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The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky., Sharon Thompson column: Lexington cook puts her burger to a TV test
Dec 25, 2008 (The Lexington Herald-Leader - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Brigitte Nguyen of Lexington is taking her burger-making skills to Food Network's Ultimate Recipe Showdown 2. Nguyen will be featured in the "Burger" competition airing at 9 p.m. Jan. 11.
"I was absolutely thrilled to be at the Food Network studios, which made the experience unbelievably exciting for me in addition to being nerve-wracking," she said. "I've never cooked in a televised competition under such time constraints, so I really felt the pressure. I so enjoyed cooking in front of a live audience, having my food judged by talented chefs, and meeting Guy Fieri."
Fieri is host of the show, which features six categories: comfort food, burgers, cakes, hot and spicy, desserts and hometown favorites. Each week's "ultimate" winner receives $25,000 and the chance to have his or her recipe featured at T.G.I. Friday's restaurants.
Another one of Nguyen's burger recipes already has proven it's a winner. She won $2,000 for five-spice pork burgers in the Sutter Home Build a Better Burger contest in November 2007.
Eat and earn
After the holidays, parents might be looking for ways to save money yet provide nutritious meals.
Market Day, a national food fund-raising company that sells gourmet food products through schools and community programs, offers help with meal planning.
Market Day has more than 160 convenient and nutritious products including poultry, meats, seafood, family meals, appetizers, breakfast items, beverages and desserts. Order sheets are distributed each month at participating schools. Customers can order online at www.marketday.com, or complete an order sheet and return it to their schools.
Market Day delivers to schools once a month, and families can pick up their order on a designated date and time. A percentage of the cost of each customer's order is provided back to the school of their choice; proceeds pay for playground equipment, musical instruments, library books and more.
The company offers "Five Under Five," five meals that cost less than $5 and can be prepared in less than a half hour. Items include baked manicotti and bread sticks, individually wrapped chicken breast with broccoli florets and mashed potato patties, boneless pork chops, and individual pizzas.
Packed
JWT, an advertising agency in New York City, has come up with its version of food trends for 2009. Ann Mack, director of trend-spotting at JWT, predicts that traditional dieting will wane as more people shift to healthier lifestyles, and the newest upscale-restaurant technique, cooking sous vide, will trickle down to the home cook.
Sous vide is French for "under vacuum." Foods are vacuum-packed in plastic, then cooked in a liquid at a relatively low temperature. Celebrity Chef Thomas Keller, owner of Per Se in New York, has tackled the method in his cookbook Under Pressure.
Consumers focused on buying local and on food safety have become increasingly concerned about where their food is from. Watch for more products to carry codes that shoppers can enter into a Web site for sourcing details. The JWT folks expect the habit to become mainstream when smartphones are able to read codes on supermarket goods.
The hot cocktail for 2009 is the pisco sour, which is steadily migrating from Peruvian restaurants to the mainstream. It's traditionally made with pisco, a type of brandy; lemon juice; egg whites; simple syrup and bitters.
Reach Sharon Thompson at (859) 231-3321 or 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 3321.
To see more of the Lexington Herald-Leader, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go
to http://www.kentucky.com. Copyright (c) 2008, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email
tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax
to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave.,
Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
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