Fast Food

CHICAGO -- You won't find chipotles -- ripened and smoked jalapeno peppers -- in any menu item at the typical McDonald's fast-food joint.But you will find them in abundance at every Chipotle Mexican Grill, the growing chain of so-called "fresh Mexican" restaurants that recently opened in Chicago and happens to be owned by the Oak Brook, Ill.-based burger behemoth.In a move two years ago that shocked the food-service industry, McDonald's Corp. ended its long tradition against acquisitions to buy into the tiny Denver-based company.

Perhaps no nation has as passionate a grass-roots movement to preserve endangered species of cheese and protect vegetable rights as does Italy.Slow Food is a food and wine organization created 13 years ago by an Italian journalist, Carlo Petrini, as an antidote to fast food. More than 100,000 people were expected to attend Slow Food's Salone del Gusto, a five-day food fair that ends tonight.Now with 40,000 members in 35 countries, Slow Food's manifesto warns against "obsessive worrying about hygienic matters" and pledges to preserve such endangered foods as Firiki apples from Greece and Sicilian lattume di tonno, sperm of male tuna.

The owner of several Baltimore McDonald's restaurants lost his battle against the fast-food giant in federal court yesterday.Osborne A. Payne, a 71-year-old Baltimore businessman, sued the hamburger chain, claiming that his profits dropped after the company opened competing restaurants too close to his.He sought damages and said the company failed to help him find buyers for his restaurants.But Senior U.S. District Judge Alexander Harvey II said yesterday that the license agreement Payne signed with McDonald's does not guarantee him any exclusive or territorial rights around his restaurants.

Ronald D. Kirstien dresses the part of the perfectly groomed retailing executive: black shirt, trendy black and white striped tie and gold ring with the initial D.Not the type usually found behind a Wendy's counter asking a truck driver what he wants on his cheeseburger.But don't be surprised if you see him doing just that.Kirstien, chairman of DavCo Restaurants Inc., the world's largest Wendy's franchisee, has a motto: stay in touch with the stores. Don't just visit them, work them."If I go into a store, I will jump right behind the line," he said.

BY PERMITTING McDonald's to open an express outlet in a vacant storefront on West Street, sans arches, the Annapolis City Council has improved the fortunes of that area.Members of the community who opposed the approval may come to realize that a fast-food outlet might not carry the cachet of an art gallery or a trendy restaurant, but it will go a long way toward reversing the street's plodding revitalization efforts.Albeit on a smaller scale, McDonald's and its immensely marketed fare may do for the first block of West Street what Walt Disney Co., that other purveyor of pop culture, is doing for Manhattan's Times Square.

Skip the fast food on your next trip.The good news is that there have never been so many restaurants anxious to welcome you -- and your kids. The bad news: No matter where you go, kids are going to behave like kids. They'll spill their drinks, bicker with their siblings and complain they'll starve to death right there, on the restaurant floor, if they wait a minute longer for their food. When the meal finally comes, they're not hungry anymore. They can't wait to leave.I know. I've been there more times than I can count in restaurants around the country with my three kids.

THE FAST-FOOD business has never been rougher. Last month, Hardee's Food Systems Inc. said it would sell its Linthicum-based Roy Rogers unit to cut losses and focus on its core brand. Competition is fiercer than ever as worried &r consumers watch their pocketbooks while choices proliferate. Faced with slower earnings growth, chains such as McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's are aggressively promoting value-priced products. Boston Chicken is expanding its Boston Markets, offering wider menus.

One night, in the ceaseless quest for family togetherness, Debbie Swiss decided the easiest place to meet for dinner was the parking lot at Loyola High School. She brought the food -- carryout fried chicken and trimmings -- as well as the most essential of dinner staples: a sense of humor."It was like the Hunt Cup, but instead of watching the horses, we watched cars leaving the parking lot and then ate dinner," she reports. "We had all the cute things you have in a picnic. We also had matching plastic dinnerware.

Ronald McDonald can take his golden arches elsewhere as far as downtown Annapolis business owners are concerned.The McDonald's chain's permit application for a restaurant in the first block of West St., filed in February, has stirred protests from owners of nearby businesses, who worry that a fast-food restaurant wouldn't fit in the neighborhood of upscale small businesses and art galleries they are trying to develop."

Just about everybody has fast food on the brain these days. But "fast food" is a beast of many manifestations.Americans love the wrapped, bagged and drive-through variety. National Restaurant Association spokesman Jeff Prince says fast food sales continue to increase annually and account for almost 50 percent of all food eaten in dining establishments.If it's so soaked with fat that the greasy residue on the bag could lube an entire battleship, so be it. According to surveys, people will still buy it because it's convenient and inexpensive, it can be taken home, and the clean-up time is mere seconds.

People don't usually think of me as hip, but I can fool you sometimes, which is why I was standing in line at a McDonald's on York Road the other day with the big lunch crowd. Maybe you heard: McDonald's is the hot place to eat again. Its sales rose 8.2 percent last month, which analysts attribute to consumers watching their pennies and gravitating to cheap fast food and $1 menu items. There may be fewer people popping for a venti frappuccino at Starbucks, where profits are down dramatically and the barristas might as well bring a deck of cards to work and play solitaire.

A monthly review of new cookbooks on a theme When the cameras aren't rolling, when nobody's looking, in the privacy of their very own kitchens, what do chefs really throw in the pot? For Jacques Pepin, according to his latest book, More Fast Food My Way, it might be those fried onions that come in a can. Or boxed mashed potato flakes. It's Bloody Mary mix, canned pumpkin, packaged gnocchi, canned beans, pre-roasted red peppers, Rice Krispies, frozen raspberries and store-bought poundcake.

Whenever Mark Clayton gets together with Oklahoma alumni such as Cleveland Browns free safety Brodney Pool and Chicago Bears wide receiver Mark Bradley, the Ravens wide receiver is serenaded by chants of "Fatboy." "A lot of my friends from college know how I eat and how the food is fatlike. So they call me `Fatboy,'" said Clayton, who at 5 feet 10 and 195 pounds is not exactly a model of obesity. "But I'm the fattest dude with abs." Steelers@Ravens Sunday, 4:15 p.m., Ch. 13, 1090 AM, 97.9 FM Line: Steelers by 3 1/2

Golden hot oil burbles in generous vats at dozens of food stands throughout the Maryland State Fair. Sweet and heavy, greasy and cloying, the midway wears the perfume of fried everything, its signature scent. Fried dough, fried candy bars, fried Twinkies. Fried fudge, fried mushrooms, fried onion blooms. Fried Oreos, fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fried chicken nuggets. At state fairs nationwide, pushing the limits of what to batter and oil is considered a test of heartland ingenuity, like raising prizewinning livestock or growing a record-breaking gourd.

It is a retail confrontation: McDonald's versus Starbucks, a real-life struggle pitting a fierce fast-food chain with 30,000-plus stores against a fierce gourmet coffee chain of more than 14,000 outlets. The world is their playing field. Some contend these two companies aren't direct competitors. But as they seek to increase profitability and expand worldwide, it is inevitable offerings and style will morph a bit. There are only so many ways to drink and eat quickly, short of intravenous feeding.

To lose 30 pounds, Patti Lawson worked like a dog. And now, she's written a book to prove it. Lawson is author of The Dog Diet, a memoir stuffed with anecdotes about how her real-life pooch helped her lose the one around her tummy - and regain self-confidence, hope and a bit of wit in the process. The attorney-turned-writer's narrative was named "Dog Humor Book of the Year" by the Dog Writers Association of America in February. In the winter of 2002, heartbroken because of the end of a long-term romance and disillusioned with her career as a finance attorney, Lawson did what she said many people do when they're unhappy: She ate. She ate ice cream, pizza, fast food.

"Each year, more American children are killed by obesity than by gun violence." U.S. Surgeon General's Call to Action For the first time in history, there is a chance that new generations of Americans will live shorter and less healthy lives because of the debilitating effects of obesity Almost everyone who cares for and about children in Maryland worries about an epidemic of obesity here. More than 200,000 of the 1.4 million Maryland children under the age of 17 are overweight, the U.S. Department of Health has estimated -- a rate triple that of 30 years ago. Childhood obesity makes them easy targets for early onset diabetes, heart disease, sleep apnea and breathing problems, bone conditions.

Personal chefs aren't just for the rich and famous anymore. They are not just for Jennifer Aniston or Ray Lewis. Or for the Upper West Side hostess who wants her dinner parties to be the talk of New York society. These days, personal chefs work for busy professionals and even busier stay-at-home moms. They are for senior citizens who no longer enjoy cooking. Or for new parents who don't have the energy. "Who needs us?" said Jim Davis, who runs Chef Bryan's Kitchen in Gaithersburg with his son, Bryan.

These days, Robbin Moore has been gearing up to adopt a healthy lifestyle. He even made a New Year's pledge to spend his savings not on a new car, but by purchasing one of those fitness contraptions hawked on infomercials. But yesterday was not one of those days. He gleefully surrendered to his guilty pleasure: a crisp chicken thigh sandwich smothered in hot sauce, purchased at one of Greenmount Avenue's many neon-lighted takeouts beckoning with deep-fried delights. Considering his success at carving out a workout routine, Moore, 48, could do nothing but laugh when he learned that Baltimore had been named America's fittest city by Men's Fitness magazine.

I love Sundays. From the Sunday paper to Sunday supper, it's my day to recharge, relax and, most of all, to cook. When my daughter was little, I would spend the day cooking for the week. It made it easier to serve wholesome meals on school nights, if I didn't have to start from scratch. Things have changed a lot since then. There has been an explosion of convenience foods on the market ... everything you can imagine from precooked bacon to microwave mac and cheese. Fast-food restaurants are everywhere, and they make it so easy for you. With drive-through windows, you don't even have to get out of the car. Quick, cheap, convenient.