Food Manufacturing

Wherein Mark Stuertz Asks Paula Lambert: "What's Your Stinkiest Cheese?"

Whole Bull?

"Eat 'em up, fuckers!"

Dale Jr. Coming to Dallas Wednesday -- Can a Fig Newton Windshield Be Far Behind?

Dallas-Based Dean Foods Isn't Making the Cheddar Like It Expected

Off the Killing Floor

Dallas-based Supreme Beef wins a major round in its court battle with the USDA

Hot Dish

Dallas-based Supreme Beef wins a major round in its court battle with the USDA

Hot Dish

Dallas-based Supreme Beef wins a major round in its court battle with the USDA

Hot Dish

Dallas-based Supreme Beef wins a major round in its court battle with the USDA

Update: Beer And Cheese Pairing Canceled

The Mozzarella Company's beer and cheese pairing mentioned in yesterday's Hash Over post and scheduled for this evening has been canceled in anticipation of tonight's Chicago-like weather forecast.

Food For Thought...

"We don't have a good idea right now in terms of how much of that product is still out there; it may have largely been consumed." (Stephen Sundlof of the FDA after the government extended a recall of peanut products produced by the Peanut Corporation of America's Blakely, GA, plant to include the pa ... More >>

Food For Thought 2.17.09

Bill Kennedy, Cleveland Plain Dealer"The burden is on the company to make sure they are complying with any local, state and federal regulations that apply to food manufacturing. Naturally, that's not reassuring to the public. But we don't have people driving up and down roads looking for places like ... More >>

Fooling with Mother Nature

Plano-based Frito-Lay finds it's better to be safe than sorry with genetically modified foods

Best Place to See Pets Run Wild

Off-Leash Dog Park at Mockingbird Point

Food For Thought 3.09.09

"The contribution of third-party audits to food safety is the same as the contribution of mail-order diploma mills to education." (Mansour Samadpour, a Seattle-based food safety consultant, commenting on the fact that, with government inspectors under greater pressure due to cutbacks and other issue ... More >>

Best Place To Get Real Mozzarella

The Mozzarella Company

Food For Thought 3.24.09

"We're going to chew them up on corporate brands. And we're just going to keep driving corporate brands." (Steven Burd, president of Safeway--parent of Tom Thumb and Randalls--speaking on the importance of store brands as leverage against the large food companies. Some grocery chains have been cutti ... More >>

Food For Thought 3.25.09

"Because it sells, food companies are slapping it on anything. And consumers believe natural equals nutritious. Actually, it's a bit like Alice in Wonderland. It means what I want it to mean." (Julie Miller Jones, professor of food safety and nutrition at College of St. Catherine in Minnesota on th ... More >>

Best Mozzarella

Mozzarella Company

Cultured Bites

Prep for Puccini with Paula

How Now Mad Cow?

For Texas cattle ranchers, "What's for dinner?" is a touchy question

Corraled

The USDA backs off its tough new meat-inspection standards. That's a good thing, beef producers say.

Slaughterhouse Jive

Dallas-based Supreme Beef fought what it believes are unfair regulations, only to wind up on the USDA's killing floor

Her Whey

Paula Lambert parlays a love of cheese into fame and life among the jet set

Hot Dish

Paula Lambert parlays a love of cheese into fame and life among the jet set

Food For Thought 4.14.09

"Stevia is supposed to offer a non-dangerous natural alternative to sugar, high-fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners, and that's why it's supposed to do well. It doesn't have the calorie punch of sugar; it doesn't have the bad image of HFCS." (Marcia Mogelonsky, senior research analyst with ... More >>

Food For Thought 4.28.09

"This is a journey, and we still have work to do, but expanding our sourcing of beans from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms and partnering with the Gates Foundation represents significant steps." (Steve Yucknut, vice president of sustainability, announcing Kraft's intention to increase coffee be ... More >>

Eye Candy

"This is a journey, and we still have work to do, but expanding our sourcing of beans from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms and partnering with the Gates Foundation represents significant steps." (Steve Yucknut, vice president of sustainability, announcing Kraft's intention to increase coffee be ... More >>

First Look: Creme De La Cookie

The food biz is risky. Dallas is an incredibly competitive market when it comes to restaurants, and given the current economy, it's tougher than ever before to make a go of a place while everyone is cutting back on pretty much everything. Starting a new food business requires much in the way of wi ... More >>

Photos: Bean To Bar Tasting with DallasChocolate.org

Diana Merrill ClaussenField greens with chocolate Napoleon​For the first event in their brief history, dallaschocolate.org hosted chocolatiers Alan McClure and Steve DeVries for a tasting and a dinner focused on American "bean to bar" chocolate production.Teresa Gubbins, who recapped the event for ... More >>

My Pet Goat Carcass, or: Yet Again, the State Goes After Local Grocer's Baaaaad Meat

​Seems the State of Texas isn't terribly impressed with the way Halal Import Food Market handles its meat -- and hasn't been since, oh, 2001, when the Arlington grocer-warehouse first opened its doors. Which is why Attorney General Greg Abbott's latest lawsuit against the East Pioneer Parkway-base ... More >>

Days Gone Bite: Frito Bandito

​I had a Frito Bandito eraser. I can still hear that leering, gravely voice. And the song--oh, I remember the song.At least I remember the second version. Frito-Lay introduced the animated Mexican bandit to advertise Fritos in 1967. He wore a sombrero and a couple of six-shooters, sported a gold t ... More >>

Carlos Quintanilla's Found a New Delicious Target For Protest: Plano-Based Frito-Lay

Now might be a good time to go back and read Megan Feldman's '06 profile of Carlos Quintanilla​Oooh, just got a press release about an "informational protest" scheduled from 4-6 afternoon at a 7-Eleven close to my house -- the one at Marsh and Forest Lanes, to be precise, as it's apparently "the l ... More >>

Art Attack: PETA's Planning to Protest Outside Dean Foods Meeting at DMA Tomorrow

​Just a heads-up: A few minutes ago, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent word and posted this press release noting that tomorrow morning, it's planning to picket the Dean Foods shareholders meeting at the Dallas Museum of Art -- and picket it hard.As in: Sure, they're bringing signs ( ... More >>

How to Build Dallas' Reputation as a Chocolate City

​Every chocolatier at next weekend's Chocolate Conference, sponsored by DallasChocolate.org, is slated to participate in a roundtable discussion of "the state of chocolate in Dallas." Panel members will presumably debate the quality and quantity of artisanal chocolate available in the DFW area ... More >>

Mozzarella Company Slices
Through Cheese Competition

A chile-filled winner from Mozzarella Company​Paula Lambert's Mozzarella Company had another strong showing at this year's American Cheese Society competition, the artisanal cheese industry's version of the Academy Awards. Nearly 1,500 cheeses were entered in the annual competition, which inc ... More >>

Military Appreciation Cook-Off Needs More Participants, Natsumi Kitchen Opens at Farmers Market, Wine and Cheese Pairing Class, and More

​Just because summer is over doesn't mean barbecues and cookouts are no more until next summer. We mean, come on, this is Texas, any time is barbecue time. On October 2, The Dave Kenoly Show on CNN Radio 1190 AM, will be host its First Annual Military Appreciation Cook-Off to -- obviously -- ... More >>

So Dean Foods Is Eliminating the "Schepps" Name in Dallas. Well, That Doesn't Seem Right.

Soup Can​"Schepps" has been a brand name in Dallas since 1942, when Harmon Schepps started the dairy with a single truck that became a ginormous bidness since swallowed up by Cityplace-based Dean Foods. (Fun fact: Harmon was called to testify in front of the Warren Commission due to his friendship ... More >>

Tasti D-Lite to Open 25 Stores in DFW

​The area developer for Tasti D-Lite, the frozen dessert chain that became a low-cal sensation when it opened in New York 23 years ago, says he isn't worried about opening stores in a city dominated by yogurt shops. "Let me tell you something," says Francisco Gomez-Palacio, a former telecom e ... More >>

Slaughterhouse Ban Could Hurt
Small-Scale Producers

Just your typical suburbanites, enjoying the "country" life of Collin County.​Small-scale meat producers say a proposal to limit slaughterhouse construction could harm farm-to-table eating statewide. According to a front-page story in today's Dallas Morning News, State Representative Jodie La ... More >>

Southern Cheeses Snubbed at Good Food Awards

The cows certainly are happy in California.​Southern cheesemakers were shut out of the Good Food Awards, a new initiative to recognize the best-tasting artisan edibles made in accordance with sustainable principles. In a weekend ceremony hosted by Alice Waters, eight awards were given in the c ... More >>

Nation, Grab Your Spoons and Go to Ben & Jerry's

​Four years ago, Stephen Colbert and Ben & Jerry's teamed up to create a new ice cream flavor, Americone Dream, and today the flavor is available at all Ben & Jerry's locations. Today you can get two-for-one scoops of Americone Dream, vanilla ice cream blended with caramel and bits of fudge-c ... More >>

Bake Sale Bandits

Local Movement Fights for Cottage Food Bill.

Beef Producers Tout Veal's Charms

This was not the meat conference. ​Veal producers who worried their meat was bound to go the way of once-fashionable dishes like turtle soup say the future's suddenly looking brighter for the embattled protein. The veal industry, which made a point of being omnipresent at the 2011 Meat Confer ... More >>

nib chocolate's Stephen Smith on the Sweet Life

​Here's some hopeful news for all you C students out there: At the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Paris, Stephen Smith's "worst subject of everything was chocolate." Apparently, he got better. In fact, he got good enough to operate his own wholesale chocolate business, nib cho ... More >>

Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Czar Hunter Rose Has The Coolest Job: Handing Out Free Cones

​If a mega-tornado strikes Oak Lawn or zombies take over the city, there's one thing we here at the Observer won't have to worry about while we're barricaded in the break room: a food shortage. Not only do we have enough of those neon orange crackers to feed everyone for three days, we also g ... More >>

Conservative Moms Claim They Don't Like Schweddy Balls in Their Ice Cream

Ben & Jerry's​Recently we told you all about Ben & Jerry's new ice cream Schweddy Balls, which is based on the SNL skit featuring Alec Baldwin. Well, One Million Moms, a project of the American Family Association, which promotes "the biblical ethic of decency in American society with primary e ... More >>

The Problems with Smithfield Pork and the Way to Guilt-Free-ish Bacon

Be nice to her before you fry her delicious parts.​McDonald's is closing out its second week of McRib season, giving the Atlantic a hook to ponder the evils of its pork supplier, Smithfield Foods. The article points out that in the midst of Smithfield's increased welfare practices intended to ... More >>

Smithfield, Torturer of Future-Bacon, Renews Promise Its To Phase Out Gestation Crates

The Humane Society of the United States​A few weeks back we told you (reminded you, really) about the evils of McDonald's pork supplier, Smithfield Foods. The Humane Society was roasting the commercial pig factory for its use of gestation crates, noted for their impossibly small size and gener ... More >>

Central Market's Chocolate Festival: A Guide

Central Market​Central Market's annual chocolate festival starts today and lasts through February 14. Some of the best chocolatiers from around the world will make appearances over the next few days and, as always, there are some interesting back stories. If you can fight through the crowds, d ... More >>