Table Talk
It's absolutely the cat's miaow The Meow Mix Café, the world's first restaurant for humans and their feline pals, opened last month in New York - on Fifth Avenue, no less. "We wanted to see if the idea had legs… er, paws," says Richard Thompson, chief executive and top cat of catfood company Meow Mix. But food for felines isn't all the café offers. After you've finished eating - a beef and horseradish baguette for you, beef in gravy for Felix; or mini crab cakes for you, salmon and crab in sauce for Puss - why not enjoy a game of hairball toss, or browse for kitty toys in the gift shop? Thompson reports that customers and their cats are lining up for tables. Just remember: no dogs allowed.
Yeah, but will it keep the wasps away? Picnickers looking forward to another wet summer next year will be able to tuck into sandwiches, sausages and pork pies without taking off the clingfilm first. Scientists have developed a wrapping that not only keeps food fresh but can also be safely eaten. The film, which contains natural preservatives, can be fortified with vitamins and minerals. Used in a liquid form, it can also be sprayed on foods such as fruit to keep them fresher. The edible film was developed by food technologists at Oregon State University in the USA. They experimented with chitosan (an ingredient in crab and shrimp shells) and lysozyme (a protein from egg whites).
From Taffs by the River Plate to plates by the River Taff There was a time when all you had to do to find a new recruit for your hotel, restaurant or bar was to pick up the phone, call your friendly Caterer sales exec, and place an ad in the industry Bible. Nowadays, it seems that sometimes the only way to find good staff is to hunt for them half a world away. Unable to find a Welsh-speaking waiter locally, Wendy Tardioli, landlady of the Glamorgan Arms near Cardiff, put out a call to Patagonia, Argentina - and promptly found a waiter who "speaks better Welsh than we do". If your knowledge of Argentina doesn't extend past World Cups and the Falklands War, you may expect the guy's name to be Maradona or Galtieri. Think again. Alan Green is part of an expatriate Welsh farming community that has thrived in Patagonia since the 19th century. We wish him well in the land of his (fore)fathers.
