| Meal tickets
Ever since a trip to Vietnam two years ago, during which I toured the exotic food markets of Nha Trang with the hotel chef at the Ana Mandara resort and learned how to make my own rice paper for spring rolls at cooking schools in Hoi An, I have been convinced that there is no better way to get to the heart of any city than through its cuisine. .
Dole Billionaire Murdock Funds Food Agenda as Income Slows
Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- David Murdock is annoyed. The mayor of Westlake Village, California, site of Murdock's new 270-room Four Seasons hotel and health spa, and headquarters of his $6 billion Dole Food Co., has just finished speaking for almost two hours. Murdock, proprietor of one of the U.S.'s biggest private corporate empires, is impatient to get back to business. At 84 years old, he usually doesn't allow anyone to waste his time. ``Two hours, can you believe it,'' he says, shaking his head in disbelief. The occasion of the mayor's speech last December was to help celebrate the opening of Murdock's California WellBeing Institute, a product of his late-in-life conversion to healthy living. And the institute is just a curtain raiser to a much grander Murdock health-focused project: the 350-acre, $1.25 billion North Carolina Research Campus rising from the ruins of shuttered textile mills in Kannapolis, North Carolina, that Murdock once owned.
Five for frying
The debate over school lunches attracts celebrity chefs, angry parents and expert dieticians, many of whom vilify lunch ladies and school administrators while taking a "my way or the highway" approach to nutrition reform. But last year, local conscious caterer and professional chef Greg Christian founded the Organic School Project to work with parents, administrators and the food-service provider for Chicago Public Schools. Through the program, Christian planted vegetable gardens with students and oversaw the implementation of a health and wellness program in three pilot schools. In April, he rolled out a lunch program that focuses on organic foods, whole grains, local produce and hand-preparation (think organic cheese and sausage pizza with a mixed green salad) at Lincoln Park's Alcott School.
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