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The picture of health.

A recently released study conducted by researchers at Cornell University claims that stacking colored potato chips with regular 'ole potato chips acts as a visual cue to curb your chip intake. First, since when are we trying to lessen our potato-chip count? Secondly, what potato chips could this possibly work for other than the very stackable Pringles? Is Cornell working in cahoots with Procter & Gamble to surge profits for its hammock-shaped junk food?

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Culinary historian Elizabeth Pearce sips a Sazerac cocktail.

Tonight, New Orleans-based culinary historian Elizabeth Pearce will present "History in a Glass: The Story of New Orleans through the Sazerac," a complimentary seminar about the culture that created and reflected the Sazerac cocktail at 7 p.m. at Sanctuaria (4198 Manchester Avenue; 314-535-9700). When she's not speaking at seminars across the country, Pearce manages The Cocktail Tour, a walking tour of New Orleans that introduces the cities original libations at associated locations in town, all while sipping each cocktail along the way.

Tonight's seminar sprung of a twist of fate; Pearce visited Sanctuaria on her last stop in St. Louis and greatly enjoyed the bar's eats and artisan cocktails. In addition to sharing the Sazerac's storied history and influence, guests will each be served a drink, learn how to make a Sazerac and receive the recipe to attempt at home. In anticipation of the event, Gut Check caught up with Pearce to discuss the seminar, why the Sazerac is New Orleans' most iconic drink and how to make the cocktail with its official recipe.

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Farm fresh or Franken-fruit?

When you are buying produce, you are most likely more concerned about the look and feel of the product than the Price Look Up (PLU) sticker. While squeezing, flicking, smelling and all those other tried-and-true techniques of examining produce work well, that little sticker actually offers some useful information.

If you are looking for organic fruit, make sure your sticker has a five-digit number that starts with the number nine. If it doesn't, it's not organic.

Five-digit codes that begin with the number eight are cause for a little more concern. These codes mean that the produce was genetically engineered. That means your seemingly harmless piece of fruit is the product of manipulated genes. Sure, it may be bigger and have a prettier color than the organic fruit, but that is a sign of genetic and chemical manipulation, not better taste or quality.

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Overlook Farms

The historic barn on Overlook Farm's property in Clarksville.

On Sunday, April 22, Overlook Farm (901 South Highway 79, Clarksville; 573-242-3838) will host the First Annual Chefs, Friends, and Families 5K Run/Walk to benefit Chefs for Students, a national scholarship fund for culinary students.

The event is the brainchild of Overlook's executive chef, Mike Polcyn, and his executive pastry chef, Anne Croy, the race organizer. Polcyn has many ties to the St. Louis region. He has worked for the Ladue Racquet Club, the Mayfair Hotel and Food Outreach, in addition to donating a significant amount of time to local charity endeavors over the past fifteen years.

"This is the first time we've done a run like this," said Polcyn, who has been involved with four different Chefs for Students fundraisers in the past couple of years. He noted that Overlook Farm is also planning on making its annual Luv-Luv BBQ Festival this August a fundraiser for the organization.

Polcyn first learned of Chefs for Students on the Web forum chef2chef.net, which he describes as a forum for "everything culinary," where aspiring chefs can go to learn about what to expect from culinary school, explore possible funding sources for school, and receive practical culinary advice. The contacts he made there led to his becoming part of the organization and eventually traveling around the country to participate in fundraisers.

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Jennifer Silverberg

On the heels of its grand opening, Legends Restaurant and Sports Bar (517 Missouri Avenue, East St. Louis, Illinois; 618-779-9982) is also busy preparing to open its kitchen to students from East St. Louis High School.

Working alongside the high school's culinary arts program, Legends will bus in juniors and seniors who are ready to get their hands dirty. Students will get a behind-the-scenes look at the workings of a kitchen, helping to slice and dice items for the day's meals. This is the type of hands-on experience you can't get from watching shows on Food Network, or within the walls of a classroom.

"Students will work with the chefs and get a chance to learn what skills are necessary in the culinary field," says Re-Essa Buckels of Legends. "It's one thing to learn something in the classroom, but it's another to be in an actual kitchen having to make orders back to back during a lunch rush."

The students won't be the only ones learning new things in this kitchen, the chefs and kitchen staff are surely in for some schooling as well.

"It should be interesting to see the chefs work with the students," Buckels says. "These are students who will be able to bring new ideas to the table.

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​Whether you have two green thumbs or can't keep a cactus alive -- even if, like Gut Check, you purchase rare orchids from grizzled old men who live out of their pickups on the back roads of Florida -- EarthDance wants the opportunity to shape you into a bona fide farmer.

From the basics (you plant a seed, something grows) to selling your harvest at the market, EarthDance's apprenticeship program will ground you (ha!) in basic farming techniques.

Now, this is no small commitment. The apprenticeship runs 35 weeks from February to November and involves classes (plant biology, pest and disease problems, composting and more) as well as field trips. And, yes, you'll get your hands dirty, studying for ten hours each week at Mueller Organic Farm in Ferguson.  

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The three founding members of WUChurn (l-r), Sean Wang, Jeremy Winer and Zach Kaufman, demonstrate the fine art of butter-making.

One night last spring, three dorm-mates at Washington University had one of those ideas that seems absolutely brilliant if you've been up very late studying: Why not start a butter-churning club?

Not that Zach Kaufman, Sean Wang and Jeremy Winer grew up on dairy farms or anything. Kaufman had churned once, on a grade-school field trip, and, in third grade, had read the entire Little House series, although he says he did not enjoy it. ("But you enjoyed the butter portions," Wang suggests helpfully.) But the idea charmed them. They started watching YouTube videos to find out how, exactly, churning was done. They told their friends about it. They started a Facebook group that has, so far, attracted more than 60 members.

Eventually, the time came to put up or shut up. Would there be a butter-churning club or not?

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Whip cream vodka? No thanks, says Taste's Ted Kilgore.

There's a war going on among modern mixologists -- a war over a spirit. Vodka has recently been outed as the unwanted stepson in many restaurants and bars that specialize in house and hand-crafted cocktails. After all, even the priciest vodka is both colorless and flavorless, and many alcohol aficionados just don't see the point.

But it was Jen Agg, owner/bartender at the Black Hoof and the Cocktail Bar in Toronto, who turned a low-level grumble into a ruckus. In a blog post declaring, "Vodka is stupid," Agg writes, "The vodka martini should be called 'I like getting drunk,' because that is its only purpose." Ouch.

So what of customers who enjoy an ice-cold dirty vodka martini? Do they need to fear being sneered at? Should they drink something they don't like to avoid being labeled imbeciles by their bartender?

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Mabel Suen

Schlafly gardener Jack Petrovic and assistant gardener Nolan Kowalski with various types of garlic including Creole Red, Music Pink and California Late

Schlafly gardener Jack Petrovic loves garlic, but he's tired of having to give his away. And that's fair, considering that the gourmet-variety garlic he harvests and uses year-round is as good as the crops imported from afar by some of the finest chefs in town.

"Everybody wants my garlic!," he says. "I hate charging for it, so I decided to teach people how to grow their own and support them in doing that. With minimal effort, they'll never have to go to the supermarket to pay for garlic again."

Currently launching Schlafly Bottleworks' (7260 Southwest Avenue, Maplewood; 314-241-2337) fall garden, Petrovic comes from a long line of family gardeners and is into his fourth season as Schlafly's homegrown horticulturist. He lifted up a set of burlap sacks in his garden, revealing tiny superhighways of ants digging out freshly-planted lettuce seeds from the ground.

"It's amazing what these little guys can do overnight," he says, marveling at the speed and vigor the tiny thieves work with. Next time, he'll use bottle caps filled with peanut butter to distract insects from the lettuce crop. They're learning something new every season. "Can you believe they pay us to do this?" he says, with a smile.

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Image courtesy of Amy Lee

Last summer's students on delivery with one Campus Kitchen's clients

Nationwide, 29 Campus Kitchen Projects operate with college student volunteers who learn about cooking, nutrition and food conservation while preparing and delivering meals for the needy. But what happens in the summer, when most of those students take a break?

At Saint Louis University's Campus Kitchen (3828 West Pine; 314-977-3881), it means bringing in a bunch of teens from across the country and giving them the opportunity to learn about culinary arts, nutrition and poverty relief. More than a hundred high school students have passed through the program this summer, thanks to YouthWorks. The organization matches kids with service projects nationwide.

"Campus Kitchen was a fun way to help others and connect with the community of St. Louis by serving," says Sydney Evancic, a fifteen-year-old volunteer from Carmel, Indiana.

Lauren Beeker, a Saint Louis University student and Campus Kitchen summer intern has been impressed with the talent that has come through the kitchen. "I am surprised at some of the culinary knowledge these young kids have. When I was their age, I knew much less about ingredients and culinary lingo -- sauteing, dicing -- than they do. Maybe the Food Network is having some effect."

Jenny Bird, kitchen coordinator at the Campus Kitchen, gave us more information.

Gut Check: What makes SLU's Campus Kitchen program unique?

Jenny Bird, kitchen coordinator, Campus Kitchen at Saint Louis University: [We're] a food re-purposing program. The food we use to make healthy, delicious meals for hungry clients is nearly all food that would otherwise be Dumpster-bound. We rescue the food from grocery stores, restaurants, campus dining facilities and remake it into meals which we deliver to the doorsteps of 300 elderly, disabled and low-income clients each week.

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