Waiter, There’s a Zero in My Glass

Undaunted by Y2K hysteria, Riedel Crystal has introduced the third in a series of six limited-edition Champagne flutes for the millennium, currently being sold at wine merchants and specialty shops. This one has a stem in the form of an elongated zero (making in effect a double stem).

Of course, what you really need is three of them plus one glass with a “2”-shaped stem. Plus a designated driver, now that we think of it.

Stout Makes You Hale

Research at Okayama University, Japan, published this year, showed that beer inhibits the action of certain carcinogens produced during the cooking of food.

Sakae Arimoto-Kobayashi, lead author of the study, said the four stouts tested were more potent in inhibiting heterocyclic amines than the two ales or any of the 17 lagers. In fact, one of the lagers and the one nonalcoholic beer in the study had no effect.

The study also found that red and white wines, brandy and sake were effective but not whiskey--an argument for boilermakers, at least if you’re drinking whiskey with cooked food.

Cooking Campus Explosion

The California Culinary Academy is expanding like mad. Besides the original school in San Francisco, it has opened basic training campuses called Colleges of Food in Salinas, San Diego and most recently San Francisco itself. A fourth College of Food will open in Garden Grove in July. On top of that, a second California Culinary Academy campus is planned for New Orleans, to debut in January. The Academy (a corporation listed on NASDAQ) is even talking about international campuses. For more information, call (415) 771-3536.