Friedman Paul Erhardt, a German-born cook known as "Chef Tell" who was one of America's pioneering television chefs, has died. He was 63.

Erhardt died of heart failure on Friday at his home in Upper Black Eddy, about 25 miles east of Allentown, his family said.

Erhardt's jolly personality, thick German accent and wit made him a fixture on television shows such as "Regis and Kathie Lee" and comedy skits on "Saturday Night Live." He was also said to be the inspiration for the Swedish chef on "The Muppet Show."

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For the last 2 1/2 years, Erhardt taught at the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College.

A diabetic, Erhardt just completed a new book about cooking for diabetics based on his own experience of working himself off insulin naturally by changing his recipes.

Rest In Peace, Friedman.

You Are Changing Leaves

Pretty, but soon dead.

What Part of Fall Are You?

Haha… I am pretty, but soon dead. Haha. Soon is a relative term, much like dead is.

[See at: Shadowscope]

On the surface, the arrest of 774 people sounds impressive, doesn't it? Pardon me if I laugh about this. While it's nice they are "cracking down" on the food suppliers, maybe they should focus on fixing the problem rather than pointing fingers. Arresting a few people here and there will not stop the problem.

China said Monday that it had arrested 774 people in a crackdown on substandard goods, part of ongoing efforts to calm international worries over the quality of the country's products.

The General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said the arrests were the result of 626 criminal investigations nationwide into the manufacture and sale of fake or substandard food, medicine or agricultural products between August and mid-October.

"All local authorities and relevant departments have maintained a high-pressure attitude toward their crackdown on the illegal activity of producing and selling fake products," the AQSIQ, one of China's main quality control agencies, said on its Web site.

Too bad all the arrests are for making fake or substandard food. When will the get around to cracking down on all of the plants that paint toys with lead based paints? When will they get around to stopping the flow of the crap coming into our country?

If I remember correctly though, those people are not arrested, they just disappear.

I bet some of you had forgotten all about Charlotte Wyatt. She just celebrated her fourth birthday last week. She still isn't with her parents (who were not able to see her on her birthday), but they (her parents) are back together again, so hopefully Charlotte will be back in their care before too long.

Stay strong little one.

Okay, so I go away for a little over a week, and all hell breaks lose.

Oh sure, for you it might not be such a big deal, but while I was gone, Chef John revealed the secret to getting the seeds out of my favorite fruit, pomegranates. I first fell in love with pomegranates when I was a small child. My grandmother had a huge pomegranate tree in her backyard, and I would gorge myself every chance I got…

Chef John isn't the only one with big things happening while I was gone either.

It seems Chef Tom has gone and totally re-designed his site. WOW. I hardly recognized the place. Not only that, but he has a cookbook coming out. Oh yeah, and at his other site, The Secret Recipe Blog, he has a copycat recipe for Cracker Jacks. Yum!

You'd think I had been gone a month or more with all the stuff going on…

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