TC News and Information 5.17.11

Let's start today's post with Stephanie Izard, who is doing a special "Dueling Pigs" limited seating dinner May 29 featuring humanely raised pigs of two different heirloom breeds. She'll announce only on Twitter - and soon - when tickets to those 16 seats will be available.

Then there's Carla Hall, who's out and about offering fish recipes as part of a "Go Fish" campaign with CanolaInfo.org. She demos a dish and talks about her new TV show, "The Chew," in this video with local Hawaiian station KITV.

We're glad Carla survived the tornado that shut down the St. Louis airport last month. But she has stirred up a bit of a kerfuffle by becoming a spokesperson for Fancy Feast cat food, which is sponsoring a "flavor creation contest" where cat owners can submit suggestions to be turned into actual catfood - the reverse of what most TC contestants aspire to - as reported here and here.

A kerfuffle of an entirely different color has emerged in Canada, where Food Network Canada is broadcasting the first season of Top Chef to be produced in a country other than the U.S. Toronto Life and HuffPost talk about the blogospheric backlash that ensued after previews aired at the end of last week's TC Canada episode foreshadowed Daniel Boulud and a "classic French-themed challenge" where one contestant would have to cook horse meat (which is apparently legal in Canada, although not in the U.S., and considered something of a specialty in France). The actual episode is airing 5/16/11 as I write this post and autolaunch it for Tuesday morning, although we in the U.S. are barred from legally viewing it. Top Chef Canada's facebook page said this prior to Monday evening's episode:

There has been a great deal of conversation around the use of horse meat in tonight's episode of Top Chef Canada.  The premise of this particular episode is traditional French cuisine and horse meat is selected as one among several other ingredients that represent traditional French foods. We assure our viewers that the horse meat along with all protein featured in this episode was federally approved and meets HACCP standards. . . . What has become clear in the past few days, however, is that there are many varying opinions and claims surrounding the commercialization of horse meat. In light of this, Food Network Canada pledges to investigate the various issues and will carefully consider all the facts around this topic should horse meat be suggested for any future production.

And we thought bugs were hard to stomach.

To end this post on a more light-hearted note, check out this video from CNN, where Suvir Saran and Mary Sue Milliken run into James Oseland for the first time since filming Top Chef Masters 3.


Posted on AllTopChef.com