Global Delights

Welcome to Global Delights!

2008-03-11T09:18:00.000-07:00

Our Tangible Vision is to unload the party stress off your shoulders with our catering services.

We specializes in a variety of global cuisines (American, Asian, Continental, Italian, Mexican,and Vegetarian). We also have a "blue plate" menu for groups who want the "quick and minimum number of food items.

We service business lunches, dinners, birthday parties, family parties, picnics, and any special events that you can think of.

For the clients with high-end tastes, we have a secret exclusive menu that mixes unique Asian and American favorites. If you are interested in our services, please contact us.

Click on this link for a list of the different dishes that we have served.

Look below for some new entries.

" Please be patient. Our web site is currently being updated. "

Pepper for Your Health

2008-03-09T20:18:00.000-07:00

One of our favorite Asian specialty dishes are Mandarin Chicken with Peppers and Mandarin Beef with Peppers. Does that sound delicious?

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Hillary’s Health Plan: Hot Peppers

During a recent "60 Minutes" interview, Senator Hillary Clinton unveiled a surprising weapon in her fight to become the Democratic presidential nominee: hot peppers.

"I eat a lot of hot peppers,'' she told CBS News anchor Katie Couric, who had asked her how she maintains her stamina on the campaign trail. "I for some reason started doing that in 1992, and I swear by it. I think it keeps my metabolism revved up and keeps me healthy."

Nutritionists say Mrs. Clinton may be on to something. Although the scientific study of hot peppers is limited, there are some suggestions that capsaicin, the active ingredient in peppers, has numerous health benefits.

For starters, peppers contain several important nutrients, including beta-carotene, lutein, zeaxanthin and vitamin C, said Jonny Bowden, a board-certified nutritionist and author of "The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth.'' In fact, peppers contain about twice the amount of vitamin C found in citrus fruits, which may help explain why they have emerged as a popular home remedy for fighting colds

Much of the research on capsaicin involves pain relief, and capsaicin is a common ingredient in over-the-counter pain creams. The analgesic effect of the capsaicin found in peppers may help explain why Mrs. Clinton believes it makes her feel better.

"People on those kinds of schedules, they are wearing their body down and not sleeping much,'' Dr. Bowden said. "Possibly it could be like taking a couple of aspirins.''

Hot peppers also may slightly boost the metabolism, which could give Mrs. Clinton a sense of having more stamina and energy. "If you ate a big hot pepper, it would be hard to go right to sleep,'' Dr. Bowden said.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/hillarys-health-plan-hot-peppers/ --

One of My Favorite Chinese Cooks

2008-03-08T21:06:00.000-08:00

He is one of my favorite Chinese chefs.

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Wednesday, February 20, 2008 (SF Chronicle)
MARTIN YAN'S CAN-DO ATTITUDE/The Bay Area's gregarious TV chef focuses on his native China with new school and book
Amanda Gold, Chronicle Staff Writer

At age 13, Martin Yan left his home in Guangzhou, China, with nothing more than a small rattan suitcase and $20.

It was your classic case of tough love. Unable to properly care for Martin after losing her husband, Yan's mother felt that sending him to live with a distant uncle in Hong Kong would give him a chance at a better life.

Nearly 50 years later, Yan, one of the world's most recognizable ambassadors of Chinese food, sits in an office wallpapered with endless accolades. He knows his mother was right.
"I always tell people," he says, "that if I didn't have crisis or need in my life, I never would have learned to survive."

He's done more than just survive. As the first Asian TV cooking show host in the United States, he has never let up; this year marks the 30th anniversary of his original PBS-TV, "Yan Can Cook." His animated and wacky demeanor has garnered him both a devoted following and a fair share of sarcastic criticism. But his passion, wealth of knowledge and desire for a humble lifestyle has protected him from the fickle, inconsistent nature that afflicts today's generation of food TV personalities.

Not all of Yan's projects have met with success - his Yan Can fast-casual restaurants never fully got off the ground. But with his newest PBS series, "Martin Yan's China," a companion cookbook (his 27th) out this year, a series of shows targeted to the Chinese population, and this
month's opening of his cooking school in Shenzhen, China, this multifaceted man has come full circle, not only keeping up with the changing culinary landscape in America, but also catering to the masses in his native China. The man who has been criticized for his loose interpretations of Chinese cuisine in the United States has effectively become a revered teacher in his homeland.
First and foremost, he says, it's about staying on top of the skills he learned so many years ago.

When he first arrived in Hong Kong, his uncle put him to work in his restaurant. "I slept there," says Yan, "because there was no room for me anywhere else."

He recalls, "I wanted to go to culinary school, but I had no money."

Not to be deterred, he made a deal with the owner of the cooking school.

"I told him I would go shopping and carry ingredients back to the school," which, it should be noted, was located on the seventh floor of a walk-up building. In exchange, Yan got free tuition.
It wasn't the last time he'd use his entrepreneurial instincts to advance.

Yan came North America in 1969 when he was 21, stopping first in Calgary, Canada. But it was the coldest winter in 20 years, and after a few months, he'd had enough.

"I went to visit a friend at UC Davis, and never bothered to go back and pack up," he says, laughing.

There, he found himself in similar hot water, with an urge to continue his schooling and no funds. "At that point, nobody was teaching Chinese cooking in this part of the world," he says, so he approached the dean of UC Davis Extension.

The dean told Yan that he would put a small ad in the Davis Enterprise, the city's daily paper, and if more than 15 people replied, he would give him a class. After the ad ran, 43 people signed up, and Yan had his first two classes to teach.

Yan spent the next several years in Davis teaching, taking groups to San Francisco's Chinatown and catering out of his Rambler station wagon.

"I could never get a date," he jokes, "because nobody wanted to get into a car that smelled like a kitchen." Grounded in science Instead, he focused on his master's degree in food science, and after graduation returned to Hong Kong to work for a large sauce and seasoning company.

But his dream was to live in America. Because it was difficult to get back into the States, he returned to Calgary.

There he helped a friend open a restaurant, and started doing a "lunch and learn" program on the weekends, where he'd invite guests into the restaurant to take a cooking class before eating lunch together. A producer of a local TV show came in one day, and asked Yan to be a guest
on a talk show.

"I went on once, and they thought I was a little different," says Yan, "so they asked me to come back. After the second time, they asked me to do 130 shows. "

Since then, Yan has done close to 3,000 shows, primarily for PBS.

The shows have ranged from cooking demonstrations in Yan's kitchen to travelogues covering various Chinatowns and other locales around the world. His latest series, "Martin Yan's China," is devoted to the four schools of Chinese cuisine - Cantonese in the South, Szechuan and Hunan in
the West, Shanghai and Fuzhou in the East, and Beijing and the Mongol flavors of the North.

"This is the China century, whether you like it or not," he says. "All eyes are on China." Americans are traveling and working there more than ever, so, "it's a great time to be introducing this specific regional cuisine."

Plus, explains Yan, things have changed dramatically since he first started doing his "Yan Can Cook" TV shows.

"In the beginning, I just did things like chop suey and chow mein - more Americanized Chinese food. Now, the general public is more curious, articulate and adventurous. They're more willing to accept new cuisines and ingredients." It's why, he says, you see every type of ethnic fare
show up in the Bay Area. The Bay Area effect.

Living here - he has a house in the hills above San Mateo - has had an influence on Yan as well.
"Now, I tend to do more healthy stuff. I use a lot less oil, and I stay away from things that are endangered species." In general, Yan explains, he's more socially conscious and responsible, which mirrors the attitude of the American public, especially in Northern California.

In China, he says, "We've always eaten with the seasons based on what's available locally," so that's nothing new. Before filming the current series, Yan taped cooking shows for a Chinese
audience, which allowed him to meet the locals and form relationships that helped dictate episodes of this new series. Being on the inside track gives viewers a more sensory experience.
In an episode on Szechuan, for example, he was able to run around with pandas inside their living space. "You just can't find that image anywhere," he says, "and we were able to capture that."
The series he did for the Chinese public, however, was entirely different.

"Here, when you pick out ingredients, you have to explain a lot more about what it is and how to use it. But in China, you can pick out anything and they know what it is." That allowed Yan to cook more exotic and innovative dishes, including steamed worms and insects. "They don't mind if you cut up a live fish or something on TV. Here, if you do that, people are going to sue you."

The funny thing, says Yan, is how successful the show has been in China - more than 110 million viewers, he says. "They had newspapers that said, 'American chef comes over to teach Chinese cooking.' They didn't realize that I was actually born there."

But his popularity may have less to do with the dishes he prepares on TV and more to do with his engaging personality, Jackie Chan-like knife skills and ability to connect with viewers.

"Martin is a great performer, and he's fun," says Cecilia Chiang, founder of the former Mandarin restaurant in San Francisco's Ghirardelli square.

Chiang recalls the early days when Yan would come into her restaurant to eat, and was very timid.

"When he first came here, he didn't have anything," she says. "Now, he has a good reputation, fame and money. That's pretty hard to do. You have to be smart." Addressing the critics Yan has no problem talking about how far he has come and his capabilities - he'll tell you that his TV show reaches hundreds of millions of viewers, and that he can bone a chicken in 18 seconds - both of which are true. But in the next breath, he'll say in no uncertain terms that he's not
successful.

"I never think I'm on top of the world," he says. "If you're on top, you catch all the winds, and get all the criticism." There is much less pressure, he says, if you don't strive to be first. But don't believe for a second that Yan escapes the critiques that plague those in the limelight. Viewers know him as the man who yells his signature tagline "Yan can cook, so can you!" in each episode. Most find this energy contagious, though rumors have swirled that his thick accent is fake and used to bolster his quirky TV persona.

Yan is quick to defend himself.

"I came here when I was 21 years old, and people don't understand why I still have an accent. Whenever people say that, I say, 'Let me teach you one sentence in Cantonese. No matter how many times you repeat it, you're still going to have a heavy accent.' "

And though Chiang has the utmost respect for Yan's work ethic and impressive career, she's less sure about the type of food he prepares.

"Martin Yan has Martin Yan Cuisine," she says. "It's kind of a mix of cuisines. I'm not really sure that it's authentic."

Still, Yan's goal over the years has been to make Asian cuisine accessible to the American public, and most of his viewers seem to appreciate that. "Martin is an ambassador who bridged a gap by introducing people to Chinese cuisine in an unintimidating way," says Alex Ong, chef at the
pan-Asian restaurant Betelnut in San Francisco. "He's very good at talking and being one with the audience, and it makes his viewers feel comfortable."

One can even tell by looking at his latest cookbook, due in stores in April, that even the most far-flung regional specialty can be easily cooked in the home kitchen. Though this is one of his most informational books - packed with history, snippets on regional heritage and specialties, and photos from his travel - the recipes are still totally doable for the home cook. Retirement project Sitting in his office, the diminutive man with kind eyes is more subdued than he is on TV, but his cartoonish excitement bubbles to the surface when he talks about Chef Martin Yan's Culinary Arts Center, his new cooking school. A palatial building surrounded by lychee trees in
Shenzhen, China, this is what Yan calls his "retirement project," and something that he's determined to see succeed.

In many ways, this is his attempt to elevate Chinese cuisine, which around the world, is something he and other Asian chefs feel has stagnated. Designed primarily for professional chefs, Yan sees the CAC as a culinary and cultural exchange program. It's his hope that chefs from all over will come to Shenzhen for an intensive program taught by Asian chefs, and will use that knowledge to bolster authentic and regional cuisine elsewhere in the world.

"Up until now," says Yan, "there has been nothing like this in China. You want to learn French cuisine? You go to France. Spanish? You go to Spain.

In order to really learn the cuisine of a particular country, you need to go there."

In addition to the cooking classes, students can also learn tai chi or Chinese paper folding, and can participate in night golf or Chinese massage.

Because dozens of professional chefs have invested in the school, Yan has high hopes for its success. He plans on being there at least two weeks out of every six each year. Taking cooking seriously Yan says his biggest concern is getting his message out and making an impact.

"With all of the shows on the Food Network now, young people think, 'Wow, I can do that.' I say, 'Don't try to be somebody else. If this isn't your passion, do me a favor; don't spend $50,000 in culinary school to do something that you might end up quitting.' "

To that end, he might call the school his retirement project, but don't expect him to slow down anytime soon. As his friend and fellow longtime TV personality Jacques Pepin says, "We cannot escape ourselves. Martin is what he is and he does what he does because he loves it. He has no
intention of doing something else."

-- Gate extra: Martin Yan's Rainbow Stir-Fry at sfgate.com.food.

Yan's school
For more information on chef Martin Yan's Culinary Art Center in Shenzhen, China, visit www.mycic.biz or yancancook.com, or call (650) 341-0701.

E-mail Amanda Gold at agold@sfchronicle.com.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/02/20/FDIDV1L7G.DTL

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Quality Not Quantity

2008-02-25T08:18:00.000-08:00

When we are catering to our clients, we focus on quality not quantity. Our specialty is our grilled chicken burgers. In our burgers, we have mushrooms, pineapple, ham, bacon, jack cheese and our special dragon
sauce.

If you are interesting in seeing more of our specialty, please leave us a comment.

Saturday, February 23, 2008
(AP) Michigan Eatery Builds a Bigger Burger
(02-23) 18:05 PST Southgate, Mich. (AP) --

A Detroit-area restaurant owner believes he has broken the world record for "largest hamburger commercially available."

After 12 hours of preparation and baking, the 134-pound burger emerged Saturday at Mallie's Sports Bar and Grill.

The "Absolutely Ridiculous Burger," made with beef, bacon and cheese, was delivered on a 50-pound bun, The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press reported.

It sells for $350, and orders require 24 hours' notice. Flipping the burger required three men using two steel sheets.

Owner Steve Mallie told The News he wanted to show that he has the biggest and best burgers.
Authenticating Mallie's claim could take a few weeks. His burger would outweigh the 123-pound burger made last year by Denny's Beer Barrel Pub, of Clearfield, Pa.
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A Great Cookbook!

2008-02-24T21:55:00.000-08:00

Last year, Alice Waters wrote "The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution". I am a big fan of her, will be getting her book soon.

If you are interesting in cooking in a "green" way, get this book.

Wait! Get all of her books. They are all timeless cookbook classics. You cannot go wrong.

Happy Year of the Rodent

2008-02-07T12:18:00.000-08:00

I am a big fan of Asian cuisine, especially Chinese . We recently learned how to make a northern Chinese type of Egg Muffins. It is very popular in Shanghai, China. After a few hours of experimenting, we came up a variety of sandwiches similar to this Shanghai sandwich. We are deciding on a name for this sandwich.

While cooking authentic Chinese food is one of our many goals, our food selection depends greatly on our clientele.

To my Chinese friends around the world, I bid you a Happy New Year, Gong xi fa cai

Thanks to Collaboration360 for their good business ideas.

:::
February 9, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
A Rat in the Kitchen
By FRED FERRETTI

BEFORE I begin, a wish to all for good fortune in this Lunar New Year, annum 4706, a Year of the Rat in the cyclical Chinese zodiac. It is a custom each year to look into the character and traits of the creature that governs one's birth year, and to ask if they might mirror one's own propensities. The rat, for example, is notable for his guile and clever talk and for being an occasional toady, yet as the year goes on he has the capacity to become an upstanding fellow. So, happiness and growth to all rats, most of whom will begin celebrating their year, as will we, dining festively.

Eating and knowing what we eat is my concern this new year as we ponder the stubborn inability of Americans to understand Chinese food.

In recent years, the pages of this and other publications as well as the airwaves jammed with gastronomic programs have been filled with discussions purporting to be about Chinese cookery. Too often these discussions have been rife with error. Chinese dishes are misidentified and misunderstood. Food is routinely declared Chinese simply because it is marinated in soy sauce; cookbooks tout misguided concepts like the "flavor principle," encouraging home chefs to "re-create" Chinese dishes simply by studding them with bottled and packaged products.

After reading and rereading such nonsense, I have resolved this New Year to stop stewing and to begin questioning how and why Chinese food is so horribly misunderstood.

Let's start at the beginning. Virtually all of today's so-called Chinese cooking in the United States can best be described as undistinguished, served in restaurants generally indistinguishable one from another.

The how of this is easy. The Chinese who sailed to the Golden Mountain of America to lay the ties and tracks of the transcontinental railroad were all men. In this womanless society, these workers ate a food of survival; unfamiliar ingredients were cooked in rudimentary Chinese fashion. This coarsened cookery is what evolved into the Chinese-American genre. It is bastardized food, prepared first to feed a worker and then to please an American palate that dotes upon overcooked vegetables and sauces thickened with cornstarch and sugar.

The why is more complex. Chinese-American food is regarded unquestionably as Chinese by an American public that consumes it by the ton. And while the public bears some responsibility for its love of these sodium-assisted flavors, much of the blame must be placed on those of us who are responsible for interpreting Chinese cuisine. I include those who collate its recipes, those who critique it, those who rate its restaurants. They have failed to do their jobs.

Over the years, news organizations with reputations for accuracy and thoroughness have told me the following about Chinese cuisine: The "spring roll is similar to a typical egg roll"; "Chinese black tea is difficult to find" in America; "yum cha" is Australian for "dim sum"; Italian prosciutto is virtually identical to, and may be substituted for, the hard salted hams of western China.

All of these are egregiously incorrect. What is one to make of an authoritative Chinese cookbook that suggests "chopped California dates" as a substitute for red bean paste; opines that string beans will stand in nicely for bamboo shoots; sweet potatoes for taro; almonds for ginkgo nuts; a bouillon cube for soy sauce; salt for fermented black beans?

We are told that beggar's chicken, traditionally cooked encased in clay or a hard dough, can be made authentically in an oven roasting bag. It cannot. It is reported that cutting up and sautéing a black-fleshed chicken is an authentic preparation. No, it is not. In China, black chickens are never eaten; rather they are steamed at length, with the resulting broth drunk as a health tonic and the meat discarded. In the last year, I have read that there are five, six or eight great regional traditions of Chinese cooking. In fact, there are four, always and ever four.

What's most troubling about all this is that there is a sufficiently broad record to consult, to learn from and then to transmit. Books like "Food in Chinese Culture," published 30 years ago, and its younger companion, "The Food of China," are fine, precise and exhaustive sources. Yet they are consistently ignored; what seems more pertinent, of more interest, are courses in "Chinese takeout" like the one offered by a New York cooking school.

Let us be clear: authentic Chinese cookery is not so elusive. It can be found in the United States; the chefs capable of re-creating China's greatest dishes are here. What these cooks need, I suggest, is to be challenged. I urge this New Year that those charged with informing us about true Chinese food make resolutions to educate themselves so that in time they may issue, with confidence, such challenges. And then the rest of us can follow. Gong xi fa cai. Happy New Year.

Fred Ferretti, formerly a reporter for The Times and a columnist for Gourmet magazine, writes about Asian food for Food Arts magazine.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/opinion/09Ferretti.html?

The (Possible) Perils of Being Thirsty While Being Green

2008-01-12T22:08:00.000-08:00

Illustration by The New York Times

To be environmentally conscious. I believe in knowing what helps us and what hurts us.

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The (Possible) Perils of Being Thirsty While Being Green
By ALINA TUGEND

Published: January 5, 2008

I HAVE the usual New Year’s resolutions — exercise more, lose weight, be a nicer person. I also hope to find out if I am inadvertently poisoning my children.

My fear has to do with reusing what are known as “single use” plastic water bottles, like Poland Spring. I buy them not because I distrust New York tap water, but because they are easy to carry around in the car and to various kids’ sporting events. And if one is lost, as it invariably is, no biggie.

We refill them with tap water and use them a number of times before recycling. I was, I sanctimoniously thought, doing my green part.

But by trying to save the earth, am I hurting my family’s health? I had heard it wasn’t a good idea to refill these single-use bottles because the plastic leaches dangerous chemicals. But is that enough of a risk to make me change my ways? What if I stop using plastic bottles and then drink less water? Is that a good trade-off?

It is the old conundrum about risk versus benefits.

Here is what I found out: most plastics are stamped with a number from 1 to 7 at the bottom — these numbers are used to indicate how to recycle or dispose of the plastic.

The type of plastic bottle that typically holds water, soda and juice is made from polyethylene terephthalate, a petroleum-based material also known as PET that is labeled No. 1.

The trouble with reusing those plastic bottles is that each time they are washed and refilled they become a little more scratched and crinkly, which can lead them to degrade. That can cause a trace metal called antimony to leach out, said Frederick S. vom Saal, a professor of biology at the University of Missouri who has studied plastics for years.

“We have to assume that along with that metal, others are almost certainly leaching out as well, but we don’t know what they are and we don’t know what to look for because manufacturers won’t tell us what else is in the bottles,” Professor vom Saal said.

One inaccuracy that I came across repeatedly is that a chemical called phthalates, which can interfere with male hormones, poses a danger from such water bottles.

Lynn R. Goldman, professor of environmental health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the truth was that it leached in barely discernible amounts.

Perhaps more worrisome is that because the bottles — with their small openings — are harder to wash out than the wide-mouth hiking and sports bottles, they can house bacteria.

At this point, I do not feel terribly anxious about reusing the bottles several times — that is usually all we can do before we lose them or they crumple beyond recognition.

But perhaps a better alternative — in terms of health and the environment — is to use the hard plastic bottles made with polycarbonate plastic, often known by the brand Nalgene. It has the numeral 7 stamped at the bottom and is the same type of material used to make some baby bottles, the lining of tin cans and other products. I have some of those around the house. They are just too big to fit into our car cup holders so I retired them to the basement.

Time to dig them out?

Not quite. Environmental groups and some scientists have raised concern that such plastic can leach bisphenol A, an endocrine-disrupting chemical.

It is a big enough issue that last year, the National Toxicology Program Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction convened a 12-member expert panel to examine studies related to the chemical.

At the same time, another government-financed group, made up of about 40 scientists with expertise in bisphenol A, reviewed more than 700 relevant studies.

Here is where it gets a little tricky. The first group concluded that most people’s exposure to the chemical was well below the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard.

Nonetheless, the panel expressed “some concern” that the chemical could cause behavioral and neurological problems in developing fetuses and young children. For more information, go to www. niehs.nih.gov.

More studies are being done on certain aspects of the chemical, said Michael D. Shelby, director of the center, and a final brief will be issued this summer.

But Professor vom Saal, the lead author of the scientists’ report, said their findings were far less benign. “There is a very high level of concern about the potential harm caused by bisphenol A in animals,” he said, including potential for diabetes, cancer and obesity. “The prediction by this panel is that we can expect similar harm in people.”

And industry has its own view. Steven Hentges, executive director of the polycarbonate/BPA global group of the American Chemistry Council, dismissed fears about bisphenol A and said that no country had banned or restricted the chemical’s use. “No government body has found reason to be alarmed,” he said. On its Web site, Nalgene reaches the same conclusion.

So forget about those bottles? The reality is that bisphenol A is present in many types of material, from resins used to coat the interior surface of most food and beverage cans to some children’s toys.

There is a danger in focusing exclusively on bottles rather than looking at the need for government regulation of the widespread use of these chemicals, Professor Goldman said

But choosing what water container you use can give you a slight sense of control. And Professor vom Saal noted that the range of exposure among people varied widely. So exchanging that polycarbonate water bottle for one made of glass or stainless steel may be a good idea.

Forget glass for obvious reasons (“Mom, I just sliced my finger”). A search of available stainless steel bottles showed they run around $16 and up — a safer but pricey alternative given that no matter how hard we try, we are bound to leave them scattered on various fields.

“If I was to use plastic, I would stay with No. 2 and No. 5,” Professor vom Saal said. No. 2 is high-density polyethylene; No. 5 is polypropylene. Both are used in margarine tubs and yogurt containers for example.

But, he warned, do not heat anything in any type of plastic in the microwave.

If you do use these hard No. 7 plastic bottles, the Green Guide, published by the National Geographic Society, advises you to avoid washing them in a dishwasher or with harsh detergent to limit wear and tear.

I have no doubt that some readers think it is ridiculous to worry about such risks, while others will immediately toss out their plastic bottles. I am still on the fence.

So, in a frenzy of indecision, I decided to look elsewhere in an attempt to be environmentally good. What about those plastic bags we use for sandwiches and snacks — is there a way to cut down on them?

One friend suggested wax paper, another foil.

“The big trade-off is between manufacturing and disposability,” said Seth Bauer, editorial director for the Green Guide and thegreenguide.com. “Plastic is manufactured incredibly efficiently and uses a lot less energy, while wax paper has a fairly intensive manufacturing process.”

Mining aluminum is also bad for the environment, he noted, and uses a great deal of energy.

Plastic bags can be rinsed out, if they do not hold meat, and reused, but wax paper is better than plastic when it comes to disposal.

There is also a Web site, www.reusablebags.com, which offers a product called “Wrap-N-Mat” with a Velcro closure that you can wash and use repeatedly at $6.95 a pop.

I might try good old-fashioned Tupperware. I started searching on the Web for cute ones shaped like sandwiches and then realized I had plenty of containers in my cupboard that would do the job just fine.

Stop buying and use what we have in the house? Now that would be an innovative

Happy New Year

2008-01-05T01:11:00.000-08:00

For this year, I am adding a greater number of Chicken dishes, Thai curry dishes and East Indian's Naam Bread to my menu.

I also thinking about adding some more European and Asian Soups.

Does anyone have any favorites?

Happy Holidays!

2007-12-28T03:18:00.001-08:00

This past quarter, we have been serving many dishes of Asian and American origins

Appetizers
* Honey-glazed Banana Chips
* Chinese Onion Pancake
* French Toast Bagels (with other special ingredients)
* Sesame Rice Balls
* Sweet Potato Chips with Mustard sauce
* Vegetable Spring Rolls
* Yukon Gold Potato Chips

Entrees
* Clam Chowder Soup
* Chinese Chicken Noodle Soup
* Chinese Vegetable Soup
* Chinese Vegetables with White Rice
* Hot and Sour Soup
* Italian Pasta
* Lemon Chicken with Fried Rice or White Rice
* Potato Pancakes with Turkey or Chicken and various vegetables
* Sweet and Sour Chicken Delights
* Swedish Meatballs
* Teriyaki Chicken
* Tomato Chicken with White Rice

Desserts
* Apple Strudels
* Banana Raisin Cornbread Mini-Muffins (with other special ingredients)
* Chocolate Chip Cookies (with other special ingredients)
* Crème DeMint Cake w/ Banana and Strawberry inside
* Honey Glazed Carrot Cake (with other special ingredients)
* Oatmeal Cookie with Raisins (with other special ingredients)
* Sweet Potato Pie

This coming year, we are planning to include more dishes from Asia and focus our attentions on a fusion of Pacific and European Cuisine. Wishing a Happy 2008 to everyone. Thanks for visiting.

From the Desktop of Global Delights

2007-11-27T15:49:00.000-08:00

I am a big fan of garlic. Learned to use it for many things.

During the cold season, I love to drink Chinese green tea or Chinese Pu-Erh tea with green onion, garlic, and honey. You can get good tea at the Pu-Erh store in Indianapolis, Indiana or Red Blossom Tea in San Francisco, Ca.

One of my favorite Asian dishes is a Chinese Garlic Chicken. In a few months, we will serving Chinese Garlic Chicken at a future event. The key to this dish is the seasoning and sauce.

Here is a good NYT article on the benefits of Garlic.

#

As an organic food advocate, this article on organic food got me thinking. It all starts with simple things like milk, potatoes, peanut butter, ketchup and apples. ... Do you know if the food that you are eating is pesticide free? ... Be aware, not scared. ... We are what we eat. ... Please check out this data table that shows what food has the least amount of pesticide to what food has the greatest amount.

A new entry on brainy food for kids

# # #

A few more notes, here is a link to a great NY Times article on Alice Waters (my favorite promoter of organic food) and another link on her visiting Chicago (from SFGate.com).

Here is an informational link on "How to Properly Microwave Food"

Offer our thanks to Collaboration360.com (aka. Collaboration360 Consultants) for mentoring us in the launching of our business. We used their Compass AE process to develop our business strategy and our operational plans. Our experience with Collaboration360's Compass AE process can be found here.

The Benefits of Garlic

2007-11-27T15:39:00.000-08:00

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October 15, 2007, 5:03 pm

Unlocking the Benefits of Garlic

Garlic has long been touted as a health booster, but it’s never been clear why the herb might be good for you. Now new research is beginning to unlock the secrets of the odoriferous bulb.

In a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers show that eating garlic appears to boost our natural supply of hydrogen sulfide. Hydrogen sulfide is actually poisonous at high concentrations — it’s the same noxious byproduct of oil refining that smells like rotten eggs. But the body makes its own supply of the stuff, which acts as an antioxidant and transmits cellular signals that relax blood vessels and increase blood flow.

In the latest study, performed at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, researchers extracted juice from supermarket garlic and added small amounts to human red blood cells. The cells immediately began emitting hydrogen sulfide, the scientists found.

The power to boost hydrogen sulfide production may help explain why a garlic-rich diet appears to protect against various cancers, including breast, prostate and colon cancer, say the study authors. Higher hydrogen sulfide might also protect the heart, according to other experts. Although garlic has not consistently been shown to lower cholesterol levels, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine earlier this year found that injecting hydrogen sulfide into mice almost completely prevented the damage to heart muscle caused by a heart attack.

“People have known garlic was important and has health benefits for centuries,'’ said Dr. David W. Kraus, associate professor of environmental science and biology at the University of Alabama. “Even the Greeks would feed garlic to their athletes before they competed in the Olympic games.'’

Now, the downside. The concentration of garlic extract used in the latest study was equivalent to an adult eating about two medium-sized cloves per day. In such countries as Italy, Korea and China, where a garlic-rich diet seems to be protective against disease, per capita consumption is as high as eight to 12 cloves per day.

While that may sound like a lot of garlic, Dr. Kraus noted that increasing your consumption to five or more cloves a day isn’t hard if you use it every time you cook. Dr. Kraus also makes a habit of snacking on garlicky dishes like hummus with vegetables.

Many home chefs mistakenly cook garlic immediately after crushing or chopping it, added Dr. Kraus. To maximize the health benefits, you should crush the garlic at room temperature and allow it to sit for about 15 minutes. That triggers an enzyme reaction that boosts the healthy compounds in garlic.

Garlic can cause indigestion, but for many, the bigger concern is that it can make your breath and sweat smell like…garlic. While individual reactions to garlic vary, eating fennel seeds like those served at Indian restaurants helps to neutralize the smell. Garlic-powder pills claim to solve the problem, but the data on these supplements has been mixed. It’s still not clear if the beneficial compounds found in garlic remain potent once it’s been processed into a pill.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/unlocking-the-benefits-of-garlic/

Brainy Food for Kids

2007-11-13T01:11:00.000-08:00

Foods That Make You Smarter!

Want to ace your next exam or presentation at work? Ditch the soda, cookies, and candy.... Instead, load up on the following winning foods!

Your pre-test meal should consist of slow-release carbohydrate plus high-quality protein. This winning combination will help stabilize your blood sugar while fueling your brain with continuous glucose. Bottom line -- you remain sharp, alert, and ready to conquer.

Pre-Exam Breakfast Ideas

1. Oatmeal with Berries: bowl of oatmeal topped with 1-2 teaspoons sugar, fresh berries, and a glass of skim milk.
2. Egg Sandwich: 1-2 scrambled eggs between 2 slices of whole wheat toast; enjoy with a sliced orange.
3. Breakfast Burrito: whole wheat tortilla stuffed with a scrambled egg, shredded low-fat cheese, ½ cup black beans and optional salsa
4. Waffles with Peanut Butter and Bananas: whole-grain waffles, toasted and topped with peanut butter and banana slices.

Pre-Exam Lunch Ideas
1. Turkey/cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread with baby carrots and an apple
2. Cold pasta salad tossed with light canned tuna, vegetables and
low-cal dressing.
3. Leftover dinner; chicken stir-fry with rice
4. Bowl of hearty lentil or black bean soup with whole grain crackers

After-school Homework Helpers
* Low-fat popcorn
* Grapes (chilled or frozen)
* Apple slices with peanut butter
* Soy crisps
* Healthy dry cereal (Puffins, Mighty Bites, Heart to Heart,
Multi-Grain Cheerios)
* Baby carrots
* Pepper sticks (red, green, and yellow)
* Cherry and grape tomatoes
* String cheese
* Edamame (in the pod)
* Raw almonds or cashews

Extra Credit for Overall Brain Health
* Hydrate with plenty of water
* Load up on omega 3 fats (fatty fish, omega 3 fortified eggs,
ground flaxseeds, and walnuts)
* Eat foods rich in folic acid (spinach, oranges, broccoli, and fortified breakfast cereals)
* Get plenty of exercise

http://health.yahoo.com/experts/joybauernutrition/19322/foods-that-make-you-smarter

A Spotlight on the Green Side of Bottled Water (New York Times)

2007-11-04T03:33:00.001-08:00

I only buy bottled water when I need to.

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November 3, 2007
Saturday Interview
A Spotlight on the Green Side of Bottled Water
By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH

LAST summer, environmentalists took on the bottled water industry. On their Web sites and in their press releases, many environmental groups pointed to bottled water as a prime example of an unnecessary product that uses scarce resources and adds more plastic to overtaxed landfills.

The industry’s growth did slow down. But most industry experts and even some environmentalists concede that the outcry was not the reason. Instead, it was a combination of higher prices, relatively cool weather and, perhaps most important, the maturity of the industry.

“We weren’t even selling refreshment-size bottles of water until 1989, said Kim E. Jeffery, chief executive of Nestlé Waters, which sells Poland Spring, Perrier and five other branded waters. “But the per-capita increase in bottled water use is growing, and will continue to grow.

In a recent conversation, Mr. Jeffery maintained that bottled water would continue to sell briskly no matter how much criticism came its way. Following are excerpts from that conversation:

Q. Tap water is not only more environmentally friendly than bottled water, but it is also less expensive. Won’t that combination eventually woo consumers back to their faucets?

A. Bottled water wooed people away from soda and sports drinks, not taps. About 70 percent of the beverages people drink come in packages. All our research shows that if bottled water weren’t available, people would buy Gatorade, or fruit juice, or other sugared or diet beverages. Some 16 percent say they would drink tap water but you can’t go into a deli and ask for a bottle of tap water.

And you may pay $4 for a bottle of water at Fenway Park, but it costs you about 15 cents a bottle when you buy a case at the market. It’s still a lot cheaper than other convenience drinks. And, considering the obesity epidemic, a lot healthier.

Q. Healthier? But there have been scares over the years about contamination. That’s true of tap water, too but those problems can be solved with filter systems.

A. Sure, there have been isolated incidents but those were problems with contamination that was introduced at the store, not at the point of manufacture. Our whole industry adheres to a formal set of good manufacturing practices. Infant formula is the only other product regulated by the Food and Drug Administration that can make that claim.

Q. Still, environmentalists are trying to make people feel uncool, even guilty, about carrying around bottles of water. Don’t you fear a backlash?

A. Not at all. We’re aware of the heightened noise level, and ever since July, we’ve been doing telephone and Internet surveys every few weeks, checking on whether people’s perception of our industry is changing.

The research consistently shows that people are aware of the issues surrounding bottled water but they are not going back to sugared drinks, and they will not rely on their taps.

Q. But they may be buying bottled water despite its environmental impact. You’ve maintained that bottled water actually helps the environment. Isn’t that somewhat counterintuitive?

A. We’re not perfect. The entire consumer products industry is behind the curve on recycling, for example.

But we rely on a sustainable source of water, so we’ve always been conscious of conserving the springs and the land around them. When we find a new spring, we build a plant nearby. We are constantly reducing the distance our product must travel to customers. It would be rare for product to travel more than 250 miles from source to store.

Q. None of that addresses the issue of bottles. Can you really justify using all that plastic?

A. We use less packaging than sodas or other convenience beverages. Nestlé Waters is rolling out Ecoshape, a 12.5 gram plastic bottle that holds half a liter of water. It’s about 15 percent lighter than our current bottles, and we use 10 to 15 percent less energy to make it. By year end, all our brands will use it.

Think of it a half-liter bottle of Poland Spring will use less than half an ounce of plastic. The bottles for carbonated beverages are twice as heavy, and Gatorade bottles are three times as heavy.

Q. You make Nestlé Waters and its industry sound like a group of tree huggers. If that is so, why do you think so many environmentalists are trying to put you out of business?

A. They are trying to frame this as a fight between bottled water and tap water. And what they really want is to ensure the quality of municipal water supplies. Many of them are afraid that the easy availability of bottled water might take the spotlight off the need to manage the municipal infrastructure better.

Q. So why aren’t you fighting back? I haven’t seen advertising that extols the environmental benefits of bottled water.

A. I’ll happily answer questions like the ones you are asking now. And we have started airing commercials about our lightweight package because we see it as a point of differentiation for us.

But like any company, we have finite resources. Look, we’ve got the lightest-weight packaging containing the healthiest product. I want to spend our advertising dollars talking about the attributes of my product and of my company. I don’t want to spend them on some negative conversation that some other group has decided to start.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/03/business/03interview.html
# # #

U.S. To Boost Testing Of Imported Canada Meat

2007-11-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

# # #
November 3, 2007
U.S. To Boost Testing Of Imported Canada Meat
By REUTERS

Filed at 8:05 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Meat and poultry products being imported from Canada will be subjected to increased testing and inspection after an outbreak of E. coli in several U.S. states traced to beef from a Canadian company, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Saturday.

The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service said it would increase testing for salmonella, listeria monocytogenes and E. coli O157:H7. The agency said it would require the products be held until testing shows they do not contain any of those pathogens.

The bacteria can cause abdominal pains, diarrhea and dehydration.

Canadian meat and poultry products will also receive increased levels of reinspection by FSIS officials to confirm they are eligible to enter the U.S. market. Those requirements will begin next week.

The FSIS said it would also conduct an audit of Canada's food safety system. The audit will focus on plants that export beef to the United States.

"The audit and stepped-up actions at the border are being conducted because of concerns about testing practices at Ranchers Beef, Ltd that were discovered as part of the ongoing investigation," said U.S. Agriculture Undersecretary Richard Raymond.

Alberta-based Ranchers Beef, which has ceased operations, is believed to be the source of the multi-state outbreak of E. coli infections linked to the U.S.-based Topps Meat Co in September, the FSIS said. The agency delisted Ranchers Beef as an importer on October 20.

The recall of 21.7 million pounds (9.8 million kg) of ground beef was the fifth-largest meat or poultry recall in U.S. history and led to nearly 100 illnesses in the two countries. Topps Meat has since gone out of business.

The preliminary findings from the audit by the FSIS will determine whether the additional testing and inspection rules remain in place.

"These measures are being taken to further ensure the equivalency of the system already in place," said Raymond. "We continue to work together with our food safety partners both domestically and internationally to ensure imported meat and poultry products are
produced ... at least equivalent to those in the United States."

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-meat-canada-usa.html

2007-10-29T16:22:00.000-07:00

Red Meat that Makes You Skinny?

Posted Mon, Oct 29, 2007, 1:39 pm PDT

Lamb chops or pork chops, bison burgers or veal breast, round roast or Porterhouse steak? Sure, you know meat’s high in cholesterol and saturated fat and that it's less healthy than fish and poultry, but what if you really, really need to tear into some red meat now and then?

Use this guide to find the slimmest, trimmest cuts and kinds. Now enjoy--not just the flavors, the health benefits: Most meat is rich in top-quality protein, iron, zinc, B12, and other nutrients that aren’t easy to get elsewhere.

What’s the leanest meat of all?

We hope you’re ready to expand your dinner horizons because bison (aka buffalo) is the big winner. (Deer and elk are right on its hooves, er, heels.) Believe it or not, bison has slightly less fat and fewer calories (2 grams and 122 calories per 3-ounce serving) than skinless light meat chicken (3g and 144 cals). Plus, it’s a terrific source of protein (24g) and iron. The taste? Similar to beef, though slightly sweeter and richer. Try your own burger recipe or this grilled buffalo steak dish.

Bonus: With bison (wild game, too), you aren't exposed to the cancer-linked growth hormones and antibiotics administered to farm-raised cows.

Things that go “Mooo!”

Beef and veal are skinniest when they’re loin or round cuts, such as beef bottom sirloin (6g fat, 150 cals) and top round veal (3g, 128 cals). Avoid veal cutlets and breast meat.

If you prefer pork...

Choose leg cuts, such as ham, or loin, as in boneless sirloin pork chops or top loin chops (both have about 7g fat and 170 cals).

Lamb lovers

Try cuts from the shank half of the leg (if labels aren’t clear, ask the butcher). Well-trimmed shank-half cuts have 5-6 grams fat and about 155 calories per serving.

So what's the reward for becoming your butcher's new best friend? Eating a low-fat diet--and eating healthful unsaturated fats when you do eat fat--can make your RealAge as much as 6 years younger.

Alice Waters in Chicago

2007-10-25T03:33:00.000-07:00

Alice Waters is one of my favorite organic food advocates.

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Wednesday, October 17, 2007 (SF Chronicle)
Alice in the Heartland/The Bay Area is well acquainted with the culinary philosophy of the Chez Panisse founder, but how does it play outside California?
Amanda Gold, Chronicle Staff Writer

(10-17) 04:00 PDT Chicago -- If you live in Northern California and have never heard of Alice Waters - or at least her Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse - you might have spent the last three decades burrowed underground in a fallout shelter.

But last week, I sent a mass e-mail to friends and relatives in the Midwest.

"Quick answer," I asked. "No Googling allowed. Who is Alice Waters?"

The first response came almost immediately from a friend who was a fellow classmate at the University of Wisconsin:
"Isn't that the name of a dorm in Madison?"

Nope, that's Elizabeth Waters. But as the rest of the e-mails poured in - from what can only be described as a smart, enlightened crowd - all but one of the remaining 35 people on the list were equally puzzled.

This came as a surprise, but maybe it shouldn't have. Many of us who live here - or travel in food-conscious or politically active circles elsewhere - think of Alice Waters as a revolutionary, a woman who has fought fervently since Chez Panisse opened in 1971 to change the way Americans think about food and where it comes from. She's credited with popularizing California cuisine, and her mantra of sourcing seasonal ingredients that are local, sustainable and organic has become a virtual cliche in restaurants all over the country.

But clearly, she's not a household name in Middle America.

I sent the e-mail in advance of a trip, where I would shadow Waters as she swept through Chicago to promote her new cookbook, "The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution." Three long days of book signings, a trip to the Green City Market, speaking engagements and a Slow Food dinner demonstrated that while many Midwestern chefs revere her as the doyenne of responsible eating and cooking, most of their customers have no idea who she is.

Yet, despite this, her message and philosophy have gotten through. Even those who confuse her with the name of a college dorm have begun to think about healthier eating habits and whole foods - they just don't know that Waters might have been the driving force behind those thoughts.

But, according to her, "the changes are simply not taking place fast enough."

Although Chicago has become one of the most exciting cities for dining out - described as well-rounded, ethnically diverse, inventive and avant-garde - it's certainly different from San Francisco. Plus, some of the best meals I've had there have often amounted to a neon green relish-topped hot dog, smothered with out-of-season tomatoes and canned sport peppers. (For
the record, when I tried to get Waters to join me for one - how do you go to Chicago and not have a hot dog? - she said, ever on task, "Well, I'd just like to see where that hot dog comes from." Um, Vienna? Not gonna happen.)

To that end, in trying to promote her message, the obvious challenges that Waters would face were further heightened by the circumstances of the weekend - the Cubs were in the playoffs, the city was gearing up for the marathon on Sunday, and the unseasonably warm October weather meant that the masses were much more intent on spending time outdoors than sitting in a lecture hall listening to her speak.

Still, by the time I arrived on Thursday, Waters had already hit the ground running, stopping in at pal Rick Bayless' Frontera Grill for a taco (organic, of course), and eating at other like-minded establishments like Blackbird, and new restaurant Sepia.

And, just two days earlier, she had met with Mayor Richard Daley to tell him about the Edible Schoolyard, her project at Berkeley's Martin Luther King Junior Middle School. The program engages children in every aspect of their school lunch, from growing food in an organic garden, to cooking and eating together, and integrating it into the curriculum wherever possible.
It's a cause she has championed tirelessly, and, as she told Daley in her persuasive and fluttering tone, she wanted them in every school in the city.

"Chicago has a benevolent dictatorship," she said later, when recounting details of the meeting. "By the time we were finished, the mayor had agreed to put edible schoolyards in six schools - one for each Chicago district." She was elated.

"Now it's up to us," she urged audiences throughout the weekend, "to stay on top of it and make it happen."

But with the exception of a devoted crowd at a fundraiser to benefit Slow Food (Waters is vice president of the international organization), the audiences weren't particularly sizable. Though a book-signing event at a cafe in the suburbs on Wednesday drew a bigger crowd and the Green City Market was bustling with fans on Saturday morning, a Thursday night signing at the Borders on Michigan Avenue was downright dismal, with only 16 people. Furthermore, a weekend lecture at Northwestern University filled fewer than a quarter of the hall's 800 seats. Rapt audience

Those who did attend the events, however, were engaged and curious. Many nodded furiously or scribbled copious notes. Some were either Chez Panisse or Waters devotees, while others, seemingly new in their quests for a healthier, more responsible lifestyle, had recently discovered the 63-year old dynamo as the guru.

Linda Pas, director of health services at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, recounted how she had been trying to figure out a way to encourage students to cook and eat better.

"I had never heard of Alice, but was going through an old Bon Appetit magazine a few months ago and found an article about her," said Pas, "so I brought it to the faculty. I've been researching her work ever since."

Pas, front and center, was visibly inspired by Waters' words.

Other audience members knew little about her philosophy - one woman at the Borders event insisted she was missing out if she didn't make it to the local branch of a Hawaiian-based chain restaurant.

Waters admitted that she had hoped for a better student turnout, since she feels they're the best medium to bring her message to the masses.

"The 18- to 25-year-olds are environmentally conscious," more so than any other age group, she said, adding that these were the people most concerned with going green. "There is a whole counter-culture movement going on right now, and we need to appeal to the student activists to get the word out."

She also feels strongly that people not dwell on the calories and compounds in food, but on the whole, real ingredients that go into making the type of dishes that people can sit down and eat together. It's why she wrote "The Art of Simple Food."

Her longtime message is one that seems to resonate with the new generation of chefs, especially in the Bay Area but also in the Midwest.

"There's a serious focus on integrity of product, and maintaining honesty in the food we create," said Chris Kronner, the 25-year-old chef of Slow Club in San Francisco. "What she did and what (Chez Panisse) does has had a huge influence in the Bay Area. It has become commonplace now, but can be attributed to her."

And in Chicago, the unassuming attitude, dedication to sustainable and local ingredients, and passion that went into a simple lunch at Lula Cafe brought Waters to tears.

"This really gives me hope," she said, sipping from a bowl of silken tomato bisque.

But what about restaurants like Alinea or Moto, where ingredients are made into something they're not - where pillows of lavender air, cinnamon perfume, and sushi rolls that look like spaghetti and meatballs grace the menus?

"The only difference between Chez Panisse and my restaurant is the way the food looks," says Moto chef Homaru Cantu. A native of Portland, Ore., Cantu recalls that his first fine dining experience took place at Chez Panisse on his 16th birthday, and Waters' philosophy has guided him just as much as his desire to experiment and create new things.

"Ordering organically is like getting unleaded versus leaded gas at this point," he says. "It's just what we do," speculating that his fellow chefs follow the same principles. Six degrees of Alice

It's a trickle-down effect. Watching Waters in a new city is like playing the "Alice" version of the Kevin Bacon game, although it often takes even less than six degrees of separation to connect Waters with all of the food-conscious changes taking place.

I ran into a few old friends at the Green City Market, the city's most well-known organic farmers' market, on Saturday morning. They had never heard of Waters, but they come to the market every Saturday morning. What they did not know was that the market was organized by Abby Mandel, a local chef, cookbook author and journalist. And it was at Waters' urging that Mandel kept to her organic, sustainable and local principles.

As Waters says, "I like to connect with people who will use a loudspeaker to get the message out." And she has many like-minded visionaries. But it's the dollars that still count the most.
"We wouldn't be able to do the edible schoolyard if it weren't funded by the Chez Panisse Foundation," says Waters, referring to the organization she founded as a way to concentrate on better school lunch programs and curriculum. It takes $450,000 a year to keep her Berkeley program running. That's a pretty tall order.

In the Midwest, there are other obstacles as well. I was able to coerce two people from my original e-mail to forgo the Cubs pre-game to attend Waters' lecture. As the crowd filed out, they voiced their frustrations.

"It's really inspiring," said 25-year old teacher Carly Leavitt, "but how are we supposed to get fresh fruits and vegetables all year-round here?"

Dana Abrams, a 24-year old social worker, added, "This is a very urban city, and it's hard to have access to the produce from rural areas."

Both agreed that while they saw the value in educating younger kids, it was difficult to find the motivation to change their own eating habits, especially given the expense of buying local and organic ingredients.

Throughout the weekend, others voiced similar concerns, but Waters was ready with an arsenal of rebuttals.

Winter? No problem. Plan ahead. Can tomatoes, pickle vegetables, preserve fruit. Enjoy nuts, dried fruits and grains. Start a greenhouse. It's all possible.

Most would call this an idealistic fantasy. Maybe, but in the 36 years she's been fighting for her cause, she's seen enough progress to keep her going, and her message hasn't changed. She wants a healthier, happier America, accomplished by eating delicious food, and eating together.

"Good food sends positive ripples through the community," says Waters, and she's intent on providing the means and ideas to make that happen. Reality check

As we drove through the city, Waters' thumb slid effortlessly over the face of her new iPhone. She looked every bit the part of the modern, accomplished celebrity. And in many ways, she is. But as we passed a McDonald's the size of an airport terminal, her face fell.

"Will you look at this?" she said, shaking her head in dismay.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter to Waters that 36 people on a mass e-mail don't know her name. She just hopes that they're eating well.

But as long as fast food chains are still taking up full city blocks, she has her work cut out for her.

E-mail Amanda Gold at agold@sfchronicle.com.

Copyright 2007 SF Chronicle

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/10/17/FDMSSNQDP.DTL

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Five Easy Ways to Go Organic (NYT)

2007-10-24T06:38:00.000-07:00

While surfing the NY times, I found this article on Organic food. I believe my readers would find it quite informative.

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October 22, 2007, 6:59 am

Five Easy Ways to Go Organic

Got organic milk? (Tony Cenicola/The New York Times)

Switching to organic is tough for many families who don’t want to pay higher prices or give up their favorite foods. But by choosing organic versions of just a few foods that you eat often, you can increase the percentage of organic food in your diet without big changes to your shopping cart or your spending.

The key is to be strategic in your organic purchases. Opting for organic produce, for instance, doesn’t necessarily have a big impact, depending on what you eat. According to the Environmental Working Group, commercially-farmed fruits and vegetables vary in their levels of pesticide residue. Some vegetables, like broccoli, asparagus and onions, as well as foods with peels, such as avocados, bananas and oranges, have relatively low levels compared to other fruits and vegetables.

So how do you make your organic choices count? Pediatrician Dr. Alan Greene, whose new book “Raising Baby Green” explains how to raise a child in an environmentally-friendly way, has identified a few “strategic” organic foods that he says can make the biggest impact on the family diet.

1. Milk: “When you choose a glass of conventional milk, you are buying into a whole chemical system of agriculture,'’ says Dr. Greene. People who switch to organic milk typically do so because they are concerned about the antibiotics, artificial hormones and pesticides used in the commercial dairy industry. One recent United States Department of Agriculture survey found certain pesticides in about 30 percent of conventional milk samples and low levels in only one organic sample. The level is relatively low compared to some other foods, but many kids consume milk in large quantities.

2. Potatoes: Potatoes are a staple of the American diet — one survey found they account for 30 percent of our overall vegetable consumption. A simple switch to organic potatoes has the potential to have a big impact because commercially-farmed potatoes are some of the most pesticide-contaminated vegetables. A 2006 U.S.D.A. test found 81 percent of potatoes tested still contained pesticides after being washed and peeled, and the potato has one of the the highest pesticide contents of 43 fruits and vegetables tested, according to the Environmental Working Group.

Go organic with kid favorites like peanut butter. (Lars Klove/The New York Times)

3. Peanut butter: More acres are devoted to growing peanuts than any other fruits, vegetable or nut, according to the U.S.D.A. More than 99 percent of peanut farms use conventional farming practices, including the use of fungicide to treat mold, a common problem in peanut crops. Given that some kids eat peanut butter almost every day, this seems like a simple and practical switch. Commercial food firms now offer organic brands in the regular grocery store, but my daughter loves to go to the health food store and grind her own peanut butter.

4. Ketchup: For some families, ketchup accounts for a large part of the household vegetable intake. About 75 percent of tomato consumption is in the form of processed tomatoes, including juice, tomato paste and ketchup. Notably, recent research has shown organic ketchup has about double the antioxidants of conventional ketchup.

Organic apples are readily available. (The New York Times)

5. Apples: Apples are the second most commonly eaten fresh fruit, after bananas, and they are also used in the second most popular juice, after oranges, according to Dr. Greene. But apples are also one of the most pesticide-contaminated fruits and vegetables. The good news is that organic apples are easy to find in regular grocery stores.

For a complete list of Dr. Greene’s strategic organic choices, visit Organic Rx on his website.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/five-easy-ways-to-go-organic/

High Tea, India Style

2007-10-14T21:12:00.000-07:00

My friend Mr, Hom from Collaboration360 Consultants is a big Aficionado of Asian tea . Sent me this article on Indian tea.

#
October 14, 2007
High Tea, India Style
By MATT GROSS

THE Himalayas rose almost out of nowhere. One minute the Maruti Suzuki hatchback was cruising the humid plains of West Bengal, palm trees and clouds obscuring the hills to come; the next it was navigating a decrepit road that squiggled up through forests of cypress and bamboo. The taxi wheezed with the strain of the slopes, and the driver honked to alert unseen vehicles to our presence one miscalculation, one near miss, could send the little car over the edge and down thousands of feet, returning us to the plains below in a matter of seconds.

For an hour or more, as we climbed ever higher, all I saw was jungle trees and creepers on either side of us, with hardly a village to break the anxious monotony. Finally, though, somewhere around 4,000 feet, the foliage opened just enough to allow a more expansive view. From the edge of the road, the hills flowed up and down and back up, covered with low, flat-topped bushes that looked like green scales on a sleeping dragon's flanks. Tiny dots marched among the bushes and along the beige dirt tracks that zigzagged up the hillsides workers plucking leaves from Camellia sinensis, the tea bushes of Darjeeling.

Flying to a remote corner of India and braving the long drive into the Himalayas may seem like an awful lot of effort for a good cup of tea, but Darjeeling tea isn't simply good. It's about the best in the world, fetching record prices at auctions in Calcutta and Shanghai, and kick-starting the salivary glands of tea lovers from London to Manhattan.

In fact, Darjeeling is so synonymous with high-quality black tea that few non-connoisseurs realize it's not one beverage but many: 87 tea estates operate in the Darjeeling district, a region that sprawls across several towns (including its namesake) in a mountainous corner of India that sticks up between Nepal and Bhutan, with Tibet not far to the north.

Each has its own approach to growing tea, and in a nod to increasingly savvy and adventurous consumers, a few have converted bungalows into tourist lodging, while others are accepting day visitors keen to learn the production process, compare styles and improve their palates a teetotaler's version of a Napa Valley wine tour, but with no crowds.

Still, such a trip requires a certain amount of fortitude, as I discovered when I set out to blaze a trail from estate to estate last March, during the first flush harvest, said to produce the most delicate, flavorful leaves. (The second flush, in May and June, is really just as good.) It wasn't just the roads once marvels of engineering, now tracks of terror that produce daily news reports of fatal plunges that made the journey a challenge. It was the egos.

The men who run the estates are royalty and they know it. When visiting their domains, you are at their disposal, not the other way around. At times, this can be frustrating; at others, delightfully frustrating.

I HAD my first such encounter the latter sort at Makaibari, an estate just south of the town of Kurseong, around 4,500 feet above sea level. Founded by G. C. Banerjee in the 1840s, during the region's first great wave of tea cultivation, Makaibari remains a family operation, run by Banerjee's great-grandson Swaraj better known as Rajah.

Rajah is a Darjeeling legend: He's arguably done more for Darjeeling tea than anyone else in the district. Back in 1988, he took the estate organic; four years later, it was fully biodynamic, the first in the world.

Today, it produces the most expensive brew in Darjeeling, a muscatel that sold for 50,000 rupees a kilogram (about $555 a pound, at recent exchange rates of around 41 rupees to the dollar) at auction in Beijing last year. You won't often spot his logo a five-petaled flower that resembles the underside of a tea blossom on grocery store shelves, but you'll find his leaves in boxes marked Tazo and Whole Foods.

After checking into one of the six no-frills bungalows he has erected for tourists, I marched into the Makaibari factory (opened in 1859), climbed the wooden steps to Mr. Banerjee's office and sat down across the desk from a vigorous patrician with thick gray hair, a clean-shaven angular jaw and black eyebrows in permanent ironic arch. What, he asked, smoking a borrowed cigarette, did I hope to accomplish at Makaibari?

Well, I began, as the smell of brewing leaves wafted in from the adjacent tasting room, I guess I'd like to see how tea is made.

Ha! You've come to the wrong place for that, Mr. Banerjee declared with an eager grin. This is the place to see how tea is enjoyed!

Then he poured me a cup bright but mellow, with a faint fruity sweetness that lingered on my tongue. It was to be the first of many perfect cups.

Enjoying tea at Makaibari was an involved business, one that began before I'd even woken up. At 7:30 every morning, a knock would come at the door of my bungalow, and Mr. Lama, the grandfatherly caretaker, would present me with a cup of fresh, hot bed tea, which I'd sip groggily before leaving my woolen blankets for the chilly mountain air.

At breakfast in the glassed-in common room, more tea, after which I'd march down to the factory. On one side of the road were the dragon's green flanks. On the other, the red, white, yellow and blue prayer flags of a tin-roofed Buddhist monastery fluttered in the Himalayan breeze. Uniformed children on their way to school would shout Hello! while their parents, many of them Makaibari employees, would put their palms together and quietly say, Namaste.

In Makaibari's wood-paneled offices, I'd have a cup while waiting for Mr. Banerjee to arrive it was with him, not some hospitality manager, that I would plan my days. Sometimes he'd show up early, other days late, but the office was filled with memorabilia with which to pass the time: portraits of Mr. Banerjee's father, grandfather and great-grandfather; certificates announcing new record prices; a chart of tea-tasting vocabulary; and a small tea plant that concealed two tea devas, curious insects whose bodies mimic the shape and color of a tea leaf.

After making his entrance sometimes on his black gelding, Storm, but always wearing a high-waisted safari suit he designed himself Mr. Banerjee would expound on everything from Rudolf Steiner's biodynamic farming theories to the fall of Atlantis to his youth on Carnaby Street in London, where he made a fortune before retreating to Darjeeling to grow tea.

Eventually, we'd move into the tasting room, where Mr. Banerjee would inspect the day's production. No tea bags here this was SFTGFOP, the labels noted: super-fine tippy golden flowery orange pekoe, the healthy, unbroken leaves from the very top of the bush. Earlier, an assistant had weighed out precisely two grams from several batches, steeped them in nearly boiling water for five minutes, and strained the tea into white ceramic bowls.

As with wine, tasting tea is no simple process of gulping and grading. Mr. Banerjee first inspected the infused leaves for color and nose, and only then sipped from each bowl, inhaling sharply to oxidate the liquid and release its flavors, and sloshing it loudly around his mouth before spitting it into a nearby tub. Then, with hardly a moment's hesitation, he'd move on to the next bowl, and the next, and the next.

Then it was my turn.

Taste those two, Mr. Banerjee ordered the first day, and tell me which you prefer.

I did as he said. Both had the gentle floral aroma typical of first-flush Darjeelings, but the second had a pronounced strength and astringency that appealed to me, even though I knew that Darjeeling growers try for subtlety over punch. I told him my decision.

Bah! he said after resampling them. That one only has undertones of peach. The first one has peach flavors and is much more complex. It's far superior!

I blushed I had much to learn. And for the next few days, I studied hard.

First, I followed the tea pickers mostly ethnic Nepali women into the fields, where they spent all morning and all afternoon moving across the steep slopes like mountain goats, with bamboo baskets on their backs. Dui path, ek suiro was what they plucked two leaves, a bud slowly transforming each bush from bright yellowish green to the deep sheen of the older leaves.

In the factory, massive steel machines were turning the harvest into drinkable tea by the orthodox method. After 16 to 20 hours in withering troughs that remove much of their moisture, the fresh leaves go into rollers that curl them into precise formations once achieved only by hand. Then comes the fermentation, during which the tea develops its flavor, becoming a half-fermented oolong or a fully fermented black tea. Next the tea is fired baked to stop the fermentation, and the leaves are sorted, graded, packed and sent to the tasting room for Mr. Banerjee's approval.

One day, he asked his manager, Deb Majumder, to bring me into the inner sanctum, the room where he prepares his special biodynamic fertilizer ingredients: oak bark, valerian flower, chamomile, dandelion. Another, quartz crystal, is ground up and mixed with large quantities of water in direct sunlight, supposedly absorbing cosmic energy and transferring it to the crops.

At first, Mr. Majumder said, I didn't think it would work. I thought things would go down. But after a few years, things began to improve.

The harvest increased, but he said he noticed other benefits: two troublemakers assigned to mix the quartz solution calmed down and became friendly, a result perhaps of the cosmic energy.

After a few days of studying tea, exploring Makaibari's hundreds of acres of wilderness and devouring home-style vegetarian meals, it was time to move on. For one thing, other teas were awaiting my taste buds, but I was also growing uncomfortable in my bare-bones bungalow, with its low-wattage lamps and frequent water problems. (Mr. Banerjee is in negotiations with hotel companies to turn the bungalows into an upscale eco-resort.)

A COUPLE of days later, however, I found myself no more relaxed. Instead, I was on a spine-shaking early-morning jeep ride down the worst roads I'd yet experienced. In 90 minutes, we'd traveled only 20 miles from Darjeeling town, the gritty, urban heart of the district, and I could hardly imagine a pleasant ending to the journey.

Then we reached an oasis, Glenburn. This century-old planter's house, meticulously restored, stood on the edge of a plateau, its porch, strewn with sofas and chairs, looking out to the terraced slopes of the valley. The suites were vast, kitted out in teak club chairs and four-poster beds that evoked the Raj.

Breakfast had just begun, a fabulous spread of fresh-baked croissants with pomelo marmalade, a spicy Parsi scrambled egg dish, bacon, sausage, papaya, custard apple, orange juice. ... I sat down among the other guests, a mix of 10 Indians, Britons and Americans, and gorged in bliss.

The man responsible for Glenburn's tea was Sanjay Sharma, 33, whose self-satisfied smile suggested he was well on his way to developing a Rajah-size ego. And perhaps with good reason at 28, he was appointed estate manager, the youngest ever in Darjeeling, he said. He has tried to push the production in new directions, and he asserted that Glenburn now ranked No. 17 in the district.

In my limited experience, it could have been No. 2 after Makaibari. Mr. Sharma's first-flush teas had that wonderful flowery scent and a long, lingering aftertaste, with just a hint of bite.

Alas, Glenburn was booked, so I endured the jackhammer trip back to Darjeeling, consoled by a single thought: soon, I'd be checking into Goomtee, a resort recommended by Nathmull's, the best tea shop in Darjeeling.

In terms of luxury, Goomtee stood somewhere between Makaibari and Glenburn. The comfy planter's house recalled 1950 rather than 1850, with huge rooms and a garden of azaleas in purplish bloom, and since the owners of the cypress-dotted estate were strict vegetarians, so were the guests myself and four Japanese women from a tea-appreciation society. After checking in and getting a traditional welcome dollop of green-tinted rice pressed to my forehead, I followed them and their translator to the fields.

And I began to fade. Maybe it was that I'd seen too many tea bushes, maybe that I couldn't understand Japanese, maybe that later I once again found myself waiting in the office of another estate manager, wondering if I'd ever get a taste of his leaves.

I was about to drop off entirely when an assistant brought in a full tea service and poured us each a cup. I sipped. This is what they mean by brisk, a bright flavor that fills your mouth and wakes you right up.

Oishii! the women cooed. So tasty!

I soon learned more about briskness, when I set off one morning for Muscatel Valley, Goomtee's far-flung organic fields. It was a more serious hike than I'd expected, about four and a half miles up narrow, rocky paths that eventually led to an awe-inspiring landscape.

If Makaibari had been wild and Glenburn a fantasyland, then Muscatel Valley was positively prehistoric, with massive stone outcroppings amid lonely fields of tea bushes stretching into the Jurassic distance. Sunlit mist shrouded the far mountains, and all traces of civilization vanished. There was nothing but me and the tea.

When I returned to my room, I flopped down in exhaustion. It wasn't the hike, though: I was tea'd out.

How, I wondered, could these professionals differentiate among the infinitely subtle gradations of flavor and scent? What stuck in my mind was the tea-ness of tea, floral aroma, hints of fruit and wood on the palate, and a fragile astringency that buzzed in my mouth long after the liquid had gone down. But which cup had that been, the Makaibari or the Glenburn? Or had I just imagined it?

A day later, on a slow Internet connection, I received an instant message from a friend in New York: Could I bring her some first flush?

It's for a dear friend from Darjeeling, she wrote. He's dying, and he hasn't lived in India for more than 60 years, but he still dreams about the tea.

I had a mission. On my way home, I bought a wooden box of Makaibari's first flush and delivered it to my friend soon after my return. A few weeks later, she forwarded me her 97-year-old friend's thank-you e-mail note.

It was so precious, he wrote, that I shared part of it with the Namgyal Monastery in Ithaca, N.Y. The beautiful little casket of tea now sits at the feet of the monastery's Buddha, he added, and in the major pujas to come, it is your gift that will be brewed.

Prayer ceremonies in the Finger Lakes, I thought: a fitting end for this tiny box of fragrant leaves. Namaste to that.

VISITOR INFORMATION

HOW TO GET THERE

Continental Airlines has daily direct flights from Newark to New Delhi; round trips start about $1,250 in early November. From New Delhi, Jet Airways (www.jetairways.com), Indian Airlines (www.indianairlines.in) and Air Deccan (www.flyairdeccan.net) fly to Bagdogra Airport near Siliguri, about 50 miles from Darjeeling.

The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway or Toy Train a quaint, steam-powered narrow-gauge railway will get you to Darjeeling town in seven hours from Siliguri; first-class tickets are 247 rupees; second-class, 38 rupees (about $6 and $1, at 41 rupees to the dollar).

A taxi ride will take three hours and cost 700 to 1,000 rupees. Hotels or tea estates can arrange for one.

VISITING THE TEA ESTATES

Makaibari (91-354-233-0181; www.makaibari.org) charges 750 rupees a person a night or 1,400 rupees for two, all meals included. Reservations can be made through its Calcutta office (91-33-2287-8560). Homestays with Makaibari workers can also be arranged.

Those seeking more comfortable lodging can book Cochran Place (132 Pankhabari Road, Kurseong; 91-354-233-0703; www.imperialchai.com), a colonial-style lodge about 15 minutes' walk from Makaibari. Doubles range from 2,200 to 3,700 rupees with breakfast, but 50 percent less during monsoon season, mid-August to mid-September. Cochran Place will also arrange tours of Ambootia, another organic estate.

Glenburn (91-33-2288-5630; www.glenburnteaestate.com) charges non-Indians $400 a night for two, all meals included; day trips from $50 a person, including transportation. Glenburn will arrange helicopter arrivals for those unwilling to brave the bumpy journey.

Reservations for Goomtee (www.darjeelingteas.com) are handled by Girish Sarda at Nathmull's Tea Room in Darjeeling (91-354-233-5066). Doubles are 5,600 rupees a night, all meals included.

The best place to stay in Darjeeling town is the Elgin (91-354-225-4082; www.elginhotels.com). Doubles with all meals are 6,445 rupees. It offers quite a nice high tea every afternoon (250 rupees).

BUYING TEA

Every estate sells its own tea at a good price, but for the full spectrum, head to Nathmull's Tea Room (Laden La Road, Darjeeling; 91-354-225-6437; www.nathmulltea.com). It sells the best of the district, except Makaibari.

MATT GROSS writes the Frugal Traveler column for the Travel section.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/travel/14Tea.html?

Thank you Collaboration360 Consultants!

2007-10-07T06:18:00.001-07:00

We wish to thank Collaboration360.com (aka. Collaboration360 Consultants) for guiding us in launching our business. They advised us in the process of building our Tangible Vision (a specialized business plan) by using a version of their Compass AE process. After it was built, we reviewed it from our goal to our detailed objectives by walking through it, point by point. We understood what had to be done from start to finish.

After many hrs of constant building and re-building our Tangible Vision, we connected to it. We were able to lead with our Tangible Vision successfully regardless of the circumstances.

Collaboration360 also helped us in setting up a general operational plan. Their ability to understand our service was amazing.

We are now users of their Compass AE process for team collaboration and strategy development and we are a big believer of their strategy process.

Beside being an ultra expert in collaborative strategic development, Collaboration360 other expertise is applying Ancient Chinese Strategies (i.e., Sun Zi Art of War) to business and other avenues of strategic competition.

We highly recommend Collaboration360 Consultants

Thanks again to Mr. Hom the Chief Architect of Collaboration360 Consultants for their service.

From the Kitchen Table of Global Delights

2007-10-06T17:55:00.000-07:00

I have been busy with current and future clients. Have not had any time to update my blog.

The last few months, have been interviewing my West Coast friends (who are foodies and food professionals) about their favorite comfort food.

After many months of interviewing, compiled a list of what they like. Will have this list on the blog sometime this month.

One of those items is a grilled cheese sandwich. I like my grilled cheese with slices of garlic chicken (my preference is chicken breast fillet) on wheat bread or Sourdough bread. Like to add my secret seasoning of thyme, parsley, mustard spice and some other good stuff.

My side dishes are roasted cauliflower and mushrooms and a bowl of tomato soup.

Whenever I have time, will take a picture of it.

#

Following is a New York Times article on grilled cheese.

#

In my next entry, will talk about my friend's favorite recipe of Chinese Chicken Noodle Soup and some of our latest entries to our International Party menu.

Some of those new entries are: Apple Strudel, Old-Fashioned Apple Crispy, Chocolate Banana Bread Puddings, Chocolate Chip Banana Bread, Crepes and a few of my favorite Asian dishes of global delight.

International Party Menu (1a)

2007-09-21T03:39:00.000-07:00

Carrots, Celery Sticks and other Party Mix

Cheesy Chicken Party Special

Chinese Onion Pancakes

Homemade Baked Potato Chips
with Honey mustard dip

Homemade Baked Sweet Potato Chips
with Brown Mustard dip

Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies

Home made Oatmeal Cookies
with Apple bits

Home made Oatmeal Cookies
with Raisins and Coconut

Click here for pg #2

International Party Menu (1b)

2007-09-21T03:33:00.000-07:00

Lemon Chicken Drumettes

Mini- Burmese Sticky Rice Balls

Mini- Wheat Bagel
with French Toast Batter
and apple bits
(include Blueberry or Maple Syrup)

Nachos w. Thai Sauce

Pot Stickers

Rumaki

Spring Rolls

Vegetarian Spring Rolls

###

For the party of 6 to 10, we
recommend a six item package.

We also have a eight item package
for a minimum party of 12.

If you are interested and want
more information, please contact us at
globaldelights[aat]gmail[dott]com
Please substitute [aat] with @ and [dott] with . !

Click here for Pg #1

Indy Party Menu

2007-09-12T06:18:00.000-07:00

American Fries

Carrot Cake

Carrots and Celery

Cheesy Chicken Party Special

Chinese Onion Pancake

Spring Eggroll (include Chicken and Pork)

The above menu is a six item package.
We also have a eight item package
for a minimum party of 10.

If you are interested in our services and want
more information, contact us at
globaldelights[aat]gmail[dott]com
Please substitute [aat] with @ and [dott] with . !

--- More to Come ---

WEEKLY BUSINESSMAN MENU for September - October 2007

2007-08-26T06:18:00.000-07:00

WEEKLY BUSINESSMAN MENU for September - October 2007

Week #1: American Special

Clam Chowder

Meat Loaf with Mashed Potatoes

Avocado Salad

Old-Fashioned Apple Pie

Week #2: Asian Special

Chinese Vegetable Noodle Soup -or- Egg Foo Young

Lemon or Orange Flavored (Sweet and Sour) Chicken

Mandarin Chicken Salad w/ peas and stir-fried noodles

German Chocolate Pie

Week #3: Italian Special

Italian Tomato Bisque

Pasta (with meatballs and side order of garlic bread)

Caesar Salad

Apple and Cinnamon Pie

Week #4: Indiana Businessman Special

Corn Chowder with Roasted Red Peppers

Seasoned London broil

Organic Green Salad

Pumpkin Pie

Beverage Choice:

Iced tea (Green or Black)

Lemonade Iced Tea (Green or Black)

Plain Lemonade (with no artificial ingredients)

# # #

Please contact us for food availability, latest delivery
date and time, weekly pricing and any special request.

Always check our web site for latest menu changes.

The Importance of Eating Healthy (1)

2007-08-22T22:38:00.000-07:00

Global Delights believes in the following principle:
"To live well, it starts with eating well."

We uses only high quality olive oil and vegetable oil.

###
Indianapolis Journal
Yes, Deep-Fried Oreos, but Not in Trans Fats
By MONICA DAVEY

INDIANAPOLIS, Aug. 17 The deep-fried Combo Plate may be a little more healthful this year at the Great Indiana State Fair. So say the fair’s leaders, who, taking a step rarely seen in the realm of corn dogs and fried pickles, have banned oils with trans fats from all the fryers that line the grounds here.

The change is only the latest in a string of bans on artificial trans fats. Tied to health problems including heart disease, they have been banished by national restaurant chains, snack brands and New York City, which forbids restaurants to use them in food preparation.

But this is perhaps the most unlikely locale yet: the nation’s classic summer fair, long seen as one final safe haven from the health police.

Along the steamy thoroughfare here, where only sensitive palates can distinguish among the various cuts of potato (curly fries, ribbon fries and the old standby, French), fairgoers seemed pleased with the switch. The food tasted the same, they said happily. And if this meant they could indulge without guilt or have one more helping, so much the better.

At the Great Indiana State Fair,
where almost anything fried is king,
the oil must be trans-fat free.

This is a slice of heaven, said Ryan Howell, 31, as he cradled his Combo Plate, which, for the record, consists of one battered Snickers bar, two battered Oreos and a battered Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup all deep-fried in oil that is trans-fat free, thank goodness.

This was an issue we wanted to tackle, said Cindy Hoye, executive director of the fair, which spent the winter months testing various oils and, despite the fears of some concessionaires about possible changes to taste or costs or tradition, concluded that trans-fat-free oils created what Ms. Hoye called a better product.

National fair officials say Indiana and at least one other fair, the Western Washington, have led the way on a health issue that is only now creating a buzz in the fair industry. During a national convention of fair officials in Las Vegas this November, Indiana representatives are to offer a workshop, Going Trans-Fat Free, which, the convention program promises, will answer the question What is all the craze about?

Some concessionaires here said trans-fat-free oils seemed to leave less of a varnish buildup on their French fry baskets and corn dog equipment. But Chris Coffman, who helps his brother, Sam, operate a stand that sells the fried-dough snack called elephant ears, was none too pleased with the new ways.

The oil they are now using has to be changed more often, Mr. Coffman said (although some other concessionaires said their new oils in fact required less changing). And he worried, briefly, that the ban might also apply to the margarine that the Coffmans use to make cinnamon sugar stick to their doughy confections; it does not, fair officials ruled.

And that, Mr. Coffman said, is the silly part of the whole ban: it will barely skim the surface of fair food’s inherently and proudly unhealthful nature, he said.

It’s craziness, said Mr. Coffman, 45, who says he eats fair food every day but who appears surprisingly trim. They’re using this for a marketing ploy. It’s a way to convince people that they can eat more that somehow all of this is safe now and you can eat all you want when we all know that’s not true.

The calorie count? The state fair does not require vendors to provide those numbers, and no one here would venture any guesses. But figures from the Web site CalorieKing.com suggest that a Combo Plate, for instance, comes to well over 700 calories. That is more than a third of the entire daily caloric intake recommended by the Department of Agriculture for a 30-year-old woman who is 5-foot-6 and 130 pounds and who exercises less than 30 minutes a day.

Ms. Hoye, the fair’s executive director, pointed out some healthful (if, judging from the customer lines, less popular) offerings of salads and tomato juice here. But she was quick to acknowledge that trans-fat-free oils will not turn standard state fair cuisine into health food.

When you are having fair food, you are having fun, she said. You’re probably still going to use some calories out here. Look, we can’t control what goes in an Oreo, but we can say what goes in our fryers out here.

Jeremy Orme, who runs Fried Creations, the home of the Combo Plate, introduced a new item at this year’s fair: deep-fried Pepsi. He rolls out his Pepsi-based dough, dips it in a batter made with Pepsi and deep-fries it for 90 seconds. His oil, made of soybeans, is trans-fat free as required, and on the front of his booth he has posted a local newspaper’s account about the fair’s trans-fat ban.

Jeremy Orme's stand is the home of the
Combo Plate: a Snickers,two Oreos and
a Reese's, all battered and deep-fried.

But inside the booth, where the air is dense with oil, workers chuckle about the whole concept. And Mr. Orme himself rarely eats what he cooks here.

I stay away from fried foods, he said.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/us/21fat.html

The Importance of Eating Healthy (2)

2007-08-18T04:59:00.000-07:00

New Menus, New Mission for Breakfast

By KIM SEVERSON

Published: September 17, 2007

PITY the executive whose life is filled with crammed planes, missed connections and a workday that begins early and lasts as long as the Internet connection holds up.

Mark Graham for The New York Times

Hibiscus frappés are served as palate cleansers at the Omni Mandalay Hotel in Irving, Tex.

CJ Gunther for The New York Times

Waiter Oscar Pino with “superfood” breakfasts at a Westin in Waltham, Mass.

Against that backdrop, the food that starts a business traveler’s day is particularly important. And the hotel industry is catching on, creating menus that emphasize health, renewal and, especially, a better grade of coffee.

Hotel cooks are brewing coffee from organic sources and preparing healthier so-called functional foods. And though no hotel would be caught without bacon and eggs on its breakfast menu, increasingly the bacon is from pigs that were raised humanely and the eggs from cage-free chickens.

“I don’t think the habits of the guests are changing, but what they’re looking for is changing,” said Stephen Rosenstock, senior vice president for brand standards at Omni Hotels.

The chain is taking advantage of the sustainability trend with its Art of Breakfast program, introduced this year. It features environmentally friendly, shade-grown coffee and pork from a family-owned Colorado ranch that uses certified humane methods. And lots of whole grains.

“People are eating better and looking for more balance,” Mr. Rosenstock said.

Balance is the catchphrase at Westin hotels. Menus focus on “superfoods,” 14 functional foods outlined in the book “SuperFoods Rx,” which are supposed to be eaten in combinations with other foods for maximum benefits.

The initiative, which is in 25 Westin hotels and will become chainwide next year, encourages travelers trying to beat insomnia to drink smoothies made from bananas and soy milk. Those trying to stay alert in a new time zone can order a high-protein breakfast.

“The egg white omelet is popular, but it’s the egg white omelet with the spring green salad,” said Colleen Keating, a general manager at the Westin Waltham-Boston. “They don’t want to pair it with hash browns.”

The program is part of an overall approach to renewal, which is intended, in part, to soothe road-weary business travelers, who toil in their rooms late into the evening.

“The laptop has done this to us,” Ms. Keating said. As a result, travelers are looking for ways to take care of themselves. “We’ve moved from power to balance.”

Hotels are equally obsessed with breakfast programs that are about speed. Several hotel managers call it the Starbucks effect — when business travelers are not sitting down to an egg-white, whole-grain sustainable breakfast, they want a good cup of coffee and something easy to eat as they head out the door.

“The emphasis is on convenience,” said Vanessa Bortnick of Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, which is based in San Francisco. People want food that is light but delicious, like a muffin and a latte, as long as the muffin is whole grain and the coffee is from a quality roaster, she said.

“The power breakfast that takes an hour doesn’t seem to be an option anymore,” Ms. Bortnick said.

Those power breakfasts of the 1990s, where executives lingered over a late breakfast of expensive egg dishes and even a Bloody Mary in elite hotel dining rooms, may be rare these days. But so is the idea of breakfast as a meeting Siberia, in which less important clients or last-minute meet-and-greets were relegated to a quick meal with an easy out: “Busy day ahead. Got to run.”

For some businesspeople, breakfast is a prime slot.

Sue Morgan, for example, can’t remember the last time she scheduled a lunch meeting, but she recently had three breakfast meetings in eight days.

She is on top of breakfast trends more than most people because she must be. Ms. Morgan, a 25-year veteran of the restaurant business, is a vice president for food and beverage services at InterContinental Hotels Group. The company runs more than 3,700 hotels in nearly 100 countries and territories.

“With this busy schedule, I am much more hesitant to schedule a lunch,” she said. “Breakfast is more flexible. I can schedule something at 7 instead of 7:30 if we need more time.”

Breakfast is going through big changes at several of the company’s brands, which include Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza Hotels and Resorts and Candlewood Suites. All of Holiday Inn’s nearly 1,000 hotels, for example, serve only coffee that is certified by the Rainforest Alliance.

Although 42 percent of guests want something quicker than a full breakfast, they prefer more than the cinnamon roll that was the star of the chain’s breakfast bar expansion in 2003. A recent makeover of the Express Start breakfast bars included scrambled eggs, cereal, skim milk and fresh fruit.

Those changes are just what business travelers like Carlos Boughton want. He is on the road a lot as a brand manager for Tecate beer, and he is scheduling more business meetings than ever at breakfast, usually over oatmeal, fruit and yogurt.

“It’s easy to say I need to pack this trip with meetings, so let’s have breakfast,” he said. “Even when you say 7 a.m., people say: ‘Sure I’ll have breakfast. Are you buying?’ ”

Mr. Boughton says he still relishes taking a moment alone in the morning. Not only is it relaxing, but is also without stigma. Having a solo dinner feels “kind of lame,” he said. But going downstairs and having breakfast alone? “That’s O.K.”

More Tips on Drinking Water(3)

2007-08-16T18:09:00.000-07:00

# # #

Three Yards and a Drink That Tastes Like Dust

By ALLEN SALKIN

WHEN Tom Glavine, a star pitcher for the New York Mets, earned his milestone 300th victory on a hot and humid night last month, he had a secret weapon.

It was not illegal. It was so safe a baby could use it. In fact, many babies do.

Between innings, Mr. Glavine sipped Pedialyte, a liquid sold alongside diapers in drugstores that is meant to quickly rehydrate toddlers experiencing diarrhea. The neon-tinted fluid that comes in grape and other child-friendly flavors contains electrolytes such as sodium, potassium and glucose, which happen to be the basic ingredients in most sports drinks.

Without an iota of marketing effort from Abbott Laboratories, the maker of Pedialyte, the over-the-counter remedy with a teddy bear on its label has developed a small and devoted following among professional and amateur athletes, a trend that long-distance runners seem to have started sometime in the 1980s.

Athletes are always looking for an edge, even the macho ones who would rather be seen off the field with a Cadillac Escalade than with a teddy bear. But despite that cuddly label, Pedialyte continues to pop up in locker rooms.

If there's some secret formula to victory, and, these days, if it's legal, athletes will try it.

"It'd be different if they were drinking formula," Brad Childress, the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings told The St. Paul Pioneer Press before last season about his players' pre-workout predilection for the baby elixir. "But Pedialyte is used in hospitals throughout the United States for hydration. It's different than just your regular sports drink."

From the beverage cart on the Anaheim Ducks' team flights during the 2007 Stanley Cup playoffs to the training camps of the National Football League teams whose regular season started this weekend, Pedialyte has found its place in the kit bag of professional athletes.

The baby stuff has its converts among amateur athletes, too. Gavin Bannat, 42, the wrestling coach at Wayne Valley High School in New Jersey, discovered Pedialyte last winter when a stomach flu left him dehydrated and wandering a convenience store looking for relief.

Mr. Bannat realized it might work as a sports drink and used it while training for the Jay Challenge, a 31.5-mile mountainous race in July in Vermont, which he completed. He now recommends it to his teenage wrestlers, over the protests of their parents.

"They say it's for babies," Mr. Bannat said. "But I tell them forget the Gatorade. With Pedialyte, the kids can maintain a better electrolyte balance. The kids can work out harder and recover faster."

While Abbott does not market Pedialyte as a sports drink or track its sales to athletes, the company is aware of its off-label use in locker rooms. Dr. Keith Wheeler, a divisional vice president for research and development at the company, says he has done enough research to know Pedialyte will work on the field.

"If you take a 300-pound N.F.L. lineman and put him in 95 degrees with 75 percent humidity," Dr. Wheeler said, "he will dump a volume of electrolytes from his body through sweat that will be equivalent to a child with diarrhea."

As best as most observers can tell, endurance athletes were the first to consume Pedialyte as an adult sports drink in the 1980s. Compared with original Gatorade, Pedialyte has more than twice the sodium per ounce and half the carbohydrates, and it sells for more than double the price.

"Probably the ironman competitors and the ultra runners were the first ones to use the product," said Monique Ryan, a nutrition consultant and the author of "Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes." "People started using it when there were fewer products on the market for athletes to choose from to replace sodium."

By the late 1990s, Pedialyte had become a sports-drink rage among National Hockey League players. Other sports followed. After Korey Stringer, a 370-pound offensive tackle for the Vikings, died from complications brought on by heat stroke in 2001 during training camp, the N.F.L. team added Pedialyte to its roster of products to help players stay properly hydrated.

Gatorade noticed. Darren Rovell, the author of "First in Thirst: How Gatorade Turned the Science of Sweat into a Cultural Phenomenon," said the company became so concerned about the increasing use of Pedialyte and other high-sodium products in locker rooms — and the added risk that the trend could catch on with the public — that in 2005 it introduced Gatorade Endurance, a mass market drink with nearly twice as much sodium per serving as traditional Gatorade. Endurance previously had been available only to sports teams. It is the Endurance product that runners of the New York City Marathon now receive at refreshment stations.

Mary Doherty, a spokeswoman for Gatorade, denied that Gatorade Endurance was a response to Pedialyte. "All of our innovation is a result of feedback from professional trainers across all of our college and professional team relationships," she said. "They were expressing a need for a higher sodium product." Gatorade, whose parent company is PepsiCo, has an 80 percent share of the sports drink market, with more than $5 billion in annual sales in the United States, and promotes itself aggressively: In 2004, the company signed an eight-year deal with the N.F.L. for about $45 million annually, Mr. Rovell said.

On Friday the company introduced a new beverage line called G2, which has half the calories of regular Gatorade. Even though G2 will be sold in a section of supermarkets far from Pedialyte, the two share characteristics. G2 has 25 calories per eight-ounce serving, and can ensure athletes arrive on the field with enough salts in their system without delivering a dose of carbohydrates too high for muscles at rest.

Athletes often praise Pedialyte for possessing a sugar content lower than original Gatorade. It has 24 calories per eight ounces, and a 24-ounce bottle costs $7.50. But whether it is better able than Gatorade or any other sports drink to add a few miles an hour to anyone's fastball is still a matter of debate.

"Pedialyte is certainly better for diarrhea than Gatorade," said Bob Murray, the director of the Gatorade Sports Science Institute in Barrington, Ill. "But for on the field, when people are hot and sweaty and want to get the most of out of their bodies, Pedialyte is going to fall short."

Mr. Murray said the main problem with Pedialyte is that it does not contain enough carbohydrates to help feed working muscles.

In a phone interview, Dr. Wheeler of Abbott Laboratories said that Gatorade had too much sucrose, "the wrong kind of carbohydrate," to effectively hydrate athletes, a statement Mr. Murray said years of his company's research proved is untrue.

The scientific debate might be impossible to settle, but Dr. Amy DeFelice, an associate professor of clinical pediatrics at the Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, who regularly prescribes Pedialyte, said it is, at the least, safe for athletes as long as they have normal kidney function.

Abbott has no plans to make Pedialyte Endurance or to pitch their product to athletes, no matter how many testimonials athletes give.

Even if Abbott did change its strategy, Pedialyte would likely be a tough sell to consumers concerned not only with performance, but with taste, which is not, Mr. Bannat admitted, one of Pedialyte's strong suits.

"It tastes," he said, "like chalk dust."

Lars Klove for The New York Times

The Importance of Water

2007-08-15T18:47:00.000-07:00

On an exceptional warm day, carry two bottles of room temperature water (32 oz). Please do not buy bottled water unless you have to. Most of the time it is just tapped water with a brand label around it.

Boil your own water and lets it cool down. Then pour it in your water bottle. Add some lemon juice to it. Always have two to three bottles of water in the refrig. for emergency purposes. Most people prefer water bottle (Nalgene brand) with the following mark [polycarbonate]" on the bottom of the bottle: - "#2 HDPE", - "#4 LDPE" and - "#5 PP". I have #2's and #4. The Nalgene ATB bottles are made from #4 plastic and according to some sources, this type of plastic is a safe kind. http://www.mercola.com/2004/apr/7/nalgene_water.htm # # # Plastics that are safer to use for storing food and beverages, none of which are known to leach harmful substances include:

Polypropylene, designated "#5 PP"
High-density polyethylene, designated "#2HDPE" (The best)
Low-density polyethylene, designated "#4 LDPE"

# # # When you get a chance, buy a steel water bottle. (It is something that you will use for quite a long time). I keep my steel water bottle under the desk. I usually carry a 16 oz bottle and/or a steel drinking cup in my carrying bag. # # #

August 12, 2007

Water, Water Everywhere, but Guilt by the Bottleful

By ALEX WILLIAMS

ON a recent family vacation in Cape Cod, Jenny Pollack, 40, a novelist and public relations associate from Brooklyn, did something she knew she would come to regret. She did it on the spur of the moment. She did it because she felt desperate.

Besides, the giant illuminated Dasani vending machine was just standing there, like a beacon.

So, with her reusable plastic Nalgene bottles dry and her son Charlie working up a thirst in an indoor playground, she broke down and bought a bottle of water. To most people it would be a simple act of self-refreshment, but to Ms. Pollack it was also a minor offense against the planet — think of all the oil used to package, transport and refrigerate that water.

"Something about it felt like a betrayal," said Ms. Pollack, who otherwise does not consider herself an ardent environmentalist. She said she decided to stop buying water after hearing friends talk about the impact of America's bottled water habit. And now she is doing what she can to spread the word.

"I've pretty much said to every single one of my friends, 'Can I tell you my spiel about bottled water?' "

How unlikely, that at the peak of a sweltering summer, people on playgrounds, in parks, and on beaches are suddenly wondering if an ice-cold bottle of fresh water might be a bad thing.

In the last few months, bottled water — generally considered a benign, even beneficial, product — has been increasingly portrayed as an environmental villain by city leaders, activist groups and the media. The argument centers not on water, but oil. It takes 1.5 million barrels a year just to make the plastic water bottles Americans use, according to the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, plus countless barrels to transport it from as far as Fiji and refrigerate it.

The issue took a major stride into mainstream dialogue earlier this summer, after the mayors of San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis and New York began urging people to opt for tap water instead of bottled.

This added momentum to efforts by environmental groups like Corporate Accountability International and Food & Water Watch, which have been lobbying citizens to dump the bottle; environmental organizations had banded together in several states to pressure governments to extend bottle bills to include bottled water. Several prominent restaurateurs, like Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., made much-publicized moves to drop bottled water from their menus.

AND so people who had come to consider bottled water a great convenience, or even a mark of good taste, are now casting guilty glances at their frosty drinks.

Daphne Domingo Johnson, a life coach who also works for a nonprofit organization in Seattle, said she used to keep a case of bottled water "in my trunk for all times, just because I know the importance of water." Ms. Johnson, 35, said she thought of reusable plastic Nalgene bottles — recently reborn as urban status symbols — as "just for backpackers or athletes."

Now, after reading news reports about the debate over bottled water, Ms. Johnson said, the rare bottles she buys feel "like a guilty pleasure." She helped mount an antibottled water campaign at work, posting fliers trumpeting environmental reasons why people should drink tap water instead of the free Crystal Geyser her employer provides.

She is not alone. In interviews last week with dozens of people on sun-baked streets around the country, former and current bottled water devotees showed a new awareness of the issue's complexities.

Some have already changed their ways.

Melissa Frawley, 38, a banker in Atlanta, said she recently broke her Evian habit after news reports altered her thinking. Environmentalism, she concluded, "is sometimes an inconvenience to us all, but it is something I think we all need to do."

Others who had not changed their habits were nevertheless feeling a new sense of guilt.

Barry Eskandani, 31, an administrative assistant in San Francisco who considers himself a connoisseur of water brands, said that lately his fellow Bay Area residents act as if "you just killed their puppy" if you dare throw a bottle in the garbage.

Bottled water has now overtaken coffee and milk in sales nationally, and is catching up with beer. To some, it's an affordable luxury. To others, a healthy alternative to sugary drinks.

Regardless, many consider it a staple.

Over the last 15 years, the bottled water industry has been astonishingly successful in turning a product that once seemed an indulgence into a daily companion. Savvy marketers even managed to recast this mundane product as a talisman of sexiness — Jennifer Aniston is the new face of Glacéau SmartWater.

But the fickleness of fashion may be tilting against the industry.

In preparation for New York Fashion Week this September, Aveda has an agreement with several design labels, including 3.1 Phillip Lim, Rodarte, Temperley London, Thakoon and Marc Bouwer to use recycled aluminum bottles for the water served to models and stylists backstage.

{* Do not believe in using aluminum bottle to carry water. Always use a Steel water bottle. *}

Word is spreading. An editorial on Aug. 1 in The New York Times, "In Praise of Tap Water," argued against bottled water on the ground that "this country has some of the best public water supplies in the world." The piece was high on the list of the most e-mailed articles for several days.

And the industry is feeling the heat. Last week, the International Bottled Water Association took out full-page newspaper advertisements urging consumers to recycle, not abandon, their bottles and arguing that "when we drink any beverage, it's likely to come out of a bottle or a can."

Some interviewed last week agreed with that viewpoint.

"There are two separate issues — one is water, the other is plastic bottles," said Paul Pentel, a physician in Minneapolis. "We have been trying to steer people away from the liquid candy — juices, pop and everything else," he added. "From that standpoint, water is good, and I'm very hesitant to demonize bottled water."

Indeed, some people wonder why environmentalists have singled out bottled water, and not dish detergent or Wiffle Ball bats.

Jessica Retan, a 22-year-old nanny who lives in Harlem, was sipping from a bottle of Poland Spring in Central Park on a hot Saturday. The waste issue, she said, is "concerning, but there's Coke, shampoo — a lot of things in addition to water that are bottled in plastic. So I'm curious, why just focus on bottled water?"

Gigi Kellett of Corporate Accountability International's Think Outside the Bottle campaign said environmental efforts targeting bottled water are a good starting point because water "is something that people can have access to right out of the taps."

"It's a way to protect the environment and protect your pocketbook," she said, adding that most empty bottles end up not in recycling bins but in the garbage.

All that discarded plastic also bothers Barbara Kancelbaum, a freelance writer in Park Slope. "It's not like the bottles that carry water are worse than bottles carrying Pepsi," said Ms. Kancelbaum, 42, who was so moved by the sight of overflowing garbage cans in Prospect Park that she posted an antibottled water message on an online bulletin board for local mothers. "The problem is that the water industry has exploded, so that there are many, many more bottles being used than there were before."

"The solution," she said, "is not to buy other kinds of drinks. The solution is to bring your own water."

But even the noblest of intentions can wilt in the heat.

Dave Byers, 65, from Silver Spring, Md., discussed the issue with his wife, Pat, on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a 90-degree Saturday. "I think it should be banned, actually," he said of bottled water.

As he spoke, he and his wife shared a bottle of Poland Spring. They said they felt bad about it, but it was hot. And they could not find a drinking fountain.

"Water is so ubiquitous," he said, glancing at the bottle. "It seems a little dumb to walk around with a bottle of this."

{* Preparation Precedes Performance. Always be prepared. Carry your own water. *}

Catherine Donaldson-Evans, Amy Goetzman, Kate Hammer, Carol Pogash, Rachel Pomerance and Paula Schwartz contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/fashion/12water.html

More Tips on Drinking Water (1)

2007-08-15T18:00:00.000-07:00

# # #
The New York Times

October 20, 2005
Marathoners Warned About Too Much Water
By GINA KOLATA

Correction Appended

Dr. Lewis G. Maharam, the medical director for the New York City Marathon and marathons in San Diego, Phoenix, Nashville and Virginia Beach, said he was taking every opportunity this year to educate runners about the biggest threat to their lives on race day - drinking too much water.

He knows the danger: in their zeal to avoid becoming dehydrated, runners may end up drinking so much that they dilute their blood. Water rushes into cells, including cells of the brain. The swollen brain cells press against the skull, and the result can be fatal. The resulting condition is known as hyponatremia - too much water.

"There are no reported cases of dehydration causing death in the history of world running," Maharam said. "But there are plenty of cases of people dying of hyponatremia." No one knows how many have died, said Dr. Arthur Siegel, the chief of internal medicine at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., and the designated hyponatremia team leader for recent Boston Marathons.

But he said that perhaps a dozen hyponatremia deaths had been recognized, according to informal communications among doctors at recent marathons. So this year, for the first time, the participant handbook for runners in the Nov. 6 New York City Marathon tells them how much to drink - no more than eight ounces of water every 20 minutes. Maharam also makes sure the message is delivered via television shows that feature news about the marathon. He makes an announcement at the start of the marathon about how much to drink. And there will be a flier in the goody bags telling each runner, once again, of the dangers of drinking too much. Even though Gatorade is one of the sponsors and the race features Gatorade's new sports drink, Gatorade Endurance Formula, Maharam said that sports drinks were no better than water. Eight ounces of fluid every 20 minutes is plenty.

But it is a message that is not always heard. Last year, one percent of the more than 35,000 New York City marathoners developed hyponatremia, Maharam said, and although that is a smaller toll than in other cities' marathons, doctors say every one of those life-threatening medical emergencies could have been avoided.

To make matters worse, medical treatments for hyponatremia are often disastrous. Some doctors mistakenly think the runner is dehydrated and give intravenous fluids. The extent of the problem may go far beyond the number of runners who have been hospitalized for it. A recent study of runners in the 2002 Boston Marathon found that 13 percent who finished the race had hyponatremia. And those were runners who thought they were fine and were just participating in a study. If such a runner continued to drink after the marathon, perhaps thinking that feelings of nausea and malaise were due to dehydration, the runner could end up with seizures or slip into a coma, doctors say.

That is what happened to Mark Robinson, a 27-year-old computer programmer from West Roxbury, Mass., who sees his story as a cautionary tale. The day of the 2004 Boston Marathon dawned unusually hot. The race was on April 19, but the temperature was projected to reach nearly 90 degrees. Robinson was concerned. It was his first marathon, he had been training for six months, and he wanted to run it in four hours or less. "I sweat a lot," he said. With weather like that, he worried he might become dehydrated. So he tried to make sure he drank enough. "I drank more than a gallon of water before the race, and then at every rest stop I would stop and have a couple of drinks of water," he said. He was on pace until Mile 19 when, suddenly, he felt nauseous and his legs began to cramp. He forced himself to continue, but by Mile 23 he could no longer run. "I tried to power-walk it in," Robinson said. His parents met him at the finish line, bringing water. He drank two quarts, but he felt worse than ever. Not only was he vomiting and having diarrhea, Robinson said, but "I felt spacey, out of it, almost like I was on drugs."

His parents got a wheelchair and took him to the medical tent, where the person doing triage at the entrance asked if he could stand on his own. He could. He said he was told, "We have people here who are lying down," and was sent away. His parents helped him walk to the subway and took him to their home in Wayland, Mass. All the while, Robinson was drinking water and drinking Gatorade and vomiting.

Robinson said: "I felt completely mentally out of it. It was a strange sensation. Deep down, I knew something really, really wasn't right. It was like a feeling of impending doom. My father wanted me to take a bath, but I didn't want to be alone. I looked at my dad and he was talking and his mouth was kind of going," but, Robinson said, he could no longer hear what his father was saying. Suddenly, Robinson screamed, leaped into the air, and fell down on his shoulder, breaking it. He lay on the floor, unconscious and no longer breathing. His mother called 911 and a helicopter arrived. On the flight to Boston Medical Center, Robinson received intravenous fluids; the medical team thought he was dehydrated. He ended up in a coma, on life support, and woke up four days later. His problem? Hyponatremia - poisoned by drinking too much water.

Robinson still runs, but much shorter distances. "I'll never run a long race again," he said. And forget marathons, he added. "My wife would never give me permission," he said. Dr. Paul Thompson, a cardiologist, a marathon runner and a director of the Athletes' Heart program at Hartford Hospital, said: "Everyone's been told to drink water, drink water, drink water. Water companies want you to drink water like a fish. Then you dilute your blood and your brain starts to swell. You have healthy people running marathons and dying. Has the word gotten out? No."

Even now, more than a year later, Robinson says he is still shaken from his near-death experience after the Boston Marathon. "You would never, ever think that water could kill you," he said. Correction: Oct. 21, 2005, Friday: A sports article yesterday about the danger of drinking water excessively during marathons misstated the toll of hyponatremia, a resulting condition that developed in about 1 percent of the 35,000 runners in the New York City Marathon last year. Dr. Lewis Maharam, medical director of the race, said that a small percentage of those runners had required hospital visits, and two had required an overnight stay; not all were hospitalized.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/20/sports/sportsspecial/20marathon.html?

More Tips on Drinking Water (2)

2007-08-15T17:00:00.000-07:00

###
June 4, 2006
Fluids and Exercise

Hydration Angst
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS

When Dr. John Cianca of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston took over as the medical director of the Houston Marathon in 1998, what many athletes believed about proper hydration was, in effect, that too much is never enough. And so the Houston Marathon course had 26 water
stations — one every mile. Then, in 1999, four runners collapsed after the race and had to be hospitalized, all of them in critical condition. Cianca was flabbergasted when he got word that each of the runners was suffering from severe hyponatremia, or overhydration. "The thinking back then was that it was difficult to develop hyponatremia during a marathon," Cianca says. "Obviously, that was wrong."

Two deaths in 2002 proved that too much can indeed be way more than enough: First, a 28-year-old woman collapsed near the 22-mile mark of the Boston Marathon. She lapsed into a coma and was declared brain-dead from intracranial swelling caused by hyponatremia. Six
months later, at the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C., a 35-year-old woman collapsed five hours into the race. She died two days later, also from complications of overhydration.

At Cianca's urging, the organizers of the Houston Marathon cut the number of water stations along the course by half in 2003. Some runners were worried at first, but there have been few complaints. "We're doing our best to reduce the availability of fluids," Cianca says. "We're trying to take away the choice to overhydrate."

Welcome to the age of hydration anxiety. Hyponatremia is a big topic in sports medicine and has become a growing concern for race directors. The American College of Sports Medicine, U.S.A. Track & Field, the National Athletic Trainers' Association and the Association of International Marathon Medical Directors have all recently issued revised fluid-intake guidelines that warn athletes not to overdo it.

And in the past year or so newspapers across the land have run headlines like this one from the Chicago Sun-Times: "Drink Tons of Water While Running? Not If You Want to Live."

With this comes the inevitable backlash. "There's a big danger of going too far," says Dr. Larry Kenney, a professor of physiology and kinesiology at Penn State University and a past president of the American College of Sports Medicine. "Some susceptible athletes will hear this and overdo it and not drink enough, or at all."

It used to be so easy: you did your workout, you replenished your fluids. But as physiology continues to teach us, nothing is that simple. Not even a drink of water.

Drinking too much is dangerous because it dilutes the blood's sodium content, which may already be lowered during prolonged exercise, since salt is lost in sweat. Meanwhile, sodium levels within other cells — in the skin, muscles and internal organs — remain constant. To correct the imbalance, osmosis draws water out of the blood, causing the cells to become engorged. Hands and feet balloon. The chest may feel constricted. In extreme cases, the brain can swell, leading to disorientation, fainting, a coma, even death.

Athletes who exercise for relatively short periods of time (less than two hours or so) rarely suffer from hyponatremia. Top finishers in marathons, triathlons and bike races also are not prone to develop symptoms, nor are athletes in fast-paced games like basketball and
tennis. It is, instead, the slow back-of-the-packers who are at risk.

As one doctor noted in The Physician and Sportsmedicine, slower marathon racers were found to have drunk as much as six or seven liters (more than 200 ounces) of fluid during the 26-mile event. By contrast, the top runners rarely drank more than two or three liters.
And unlike the speedsters, the plodders did not work up as much of a sweat, so they took in fluids at a much higher rate than they expended them.

Until quite recently, few people drank to excess. Then came Oprah. Remember her famous 1994 marathon run? She inspired a slew of enthusiastic but decidedly unathletic imitators. They came, they jogged, they walked, they chatted — and they made a day of it. Before Oprah, women tended to finish a marathon in a little more than four hours. Now they finish in closer to five, dutifully hydrating along the way. How can you tell if you're drinking too much? The first symptom is often a sense that your wedding ring or running shoes are becoming tight, or that your waistband pinches. Overhydrators typically end their workouts weighing more than they did when they started. "You'll see these runners put on as much as four to eight pounds by the end" of a five-hour marathon, all of it from fluid, says Dr. Douglas Casa, the director of athletic-trainer education at the University of Connecticut and an author of U.S.A. Track & Field's hydration guidelines.

The risk of hyponatremia is disproportionately higher in women, although not for any innate physiological reasons. "Women are generally just more conscientious than men," says Dr. Timothy Noakes, a professor of exercise and sports science at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and a longtime crusader against hyponatremia. "Women do what they're told, and they've been told to drink as much as they can hold. So they do." Noakes likes the old-fashioned idea that if you're thirsty it's time to drink. "Athletes are still told, 'Stay ahead of your thirst,' which is terrible advice," he says. "Thirst is nature's way of helping you hydrate correctly. If you drink only when you're thirsty and stop when you're not, you'll be in good shape."

Other physiologists strongly disagree. "By the time you feel thirst, you've typically lost at least 2 percent of your body weight" to dehydration, Casa says. Losing as little as 3 percent of your weight can affect athletic performance, he continues. (Noakes disputes this; his research, he says, suggests that performance is not affected until athletes have lost at least 8 percent of their weight, if then.) Even slightly dehydrated athletes can feel hot, tired, irritable and sluggish. A more extreme case of dehydration can contribute to the development of minor heat exhaustion or even heat stroke. "When you reduce the volume of blood" — as happens if you sweat and don't replace fluid — "the heart has to work harder," Larry Kenney says. Heat builds up in the body. Your sweat rate might drop, increasing internal temperature even more. Like a malfunctioning boiler, the body has to slow down or it will blow.

Children are particularly susceptible to dehydration. "Kids do a pretty poor job of hydrating themselves," says Casa, who, in a study of elementary-school-age soccer players, found that most of them arrived at their summer practices already dehydrated, complaining of thirst and acting listless. Among the most disastrously at risk are youth football players practicing in full gear in full summer heat. "

In the past 10 years, 26 young football players have died from heat stroke (20 high school, 4 college and 2 professional)," according to a report issued this year by the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In many instances, the players were severely dehydrated before they collapsed. Each of these deaths could have been avoided, the report concluded (with subtextual pathos), if fluids had been plentiful at the field. So how much should an athlete drink?

Experts like the nabobs at the American College of Sports Medicine no longer make blanket recommendations; each person's physique is too singular.

To put it less delicately, some of us sweat like an ironworker and some don't. "Two people of approximately the same size and athletic ability can have very different sweat rates," Kenney says. If both are told to drink the same amount, it's likely that one or both of them will be drinking too much or not enough. Instead, physiologists now give guidelines for testing individuals' sweat rates and fluid requirements. For one, they say, check your urine. It should be clear and pale. If it's dark or cloudy, you may be dehydrated. Ditto if your skin, when pinched, doesn't replump. Before you exercise, weigh yourself. Monitor how much you drink during your workout, then weigh yourself again afterward. "If you've lost weight, you need to start drinking a little more every hour," Casa says. "If you've gained weight, you need to drink less." At the Houston Marathon, scales are now set at the runner check-in area and also at strategic points along the course itself, so that both the participants and the medical team can record weight gain or loss. As for what to drink, almost any fluid will do. The small amount of salt in sports drinks will not stave off the sodium dilution characteristic of hyponatremia.

In a study conducted by Harvard researchers, runners at the 2002 Boston Marathon who developed hyponatremia were as likely to have overindulged in Gatorade as in water. It was the amount they drank, not the content, that mattered. "For general hydration, if you like water, by all means, drink water," Casa says. "If you find sports drinks more palatable, drink those."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/sports/playmagazine/04hydration.html

# # #

Beverages Menu

2007-08-02T03:00:00.000-07:00

Coffee **1

Tea **2

Lemonade

Fruit Punch

Breakfast Blaster (Energy Drink)

**1 We serve premium Starbuck coffee.
**2 Lemon is optical with tea.
We usually serve green tea or black tea.

# # #

Dessert Menu

2007-08-01T03:01:00.000-07:00

Old Fashioned Apple Pie

German Chocolate Cake
(Semi-sweet Chocolate)

Ice Cream
(We serve Ben and Jerry ice cream)

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies with Coconut
(Semi-sweet home-made cookies)

Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies
(Semi-sweet home-made cookies)

Apple Cinnamon Pie

Please be patient. The Dessert Menu page is currently being updated.

Vegetarian Food Menu

2007-06-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

Michele's Favorite

This starter plate include green salad, onion,
tomato, cucumber, carrot and a black olive

Please be patient.
This menu is currently being updated

Blue Plate Menu (1) : Salads

2007-06-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

Chicken Salad

Tender chunks of boneless chicken breast with pecan
(optional), grapes,and celery mixed with a special
house dressing. Served on a crispy bed of lettuce.

Avocado Salad

Chunks of avocado,lettuce, green pepper, red pepper,
and chopped tomato. Topped with a special dressing
made of lemon juice,balsamic vinegar, andvirgin olive oil.

Cucumber Salad
Sliced cucumber seasoned with a mixture of
fresh lemon juice, sour cream,sugar,salt and dill.

~~~

Refreshments can be found in our Beverage menu

~~~

We also do special orders.

Blue Plate Menu (2) : Sandwiches

2007-06-29T05:30:00.000-07:00

Bacon & Chicken Sandwich

Delicious slices of lean cooked chicken breast,tomato,crispy bacon,
and pepper jack cheese between two slices of toasted wheat or
white bread topped with your choice of mayonnaise or salad dressing.

Turkey Sandwich
Lean deli turkey slices, tomato, lettuce, mayonnaise and
Colby cheese between your choice of wheat, rye or white bread.

Greek Salad Sandwich
Tomato, black olives,basil leaves,onions, cucumber,feta cheese,
and spinach; covered in a special dressing made of oil,lemon juice
and garlic. stuffed inside your choice of wheat pita style bread pockets.

~~~

Refreshments can be found in our Beverage menu

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We also do special orders.

Italian Menu

2007-06-01T00:10:00.000-07:00

Appetizer

Caesar salad

Entree

Italian Tomato Bisque

Spaghetti with meatballs & garlic bread.

- Please be patient. This menu page is currently being updated -

American Chowder Menu

2007-05-30T18:36:00.000-07:00

Corn Chowder with Roasted Red Peppers

Salmon Chowder with Tarragon

Southwestern-Style Red Chowder

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Clam Chowder

Mexican Menu (1): Appetizers

2007-05-29T20:11:00.000-07:00

(Choose one)

TexMex Salsa Salad
Tomatoes,avocado, onions, jalapeño
chilies, parsley, garlic with a twist of lemon

Easy Tortilla Appetizers
Shredded Colby cheese,cream cheese,sour
cream,onions,green chilies with a dash of garlic salt,
wrapped in flour tortillas and served with picante sauce.

Eight Layer Fiesta Dip
Made of lean ground beef with taco seasoning and refried
beans, layered with grated cheddar cheese,olives, chopped
tomatoes, avocado, sour cream, salsa and green onions
served with a side order of tortilla chips for dipping.

Quesedillas El Paso
Green chiles, Monterey Jack cheese, Green onions inside
two flour tortillas, lightly toasted to a crispy brown
with a side of pico de gallo.

Cream of Poblano Pepper Soup
Seasoned with poblano peppers, flour,black pepper,canola oil, cumin,
onions, chicken stock, chopped roasted chicken, salt, chili powder, butter,
and shredded Monterey jack cheese.

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- Please be patient. This menu page is currently being updated. -

Mexican Menu (2): Main Course

2007-05-29T18:10:00.000-07:00

(Choose one)

Green Chili Chicken Enchiladas
Corn tortillas filled with chicken, chiles, cheese and
chile sauce, rolled and baked, then topped with
green chile sauce. Sprinkled with the cotija.

Red Enchilada Casserole
Layers of tortillas, ground beef, refried beans,
cheddar cheese, Monterey Jack cheese, onions
and a red enchilada sauce. Sour cream optional.

Santa Fe Chicken
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts marinated in
a mixture of soy sauce, olive oil,chili powder,cumin seed,
ground coriander, cloves garlic,honey,white wine,lime juice and
chopped cilantro leaves then broiled. Garnished with sour cream,
slices of lime and ascallion firecracker, as well as a dollop of salsa.

Tex Mex Lasagna
Flour tortillas, ground beef mixture,ricotta cheese,
Monterey Jack cheese, Cheddar cheese, green onions, and
olives layered, topped with mozzarella cheese and baked
to a golden brown. Can be served with a side of salsa.

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Mexican Menu (3): Vegetables

2007-05-29T18:05:00.000-07:00

Vegetables (Choose one)

Tex-Mex Squash Casserole
A baked casserole made of lightly sautéed yellow squash,
zucchini, onions, garlic, green chilies, cumin,
cheddar cheese, Monterey jack cheese and yellow corn.

Mexican Refried Beans
Made with pinto beans,chopped onion and melted cheddar cheese

Spinach Empanadas

Fajita Marinade

Vegetarian Chipotle Chili

Mexican Menu (4): Desserts

2007-05-29T17:01:00.000-07:00

Desserts

Bread Pudding

Mexican Wedding Cookies

Sweet Corn Cake

Mexican Sopaipillas

Chocolate Banana Burrito

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Continental Menu (1): Appetizers

2007-05-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

(Choose one)

Bean Sprout Salad
Bean Sprout Salad, a refreshing accompaniment with any
meal. Seasoned with coconut cream and vinegar

Burmese Sticky Rice Balls
Glutinous rice flour mixture rolled into 1/2 inch balls, filled with pieces of jaggery(unrefined sugar), boiled and garnished with grated coconut.

Ham & Apple Rolls
Delicious tasting ham rolls with
finely diced apples for an added twist.

Swedish Meatballs
Ground beef and ground pork, onion, eggs, milk, bread
crumbs, parsley, and Worcestershire sauce
mixture shaped into walnut size meatballs. Served in
a delicious gravy made with flour, paprika and sour cream.

Two-minute Coconut Shrimp

- Please be patient. This menu page is currently being updated. -

Continental Menu (2): Main Course

2007-05-28T07:55:00.000-07:00

(Choose one)

Grilled Greek Kabobs
Large cubes of marinated fresh vegetables
grilled and basted until deliciously tender

Grilled Bruschetta Chicken
???

Italian Chicken Pasta
This lemony chicken dish that includes
some broccoli sautéed in oil and garlic
as a side dish

Marinated Pork Chops
Grilled Pork chops
marinated in a special sauce.

Polpettone
Seasoned with fresh marjoram and
lemon zest, slices of the polpettone
('loaf' in Italian) reveal aspiral of spinach and omelette.

(Steamed white rice is served with Main Course.)

Continental Menu (3): Vegetables

2007-05-28T07:18:00.000-07:00

(Choose one)

Corn Casserole

A delicious family favored dish
that includes creamed corn, butter,
milk jiffy corn muffin mix and bacon bits for
an added flavor, combined then baked
to a golden brown.

Lemon-Pepper Vegetables
This dish of vegetables is lightly
sauteed , seasoned with lemon-pepper

Mixed Roasted Vegetables
Roasted vegetables is slowly
cooked and lightly seasoned to taste

Purè di patate
Mashed potatoes with an Italian twist!

Over Roasted Autumn Vegetables
A superb array of autumn colored vegetables,
seasoned with olive oil, butter, garlic, chopped fresh
thyme, and balsamic or red wine vinegar baked until
vegetables are tender and golden brown.

American Menu (1) Appetizers

2007-05-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

Appetizers (Choose one)

Assorted Finger Sandwiches

Chicken Salad

Egg Rolls

Mediterranean Marinated Vegetable Salad

- Please be patient. This menu page is currently being updated. -

American Menu (2): Main Course

2007-05-28T06:55:00.000-07:00

(Choose one)

Country Inn Chicken

Roasted Chicken

Roasted to a golden brown.
Seasoned with the finest herbs and spices.

Hawaiian Beef w/ Sesame Seeds

Seasoned London broil

American Menu (3): Vegetables

2007-05-28T06:18:00.000-07:00

(Choose one)

Cheese Top Grilled Tomatoes
Topped with mozzarella
and a sprinkle of paprika

Corn on the cob

Green Beans & Mushrooms

Steamed Brussel Sprouts
Steamed just right with
a deletable buttery taste.

- Please be patient. This menu page is currently being updated. -.

Asian Menu (1): Appetizers

2007-05-28T03:38:00.000-07:00

(Choose One)

Asian-flavored Eggplant Crostini.
Sauteed Asian-Eggplant
atop Italian toasted bread

Shrimp Cantonese

Two-minute Coconut Shrimp
A delectable starter, jumbo shrimp
smothered in delicious coconut milk sauce.
Truly an "East-meets-West"dish.

Fried Pork and Crab Rolls
Ground pork and crab meat seasoned,
wrapped in spring roll wrappers then
deep fried until a delicious golden brown.

Crab Balls
A mixer of crab meat with cream cheese,
Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, mayonnaise
and minced onions served with chili sauce.

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- Please be patient. This menu page is currently being updated -

Asian Menu (2): Main Course

2007-05-28T03:18:00.000-07:00

(Choose one)

Spareribs and Water Chestnuts
Cut pieces of spareribs with water chestnuts &
onions in a sauce flavored with dry sherry,
sugar, soy sauce and fresh ginger root.

Chicken with nuts in hoisin sauce
Cubed skinless chicken breast with
water chestnut, Chinese dried mushrooms
and bamboo shoots marinated in a
Chinese rice wine sauce, flavored with
hoisin sauce. Peanuts or cashews optional

ShangHai "Hot" Chicken Dish
Fresh chicken breast meat,Peas, Eggs, Onions,
Carrots and Potatoes flavored with Lemon Grass,
Garlic, Basil, Parsley, Green Onion,Curry Powder,
Chinese "Five Spice" Powder, and Thai Chili Sauce.
Served with brown rice

Lemon or Orange-Flavored
(Sweet and Sour) Chicken
Boneless breast of chicken, breaded and
fried to a crispy golden brown and bathed
in our special lemon (or orange) sauce.

Beef with Pepper Strips
Savory beef and colorful pepper strips sauteed.

Asian Menu (3): Vegetables

2007-05-28T03:00:00.000-07:00

(Choose one)

Stir-fried Spicy Lemon Grass Vegetables
An assortment of vegetables
stir-fried with lemon-grass and seasonings.

Braised Fusion Mushrooms with Herbs
A variety of mushrooms, braised in
shaoxing wine, soy sauce, garlic and herbs.
With a sprinkle of chives and spring onions.

Crackling Rice-Paper Asparagus Rolls
Asparagus steamed with a tomato-herb
mixture wrapped in rice paper pan fried
until they are golden brown.

Stuffed Eggplant
Centers are stuffed with onion, garlic, and
seasonings, then coated with tomato sauce,
cheese, and a sprinkle of bread crumbs.

(All meals are served with the following
choice of steamed rice, brown rice or pasta)

Asian Menu (4): Desserts

2007-05-28T02:55:00.000-07:00

(Choose one)

Chinese Almond Cookies

[ Please check Dessert Menu for other desert items.]

Who is Global Delights

2007-05-28T00:55:00.000-07:00

We are food professionals who enjoy cooking so much that we decided to start our own business.

The origin of our global cooking experience comes from our relationships with friends from all over the world.

To give the customer the best gourmet experience, we believe in using the best organic ingredients

If you are interested in trying our food service, please e-mail us at or call us at (317) 288.1791