Chef

The bayou has always been known for its food. One of its chefs will stop by OCC April 9 to get students? mouths watering. Chef John Folse will speak at the school about Louisiana?s culture and culinary history at 9:30 a.m. at the Giles Brown Forum. Admission is free. Folse will discuss how various cultures traveled up the Mississippi River through New Orleans, leaving behind culinary marks that made the region?s food famous. Following his speech, there will be a panel discussion on music, cuisine and diversity at 11:10 a.m. with various professors.

-- Alex Coolman Whit Kenerson has seen too many food festivals go bland by offering muddled, generic dining experiences to the people who come to eat. When he planned the 'Great Chefs of Orange County' event to be held Oct. 17 at the Sutton Hotel, he was determined not to make the same mistake. Kenerson put together a roster of more than 20 of Orange County's distinguished chefs and encouraged them to prepare the dishes they are best known for. The result, so Kenerson hopes, is that that the event will treat festival-goers to some flavors to remember.

B.W. COOK The 13th annual Celebrity Chefs dinner, sponsored by Costa Mesa's Share Our Selves, was held at the Robert Mondavi Food and Wine Center. Co-chaired by Michael Kang and Max Wood, the dinner netted $150,000 to fund the Share Our Selves Orange Aid Project. The event was a "who's who" of culinary talent, with Paul Squicciarini serving as head chef. Other celebrity chefs participating were Franco Barone, Chris Garnier, Jason Pena, Andrew Sutton and Alan Greeley.

"It's not a crust; it's a canvas." In 1986, the day before the first Z Pizza was to open, the charming and very chatty Sid Fanaroff said that he and his then partner Suzie Megroz still hadn't figured out how to make dough in quantity. She had told him that she knew how to make pizza, but it was really pastry dough for a French onion tart -- which looks like a little pizza. When the giant dough mixer and oven were finally in place, Sid experimented with the recipe that came with the mixer.

Restaurateurs who have taken part at the Taste of Newport in past years said that what you get depends on when you go. Over three days of eating, the mood at the weekend food festival tends to morph from a party scene into a more family-friendly event. "I've been doing this for 13 years, and it's sort of like you're at a nightclub," said Joe Moreno, owner of Ciao, a Balboa Island restaurant expected to make an appearance at this year's event. Moreno was describing Taste of Newport's atmosphere on Friday and Saturday nights.

The Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort & Spa welcomed an overflow crowd Nov. 9 for the 22nd annual Celebrity Chef Dinner benefiting Share Our Selves. Nearly 300 guests helped raise $187,000 in support of SOS Orange Aid Project, which collects food from restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries and caterers for distribution to low-income Orange County residents. * Barons Rock for Cancer Cure They called it "Rock and Roll for a Cure. " The Orange County Barons Ball, co-chaired by Jeanie Gibson and Karyn Sanderson, unfolded recently at the Santa Ana Country Club, with proceeds benefiting the American Cancer Society.

A Laguna Beach chef says animal rights activists posted personal information - including his cell phone number and credit card transactions - online because he served foie gras. Activists hacked into the website of Hudson Valley Foie Gras , from whom Amar Santana of Broadway in Laguna Beach purchased fattened duck liver, and distributed his and more than 1,200 other clients' personal information to animal rights groups, which posted the data online April 24. The list included email addresses, personal cell phone numbers and credit card transactions.

An animal-rights group has sent letters threatening legal action to two Orange County chefs who serve foie gras. The chefs serve fattened duck liver at Arc in Costa Mesa and Broadway by Amar Santana in Laguna Beach, drawing the ire of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). California banned the sale and purchase of fattened duck liver on July 1, but chefs Noah Blom of Arc and Santana found what they believe are legal ways to continue serving the French delicacy to their customers.

When he was the drummer of Sugar Ray, precision and multi-tasking played a big role in Stan Frazier's life. Now, he has transferred those skills to his new career as a chef. Frazier, a Newport Beach resident and co-investor of A Restaurant, traded his drumsticks for knives when he competed on the reality television series "Chef Race: UK vs. US. " He said that his wife found out about the show through a Craigslist ad and urged him to compete because he enjoyed cooking and was transitioning out of his days with Sugar Ray. (The band is still together, albeit without Frazier, who is on hiatus.)

Corn dogs. It was the only type of cuisine that our mother, former Gossiping Gourmet columnist Elle Harrow, could not cook. We were about 7 and 14 years old, respectively, and every morning, she would ask us what we'd want for dinner that evening. "Corn dogs," we said. Always game for a culinary challenge, she took on the task of making corn dogs from scratch with the same amount of relish that she devoted to her own "adult" meals, whether stir fries inspired by her visits to New York's Chinatown, green tomatillo enchiladas gleaned from trips south of the border, or dishes from Julia Child's French cookbooks.