus booths in the hall and it was obvious that far fewer than half of those touting their wares were North American companies.

China, with red banners marking the scores of government-sponsored chemical and food suppliers, clearly dominated the pack. India, pushing its spices, synthetic flavorings and teas, was a far second...

Many scientists -- government, academic and industry -- spoke on how and why to protect the food chain from the skyrocketing amount of foreign-produced food flooding across U.S. borders.

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ALSO BY ANDREW... (more)

Check out the Sunday edition of The Seattle Times for my Q&A with Michael Pollan.

I had lunch with Pollan a few years ago, and was impressed even then with his smart, thoughtful take on what we were eating and where our country was headed. I’ve always admired his combination of shoe-leather reporting and clear thinking; how he can, for instance, cut through the endless circular arguments over whether high-fructose corn syrup is worse than sugar. (There are entirely different reasons to avoid foods containing HFCS, he says — it’s a “reliable marker for a food product that has been highly processed,” and it has some significant environmental problems.)

The issues Pollan deals with have become stunningly mainstream, and it was a treat to get to follow up on some of the topics we had talked about when they were less in the public eye. (He had this to say about health care reform and the insurance industry: “What the food movement has lacked until now is... (more)

The chemical coating used to protect the interior of metal cans isn't staying put -- it's getting into the canned food itself, a new report suggests. "It takes as little as one serving of canned foods to expose a person to levels of BPA [bisphenol A] that have been shown to cause harm in laboratory animals," a report co-author told AOL News' Andrew Schneider, formerly of the Seattle P-I.

Full story...

"Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's inspector general issued a report finding significant breakdowns in the National Organic Program, the office that's supposed to ensure that food bearing the green USDA Organic label has been grown, picked, packaged and delivered in a manner that adheres to federal regulations." So writes investigative reporter Andrew Schneider of AOL News, formerly of Seattle P-I.

read Schneider's full story here

"Honey typically conjures benign images of Winnie the Pooh with his paw stuck in the pot. But in recent years, it's made federal investigators think of smuggling rings and international intrigue," former P-I investigative reporter Andrew Schneider, now with AOL News, writes in his report here.

He notes "it may be all but impossible to keep the tainted Chinese honey at the center of the problem off U.S. store selves."

Some Latin American packers spray US-bound produce with a wax-like coating to extend shelf-life, and some ice creams include nanotechnology to make them look richer -- yet hundreds of peer-reviewed studies show nanoparticles pose risks to human health, reports former P-I investigative reporter Andrew Schneider in his series unveiled today. 

Read his stories here:

Regulated or not, nano-foods coming to a store near you

Amid nanotech's dazzling promise, health risks grow

Obsession with nanotech growth stymies regulators

Why nanotech hasn't yet triggered the 'yuck factor'

Quick points

Nano products are everywhere

“Goat meat can get you in at any farmers market.”

That’s just one of the interesting tidbits of information in a generally comprehensive and frank new study on farmers markets in King County. Staff from the county Agriculture Program surveyed market managers and farmers for the report, yielding a nice trove of data on the challenges markets face and some paths toward improving their long-term stability.

Some of the summaries and conclusions will be no-brainers to dedicated market watchers: Farmers markets need good, long-term locations, which are in short supply. Having more vendors process debit cards and food stamp benefits would increase sales. It’s frustrating that so many shoppers believe prices are higher at farmers markets than grocery stores, and frustrating that grocery stores are now grabbing the “locally grown” label while selling a very different product...

Here’s a random sampling of points that caught my eye: (more)

I wrote about our old friends the Mangalitsa pigs in the new issue of Cooking Light, as part of the magazine’s list of ten ways to eat right in 2010. Yes, those pigs — the ones that inevitably draw the words “fatty, lardy, rich” in any word association game — in Cooking Light.

The logic is that the porkers fall under the heading of “Indulge Adventurously,” meaning that “a healthy approach to eating includes permission to satisfy that part of the soul that craves truffles, butter, chocolate, or cheese –in modest proportions.” (more)

Jane and Michael Stern are coming to Benaroya Hall Tuesday as part of the Seattle Arts & Lectures series. I wrote a bit on Al Dente about whether the Sterns and their Roadfood writings are still relevant in the age of Yelp. (The answer: Heck yes.) 

The last time the Sterns came to Seattle, I had the happy task of trying to share some of Seattle’s best Roadfood bets with them. (more)

Rebekah Denn, the Post-Intelligencer prize-winning food writer before the paper closed, has written on her Eat All About It blog about two events that may have secret foodies looking forward to January. One might even make a last-minute addition to the gifts for a food fanatic.

On Jan. 10, a new reality show will hold Seattle-area auditions in Kirkland. Details from her blog here. The show, "Master Chef," is looking only for amateurs. There are some frequently asked questions and a nationwide schedule for auditioning for the show at a Fox site here.

Now, for the last-minute gift, know someone who is dying to express their food passion through writing? Rebekah will be part of a “Foodportunity Expression” seminar, put on by Keren Brown. Rebekah will lead the food writing class at Andaluca restaurant from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.  Jan. 16. Details here. The class is $99.

Always dreamed of writing a cookbook for a major publishing house? How about… well, contributing a recipe to a group cookbook? Winners of a cookbook contest at Foodista.com will have their recipes in a Foodista cookbook published by Andrews McMeel in 2010. I wrote about it in today’s Christian Science Monitor, over here.

And check out Rebekah's Eat All About It site.

t’s a small town America we’re not accustomed to reading about. Yakima Herald-Republic reporter Melissa Sanchez vividly describes a six-block area of the unincorporated town of Outlook in rural Yakima County in central Washington, home to as many as 150 gang members and only sporadically policed.

She writes of a sheriff’s deputy shot in the leg by one gang member to impress other gang members. Of a 22-year old man charged with shooting and killing a 14-year-old runaway after she planned to report being raped at a party in town. Of the shootings of at least three teens in the past 16 months. Of a community where one in every five residents belongs to a gang, and many of the rest live terrified behind locked doors.

No community block watch groups exist here. There are few organized activities for young people. Law enforcement falls to the Yakima County Sheriff’s Office, but only four deputies are on patrol at any given moment for the entire Lower Yakima Valley, a sprawling geographic...

We’re finally seeing more Seattle chefs compete on reality TV, now some of our amateur cooks are going to get a chance too.

Master Chef, the new Fox TV reality show featuring Gordon Ramsey, is scheduling auditions in Seattle for Jan. 16. The Hollywood Reporter calls the show, based on a hit show in the U.K. and Australia,  ”a culinary American Idol” where contestents around the country will create dishes for a judging panel to consider.

Read more here

This is one of the saddest pieces of Seattle restaurant news I’ve heard since the Beeliner Diner and the Dog House closed: Jonathan Kauffman, restaurant critic for Seattle Weekly, is heading back to his old Bay Area eating grounds. Starting Jan. 1, he’ll take the critic’s job at SF Weekly.

Read more here from Rebekah Denn at Eat All About it.

From former P-I pop music critic Gene Stout's blog:

Queensryche frontman Geoff Tate is launching another wine on his “Insania” label, a collaboration with Walla Walla’s Three Rivers Winery.

Tate will roll out the new white wine — a blend of sauvignon blanc (78 percent) and semillon (22 percent) — Feb. 4 and 5 at Snoqualmie Casino (at exit 27 on Interstate 90) in conjunction with performances of “Queensryche Cabaret,” dubbed “The First Adults Only Rock Show.”

The flavors of honeydew melon, pear and apricot are featured in the new wine. It’s a labor of love for Tate, who has been intimately involved in its development.

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Jeff Koehler is technically a native son, but Barcelona’s got him now — and, lucky us, it’s been his home base for travels around the Mediterranean to write about food. Don’t miss him in a rare Seattle appearance at The Elliott Bay Book Company at 2 p.m. Saturday (Nov. 14) to discuss his latest book, Rice Pasta Couscous.

It’s a cross-cultural look at those staple ingredients, with Koehler sharing recipes from a broad swath of kitchens, from Syria to Valencia to Sardinia.

To me, the stories in the recipe headnotes, the short descriptions above the recipes, are as vivid as the foods.

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From former P-I food critic Rebekah Denn's blog, Eat All About It:

When Cindy Mushet and her daughter Bella came to town to talk about Cindy’s new book, Baking Kids Love, I couldn’t resist asking them to come by my house and do some baking with my own kid. My 7-year-old does like cooking with me, but, with a professional in the kitchen, I wondered if we could take on a more challenging project than usual. And we did. I wrote about it here on Al Dente Blog, along with the recipe for the meringue cookies the kids whipped up and piped into Halloween-style “rattling bones and fingers”. The cookies can be made into any shape you like, though — alphabet letters seem like a natural favorite. Here’s a little video showing some of the highlights of our after-school cooking lesson. It struck me that it’s always easier to learn new techniques with experienced helpers — even when one of them is only in middle school.

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From former P-I food critic Rebekah Denn's blog Eat All About It:

I don’t think I’ve ever met cookbook authors work as hard to connect with their audience as Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois, authors of “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day” and, now, “Healthy Bread In Five Minutes A Day.” The very focus of their new book, in fact, came from the deluge of reader questions they got about making no-knead bread with whole grains.

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From former P-I food critic Rebekah Denn's blog, Eat All About It:

Just when we were getting comfortable bragging about Seattle’s burgeoning street food scene, a winter hiatus has hit.

Maximus/Minimus, the roaming “urban assault pig” serving up pulled pork sandwiches (not to mention vegan sandwiches), will shut down after Oct. 31, with plans to return April 1. It will be back, “100 percent,” guaranteed Kurt Dammeier, owner of parent company Sugar Mountain. 

Meanwhile, Skillet Street Food, the daddy of this resurgence, has also gone on winter hiatus, though it’s still available for box lunches and for fans who can guarantee a baseline turnout of hungry people.

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Rebekah Denn is the former food critic for the Seattle P-I. This is from her blog, Eat All About It.

I wrote in Sunday’s Seattle Times about American macaroons vs. French macarons, as different from each other as Julie was to Julia.

I am a sucker for the easy, agreeably chewy coconut macaroons, as I’ve talked about here and here and here, but fooling around with egg whites and piping bags for the fancy French version was a great deal of fun. So was the chance to run questions past one of my baking heroines, Dorie Greenspan, and to talk with Seattle’s own Neil Robertson and  Franz Gilbertson. Greenspan noted that, although macaroons and macarons don’t have much in common, “the coconut cookies that we know as macaroons do have a French cousin, congolais or rochers a la noix de coco, both made with coconut, sugar and egg whites.

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Rebekah Denn is the former food critic for the Seattle P-I. This is from her blog, Eat All About It.

When I was invited to a casual meal with Patricia Wells a few years back, I expected the highlight to be, well, meeting Patricia Wells. As enjoyable as that was, though, it couldn’t compare to my delight at being introduced to another woman I had only known through her words: “You’re Viv? “Seattle Bon Vivant“? That Viv?” 

Bon Vivant, a Francophile and Seattlephile, was one of the group I think of as the original food bloggers (Accidental Hedonist was another), and her honesty, her striking photos, and delight in food and beauty made her a favorite. Along with many other readers, I was sad and even worried when she stopped posting for several months. Her mother, as it turned out, had been diagnosed with cancer — and even after “Viv” returned from helping her, she decided to put her energy into living instead of chronicling.

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Rebekah Denn is the former food critic for the Seattle P-I. This is from her blog, Eat All About It.

The best place to find Starbucks gossip is, of course, on the Starbucks Gossip site. (I felt guilty for declining to buy VIA instant coffee after reading employee comments on the pressure they felt to sell it.) One of the site’s regular features, though, the “Juan Valdez” reviews of random Starbucks sites, is coming to a close.

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Rebekah Denn is the former food critic for the Seattle P-I. This is from her blog, Eat All About It.

Gourmet magazine is dead (or was murdered, depending on your perspective), but Gourmet’s “Adventures With Ruth” TV show is still going forward, and the second episode will showcase editor Ruth Reichl’s trip to Seattle. She hung out with Jon Rowley, who she called “the man who knows more about seafood than literally anyone else in the country,” and “the master of the perfect ingredient at the perfect time.” The pair set out foraging, clamming, and salmon fishing. (Heads up: There is a fish-kissing scene. Neither of our heroes are involved, though.)

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Rebekah Denn is the former food critic for the Seattle P-I. This is from her blog, Eat All About It.

Ivy Manning’s Farm to Table Cookbook made my top 10 list last year, but I was surprised by how little I heard of it elsewhere. It’s a combination of original dishes and recipes contributed by some of the Northwest’s top chefs (farro from John Sundstrom, sorrel-fig salad from Maria Hines, and so on). I liked its handful of primers — telling you the difference between Black Krim and Cherokee Purple tomatoes, for instance — and advice on how to select less-common ingredients, from ramps to lobster mushrooms. Some commenters on the Amazon site found the recipes too complex, but I liked the stretch (and easy counterpoints like the “Versatile Recipe For The Hearty Greens You Don’t Know What To Do With“).

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The last time I was at a Foodportunity event, I hardly made it to the stage, because I kept running into people I wanted to meet and foods I wanted to taste. Keren Brown is throwing another one of her get-togethers at the Palace Ballroom on Nov. 2, where food-lovers both in and out of the industry meet up. This one will feature a panel discussion by top restaurateurs Thierry Rautureau, Ethan Stowell, and Kurt Dammeier, plenty of time to eat-and-greet your way around the room, and an optional “speed networking” session led by Julien Perry of KOMO.

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