Not long ago, when I was in Rockford, Illinois, eating with students and professors at a college as part of a program about artificial food ingredients, our talk turned to local food (a future farmer sat next to me) and national chain restaurants (the nearby highway is lined with dozens)....

Atlantic Yards Crescendo?

It looks like we're headed for another crescendo in the controversial proposed $5 billion Brooklyn Atlantic Yards development issue: An actual hearing! Yes, the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) has deigned to allow the public to comment this week on the biggest development in the...

The State Senate isn't the only place where leaders are messing with our minds this week.

The notoriously secretive Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) actually let us public folks into their board meeting. Some of us were allowed to speak, though the Board remained mute the whole time, despite...

Surely one of the most bizarre events in the tortured story of the city's relationship with developers occurred today, in what may be the first of several upsetting events this week.

At a time when the city and MTA are scrambling for money through fare hikes and budget cuts,...

Food Policy Has Really Moved Up the Obama "To Do" List

Will food be the new New Deal? The new Great Society? Could it be the new focal point for the Obama administration?

No, of course -- I know, "It's the economy," and these...

Here, for posterity, is our story of a recent confrontation with the city bureaucracy.

TO: New York City Department of Santitation

RE: Summons No. 160405989

To Whom It May Concern:

We are in receipt of your summons, tucked neatly into our door handle at dawn today. While I...

Do your part to help the economy and buy some lobster.

Sounds like a weird proposition, but it is really quite simple: The other day, my friend George, a lobster fisherman in Stonington, Maine, decided to serve his fresh-caught and unsold lobsters to his guests one night because, he...

My work or various adventures have from time to time landed me at a great chef's table, whether at some grandmother's in Paris or a four-star luminary's in New York City. I'm lucky and very grateful. It informs my work as well as my life. But what stands out as...

I was hoping that by the end of my day at the recent Supply Side West ingredient trade show, I'd be perfect.

Not that I didn't already have a goodly amount of self-esteem, but within minutes of my arrival on the convention center floor in Las Vegas, I...

In the two years since the alarming and legendary Supreme Court Kelo decision, an astounding 42 states have taken measures to curb the abuse of eminent domain -- the taking of one private owner's land for other than public use. Almost all states are reviewing their laws. Now, one case...

As a presidential candidate, Michael R. Bloomberg is likely to have problems with his positions on some local issues that have national repercussions, like the abuse of eminent domain. He's apparently for it. This goes way beyond the discovery that he had heart surgery or that he jets to a...

Most of us rant and rave with little expectation of having a dramatic affect on the world around us, but sometimes the world is accommodating. Only a few weeks ago I was calling on the Chinese government to enforce its own rules of food safety, and they went and sentenced...

What is it about Americans and their extreme, emotional ties to Twinkies®?

For the last few years, during which I was writing a book about the ingredients in Twinkies (Twinkie, Deconstructed), and during the last two months, when I've been giving dozens and dozens of interviews about it, virtually no...