Chili’s restaurant cook fired for shirtless kitchen selfies in Florida

One of my favorite food writers, Tina Nguyen, reports for Mediate, that a Chili’s line cook in Florida was fired this week after photos emerged of him taking shirtless photos in a restaurant, and no, we didn’t make this story up by pulling “Dumb American Stereotypes” out of a hat.

hey.now.hankThe photos went viral after Justin Speekz (actually his real name) decided to put them on Facebook, in which he poses next to a grill and lying down on a food prep surface, in an album called “Sexy Cooks of Chili’s”.

“Chili’s clearly does not encourage this type of behavior in our restaurants. We maintain very high standards of food quality, safety and cleanliness and took immediate steps to ensure the restaurant continues to follow these requirements,” Chili’s said in a statement to ABC Action News.

 

What causes norovirus outbreaks? US 2001-2008

Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and a couple of universities write in an upcoming issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases that:

Noroviruses are the leading cause of foodborne illness in the United States. To better guide interventions, we analyzed 2,922 foodborne disease outbreaks for which norovirus was the suspected or confirmed cause, which had been reported to the Foodborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during 2001–2008. On average, 365 foodborne norovirus outbreaks were reported annually, resulting in an estimated 10,324 illnesses, 1,247 health care provider visits, 156 hospitalizations, and 1 death. In 364 outbreaks attributed to a single commodity, leafy vegetables (33%), fruits/nuts (16%), and mollusks (13%) were implicated most commonly. Infected food handlers were the source of 53% of outbreaks and may have contributed to 82% of outbreaks. Most foods were likely contaminated during preparation and service, except for mollusks, and occasionally, produce was contaminated during production and processing. Interventions to reduce the frequency of foodborne norovirus outbreaks should focus on food workers and production of produce and shellfish.

More food prep means more food safety basics; lunch ladies going gourmet

I was always more of a brown-bagger when it came to lunch. The high school cafeteria food was gross – although I did have a penchant for their ham and cheese melts on some sort of white wallpaper bun – but cost was the primary factor. Why would anyone pay for stuff that could be made at home for nothing when parental-types bought the food.

That was in Canada. The U.S. school lunch program is a little different.

And now the lunch ladies are developing their culinary skills to go along with the demand for so-called healthier foods.

Dawn Cordova, a longtime school cafeteria worker attending Denver Public Schools’ first "scratch cooking" training this summer, told Associated Press,

"It’s more work to cook from scratch, no doubt."

Cordova and about 40 other Denver lunch ladies spent three weeks mastering knife skills, baking and chopping fruits and vegetables for some of the school district’s first salad bars.

Denver is among countless school systems in at least 24 states working to revive proper cooking techniques in its food service staff.

The city issued its 600 or so cafeteria employees white chefs’ coats and hats and plans to have all its kitchen staff trained in basic knife skills within three years.

Well-known area chefs visit for primers on food safety, chopping technique and making healthy food more appetizing to young diners (hint: kids prefer veggies cut into funky shapes, not boring carrot sticks).

Chefs say that schools embraced processed food so completely that many newer cafeterias lack the basics of a production kitchen, such as produce sinks, oven hoods or enough cold storage to keep meat and produce fresh.

No mention of microbial food safety, but with all the extra kitchen prep, the risk potential increases, especially with cross-contamination. Here’s hoping they master the basics unlike the TV cooks who routinely serve up microbiological disasters.