Porca Food

A Salmonella outbreak in Norway with almost 20 people sick has been linked to watermelon.

Folkehelseinstituttet (FHI) reported that of 13 ill people interviewed so far, all of them ate watermelon in the days before becoming sick. The melons were bought in various retail stores.

Eighteen people are part of the monophasic Salmonella Typhimurium outbreak and eight of them were hospitalized.

Patients are aged between 1 and 87 years old, 10 are men and eight women. They live in six different parts of the country with the most cases in Møre og Romsdal and Vestland but a few in Trøndelag, Rogaland, Troms and Finnmark and Innlandet.

Melon part of expert risk assessment meeting
Mattilsynet (The Norwegian Food Safety Authority) said it was highly unlikely that watermelons associated with the outbreak are still on the market. The fruit has a shelf life of three to four weeks. Most people became ill … Read more

Turns out, running a restaurant is hard

Last summer was a simpler, more innocent time. It was, like, four COVID variants ago, some of us were awash in mac and cheese ice cream, and if you said the words “bear” and “Chicago” to me in the same sentence, what instantly came to mind was wandering into the Lincoln Park Zoo on my high school lunch break, or maybe my seventh-grade boyfriend.

Most importantly, the restaurant industry was in the process of being saved thanks to Trey Parker and Matt Stone. In August 2021, the Oscar-nominated comedy impresarios behind South Park told Colorado Gov. Jared Polis that they’d decided to heroically swoop in to purchase Casa Bonita, the “Disneyland of Mexican restaurants” in Lakewood, Colorado, notorious for squeezing kitschy roadside attractions and bad food (save, perhaps, the sopapillas) … Read more

Federal Judge Robert Pitman Friday sequestered the jury deliberating for a third day over charges against the retired president of Blue Bell ice cream.

Pitman “ordered that the jury be sequestered during their deliberations from when they report to the jury room until released from the jury room each day and until released finally by the Court.”

The federal criminal case of the United States v Paul Kruse went to the jury by midweek after evidence was closed and submitted to the jury.

“While the jury is kept together and not allowed to separate, pursuant to this Order, the cost of subsistence of said jury, including the cost of coffee and other necessaries incurred by the said jury during Court recesses, shall be paid by the United States Government,” according to the judge’s order.

Kruse, 67, president of the iconic Blue Bell Creameries until 2017, is being tried on federal … Read more

In his new book, “Koshersoul,” the author of “The Cooking Gene” explores the intersections of African and Jewish diaspora cuisine and identity

On the very first page of Koshersoul, culinary historian Michael Twitty is already fighting to be understood. Twitty, whose 2017 memoir The Cooking Gene uses food to trace his ancestry from Africa through the slave trade and the American South, is asked by another writer if he’s traded writing about Black food for Jewish food. “No,” Twitty responds, “this is a book about a part of Black food that’s also Jewish food; this is a book about Jewish food that’s also Black food because it’s a book about Black people who are Jewish and Jewish people who are Black.”

That’s an intimidating task, and not just because many people refuse to acknowledge the possibility that someone can be fully Black and Jewish, as Twitty recounts in the … Read more

After just five days of trial testimony, the United States v Paul Kruse is now in the hands of a Texas jury.

Trial testimony in Austin’s Western District Court moved much faster than predicted before the trial began with jury selection on Aug. 1.

The Austin American-Statesman Wednesday reported the prosecution moved on to closing arguments. The court says the jury will resume its deliberations today, meaning it could all be wrapped up inside of two weeks. Jurors were warned about a possible four-week trial when they were selected.

Kruse, 67, is the retired president of the iconic Blue Bell Creameries. He is being tried on federal felony charges of conspiracy and fraud for suppressing some information about the 2015 listeriosis outbreak.

During a crisis of more than 60 days in 2015, Kruse ultimately recalled all Blue Bell products and closed its production facilities in Texas, Oklahoma, and Alabama.

But … Read more