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The Surpreme Master Ching Hai herself

​It's not every day that Gut Check International Headquarters receives mail from the Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association.

In fact, it's only one day: today.

At any rate, the association -- which promotes "the Quan Yin method of meditation with the inner light and sound" -- has declared a planetary emergency, like in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, when the whale probe starts churning up hurricanes everywhere, except this emergency is about climate change and the consumption of meat.

Specifically, the Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association doesn't think we should eat meat and has sent along a book titled Vegan & Vegetarian Restaurants Directory in USA.

Now, as regular readers know, I am the last person to pass judgment on the accuracy of a list of vegetarian and vegan restaurants in St. Louis. So I ask you, especially the vegetarian and vegan among you, to peruse the list, which I will post after the jump, and offer your additions and/or deletions.

What makes this somewhat challenging is that the guide seems to conflate vegetarian and vegan with vegetarian- and vegan-friendly. So some restaurants that do serve meat but offer numerous vegetarian options are included, like Terrene and Local Harvest Café), while others, like pretty much any Indian restaurant, are not.

(The list also includes some grocery and health-food stores, which I'll also reprint.)

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This is part two of Robin Wheeler's Chef's Choice profile of Robin Murphy of Baileys' Chocolate Bar, Rooster and Bridge. Part one is available here; part three, a recipe, we'll publish on Friday.

Robin Wheeler

​Did your family cook when you were a child? If so, what meals stand out?
My mom was a great cook and did the majority of the cooking in our house. We ate a lot of comfort foods and very small portions. Chicken fricassee over converted rice with a lot of fresh lemon stands out as my favorite. My stepdad was a master pancake maker on Saturday mornings and always made the batter the night before. I have very good food memories.

How old were you when you started cooking? I was a fairly hyper child, and I remember being allowed to "help" when I was around eight years old. I don't think I got to help too many times after that.

What was your first kitchen job? My first kitchen job was when I was eleven years old. I resided in a group home and they offered jobs to all of us so that we could have some spending money. I made $1.25 an hour scrubbing pots and pans in the dining-hall kitchen. In hindsight I wonder about the child labor laws.

Did you attend culinary school or college? I didn't attend culinary school, but I did attend college. I was very fortunate to have two apprenticeships in California for baking and pastry and that was like taking a crash course of what you might learn in culinary school; I loved it.

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Burger King now has an even greater global presence!

​Brazilian investment firm 3G will purchase perpetual fast-food bridesmaid Burger King for roughly $4 billion, the New York Times reports. The deal holds some (admittedly tangential) interest for St. Louis.

A backer of 3G is Brazilian billionaire Jorge Paulo Lemann. Lemann owned the Brazilian brewer AmBev when it merged in 2004 with Belgium's Interbrew to become InBev, which of course is now Anheuser-Busch InBev. According to the Times, Lemann sits on the A-B InBev board.

What will this mean for Burger King?

I have no idea. But it does provide me with another opportunity to post a link to the Subservient Chicken. Enjoy!

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More Wasabi

​Sushi restaurant Wasabi will open its fourth local (fifth overall) location at 9983 Manchester Road in Warson Woods on Tuesday, September 7. The address was previously home to the sushi restaurant Sansui. The Warson Woods Wasabi -- say that five times fast -- will be open for lunch 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday through Saturday and for dinner 5-9:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 5-10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Wasabi already boasts locations downtown, in Clayton and in Edwardsville as well as in Lakewood, Colorado.

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Nigella Lawson: "My eyes are up here."

​On Tuesday, the RFT's dear friends at Jezebel looked at the comments posted on a Guardian article about celebrity chef Nigella Lawson.

Sadie Stein noted how several of these comments criticized Lawson for her sexy-chef act and then broadened the issue to ask, "What is it about food personalities that gets us so riled?"

Stein's conclusion is thoughtful:

The ambivalence towards current food celebrities, of course, is not that different from that we see leveled at any celeb: the scrutiny of appearance and private life is as cruel and irrational as that applied to all entertainers. But there's something more, and I wonder if it doesn't have to do with the fact that, well, we all eat. Those of us who have to cook are naturally placed in a position of either wistful aspiration or contemptuous superiority, and resentment can come from either of these.

However, I think there might be more to the first part of her theory -- our dysfunctional relationship with celebrities of every kind -- than the food-focused second.

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This is part one of Robin Wheeler's Chef's Choice profile of Robin Murphy of Baileys' Chocolate Bar, Rooster and Bridge. Part two, a Q&A with Murphy, follows later today and part three, a recipe, on Friday.

Robin Wheeler

​David Bailey's name is well-known on the St. Louis restaurant scene. He's the restaurateur behind Baileys' Chocolate Bar, Rooster, and Bridge. But David Bailey isn't a chef.

Robin Murphy is a chef.

"Dave and I just hit it off perfectly. He is the king of ideas and I am the queen of reality. He'll walk in with these big balloons of ideas and how awesome and beautiful they are, and I just pop 'em all," Murphy laughs from her office in the central kitchen of all three restaurants.

"He's so humble about it that there wasn't any ego. It was like, 'Dude, I'll help you, but this isn't possible. Or okay, I know you want that and I'll try to make it happen,' and he knows that I will make it happen."

Murphy has been making food happen for Bailey's restaurants since Baileys' Chocolate Bar's first anniversary, when she arrived in St. Louis after fleeing hurricane-ravaged Pensacola, Florida, with her girlfriend, searching for a less stormy life.

By then she figured she'd had enough storms in her life.

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Good enough to die for? Eighteen Italian mushroom-foragers have died in ten days. According to the Guardian, it's not the mushrooms that are deadly; it's the terrain. Weather conditions this have have led to an explosion of porcinis in mountainous northern Italy, which has led to exceptionally competitive foragers who are making unsafe choices and dying from falls.

The food fight between locavores and conventional food fans rages in Chicago, according to the Chicago Tribune. Locavores claims their diets are more environmentally-friendly. Conventionals argue that relying solely on local supplies could lead to shortages. A University of Chicago geophysicist will use three years of research on Chicago eaters to find out which side is right.

Salon has a story of immortal food that refuses to die. In light of another project illustrating the unspoilability of McDonald's food - The Happy Meal Project - they look at what makes the food so permanent. It's not just the preservatives. It's the fat.

Have some kale and a smile. Advertising Age reports that Coca-Cola has purchased a Japanese health drink company. While it's unlikely that we'll see the company's kale-based health beverages in the U.S., Coke has a long history of beverage experimentation in the Japanese market.

Lester Miller, the Ladue impresario behind the (now shuttered) Busch's Grove restaurant, has set his sights on the Central West End.

​City records show that a limited liability company controlled by Miller, Lester's Tavern LLC, has applied for a liquor license at 4651-53 Maryland Avenue -- the vacant space just east of Brennan's and the Saint Louis Chess Club.

A spokesman for Miller confirmed that the company is looking to open a tavern very similar Lester's Sports Bar & Grill, the concept that Miller premiered in Clayton in 2007. (It's since expanded to include a location in Chesterfield.)
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Robin Wheeler

Steven Caravelli

​Steven Caravelli took over as executive chef at Araka (131 Carondelet Plaza, 314-725-6667) last month. Now he has unveiled his new menu for the Clayton restaurant.

"The formula is the same: small plates, flatbreads, salads, soups and entrées," Caravelli explains. "I pretty much changed over 90% of the [specific] dishes."

Caravelli hopes to bring to Araka the experience and techniques that he learned working for such noted chefs as Hubert Keller of Sleek (where Caravelli was executive chef), Larry Forgione of An American Place and Gerard Craft of Niche. The overall goal, Caravelli explains is, "taking Araka the next step: refining the cuisine."

Caravelli will also employ more local produce and meats as well as sustainable seafood.

Having just left a steakhouse, Caravelli says, "I'm excited to work with vegetables." He's introduced a four-course vegetarian tasting menu as well as a conventional five-course tasting menu.

View the entire menu on Araka's website. (Link PDF)

Related: Robin Wheeler's Chef Choice profile of Caravelli.