Food Manufacturing

What's the Truth Behind a Label? A Story of Texas Butter Nostalgia.

Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream ... But, was it local cream? And did the cows eat organic grass? And who owns the dairy? Tell us, mice. People have question about their food these days. Recently I spotted a Texas butter called Falfurrias at the grocery store. The yellow package proclaims ... More >>

Cheese-maker Dave Eagle: It Takes Passion to Make it in the Cheese World

Dave Eagle of Eagle Mountain Farmhouse Cheese in Granbury speaks with a strong Texas swagger and often in a very direct, to-the-point manner. Before becoming a cheese maker, he practiced law. And I suspect that if you were involved in some type of litigation, you'd want him on your side of the table ... More >>

Latte Da Dairy in Flower Mound on Award Winning Goat Cheese And Raising 31 Kids

Anne and Johnny Jones started Latte Da Dairy in 2005 with five acres of land and a wild cheese-making dream. Anne, a veterinarian by trade, bought just two goats to get started and named them Serenity and Rosemary. But, no kidding, things have really changed in eight years. On April Fool's Day this ... More >>

Cheese Week: An Interview with Paula Lambert about Bringing Fresh Mozzarella to Dallas

Cheese week in Dallas just wouldn't be a real cheese week if it didn't include the mozzarella queen-bee Paula Lambert. Several decades ago while studying Italian in Perugia, Italy, Lambert, who is originally from Fort Worth, fell in love with fresh mozzarella. While in Italy, she came up with the cr ... More >>

Chocoholics Beware: The Chocolate Conference & Festival Comes to Town this Saturday

I've called this emergency meeting of the Dallas Area Chocoholics Anonymous to prepare for the onslaught of chocolate temptation coming our way this Saturday at the Chocolate Conference & Festival.

What Ice Cream and Fracking Have in Common And Why Your Dessert Has Become So Pricey

The food industry has for decades leaned on an inexpensive and natural thickening agent: guar gum. It builds viscosity in ice cream, dressing, baked goods, and other foods you've likely eaten it in the past week (as well as makeup, explosives, and other things you probably haven't eaten, ever). In ... More >>

Burger King Swears Off Gestation Crates and Ups the Ante with Cage-Free Eggs

Back in February, McDonald's announced it was through with gestation-crated pork products. We feared for McRib sandwiches, Sausage McMuffins and everything topped with bacon, so we called Paul Shapiro, a spokesman for the Humane Society, to talk out the impact of the move. Shapiro called the event ... More >>

Mmm, Science: Lab-Grown Burgers Aren't Far Off, But will Anyone Eat Them?

Meatless Monday, oddly enough, has me thinking about meat more than ever. Apparently I'm not the only one. The New York Times recently held an essay contest for readers. The subject: "Is it ethical to eat meat?" A loaded question, no doubt, and one bound to inspire passionate responses from just ... More >>

Ben & Jerry's Scoops Free Ice Cream Today to Benefit the Susan G. Komen Foundation

Ben & Jerry's annual Free Cone Day was scheduled for April 3, but tornadoes forced some local shops to play a make-up game, and that making up goes down today. Three local shops are partaking in the festivities: Plano, McKinney and the Shops of Highland Village. The Plano store has lined up some ... More >>

Pink Slime Economics: A Local Cattleman on How Beef Prices will Rise, and Why That's OK

Yesterday the farming trade publication Farm Futures carried a story on the potential rise in beef prices after the recent uproar over pink slime, or LFTB (lean finely textured beef). CattleFax, a beef industry research group, estimates the pink slime news cycle "is costing the U.S. beef industry $1 ... More >>

McDonald's To Phase Out Gestation Crate Pork, a Victory for McRibs Everywhere

​Last November we reported that Smithfield, the world's top pork producer, had recommitted to phasing out gestation-crate confinement at all of its facilities by 2017. Soon they could have incentive phase the questionable practice out more quickly. McDonald's announced yesterday a new initiat ... 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 >>

Here's How Dallas is Celebrating American Cheese Month

Most food holidays start with "National." National Tequila Day and National Rum Day have both been marked on City of Ate in recent months. Tomorrow is National Taco Day, and if you're inclined you can refer to this calendar, which demonstrates nearly every day of the year is devoted to a specific fo ... 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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

Bake Sale Bandits

Local Movement Fights for Cottage Food Bill.

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

Eye Candy

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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.

Cultured Bites

Prep for Puccini with Paula

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

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

Whole Bull?

How Now Mad Cow?

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

Best Mozzarella

Mozzarella Company

Best Place To Get Real Mozzarella

The Mozzarella Company

Corraled

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

Best Place to See Pets Run Wild

Off-Leash Dog Park at Mockingbird Point

Off the Killing Floor

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

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

Fooling with Mother Nature

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

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