Thomas Keller, of the French Laundry in Yountville, Calif., is among the chefs opposed to the state's coming ban on foie gras.

By JESSE McKINLEY Published: April 30, 2012 NEW YORK TIMES

A collection of some of California's best-known chefs, including four-star celebrities like Thomas Keller, began a full-course press on the state's legislators on Monday, hoping to prevent a long-simmering ban on foie gras from taking effect on July 1.

The group, which calls itself the Coalition for Humane and Ethical Farming Standards, delivered a charter statement to lawmakers in Sacramento, advocating a wide variety of new animal-friendly commitments, including cage-free birds and hand feeding, to replace the current law, which would effectively bar foie gras from the state's menus.

"We want to create a humane market," said Rob Black, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, a member of the coalition. "Not a black market."

The ban would prohibit the production and sale of any product derived from force feeding birds to enlarge their livers beyond normal size -- the only way to mass produce the fatty French-inflected delicacy. The law was passed in 2004 but had a seven-and-a-half-year grace period. It is the nation's first such law to pass.

Nate Ballard, a spokesman for the coalition, said that members planned to follow the statement with personal visits to legislators this week, taking them to supper, if they are interested.

"The chefs are going to invite lawmakers to foie gras dinner in their districts, all over the state," Mr. Ballard said.

Regardless of one's tastes in food, supporters of the ban have long argued that it is necessary to prevent cruelty to ducks and geese. They say the animals suffer physical and emotional damage from force feeding, a process known as gavage.

"It's not about foie gras," said John Burton, a former California legislator who wrote the law. "It's about inhumane treatment of those birds."

Of course, California is no stranger to food fights. In 2008, voters approved a ban on restrictive cages for veal cattle, pigs and hens, and last year Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law that forbade the sale or possession of shark fins, an Asian delicacy.

The foie gras ban, signed by Mr. Brown's predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has seemed to signal the end for Sonoma-Artisan Foie Gras, the state's only producer, whose owner, Guillermo Gonzalez, said he would shut down on June 30.

In the months leading up to the ban, restaurateurs have been increasingly vocal about their opposition.

Greg Daniels, who runs Haven Gastropub in Pasadena, Calif., said he feared it could result in the diminishment of the state's reputation as an adventurous and first-rate place to eat.

"I think the culinary landscape of California will change much more than anybody is realizing," Mr. Daniels said.

That reputation is carried by the likes of Mr. Keller, whose flagship restaurant, the French Laundry in Yountville, Calif., is on the bucket list of many of the food obsessed. Last month, Mr. Keller issued a statement saying simply that his restaurant group would abide by the law when it took effect.

But on Monday, Mr. Keller's name was also among the more than 100 other chefs signing on to a raft of new promises regarding the production of foie gras, including a commitment to feeding methods that do not "harm the animal in any way."

All this seemed disingenuous to animal rights activists like Bryan Pease, a lawyer and founder of the Animal Protection and Rescue League, in San Diego, which has been protesting in front of restaurants where foie gras is still served, something he said was necessary to educate the public about the ban.

"We want people to know it's not this weird thing about banning duck liver," he said. "It's the force feeding that's being targeted."

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Organised by Restaurant magazine, The World's 50 Best Restaurants list is an annual snapshot of the opinions and experiences of over 800 international restaurant industry experts. What constitutes "best" is left to the judgment of these trusted and well-travelled gourmets.

The results are a simple computation of votes. Given that this well-constructed list is based on personal experiences it can never be definitive, but we believe it is a honourable survey of current tastes and a credible indicator of the best places to eat around the globe.

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Danish restaurant Noma was crowned the world's best restaurant for the third year in a row in an annual list, beating out top eateries in Spain, Brazil, Italy, the United States and elsewhere.

The S. Pellegrino and Acqua Panna World's 50 Best Restaurants, produced by Britain's Restaurant Magazine, were unveiled in London after voting by a panel of more than 800 chefs, restaurateurs, journalists and food experts who rated chef Rene Redzepi's Noma as the "standard-bearer for the new Nordic movement."

Redzepi said he was delighted to win the award for the third time and added that his main philosophy was to create delicious food using locally sourced produce.

"It's something about the zeitgeist. It's about nature, people growing food, being close to food. Connecting with organic farmers, working hard to maintain a healthy ecology, the utmost deliciousness ties in with this," he said.

But he added that despite Noma's green credentials it still managed to cast off the northern European philosophy that fine food was a bit of a sinful self indulgence.

"Sustainability is not a clear goal, we are a temple of deliciousness and we celebrate it, there's nothing wrong with it. But in our part of the world, if you say you are in love with delicious food and what it does to you, you're supposed to feel remorse. It's a Protestant thing, the Catholics don't have that."

Nationally, Spain and the United States tied with three restaurants each in the top 10, though Spain's El Celler de Can Roca in Girona came second and Mugaritz in San Sebastian placed third. In all, the United States had eight eateries in the top 50 and Spain had five.

The Chefs' Choice award, voted for by the World's 50 Best chefs, was presented to Andoni Luis Aduriz of Mugaritz, which was devastated by a fire two years ago. Spanish winners also included Arzak at no. 8, whose joint Head Chef Elena Arzak was awarded the Veuve Clicquot World's Best Female Chef award.

Eight U.S. restaurants made the top 50 list this year, the highest of which was New York based Per Se, owned by chef Thomas Keller, who was rewarded the Best Restaurant in North America and the S.Pellegrino Lifetime Achievement accolade after spending each of the past 10 years of the awards on the list under one guise or another.

Redzepi serves a new kind of Nordic cuisine such as musk ox and smoked marrow, sea urchin and dill or beef cheek and pear.

The 34-year-old chef is an ambassador for the New Nordic Food program set up by the Nordic Council of Ministers and has headed the restaurant since its 2003 opening.

The Noma approach to cooking is concentrated on obtaining the best raw materials from the Nordic region such as Icelandic skyr curd, halibut, Greenland musk ox and berries.

The two Michelin star restaurant does its own smoking, salting, pickling, drying, grilling and baking, prepares its own vinegars and concocts its own distilled spirits such as its own eaux de vies.

Noma makes systematic use of beers and ales, fruit juices and fruit-based vinegars for its sauces and soups rather than wine, and allows vegetables, herbs, spices and wild plants in season to play a prominent role in its cooking.

Located on the ground floor of a renovated listed 18th Century warehouse in the old Christianshavn district of Copenhagen, the restaurant's fittings and furnishings also embrace the Nordic spirit and atmosphere with smoked oak, stone, leather, water, glass and light.

With six restaurants on the list, Asia has secured its position on the gastronomic map. The event organizer announced the launch of the new Asia's 50 Best Restaurants awards at the ceremony, which will be held in Singapore in February 2013.

The awards, which are also sponsored by S.Pellegrino and Acqua Panna, are welcomed by top chefs from the continent including Ignatius Chan from Iggy's in Singapore, who took the Best Restaurant in Asia title at No. 26.

"Asia has a long culinary history and we offer a deep, diverse and rich gastronomic landscape," he said. "Asia's 50 Best Restaurants is a fantastic platform to educate and showcase some of the greatest Asian restaurants to the world."

South America confirmed its standing on the list with four restaurants spanning Mexico, Peru and Brazil, whose São Paulo eatery D.O.M, run by ex-DJ Alex Atala, rose three places to No. 4 and claimed the Best Restaurant in South America title.

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012.

Simply Anna Antique and Polka

Ivy Garland and Spring In Budapest Bowls

Anna's Palette Chargers

Morning Glory Rectangular Tray

Anna's Palette Aqua Green Place Setting

Porcelain is a material that is perfectly suited to everyday life. It can safely be put in the dishwasher, which will not hurt the decoration, but give it a radiant shine.

Great care must be taken when putting a porcelain dish in the oven. 1400°C fired porcelain can withstand your oven's 300°C, but not thermal shocks. When you take it out of the oven, do not run cold water on it and avoid putting it on a cold surface, lay it on a wooden or material-covered surface, or on a cloth. As for microwave ovens, you must make sure there is no metal (gold or platinum) on the decoration - Raynaud does not today make decorations with microwave-proof fake metal. Only white or color decorations can go in the microwave.

Be creative in your use of the various pieces, for instance... a presen- tation plate can be used as a single-dish dinner plate, as a cake plate, a cheese plate... the dessert plate is perfect for an appetizer or cheese, the fruitcake dish is ideal for "pâté" and also "canapés", "petit-fours" and smoked salmon. The soup tureen is today used for soup, "consommés", "bouillabaisse", "pot-au-feu", pasta... all the convivial and generous dishes. Salad bowls are also very practical for pasta, risotto... sauceboats can be used for fruit sauces.

Exotic cuisine is very fashionable, and if you don't have a Thai dinner every night, remember that the bowls will look lovely filled with "hors d'œuvres" or sauce, and the cups can turn into sugar bowls.

LUNES, new from Raynaud Porcelain

Speaking of creative tabletop and culinary entertainment, Raynaud Porcelain and Devine Corp. are introducing LUNES a new tableware range that represents a combination of chef, designer, and porcelain maker. Three star Michelin chef Anne Sophie Pic, along with designers Catherine and Bruno Lefebvre have teamed to bring this new dinnerware collection to appeal to all the gastronomic pleasures.

With a range consisting of approximately 50 items, LUNES is a gentle, feminine shape with curves and hollows to allow for tasting forks and spoons that Chef likes to use in her menus. There are 22 plates sizes, soufflé bowls and teapots that invite guests to help themselves. Cloches, also unique in form, make each dish a visual and aromatic surprise.

Tea service in LUNES retains the same simle elegance as the dinner service. Anne-Sophie Pic, a petite, softly spoken and revered chef who has headed the kitchen at La Maison Pic in the south-eastern French town of Valence for more than a decade - is only the fourth woman to win the top award. According to the U.K. newspaper The Guardian, Pic is "a specialist in fish, her signature dishes include sea bass caught in coastal waters and steamed over wakame kelp, served with gillardeau oyster bonbons, cucumber chutney and vodka and lemon butter sauce. But although she came late to haute cuisine, the chef, who prefers to mix textures and flavours rather than radically alter ingredients, comes from a gastronomic dynasty." Both her grandfather and father were also three star Michelin chefs in their time.

The combination of chef and designer here has produced a shape that only a porcelain producer of Raynaud's reputation for quality could execute. Taking two years to complete, Raynaud drew upon its legacy since the 19th century as one of the world's premier producers to achieve the proper balance between art and practicality for LUNES.

You can see LUNES at the Devine Corp. booth # 6351 at next week's NRA Show in Chicago. You can also go to www.Raynaud.fr or www.devinecorp.net to learn more about LUNES.

Yesterday Thomas Keller received the French Legion of Honor at his New York restaurant Per Se. Keller told the Feast he was nominated by Daniel Boulud, Alice Waters, Jacques Pepin, and Robert Parker, and that he found out about it via a letter from French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Paul Bocuse presented the award, and chef Eric Ripert, restaurateur Drew Neiporant, and Food & Wine editor Dana Cowin all attended the ceremony. Congratulations, chef! Or should we call you Chevalier now?

The full press release. >>> Thomas Keller – France Légion d'honneur Ceremony & Reception at Per Se

On Tuesday, March 29th, Chef Keller was recognized by the France Légion d'honneur and was named Chevalier for his work in promoting French cuisine in America. He, along with Julia Child and Alice Waters, are the only Americans in the food field to be granted this distinction.

Legendary French chef Paul Bocuse presented Chef Keller with the official medal during a ceremony and reception at Per Se. France Ambassador François Delattre opened the ceremony, which was complete with words from close friends/industry leaders Daniel Boulud and Alain Ducasse along with Joseph Keller (brother).

Event attendees included Chef Keller's friends and family, along with industry notables such as Tim Kutz, Magda Michaud, Eric Ripert, Jacques Pepin, Drew Neiporant, Jerome Bocuse, Susan Ungaro and Dana Cowin as well as actress Dana Delany, actor Kyle McGlaghlin and Brad Lewis (Film Producer, Ratatouille (Pixar), Antz (DreamWorks), etc) to name a few.

The event opened with a champagne reception, complete with passed canapés by Per Se Chef de Cuisine Eli Kaimeh and closed with a selection of dessert canapés by Pastry Chef Elwyn Boyles.

Maison France, hosted by The French Trade Commission, UBIFRANCE, exhibited at the Felissimo Design House June 22-24. The event was an exclusive press and trade only showcase featuring a selection of home furnishings from France. The purpose of the showcase was to establish new luxury designers in the US market and to introduce their newest collections. There were also many longstanding designers, such as Raynaud & Ercuis who participated and showcased their latest designs. There were over thirty brands featured representing furniture, lighting, textiles, architectural materials, tableware and decorative accessories. Featured in the exhibit were Raynaud's patterns Salamanque, Gala, Caviar, Makassar, and Attraction; and Ercuis's Alto, Insolent, Peter, Equilibre, Brantome, Vieux Paris, Galet, Steamer and Paris.

Source: Vanity Fair by John Clarke Jr. October 27, 2009, 11:49 AM

Earlier this year, when Anna Weatherley delivered her magnolia-patterned china set to the White House, the accompanying spate of profiles covered every aspect of her career--except one: gun runner. Was it true, as the whispers around Washington had it, that she had a secret history as a gun-runner in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan? Not quite, although the truth is just as curious.

Weatherley was no Soldier-of-Fortune radical or a Patty Hearst-styled weekend warrior. Her focus, she says, was always on design.

A few years before the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Weatherley, a fashionable, mini-skirted Washingtonian, followed her eye for style to Kabul to search out guns, fabric, and furniture, which she sold to shops and private buyers in Australia. "I'd buy and ship these great 19th-century guns that the British left behind, beautiful guns with ivory and mother-of-pearl," she says. "I was naïve and inexperienced."

Did she ever cross paths with Congressman Charlie Wilson, the Texas Democrat whose back-room efforts to finance the mujahideen were the subject of a 2008 film starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts? "No. It really had nothing to do with the Afghan war. I was there before Afghanistan was the place to go. Kabul was a fairy-tale place then, and I felt very secure and safe there. It breaks my heart now with all that's going on there."

In the bazaars of Kabul, Weatherley quickly ran through antique-gun supply. "I wasn't an expert," she says. "But I knew these guns were beautiful and decorative. I became such a successful gun buyer that the dealers realized that this was something wonderful. Kabul was just an isolated place then. I was more or less a pioneer."

Weatherley's well-heeled customers, she says, had never seen guns like hers. When she exhausted their stock, bazaar merchants recognized the hot commodity and fooled buyers by removing mother-of-pearl buttons from clothing and gluing them onto ordinary firearms.

With her supplies exhausted, she dropped guns and picked up chiffon. In Washington during the 1970s and 80s, Weatherley had built a successful dress-design business, creating one-of-a-kind garments out of hand-painted, hand-embroidered silk. Elizabeth Taylor, Lady Bird Johnson, and a roll call of D.C.'s stylish doyennes picked up pieces at her townhouse near Watergate or at upscale stores like Henri Bendel and Saks. "Anyone who was anyone in Washington came to buy my dresses," she says. "This was when Washington society was grand. I hope it comes back, but I'm afraid it's gone forever."

Washington's hostesses still turn to Weatherley for a touch of grandeur, but now it's for their tabletops. Her current venture is hand-painted porcelain dinnerware, sold at 400 stores across the country but also available in one-of-a-kind designs, just like her dresses used to be. When the Princess of Wales made a trip to the capital, Katharine Graham held a luncheon in her honor and gave specially commissioned Weatherley porcelain as gifts to guests. The same visit prompted Anna Wintour to place an order for a present for Princess Diana. Weatherley, who specializes in detailed flower patterns reminiscent of 18th-century European botanical illustrations, produced a pair of cachepots decorated with pears, cherries, and gooseberries in the style of well-known British illustrators for a subtle U.K. theme.

Weatherley's custom-order clients might be able to specify exactly what they want, but that doesn't mean they get it quickly. A native of Hungary, she employs 60 master painters there to execute her designs. It's painstaking work; one plate takes two days to paint, and a large dinner set might take as long as three months. "People don't buy plates because they need plates," she says. "Having something hand-painted is a dying art. Nowhere in the world can people do such fine work. I have older workers ... and when they are gone, it's over."

And then there's the First Family. When they arrived at the White House, the Obamas were already furnished with 75 seven-piece place settings of the Magnolia Residence China Service, featuring magnolia blossoms, butterflies, and insects in a design inspired by the flora and fauna found on the White House grounds. The dinner set, which cost $74,000, was delivered during the last week of the Bush administration and never used. "I hope the Obamas like it and use it," Mrs. Bush told reporters before she left the White House. "I think she'll have fun discovering all of those."

Today, the gun business is a distant memory, and Weatherley is focused on her plates and trying to reach a male demographic. "I'm working on new designs for men. Designs with interesting birds and fish. You probably don't know anything about flowery porcelain plates, right? You think like a guy and very few men like you know about such things." Why not gun motifs or Audubon designs? "Yes!" she says. "That's it! See, you are now thinking like a guy!"