Alaska Airlines Partners With Chefs To Elevate Inflight Dining
Image Source / Nahima Aparicio
Chefs Brady Ishiwata Williams of Seattle-based restaurant Tomo and Brandon Jew, Chef of Michelin-starred Mister Jiu's in San Francisco have partnered up with Alaska Airlines to elevate inflight dining options. The airline experienced success in collaborating with Chef Jew last year, now birthing this new initiative, ‘Chef’s (tray) Table,’ aimed at bringing high end dishes right to the plane. “Chef Williams and Chef Jew work tirelessly at their craft and remain deeply rooted in their communities, no matter how successful they become,” said Todd Traynor-Corey, VP of guest experiences at Alaska Airlines. So far, the menu includes chicken and waffles and a glazed short rib served with rice cakes.
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Pork Chops Are Trending In U.S. Restaurants: Here's How Chefs Are Cooking Them
Image Source: Nader Chehade
There's been a 15.8% increase in pork chops on restaurant menus over the past year, according to research firm Technomic. Chefs across the country are cooking the protein in many different ways, from traditional preparations and brines to pounded out cutlets. Chef Neil O'Connell at The Occidental in D.C. cooks a Berkshire pork chop sourced from Newman Farm in Missouri. The chop is brined and seared on the grill, then served with a pork jus, glazed fondant potato, and scallion gremolata. On the west end, at Bar Angie, pork chops outsold the menu at $38 a pop. In Texas, Stagecoach Restaurant offers pork chops served with peach chutney, and Carrabba's Italian Grill specialed a 22-oz. double-bone-in grilled pork chop with compound butter last year. It makes perfect sense that pork chops are dominating the entree market in restaurants. They are relatively inexpensive and delicious. I season mine with an ancho chile powder and brown sugar based rub and grill gently.
NY Hospital Plans Seasonal Menu After Hiring Michelin-Starred Chefs
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Northwell Health in New York has partnered with Michelin-starred Chef Bruno Tison to elevate its South Shore University Hospital's dining options. The menu will include locally sourced ingredients and plant-based options while prioritizing nutritional value and seasonal changes. Executive Chef Brian Sauer, who is spearheading this change alongside Tison, says, "I'm able to have this creativity and to have this kind of feel of not being in a hospital, but being at a resort or restaurant."
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Diplomatic Culinary Partnership Between State Department And James Beard Foundation Comes To A Halt
A Brief Overview of Culinary Trends Expected for 2025
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Consumers are behaving differently in 2025 as changes in technology, supply chain, and politics directly affect what food we buy and the way we cook. From AI-based personalized nutrition planning technology to newly popularized weight-loss drugs and healthy lifestyle campaigns, the way we cook in 2025 is full of changes. "People are ready for optimism, change and something to look forward to after some very hard years,” said Maeve Webster, President of Menu Matters.
Germany Challenges Turkey’s Protected Status Claim To The Döner Kebab
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In April, Turkey applied to register the name "döner" as its "guaranteed traditional speciality" across Europe. Specifications include that döner must consist of beef or lamb “horizontally sliced into cutlets 3-5 mm thick” or chicken cutlets sliced 1-2 cm thick; ground meat is banned entirely; and the age of the animals and knife used to slice the meat must meet certain requirements. Germany filed an appeal filed last month, arguing that the new rules would have “catastrophic consequences for gastronomy businesses as well as consumers,” driving up prices in the massive German döner kebab market, which is worth €7 billion a year. Who will win the döner wars? If the two countries can't find a compromise within 6 months, the European Commission will issue a ruling.
Japanese Research Organization To Release Rice Lexicon
Image Source: Miyuki Meinaka
This one's for food writer nerds—or anyone who communicates about food. Ever feel like the subtleties of rice can be hard to describe? So does Japan's National Agriculture and Food Research Organization! So they've tasked their senior researcher, Fumiyo Hayakawa, with creating a definitive rice lexicon. After scouring food articles and research journals, surveying sensory analysts, and reading rice cooker catalogs, Hayakawa and her colleagues set about whittling the 7,000-odd Japanese descriptors for white rice down to 100+ essential terms like tsubukan (individual grains), fukkura (plump), nebari (springy), amai (faintly sweet), hoka-hoka (piping-hot), tsuyayaka (shiny) and shiroi (pale). I hope the new rice lexicon is published with English translations!
