I was catching up on reading a few days back and spied both the Cool News e-blast and the NYT article from October 15 about Bill Niman, who has a new venture called BN Ranch. His new specialty is goat meat. Niman told me about his passion for goat the last time I saw him at a big food event and again during a commercial break when I interviewed him for my old radio show. With his recent “divorce” from Niman Ranch, he had the dough and the time to start the new venture. Goat is leaner than lamb, has half the fat of chicken, and is as versatile as any meat on the planet. Goat is a major part of my diet on the road and Niman’s Boer and Spanish goats are renowned for their clean, mild flavor and elegant texture. Just thought I would pass it on, from one goat lover to what I hope are many others. Now you have no excuse not to try some. If you are looking for some locally raised goat, check out the Minnesota Grown website.

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Regular readers of the posted comments on this site have no doubt seen the exchanges recently about the tip credit laws between George and my friend Lenny. I think Lenny is right, and if you are interested in the exchange, start scrolling, but one of Lenny’s posts caught my eye. He said, “We shouldn't be penalized for the uneducated assumptions of those who have little or no understanding of the issues.” I don’t think George quite falls into that category, but the hyperbolic riposte of Lenny’s posts does remind me that false equivalency seems to be on the minds of many of us these days. Any fans of The Daily Show will remember Campbell Brown’s recent interview where she discusses the same issue (lying liars, not tip credits) as the raison d’etre for pushing for her new show on CNN.

Paraphrasing Brown, if one person says its sunny outside, and one person says it’s raining, and you as a reporter look outside and see it is obviously sunny, you are not required as a member of the fourth estate to devote equal time to both sides of the argument as many in the news business have famously argued over the years. In many cases, a fairness doctrine should apply, but when someone is obviously crazier than a sh*thouse crow, is a bold-faced liar, is so deluded as to be dangerous, or makes false arguments without merit of such an inflammatory nature that he or she is potentially culpable in social injustice (or worse), don’t you think we are obligated as citizens of a free country to hold them accountable in some way? Isn’t an informed opinion worth something anymore? I have stayed away for a post or two from commenting on the political landscape, but this is, after all, my last missive before the elections next week, and I wanted to take this time to apologize to anyone who turns to these pages as a respite from all the political histrionics.

But if you care about your city, the great state we live in, our children, and our fellow Minnesotans, you can’t help but be embarrassed, offended, and ashamed listening to or reading the pathetic drivel that has spewed from Congresswoman Bachmann’s mouth in recent weeks. As Peggy Noonan wrote in the WSJ a few weeks ago about national candidacy of the governor of Alaska, “(it is) a symptom of the expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It’s no good, not for conservatism and not for the country.”

Sometimes, people are just plain wrong, and the serious world we live in requires representation by intelligent and open-minded people who rise to that level on a daily basis. And when they don’t, we have to hold them accountable. As they say in Helvetia, West Virginia, just because the cat has kittens in the oven doesn’t make them muffins.

Let’s pray the voting machines all work and that all eligible Minnesotans (and Americans) who want to cast a vote have the opportunity to do so in a timely fashion.

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Speaking of lies . . . check out this article from Huffington Post. It’s a great piece about two nutrition experts who say you can't take multinational food corporations’ marketing campaigns at face value. Duh!

Here’s the intro: “With America's obesity problem among kids reaching crisis proportions, even junk food makers have started to claim they want to steer children toward more healthful choices. In a study released earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that about 32 percent of children were overweight but not obese, 16 percent were obese, and 11 percent were extremely obese.” The world’s largest food companies all seem to embrace marketing initiatives that encourage sampling of foods of questionable nutritional value.

David Ludwig, writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, argues rightly that makers of popular junk foods “have an obligation to stockholders to encourage kids to eat more--not less--of the foods that fuel their profits,” and insists that big food companies can’t be trusted to help combat obesity. At the link above, Ludwig and Marion Nestle list ten things everyone should know about this issue. Their commentary is fantastic, and you should read the full piece, but I have detailed the top ten below for those who need their arm twisted. The authors cite chapter and verse and use real-world examples to back up their claims; it makes for great reading.

1. Junk food makers spend billions advertising unhealthy foods to kids. 

2. The studies that food producers support tend to minimize health concerns associated with their products.

3. Junk food makers donate large sums of money to professional nutrition associations.
4. More processing means more profits, but typically makes the food less healthy.

5. Less-processed foods are generally more satiating than their highly processed counterparts.

6. Many supposedly healthy replacement foods are hardly healthier than the foods they replace.

7. A health claim on the label doesn't necessarily make a food healthy.

8. Food industry pressure has made nutritional guidelines confusing.
9. The food industry funds front groups that fight antiobesity public health initiatives.

10. The food industry works aggressively to discredit its critics.

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Chris Kimball of America’s Test Kitchen fame and The Splendid Table’s Lynn Rosetto Kasper and Sally Swift are doing a joint book signing and Q and A session at Cooks of Crocus Hill on November 10. Check out the website for more info on getting a ticket for the evening’s festivities.

Happy 21st birthday, Tejas. Wow. In an era where a five-year restaurant run can be thought of as a successful, twenty-one years is simply amazing. For bargain-hunters (and who isn’t one these days?), Wayne and Mark are offering a special $21 celebration-dinner deal that you might want to check out. And BTW, I was thrilled to find out that kids eat free on Sundays from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

On a sadder note, Confluence, Mark McGraw’s restaurant in Prescott, has closed for good. When I asked him in an e-mail exchange to clarify his note informing me of the closing, he said that he was closing for good "in Prescott," and his website indicates that he is looking for a new location in a larger pond. Confluence served some great food, and although I only ate there twice, I wished I could have gone more often. McGraw is a talented young chef and will land on his feet, but closings like this one always leave me feeling empty. I asked McGraw why they closed and he reminded me of my own aphorism: That restaurants simply close “because they don’t have customers.” He went on to say, "I'm not blaming gas prices, the economy, the weather, or Prescott. Everyday that we were open, the service and the food got a little better. That’s all that matters."

He’s right, and he’s a class act, but the most important part of the story is that he’s still planning on cooking somewhere soon. And while he wont blame anything or anyone, I think he was ahead of the curve opening a restaurant like his in a town with a limited audience for his product.

By the way, tonight is my Halloween Special on Travel Channel, and there is a new show called Bizarre Worlds with Andrew Zimmern that you can check out next Tuesday when it goes back to back with the Hawaii episode. Two world premieres next Tuesday (starting at 9 p.m. EST).

I get a lot of e-mail and posters on this site asking if they can go on a trip with me and the crew when we shoot the show . . . well, now you can. We are running an "Are You Bizarre Enough for TV?" casting call, in which viewers will submit a video to get a chance to be my sidekick on an upcoming Bizarre Foods episode to be shot next year. Three finalists will get a trip to Minneapolis to meet with me so I can decide who gets the nod.  Entries can be submitted here.

Blake Richardson, the Herkimer Brew Pub guru, has just opened moto-i in the old Machu Picchu space. Will a sake brewery work here? Cool concept. Let’s see if he can pull it off.

Speaking of executing, not just opening, my buddy Geoff tipped me off to a deli opening in Golden Valley called Mort’s that will open around November 1st. Apparently, they are serving H&H Bagels, Carnegie Deli Pickles, Carnegie Deli-brand meats, and Bests’ kosher products as well. Their blog has more details. Several people I know are ecstatic, but I am simply cautiously optimistic since they are not embracing the true deli genre and seem to be doing deli-lite by their own admission on their blog. They are buying and serving quality stuff to be sure, but that only makes them good shoppers at this point, not good cooks. What a mitzvah it would be if they made a great matzoh ball soup and built a killer sandwich? Fingers crossed.

I generally have a sunny disposition, but everything leaves me red with anger these days. How could you not feel that way? Trooper-gate leaves me speechless, and despite the fleeting thought I had last week that things couldn’t get much worse, they really and truly have.

Wall Street rallied yesterday, but there’s no real plan for healing what’s broken. Unless Paul Krugman becomes the Treasury Secretary, I shall remain dyspeptic. There was actually a fluff piece on CNN yesterday about some ninety-somethings in the South reminiscing about dining on squirrel stew and other ‘wild foods’ during the Great Depression. It would be hysterical if it weren’t so poignantly sad and timely.

Everyone I know is hurting, one way or another, from what is cutely nicknamed the ‘credit crunch.’ And with the economy in such bad shape, plenty of businesses, restaurants, and others will not survive. I want to go back to worrying most about who makes the best burger in town, but right now that seems awfully trivial. These are serious times, and our elected officials need to be serious people.

Recent posters to this blog seem to think that the only way to support local restaurants is by ignoring the truth, which is that many restaurants out there are sucking the gas pipe; pretending these restaurants are not hurting doesn’t do anyone any good. Of course I support local eateries. I do it every time I dine out, which is frequently. My job is not to encourage locals to head to restaurants that have empty seats just for the sake of filling them. How ludicrous is that idea? Those who suggest that by not calling for some action in that vein (or not sending people to empty restaurants) I am being unsupportive of local restaurants are bonkers.

Yes, I get evaluated every week on the numbers of viewers who are tuning in to my show; oftentimes I see minute-by-minute numbers, even for re-runs, so I am in the same boat as anyone else selling a product. If there is a market for it, you stay in the game; if not, you are out. Simple. This conversation reminds me of the body count we ran on this site last year. The same point was made by the complainers back then. Why is everyone so afraid to confront the numbers? By posting numbers or by talking about restaurants, good and bad, that are losing business, we are calling attention to anomalies or trends in the industry that allow readers to draw their own conclusions. Then they can act on that info, voting with their feet.

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Tor Westgard, the chef-owner of Town Talk Diner, has sold the restaurant to the Theros Group, the same cats who own Rudolph’s and the St. Clair Broiler. Rest in Peace TTD. It will never be the same. Well, actually, it hasn’t been the same for awhile, but you get the point. The hottest spot in town in 2007 is now gone. What does that tell you?!

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Manny’s is packed, lunch and dinner. The move to the W Hotel seems to be the smartest move of the year for a high-end steak house. It exposes the restaurant to new customers and gives it more out-of-town travelers who can afford its product (W vs. Hyatt).

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Alinea, the cookbook, was spotted locally last week by my wife and I at YUM. I was livid. I had ordered that a year ago and have now seen it in several places despite promises by Achatz et al. that pre-ordering through the restaurant website was the best way to go. If you are in the same boat, don’t despair. We called Alinea, and Grant and team are personally unwrapping and signing all the limited-edition copies and then mailing them out by the end of this week. Whew!

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Collichio was in town last week to meet, greet, and demo his butt off for the Mpls.St.Paul Magazine event at the W Hotel. He is a wonderful guy, and in real life, he is quite the kind gentleman, much different than the character he presents on Top Chef. His new eatery, TOM, opens this fall in NYC and will only be open one night per week. TC will actually cook all the food. That’s what you call a tough table.

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Spotted: I did the TODAY Show today, and while in NYC, I saw some interesting people:

David What’s His Name, the winner of American Idol, eating at Nobu in Manhattan, surrounded by his people, twitching nervously, and looking around the packed room hoping someone would recognize him. No one gave a sh*t.

Maureen McCormick smoking cigarettes outside the stage door to the TODAY Show in between her segments. Her tell-all book is boring: “I did coke, I had sex, blah, blah, blah . . . ” Meeting her was a blast. What can I say? I am part of the Brady Generation.

Josh Brolin . . . really cool guy, much shorter in real life than I imagined he would be. Very swarthy. We chatted about his movie, the new Oliver Stone flick. Brolin is very smart and superbly nice, chatting with fans and friends for an hour in the lobby of 30 Rock.

Donna Mills. . . . I have never seen more makeup on a woman in my life. Knots Landing has been very good to her, I guess, since she had quite the entourage.

Nick Wallenda . . . star power, reality show charisma. This guy has a lot of deals in the works. Look for some new stuff from him on the TV really soon. Think Survivor but with circus school.

For anyone out there who doesn’t think that all politics are local or that any topics (beyond conventional food fare) are off base here on this page,  I think you need to rethink your position. Food prices are skyrocketing. Forty percent of Americans are saying they are worse off than they were a year ago, and that was before the recent financial meltdown. Regulatory oversight of the agencies that are tasked with protecting Americas food systems of all shapes and sizes is nonexistent, and because of that, things are guaranteed to get worse before they get better.

If you think the recent milk and melamine scare, the California downer cattle abattoir brouhaha, or the recent salmonella and E. coli outbreaks won't get worse or occur with greater frequency, think again. Restaurants are going to be closing in droves. Credit is tightened to the point of asphyxiation, so not only are eateries going to see thirty- or sixty-day invoice plans go the way of the horse and buggy, short-term credit lines from local banks that have been used for years to make payroll numbers work when the slow snowy weekend coincided with the mandatory liquor payment are being phased out for customers with sketchy performance.

Recent polls indicate that casual restaurant consumers are fiddling while Rome burns when it comes to re-assessing their personal budgets. And around the water cooler, business diners and those that eat out more than once per week are talking about cutting back.

Want more? JP’s closed last week, and if a restaurant as universally liked and well priced, as that one was, is having a problem, then what does that say about the other restaurants that are hanging on by their fingernails? Yes, I know, I have often said that restaurants close because they don’t have customers,  and that’s cold but true. Occasionally, however, there are circumstances beyond the control of simple restaurant economics, such as the road construction outside of JP’s. That makes it a local political issue; nagging DOT and city road delays, tax adjustments, etc., all impact what you eat, where you eat it, and how you eat it.

Mall Of America is recession proof in the sense that its numbers will always be high in terms of overall foot traffic, but individual entities there will fold in greater numbers throughout the next six months than at any other time in the last few years, I would think. So, too, the restaurant industry will survive, and people will still eat out, but concepts need to be easy to swallow for the ‘new poor’ that we are all fast becoming. Grabbing a bite of cheap Chinese food, a burger and a beer at Salut, or some pizza and a less-than-stellar glass of red are still going to be easy choices for some, but how do the Porter and Frye’s of the world stay in business? That being said, Manny’s has been packed every time I have stuck my head in the door at the W.

Well, after the September we’ve all had, I can only hope that the usual round of restaurant closings that we see every January (Typically restaurants operating only on fumes find a way to keep going through what, for most, is the busiest time of the year, pulling the plug right after the holidays.) doesn’t begin sooner.

Tor Westgaard has bought out Aaron Johnson and Tim Niver at Town Talk Diner, and there are rumors the restaurant is for sale. Johnson is waiting lunch tables at Mission as well as manning the bar at Strip Club, where partner Niver can be found as well. Johnson told us that Westgaard is planning to go to graduate school while he was just looking to simplify his life and reduce his work hours to be a better dad. Johnson is also doing a bit of consulting and says he and Niver continue to partner and plan on pursuing other ventures when the time is right.

Any thoughts from the thundering herd on what other hot spots might be changing hands or shuttering the doors? With national numbers signaling a huge downturn in disposable income, real numbers reflecting decreases in both restaurant visits and check averages on a national level, and the continuing financial crisis, any eateries on the bubble for the last year may not make it through the next ninety days. Very sad.

I have been overseas recently and am just catching up on what has been happening on this side of the world. I saw that Sarah Palin was in Philly and stopped in for a cheese steak at Tony Lukes. C’mon, now. How can you trust this woman to be the VEEP if she can’t even get to a top-ten sandwich joint in the City of Brotherly Love?  D’Alessandro’s, Abner’s, Geno’s, Jim’s Steaks, John’s, Pat’s . . . all of them are WAY better than Tony Luke’s. Not even close.

I can handle the fact that she believes that dinosaurs and humans walked the earth together 4,000 years ago (LA Times). I can even forgive her for not being able to name a single news source that she regularly peruses or for not being able to name a single Supreme Court case other than Roe v. Wade (NYT, CBS et al.), but I CANNOT forgive her for wasting a meal on the road. Check out this site for more fun Palin-tology.

As Matt Damon put it the other day so succinctly, "I need to know if she really thinks that dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago. I want to know that, I really do. Because she's gonna have the nuclear codes."

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If anyone out there hasn’t got tickets for this weekends festivities at The W, come on down and get ’em at the door. Tom Colicchio is joining us for a weekend of dine and wine that everyone is going to love. See you there.

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You know how much I love press releases. Here’s a few samples from one I received from the Sandra Lee last week (parenthetical comments are all mine).

National bestselling author and star of the popular show Semi-Homemade Cooking on the Food Network, will be on tour in Minneapolis, MN to promote her three new releases:  Semi-Homemade Desserts 2, Fast-Fix Family Favorites and Money Saving Meals (Holy moly! Three new books all at once!) on Thursday, December 11th.  As an internationally-acclaimed home and food expert, Sandra is known for giving practical tips to make everyday living a little bit sweeter and simpler, allowing today’s busy homemaker to take 100% of the credit for a meal or a tablescape that seems as if it were time-consuming and intricate. (Well, tablescrape is a new one, but having perused enough of Sandy’s books to be dangerous, it’s kind of funny that the “sell” here is taking all the credit for something when the seminal idea of her genre is having someone else do the work! Only in America.)

Sandra will discuss the following (and more) on her Sweet & Simple Book Tour:

—How Minneapolis ’s homemaker’s can make the holidays and everyday living special using quick tips.

—The top issues that plague Minneapolis ’s homemaker’s-the rising cost of groceries, etc.- and their solutions.

—How to make one entrée stretch into three delectable money saving meals.

—Shortcuts to make gourmet and heirloom desserts served in fine restaurants.

—Thanksgiving/Holiday-food and cocktail recipes that will make each occasion festive and fun.

(Wow . . . Where and when? I can’t wait!)

Here’s where Sandra Lee will be on Thursday, December 11th:

7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Sweet & Simple Cocktail Hour at the Rotunda, Mall of America

Sandra can expand on Money-Saving Meals for Thanksgiving/Christmas and “Quick-Fix Holiday” recipes and tips.  You can check out a quick write-up on Money Saving Meals on Chefmom.com.  (Hmmmmm. YUMMO!)