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It's a new year of culinary messages, chef tales and cookbooks to pique foodies' interest in discovering new delicacies and techniques. As you reach out for those post-holiday sales, you might take into account some of the messages your customers will be hearing in the mainstream media.

Tube News
There is a lot of news on the tube this month, from the Food Network to online programming. First, CIA-trained chef Michael Symon is the newest addition to the Iron Chef team. His affiliation with the CIA and Vita-Mix Corporation should bring new attention to the category.

Chef Symon is a 1990 CIA graduate. He is renowned in his hometown for his critically acclaimed restaurants Lola and Lolita. Symon made Food & Wine's list of the Ten Best New Chefs in America in 1998. He was Restaurant Hospitality magazine's Rising Star for 1997, and was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef in the Great Lakes Region in 2006.

By winning the final challenge, Symon will join CIA alumni Cat Cora ('95), Mario Batali, Bobby Flay and Masaharu Morimoto as an Iron Chef on the popular Food Network series, "Iron Chef America."

And just in time for this new attention, Vita-Mix is presenting a new eye-catching consumer brochure to promote the new CIA Professional Series and the company's strategic partnership with The Culinary Institute of America. This full-color brochure, both a selling tool and a training piece, explains why Vita-Mix is the preferred brand of the CIA, and how this versatile professional-grade appliance transcends the limitations of ordinary blenders.

Top professional chefs such as Symon, along with Mark Cox and Michael Schlow describe why the appliance is the key for culinary creativity in professional kitchens. Vita-Mix will provide an acrylic stand for these brochures to participating retailers, ideal for placement next to the product on the sales floor.

Mark Bove, of Bove's of Vermont, prepared to begin the biggest food fight of his life last October and it will all air on The Food Network. Celebrity chef Bobby Flay challenged Bove to a "throwdown" for a lasagna cook-off with Bove and the rest of his family. The competition was filmed for a future episode of the show, "Throwdown with Bobby Flay."

During the filming, Flay spooned out pieces of ricotta cheese from Maplebrook Farm in Bennington and talked about his love of lasagna dating back to his childhood. He told the crowd his mother never made good lasagna but his Italian neighbors did, and he often went over to their houses to eat. Sean Buchanan, of Wood Creek Farm Beef in Bridgeport, found all the organic ingredients for the Food Network. In addition to cheese from Bennington, Flay used beef from Buchanan's farm, pork from PT Farms in St. Albans, produce from Golden Russet Farm in Shoreham, and fresh pasta from Anything's Pastable in Essex.

Bove's dish was more traditional and used highly seasoned meatballs to bring out the flavor of the cheeses and the sauce. As he prepped his dish, his brother Rick Bove reflected on the family's good fortune.

So, did Bove best the Iron Chef? Not quite. Two judges — Rod Rehwinkel, executive chef at UVM, and food writer Melissa Pasanen, a regular contributor to the Free Press — chose Flay's creation over Bove's. But getting to spar with Flay was a victory in itself.

On The Stands
Saveur salutes its favorite people, places, dishes and ideas from the world of food and drink in its annual SAVEUR 100 special issue this January/February 2008. Here's a sneak peek at the lineup from the editors of Saveur:
Top 100 items include:
Top Tools
Chinese Cutting Boards — thick and sturdy; don't warp or wobble; inexpensive
Crust Buster Knife — the all-purpose, easy-to-use knife that no one has ever heard of
French Black Steel Pans — will become an heirloom item; well-kept restaurant secret; great alternative to Teflon pans

Great Drinks
Atol de Alote — A Latin American wintertime treat with corn and cinnamon
Cardamom Lassi — Spice-laced yogurt cooler
Cherry Bounce — An old American favorite revived: cherries steeped in rum

Great Food Reads
Belly of Paris by Emile Zola
La Bonne Table by Ludwig Bemelmans
Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons

Favorite Products
Morse's Sauerkraut — handmade in Maine; "the best we've ever had"
Pumpkin Seed Oil — an ancient and traditional Austrian condiment
Le Petit Buerre — the best supermarket cookie

This month marks the much anticipated Good Housekeeping Good Buy Awards or outstanding products of the year. These are products that are truly innovative, needed, affordable and really work. Tested at the Good Housekeeping Research Institute in New York City, these products get a thorough testing by experts over at Good Housekeeping. I recently had the great luck of being able to tour the Institute and find out firsthand how they review products, and it's an amazing thing. Check out this month's issue to find out how your product mix fits in with their findings; perhaps there might even be another product you want to consider for your shelves.

Holstein Housewares teamed with Taste of Home to create the "Give your kitchen the Holstein Touch Prize Package." This one-of-a-kind prize will offer four lucky winners a deluxe package featuring high-quality, European-style products for the kitchen with a retail value of $650. The prize package will reach over eight million readers since it is also featured in 11 other issues, including Simple & Delicious, Light & Tasty, Cooking for 2, and Country Woman among other newsstand specials. The issues were scheduled to be out on newsstands and in subscribers' homes from October 2007 to January 2008.

On The Bookshelves
Grab a seat, open a beer and learn the latest cooking techniques from Anheuser-Busch in its Great Food, Great Beer cookbook coming out this month. Apart from the fabulous recipes in the book, it has an entire section on beer pairing, how to decide which type of beer goes best with what food, the different aromas and tastes.

The book officially launches this month but Anheuser-Busch and the publisher, Oxmoor House, launched a supermarket retailing initiative in November and December 2007. Retailers such as Albertsons, Kroger, QFC, Save Mart, Smith's and Wegmans have purchased floor displays and will sell the book along with Anheuser-Busch-brand beers. It's a great cross-merchandising tool for stores with beer departments and great glassware. Also would make a great cooking class concept.

Help your customers get through the winter doldrums with great Southern flavor. In Screen Doors And Sweet Tea (Clarkson Potter/Publishers, May 2008), Viking Cooking School executive chef Martha Hall Foose mixes haute flavor with homespun ingredients in the kinds of recipes that the thousands of home cooks Foose teaches each year clamor for; sweet potato soup is enlivened with coconut milk and curry powder; blackberry limeade ("Amethyst Elixir") gets a lift from a secret ingredient — cardamom; crawfish pies are made with egg roll wrappers; and her much ballyhooed Sweet Tea Pie combines two great Southern staples — sweet tea and pie — to make one phenomenal signature dessert.

A plus for the Microplane section in your store is the new book YUM! Tasty Recipes From Culinary Greats, edited by Jeffrey Spear and Dara Bunjon. This cookbook is a collection of mouthwatering recipes from experts renowned for their prowess in and around the kitchen. Some of the stellar contributors are Sara Moulton, Nick Malgieri, José Andres, Charlie Trotter, Roy Yamaguchi, Susan Feniger, Mary Sue Milliken, Elizabeth Falkner and Susanna Foo.
Every recipe in the book was tested with the help of culinary students participating in the ProStart program at Eastern Technical High School in Essex. ProStart is the Maryland Hospitality Education Foundation's (www.mhef.org) School-to-Career program, a high school curriculum which focuses on culinary and restaurant management. Photos of these aspiring chefs at work appear in the book as well.

Celebrity chefs aren't slowing down on their literary offerings. Mario's Italian Grill (ECCO, April 2008) is his introduction to tasty, smoky simple Italian food on the grill. No one can tell you about Italian grilling better than Mario Batali. The words "Italian" and "grilling" seem as if they were made for each other. Anyone who has spent time in Italy knows that many of the most evocative and fragrant moments are sniffed at someone's house, or in a vineyard, or at a trattoria where something delicious is cooking on a grill over hot coals.

In addition to the 80 recipes and 60 four-color photographs throughout, the book will include marinades, rubs, essential ingredients, and heat source options. Mario's Italian Grill is divided into Appetizers; Bread, Pizza & Flatbread; Seafood & Shellfish; Poultry; Meat; and Vegetables. From comforting Piadina alla piastra with prosciutto and figs, and Pizza with Hot Salami and Pecorinoto to fresh Monkfish loin in prosciutto shirt with pesto fregula and Barbecued Octopus with beans and limoncello. Meaty Rosticiana ribs Italian-style and spit-roasted whole duck with oranges and rosemary go together with perfectly grilled vegetables such as asparagus with prosciutto vinaigrette and thick grilled onions with lemon thyme.

Food Network star and New York Times bestselling author Robin Miller has been coming to the rescue of busy home chefs for years. With her new book, appropriately titled Robin To The Rescue (Taunton Press, March 2008), Miller offers over 200 new, home-cooked recipes and strategies for getting weeknight meals to the table fast and without fuss.

Organized by course and main ingredient — snacks, soups, salads, pastas, chicken, fish, meats, sides and desserts — so you can quickly find what you want, each recipe provides alternative strategies adaptable to any situation. They can be transformed into a Meal Kit, prepared in a slow cooker, doubled up for a second batch, or morphed into another meal.

Robin will also help you stock your pantry the right way with her Quick Fix Stash — a list of must-have ingredients for your fridge, freezer and cupboard — so you can prepare most of the recipes in minutes with little or no pre-planning.

Chef Notes
There's always some news on the chefs' front. Last fall, Women Chefs & Restaurateurs (WCR) honored seven women who have demonstrated excellence and innovation in the culinary industry at its eighth annual Women Who Inspire Awards dinner. The WCR Women Who Inspire Awards, presented by FOOD ARTS, are meant to inspire present and future generations of women chefs and restaurateurs.

For the first time, this year's recipients were selected through a vote of the membership from a group of 22 finalists. To be considered for an award, each finalist's professional work must have served as an inspiration to other women in the industry. All women involved in the foodservice industry are eligible for nomination.
The 2007 Women Who Inspire Award recipients are:
Karen Waltuck
Owner/General Manager
Chanterelle
New York, N.Y.

Tracy O'Grady
Chef/Owner
Willow Restaurant
Arlington, Va.

Thursa Evens
Pastry Chef
Almost Home Tea Room
Greencastle, Ind.

Helen Turley
Winemaker
Marcassin Winery
Calistoga, Calif.

Judith Redmond
Co-owner
Full Belly Farm
Guinda, Calif.

Alison Costello
Executive Chef
Capuchin Soup Kitchen
Detroit, Mich.

Leah Chase
Chef/Owner
Dooky Chase Restaurant
New Orleans, La.

Comments? mmoran@gourmetretailer.com