| Entree into the kitchen
The question is a hot topic in certain food circles: Why are outsiders being hired to open certain top-drawer Washington restaurants? Isn't the reputation or education of home-grown talent good enough?
Celebrity chefs Eric Ripert and Wolfgang Puck are scheduled to head up two first-class eateries in the District next year, following others who have come to the region from other large cities.
It's not the quality of local cooking schools that is in question, suggest District chefs Jeff Tunks of Passion Food Hospitality, a restaurant group that includes Ceiba, DC Coast and TenPehn, and Vikram Garg of Indebleu, but the high stakes of being successful in an extremely competitive field where problems include keeping young chefs who often think moving from job to job builds a more impressive resume.
Travelers Get Ready for Holiday
AAA estimates 34.6 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more from home this holiday. That's almost the same number who traveled during the holiday last year. The Travel Industry Association says people are worried that prices for fuel, lodging and airfare are still too high. Of those who do leave home about 4 million will fly, 1.6 million will go by train, bus or other kind of transportation. By far most people will hit the highways AAA estimates 28.9 million travelers will drive. State police plan extra patrols with DWI road checks and enforcement details. "People in general when they're going away, they're anxious, they're in a hurry," said New York State Police Capt. Mike Cerretto. “Hopefully when we can have marked police presence out there, they'll see us out there and it'll knock them back to reality and they'll drive at the appropriate speed." AAA says hotel rates have gone up a little from last year- about 3 percent.
Tennis star serves a return
BLUEFIELD, Va. — Marianna Sarver was a tennis standout.She ranked among the nation's best on the junior circuits, played one year for Bluefield High School, and followed that with three seasons at Wake Forest.Then, Sarver packed up and left for California. Tennis became an afterthought. She was a chef for about 12 years, followed by several years as a social worker. She's back. Tennis, and family, are a big reason why. Sarver's brother, Steve, the owner of Sedgewood Tennis Club encouraged a return to Bluefield. So did her mother, Joy. Not only will Sarver be back home on a permanent basis for the first time in 18 years, but she'll also work as an instructor at Sedgewood and will help promote tennis for the West Virginia Mid-Atlantic Region of the United States Tennis Association in southern West Virginia and southwest Virginia.
"Kid Nation" has CBS on defensive
CBS hopes its awful-sounding new reality show is television's most controversial social experiment yet. It is potentially more grievous than the vicariously disgusting sight of people eating larvae on a dare, and even possibly worse than seeing 20-something housemates drinking, coupling and unraveling on the air. This one involves 40 children, average age 11, who were taken out of school for 40 days and left unsupervised in a ghost town, trailed by film crews. "Kid Nation" debuts on CBS Sept. 19, but promotional clips are everywhere (here's one promo on youtube.com), along with outrage. Even before it begins, producers face allegations of child abuse and endangerment. Documents surfaced last week confirming that the producers were warned by the New Mexico attorney general's office during filming in April that they were in violation of child labor laws.
Wheeler's senior golf quartet are tops on the links, in the classroom
UNION TWP. | The word perfection has many definitions and comes in many forms. To be perfect in the classroom is to never miss a question. To be perfect on the golf course is to never miss a putt.While the senior members of the Wheeler girls golf team might not be perfect, they certainly strive to be, and they are pretty darn close.Not only do Vanessa Ryan, Jessica Marek, Taylor Ruby and Christine Deek thrive on the links, the four players are amongst the top scholars in their senior class, with three of them ranking in the top four."They are all kind of perfectionists," Wheeler coach Mike Lyons said. "But sometimes in golf you can't be a perfectionist, you can't dwell on the bad shot."Perfectionists will leave the classroom after a test, grab the nearest textbook, hoping to see that they got all of the answers right.Perfectionists will walk off the golf course, immediately jump on to the team bus, grab the nearest textbook, hoping to gain more knowledge."It's nice to have a team that is academically strong, so we always have a support system," Ruby said.
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