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In May, 2010, at least 43 people were lab-confirmed to be sickened with cyclospora and over 200 displayed symptoms of illness after attending the Chef’s Challenge, a fundraiser for the Big Sisters of Sarnia-Lambton in Ontario, Canada.
"It wasn’t something we were able to go ahead with this year given the incident that took (2)(1).jpg)
place," said executive director Kathy Alexander.
Local health types figured the source of the cyclospora was a cool pesto crunch but couldn’t identify the ingredient.
I used a variation of the headline in today’s Daily Mail, but it would appear there were additional food safety issues at this fancy-pants hotel.
The luxurious Mellington Hall Hotel, in Wales, describes itself as a ‘hidden gem’ nestling in 280 acres of beautiful parkland and serving only the finest food and drink.
But when environmental health inspectors arrived they found a ‘significant fly infestation’, mouldy strawberries and cream past its use-by date.
The Victorian gothic mansion, which boasts on its website that it offers ‘a combination of the finest food and drink savoured in elegantly furnished 
surroundings with an attentive and knowledgeable staff to make your meal with us unforgettable’, was closed immediately and deep-cleaned following the inspection last July.
But after a second visit this month also found mouldy food, it emerged that the chef was dyslexic and had been unable to read the use-by dates.
Lance Thomas and his wife Vanessa, with whom he runs the hotel near Church Stoke, Powys, Wales, were fined a total of £6,750 at Welshpool magistrates for the breaches of hygiene. They have now adopted a colour-coded system so that the unnamed chef can identify the food that is going off.
Court also heard health-types found trays of cooked meat and vegetables on the floor of the chiller, flies landing on food preparation surfaces and on open food left uncovered in the kitchen, and unwrapped brie on top of moldy strawberries.
New Zealand chef Peta Mathias has been criticized for the flashy jewelry she wears during her TV show, with critics saying the rings and other 
jewellery would never be tolerated in a commercial kitchen because of the bacteria that gathers underneath.
Mathias agrees but says: "Hey, it’s for TV."
Food writer and columnist Julie Biuso said people had been talking about Mathias’ rings for years, adding,
"There’s a grubby look about it. It’s an act. She dresses up with all the jewellery … possibly she cooks like that at home. Of course, she’s over the top, she’s way over the top. But people love to criticise. She’s doing it her own way. If you don’t like it, switch off."
Biuso said Mathias would never be allowed to wear her rings while cooking in a commercial kitchen.
AUT senior lecturer in food safety Suzanne Bliss said Mathias’ rings were possibly sending the wrong message to the public and young people in the food industry.
But it was a TV show and, for that reason, hosts had licence to go outside the normal boundaries of food hygiene.
Mathiasen, L.A., Chapman, B.J., Lacroix, B.J. and Powell, D.A. 2004. Spot the mistake: Television cooking shows as a source of food safety information, Food Protection Trends 24(5): 328-334.
Consumers receive information on food preparation from a variety of sources. Numerous studies conducted over the past six years demonstrate that television is one of the primary sources for North Americans. This research reports on an examination and categorization of messages that television food and cooking programs provide to viewers about preparing food safely. During June 2002 and 2003, television food and cooking programs were recorded and reviewed, using a defined list of food safety practices based on criteria established by Food Safety Network researchers. Most surveyed programs were shown on Food Network Canada, a specialty cable channel. On average, 30 percent of the programs viewed were produced in Canada, with the remainder produced in the United States or United Kingdom. Sixty hours of content analysis revealed that the programs contained a total of 916 poor food-handling incidents. When negative food handling behaviors were compared to positive food handling behaviors, it was found that for each positive food handling behavior observed, 13 negative behaviors were observed. Common food safety errors included a lack of hand washing, cross-contamination and time-temperature violations. While television food and cooking programs are an entertainment source, there is an opportunity to improve their content so as to promote safe food handling.
I’m a sucker for Sunday brunch, especially if a good Bloody Mary is involved. On more than one occasion we’ve thought of trying The Chef café in downtown Manhattan (Kansas). But each time we see the line stretching out the door and down the block, we decide to take our small child somewhere without a wait. Today “Downtown Manhattan, Inc.” shared on Facebook that The Chef was rated the best breakfast in Kansas by the Food Network. The story says The Chef makes its own chorizo for their frittatas, which appear to be amply cooked, but chorizo should be handled with care to avoid food safety risks (see http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/454431 for a lively discussion). While I’d vote for Doug’s cooking as the best breakfast in Kansas, the next time Sorenne wakes up at 5 a.m. on a Sunday, we just might be first in line.
The TV chef who Gordon Ramsey once called a Teletubby, Antony Worrall Thompson, blames bureaucrats for the one-star-out-of-five for hygiene at his Oxfordshire gastro pub.
Worrall Thompson said failing to fill out "bits of paper" led to the low score at The Greyhound, in Henley-on-Thames.
Worrall Thompson admitted food had been found beneath his fridge and oven during the inspection, but that people would need to be on their "hands and knees with a torch" to find it, adding,
"All [the public] want to know is if they’re going to be poisoned. The public don’t care if the paperwork isn’t done. It’s treating everyone as if they haven’t got a brain. It’s got absurd, the amount of paperwork you have to do. There’s this inbuilt hatred between Environmental Health Officers and chefs. We should be working together."
Council cabinet member for health, Dorothy Brown, said,
"Mr Worrall Thompson is mistaken that our Scores on the Doors scheme is overly bureaucratic and driven by paperwork, when it is in fact driven by the need to improve food hygiene standards.”
Worrall Thompson has shown up in barfblog.com before. He was a signatory to a open letter calling on the British public to ask where their food comes from (from under the fridge?), he published a recipe in Healthy & Organic Living that included a toxic plant as an ingredient, and has run afoul of public health types for using paving stones as a kitchen counter at a public BBQ.
Chef Jonathan Benno visited a farm recently, a crucial stop in his yearlong quest to open a $20-million restaurant at Lincoln Center in September.
I
n a standard food porn piece, The New York Times reports this morning that once, farmers begged top chefs to give their produce a whirl. But with carrots, corn and tomatoes being accorded the fanatical attention once reserved for foie gras and truffles, chefs now come knocking.
Mr. Benno, 40, said,
“It’s not enough now to pick up the phone and say to a distributor: ‘What have you got? O.K., give me a case.’ Now you want to see. You want to go there. They get to know us, and they see the possibilities for us. And for them.”
Michael White, the chef and an owner of Marea, along with Alto and Convivio, all in Manhattan, said, “Our customers travel to food and wine festivals and food devotees are more and more aware of the sourcing of products.” At the table, they can even surf the Web on their iPhones to check out the provenance of the steak, the chicken and the chicory.
Benno was further quoted as saying,
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“This is not about currying favor, it is about developing a relationship. In this business, it’s about the handshake — looking them in the eye.”
Look your farmer in the eye and ask what water he or she irrigated with as the crops were withering and about to die (that was my farmer, left, 10 years ago, and he engaged in frank food safety discussions). Ask about the microbial tests done on water and soil. Ask about the hand sanitation for workers in the field and in the packing shed. Trust, but verify.
Less food porn, more food safety.
The source of last month’s outbreak of an intestinal parasite at a charity food event in Sarnia (Ontario, Canada) remains a mystery.
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Public health officials questioned 286 of the more than 300 people who attended the Chef’s Challenge and found 206 became ill, said Andrew Taylor, Lambton County’s general manager of public health services.
Taylor said they also spoke with the event’s caterers and tested food samples.
“We were awaiting lab results until the end of last week and we were hoping that would be the home run,” he said, adding the results weren’t conclusive.
“The perfect investigation is where there’s illness, you identify the parasite at the source of the illness and then you link it to the food,” he said. “We have everything except the link to the food.”
Cyclospora is usually found in imported produce and contaminated irrigation water is often to blame, Taylor said.
A barfblog.com reader previously noted cyclospora is more of an environmental contamination issue than a hygiene issue. If the suspect food was something like raspberries, they are difficult to wash; basil or lettuces may be easier to wash but have a very large surface area and cyclospora is very very sticky. As with many other fresh produce outbreaks prevention on the farm is the best way to reduce risk.
Food porn was on the menu last night as the new season of Top Chef kicked off. That’s me watching for about 30 seconds (right, not exactly .jpg)
as shown).
Earlier in the day I got a press release about the Grilled Australian Lamb Burger with Brie Cheese, Cranberry Compote and Roasted Jalapeno Aioli, “America’s new favorite upscale burger” created by Anthony Jacquet, executive chef of The Whisper Lounge in L.A. (left, exactly as shown).
The burger won the “Make Australian Lamb America’s New Favorite Burger” contest, sponsored by Plate Magazine and Meat & Livestock Australia.
The cooking constructions state:
To prepare burgers, place patties on hot grill. Cook for 2 minutes and then turn a quarter turn and cook for another 2 minutes. Flip burger and cook another 2 minutes. Turn a quarter turn and cook another 2 minutes. Add brie cheese and cover with a stainless steel mixing bowl for another minute. Pull burgers off of grill and let rest. They should be medium rare.
I don’t know what medium rare is. If Australia wants to increase consumption of lamb burgers, require clear cooking instructions, like using a tip-sensitive digital thermometer to ensure the burger reaches 160F so people won’t barf and consumption of lamb doesn’t plummet.
Susan Burton of Slate Magazine required almost 2,000 words yesterday to say she likes meat – well-done – and that she hates the food thermometer.
I honed in on the modern American history of doneness, in large part because it can be tracked precisely—thanks to the meat thermometer. 
This early-20th-century invention brought about a giant cultural shift: the reliance on a gadget—rather than instinct, or experience—to assess our meat. The thermometer was promoted to home cooks as a tool of scientific precision. It was also an instrument of relaxation, something that freed you from worrying about misjudging the meat: "A roast thermometer makes for carefree roasting," advised the 1959 edition of Fannie Farmer’s famous tome. By midcentury, temperature measurements were a common feature of cookbooks.
Our standards for doneness changed rapidly when, thanks to Claiborne, Julia Child, and others, we discovered, and began to venerate, cooking methods that originated abroad. Once American palates adjusted to the European style of underdone meat, guidelines fell even further. (Child’s leg of lamb: rare at 140 in 1961; 125 in 1979.) Times writer Florence Fabricant took note of this development in a 1982 article called "A Trend Toward ‘Less Well Done.’ " Fabricant called overcooking "a tradition in this country" and attributed the change to the influence of "Oriental" and "French nouvelle" cuisines. She also connected the trend to the then-new vogues for crisp-tender vegetables and for raw foods, like sushi. But eating rare meat wasn’t simply a matter of evolving taste. It was a means of signaling something about yourself, an ethos. When Fabricant’s article was published, serving your guests rare meat showed you were sophisticated.
These days, it shows you’re cool. (Look no further than the title of Bourdain’s forthcoming bad-ass memoir: Medium Raw: A Bloody .jpg)
Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook.)
Somehow, author Burton manages to simultaneously trash the precision of a meat thermometer and propagate food safety myths about so-called factory farming.
She’s so cool, she likes food well-done and doesn’t need a thermometer.
I’ll continue to stick it in.
A member of staff at one of Britain’s top restaurants has been arrested after two chefs alleged they were assaulted while working in the kitchen.
Maybe this is what it’s like working for Gordon Ramsey.
One chef claimed he had his trousers set on fire with a blow torch and had red-hot pans pressed on his arms.
He also says he was stung on the back of his neck with nettles while making a nettle risotto and was beaten with a rolling pin.
He alleges he saw another chef being punished by being held aloft by his legs and having his head dunked in a vat of lukewarm broccoli and Stilton soup which was later served to guests at the Star Inn at Harome, North Yorkshire.
It was the first restaurant in Yorkshire to win a Michelin star.
Maybe those Michelin stars for fancy pants restaurants are as informative as restaurant reviews, food safety audits and financial ratings.
On June 12, 1996, Ontario’s chief medical officer, Dr. Richard Schabas, issued a public health advisory on the presumed link between 
consumption of California strawberries and an outbreak of diarrheal illness among some 40 people in the Metro Toronto area. The announcement followed a similar statement from the Department of Health and Human Services in Houston, Texas, who were investigating a cluster of 18 cases of Cyclospora illness among oil executives.
Dr. Schabas advised consumers to wash California berries "very carefully" before eating them, and recommended that people with compromised immune systems avoid them entirely. He also stated that Ontario strawberries, which were just beginning to be harvested, were safe for consumption. Almost immediately, people in Ontario stopped buying strawberries. Two supermarket chains took California berries off their shelves, in response to pressure from consumers. The market collapsed so thoroughly that newspapers reported truck drivers headed for Toronto with loads of berries being directed, by telephone, to other markets.
However, by June 20, 1996, discrepancies began to appear in the link between California strawberries and illness caused by the parasite, Cyclospora, even though the number of reported illnesses continued to increase across North America. Texas health officials strengthened their assertion that California strawberries were the cause of the outbreak, while scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said there were not yet ready to identify a food vehicle for the outbreak. On June 27, 1996, the New York City Health Department became the first in North America to publicly state that raspberries were also suspected in the outbreak of Cyclospora.
By July 18, 1996, the CDC declared that raspberries from Guatemala — which had been sprayed with pesticides mixed with water that could have been contaminated with human sewage containing Cyclospora — were the likely source of the Cyclospora outbreak, which ultimately sickened about .jpg)
1,000 people across North America. Guatemalan health authorities and producers have vigorously refuted the charges. The California Strawberry Commission estimates it lost $15 million to $20 million in reduced strawberry sales.
Cyclospora cayetanensis is a recently characterised coccidian parasite; the first known cases of infection in humans were diagnosed in 1977. Before 1996, only three outbreaks of Cyclospora infection had been reported in the United States. Cyclospora is normally associated with warm, Latin American countries with poor sanitation.
One reason for the large amount of uncertainty in the 1996 Cyclospora outbreak is the lack of effective testing procedures for this organism. To date, Cyclospora oocysts have not been found on any strawberries, raspberries or other fruit, either from North America or Guatemala. That does not mean that cyclospora was absent; it means the tests are unreliable and somewhat meaningless. FDA, CDC and others are developing standardized methods for such testing and are currently evaluating their sensitivity.
The initial, and subsequent, links between Cyclospora and strawberries or raspberries were therefore based on epidemiology, a statistical association between consumption of a particular food and the onset of disease. For example, the Toronto outbreak was first identified because some 35 guests attending a May 11, 1996 wedding reception developed the same severe, intestinal illness, seven to 10 days after the wedding, and subsequently tested positive for cyclospora. Based on interviews with those stricken, health authorities in Toronto and Texas concluded that California strawberries were the most likely source. However, attempts to remember exactly what one ate two weeks earlier is an extremely difficult task; and larger foods, like strawberries, are recalled more frequently than smaller foods, like raspberries. Ontario strawberries were never implicated in the outbreak.
Once epidemiology identifies a probable link, health officials have to decide whether it makes sense to warn the public. In retrospect, the decision seems straightforward, but there are several possibilities that must be weighed at the time. If the Ontario Ministry of Health decided to warn people that eating imported strawberries might be connected to Cyclospora infection, two outcomes were possible: if it turned out that strawberries are implicated, the ministry has made a smart decision, warning people against something that could hurt them; if strawberries were not implicated, then the ministry has made a bad decision with the result that strawberry growers and sellers will lose money and people will stop eating something that is good for them. If the ministry decides not to warn people, another two outcomes are possible: if strawberries were implicated, then the ministry has made a bad decision and people may get a parasitic infection they would have avoided had they been given the information (lawsuits usually follow); if strawberries were definitely not .jpg)
implicated then nothing happens, the industry does not suffer and the ministry does not get in trouble for not telling people. Research is currently being undertaken to develop more rigorous, scientifically-tested guidelines for informing the public of uncertain risks.
But in Sarnia (Ontario, Canada) they got a lot of sick people who attended the Big Sisters of Sarnia-Lambton Chef’s Challenge on May 12, 2010.
The health department has completed interviews with over 270 people who attended the event. Of those people interviewed, 193 have reported being ill with symptoms consistent with cyclospora infection. There are currently 40 laboratory confirmed cases.