Birds of paradise: Having found their long lost shaker of salt, these parrots are enjoying the Margaritaville Café in New Orleans (Photo by xypotecka)
• The Calgary Stampede seems like a perfect place for Canada’s first Margaritaville Café, especially considering Jimmy Buffett’s 10 other restaurants are located in such resort towns as Myrtle Beach, Las Vegas and Glendale. If anyone is going to be enticed by menu items like the Cheeseburger in Paradise and Who’s to Blame margaritas, it’s oil-rich boomers from Alberta. [CBC]
• Researchers from the Mayo Clinic have found that one out of 100 people suffer from celiac disease (an allergy to gluten)—a rate 4.5 times higher than in 1959. Such mainstream restaurants as Magic Oven are already cashing in with wheat-free options, and though we’re not sure Marc Thuet could make gluten-free bread as good as his sourdough, we expect to see more celiac-friendly meal options on menus in the near future. [Globe and Mail]
• The Toronto investment firm Salida Capital will give $1.97 million to charity, which will buy eight of its employees lunch with Warren Buffett. Steak with America’s most respected investor will cost Salida $246,250 per plate—a lot more than the usual tab at Smith and Wollensky’s in New York. Who knows what Buffett would say, but a quarter-million dollars seems like a questionable ROI to us, especially if one of the diners is a vegetarian. [Toronto Star]
• Mr. Chow, owner of eponymous restaurants from New York to London, is suing a former employee for trying to steal his identity. Mr. Philippe Chau recently changed his name to match that of his former boss and is now being accused of telling customers at his own restaurant that he’s the inventor of dishes at the famous chain. The real Mr. Chow points out that he is the son of “one of the eight most influential people in the history of China,” and Philippe was “primarily a food chopper.” [New York]
• London’s chefs are embracing vegetarian options as it becomes trendy for omnivores to shun steaks and chops. Celebrities are behind the flexitarian trend, too, including Paul McCartney, who’s telling fans to fight climate change with meat-free Mondays. Other flexitarians are eating less meat for health reasons, though we think the recession could also be a factor. [Independent]
Thank you for the coverage of celiac disease and the link to the Globe article. I would love to challenge Marc Thuet and any other fabulous Toronto chef out there to make a really good, tasty, chewy, crusty gluten-free bread. Nobody has done it yet, even in France. After that, we’ll get to croissants. Celiacs love good food, probably appreciate it even more than others because we miss out on so much of it. We’d go to restaurants, with our families and friends, a lot more if they could really feed us what we crave. I’m tired of watching others chomp down on good bread when I have nothing.
July 14, 2009 at 3:05 pm | by Janet DalzielJanet hit the nail on the head. Like the rest of Ontario and Canada, Celiac’s love food as much as the next and as good as the improvements to food, like bread has been, we are still not there yet.
July 14, 2009 at 4:04 pm | by Michael GyovaiWith more and more children becoming Celiac around the time they start going to school, we need food for these children that resemble, smells and tastes like Wheat-products. With the possibility of getting diabetes and forms of cancer, we need help from the professionals like Marc Thuet to help use with access to quality gluten free food so that we are not temped to stray to wheat products that will cause us long-term pain. Most adults can do it but you try to keep a child away from the cookie dish??
Please advise the writer of this article that celiac disease is not “an allergy to gluten.” It’s FAR worse than that. Splitting hairs? No, because if you think it’s an allergy, you might decide to keep eating gluten and just tolerate your “allergic” reaction. Later on, when you discover it’s led to cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, anemia, etc. etc. it will be too late.
July 14, 2009 at 9:22 pm | by Kevin BakerCeliac disease is an autoimmune disorder and unlike allergies it does not improve with time. The writer of this article should take the time to do more research.
July 15, 2009 at 7:17 am | by Scott Hayden