Food

The arrival of Trader Joe's, as well as the revamping of all our Laguna supermarkets, is reflective of the transformation that is taking place in the grocery business. The changing profile of the typical customer has forced the supermarkets to find a new identity. Shoppers used to stock up once a week. Nowadays, they average a store visit 2.2 times per week, seeking freshness. There is also an increased demand for organic produce, fresh bakery products, artisanal cheeses and ethnic foods.

One of the most important things we did before opening A La Carte in 1986 was to take a course in health and sanitation at Orange Coast College. Today, it is mandatory to have at least one employee in restaurants at all times who has completed this course and is certified. It was our good fortune that the class was taught by Bob Merriman, then the head of the O.C. Department of Health. At first, we dreaded the idea of listening to lectures about cockroaches, cutting-board cleanliness and food-borne illness.

On Thursday, Lagunans can celebrate art, food and philanthropy at the same time during the 16th annual Taste for Charity at Tivoli Too! on the festival grounds. Hosted by the Laguna Beach Board of Realtors, guests can get a taste of Laguna fare, bid on local artists' works in a silent auction and enjoy live music — all benefitting eight Laguna Beach charities. Local eateries, such as K'ya, Las Brisas, Mozambique, Rock'n Fish and the Sun Dried Tomato Café will offer up bite-sized food for the night.

Faerie Films founder Jennifer Mattox was extremely popular in college, partially due to the stock of frozen hamburgers she and her friends nipped from the commissary. “I was the one in my dorm room who had the mini fridge,” Mattox said. Often an “emotional eater” in college, Mattox consumed large quantities of junk food and often ate multiple dinners, between the dorm and her sorority home. Mattox, who now resembles a lithe yoga instructor, looks back with embarrassment at what was a typical college experience for many.

When Terry was growing up, every holiday was an excuse for the whole family to have a picnic in the park. It was an all-day affair that included huge amounts of food brought potluck-style and a mélange of pre-Frisbee sports. For Terry's family, the meal was always her mom's fried chicken, grandma's spicy chili, Molly's potato salad, Bea's mushroom soup/green-bean casserole, Aunt Dubby's chocolate cake and watermelon ? plus chopped liver, deviled eggs, potato chips, onion dip, fruit and cookies.

On a beautiful spring evening, with the sky tinted watermelon and papaya from the setting sun and the light falling softly on the patio of the Sundried Tomato Café, we sipped our cava (Spanish sparkling wine) and nibbled on a selection of Spanish cheeses and cured meats. We were at a monthly cheese and wine dinner mingling with a group of foodies from the increasingly sophisticated O.C. and eagerly anticipating the meal to follow. We chatted with the FitzGeralds, Mary and Dee, who were here for the sixth time.

Eva Madray, owner and executive chef of Eva's Caribbean Kitchen, dazzles you with her brilliant smile as she reminisces about her childhood in British Guyana. The oldest of eight children, she grew up in a well-to-do Indian family who had lived in this small South American country on the Atlantic coast for five generations. Her mother was a fabulous cook, and the local fishermen would stop by the house every day with a selection of her favorite fish. Eva's grandfather's farm provided them with freshly butchered cows, sheep and chickens as well as fresh vegetables such as callaloo (spinach)

Did you know that in April of this year, men everywhere celebrated the 60th birthday of the bikini? In 1946, Louis Réard, a car engineer who took over his mother's lingerie shop located near the Folies Bergere, designed a two-piece bathing suit using a mere 27 1/2 inches of cloth which, egad, revealed the navel! It was greeted with disbelief and shock even in Paris. At the time, in Hollywood, the Hays Act had banned navels from the silver screen. Believe it or not, in those days you had to open the bathing suit to see the buttocks; whereas, nowadays, you have to open the buttocks to see the suit.

Last month, while we were observing a cooking class at Laguna's Culinary Institute, one of the students asked the teacher, "What is the difference between sea salt and regular salt?" Although the teacher said she wasn't exactly sure, she said she preferred cooking with coarse sea salt. We realized that we didn't know the difference either, and our interest was piqued. We knew that a few years ago, there was a foodie frenzy over fleur de sel (flower of salt). People were paying $30 per pound for this particular kind of salt that you couldn't even cook with.

Corn is truly an a-maize-ing grain. It is self-pollinating, remarkably responsive to hybridization, adaptable to a wide range of environments, outstrips the yields of other food plants and accommodates to planting with complementary crops. Corn kernels can be processed in dozens of ways to produce an astounding variety of products ? cereals, flour, meal, starches, sweeteners and oils ? and is capable of conversion into a multitude of derivative products, from bourbon to adhesives to automotive fuel.