Tag Archives: blues brothers

Aramark, another food safety gift: Bills would require food safety inspections for Mich. prisons

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When I was in prison, no one thought much about food safety. There was a cannery, and inmates prepared food, made pruno, and extracted revenge, I guess.

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Prison kitchens in Michigan managed by contractors would be required to have food safety inspections under recently introduced bipartisan legislation.

Democratic Rep. John Kivela and Republican Rep. Ed McBroom announced the legislation Wednesday. It comes in response to recent news that inmates at a Jackson-area prison found maggots in a food preparation area.

Philadelphia-based Aramark Correctional Services operates Michigan’s prison food services as part of a three-year, $145 million contract.

The legislation would make prison kitchen facilities subject to the same routine food safety inspections that are required for other food establishments in Michigan. The contractor would have to pay for the inspections.

McBroom says it seems reasonable that prison kitchens “face the same strict inspections as required by any kitchen serving the public.”

Chef teaches inmates (Blues Brothers?) at Cook County Jail how to cook, how to live

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When it comes to getting a fresh start in life, a jail is probably just about the last place that comes to mind — particularly one as large and with as storied a past as Illinois’ Cook County Jail.

n-BRUNO-large570But a new beginning is exactly what’s being served up these days in Division 11. Bruno Abate, chef and owner of Tocco, a popular Italian restaurant in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood, has been teaching a cooking class to inmates.

The class, which began last spring, isn’t just about cooking up a perfectly crispy pizza or a zesty marinara. Rather, Abate says the program aims to educate its participants in professionalism and responsibility, and to give them hope for their life beyond the cell — hope that they can secure employment, many of them through Abate’s restaurant, and avoid returning to jail.

“I’m trying to teach them the simple life, that you always have the chance to start again,” the Naples, Italy native told The Huffington Post. “You made a mistake, but this country is a good country to start again as long as you’re strong and you fight for the freedom to make a change in your life.”

Abate, who has lived in Chicago since 1998 and opened Tocco in 2009, starts the program with lessons in food safety and sanitation before moving onto classes centered on nutrition, fresh pasta, pizza, cooking with fresh herbs, baking bread and more. When it comes to utensils that could be used as weapons, namely knives, the implements are tethered to the table when in use and stored in lockboxes when they aren’t.

When I was in jail, it was spoons for every meal. I taught school, and afterwards for awhile, but this program sounds awesome. And I had a lotta love.

Today in 1979, the Blues Brothers hit #1 with Briefcase Full of Blues (yes the clip is from the movie, not the album, which I owned, on vinyl).

Fancy food isn’t safe food: Emirates edition

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I’ve got some work in Dubai and inexplicably scored access to the Emirates fancy pants lounge at the Brisbane airport. So I wore shorts. Fabulous beef, fruit, and I’m drinking Veuve Cliquot champagne (which I usually pronounce Verve Cluque) like Dan Aykroyd in the Blues Brothers.

But proving once again that even the fanciest places may not know much about food safety, this delightfully refreshing and crisp prawn salad was tainted with sprouts Raw pea sprouts. Yuck. Besides direct ingestion there is cross-contamination.

A table of sprout-related outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/sprouts-associated-outbreaks.

As bad as the pepper steak at the Cook County jail; foodborne poisoning affects 90 percent of ND county jail inmates

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About 90 percent of the 184 inmates at the Cass County Jail in North Dakota became ill Sunday night and early Monday morning with a potential foodborne illness, Sheriff Paul Laney said.

None of the inmates had to be taken to a hospital for medical treatment, though nurses from Fargo Cass Public Health did treat those whose symptoms were most severe, the jail’s Chief Nurse Heidi McLean said.

Doug Jensen, a registered sanitarian with Fargo Cass Public Health said all aspects of food supply, storage and preparation will be examined to determine where the illness came from.

There have been no reports of illnesses among staff, Laney said, though many of those who had been on duty overnight were at home.

Inmates were served a chili macaroni casserole, corn and cornbread for supper Sunday, Laney said.

The jail has contracted its food services for nearly five years with CBM Food Service of Sioux Falls, S.D., Laney said.

FDA cracks down on Lazy Larry, a brownie with melatonin

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Joliet Jake Blues: “How often does the train go by?”

Elwood Blues: “So often that you won’t even notice it.”

The Blues Brothers Movie, 1980.

The first question I asked Amy upon arriving at our Brisbane apartment in Annerly was, “How often does the train go by?”

“So often that you won’t even notice it.”

This is urban living (our new sleeping arrangements, right, not exactly as shown).

Amy also wanted me to take some melatonin to help adjust my biological clock to the 15-hour time change. I don’t have natural rhythms (or rhythm).

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration has some concerns as well, and is cracking down on a brownie containing melatonin that’s marketed to help people relax and fall asleep: it’s called "Lazy Larry."

"They have a lovely little picture of a relaxed little man," said Katherine Madere
A list of ingredients on the packaging include sugar, flour, oil, cocoa, egg, salt along with melatonin.

On store shelves since late 2010, "Lazy Cakes," now called "Lazy Larry," are marketed according to a press release as "the chocolate alternative to medication and narcotics that can help you relax and fall asleep."

"The FDA has very recently come down and [issued] a warning to the makers of ‘Lazy Cakes,’ now ‘Lazy Larry’ that they’re touting them incorrectly," said Dr. Kim Edward LeBlanc with LSU’s Health Sciences Center School of Medicine.
LeBlanc said the "Lazy Larry" relaxation brownie product is breaking federal regulations.

"The melatonin that they’re putting in these brownies and cakes is a food additive; because of that it runs afoul of FDA law. You can have melatonin in a tablet form, which is a supplement, which is okay. But when you add it to a food that changes the whole equation," LeBlanc said.

Fake health inspector phones Des Moines restaurant, talks to real inspector

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There’s been a spate of health inspector scams preying on restaurants throughout the U.S. in the past five years. From handwashing signs for cash to extorting fake inspection fees, the fake inspector business has been booming.

WHO-TV reports a man calling a Des Moines restaurant pretending to be a state health inspector was interrupted when a real inspector got on the phone.

Emily Wegner says she was at the restaurant Wednesday when she heard a server yell into the kitchen that the state health department was on the phone. Wegner, whose job it is to inspect restaurants, says she got on the phone and told the caller that he was not an inspector and that she was.

The fake inspector wanted to schedule an appointment but asked for a deposit for the visit.

Wegner says the state does not charge for inspections.

Wegner says she got the caller’s information and reported the scam to police.
 

Barfing behind bars: 5 sick with E. coli at Idaho prison

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Five inmates at the Idaho Correctional Center, south of Boise, became sick around Dec. 1.

Associated Press reports at least two tested positive for toxin-producing E. coli.

Sarah Correll, staff epidemiologist at the Central District Health Department, said no new cases have been discovered and the inmates who were sickened are recovering.

The Idaho Correctional Center is run by Corrections Corporation of America.