http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/exec_chefs.html which begins:

Google Hungry for Executive Chefs

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – August 4, 2005 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced a worldwide search for two executive chefs with the experience to creatively manage the preparation of thousands of quality breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals each day at the company’s Mountain View, Calif. headquarters. The executive chefs will oversee the development and continual refinement of an eclectic menu capable of suiting every Googler palate, from vegan entrees to pad thai, grilled burgers, and wood-fired pizza – all while using organic ingredients whenever possible.

“These two chefs will play an important role in managing the company’s growing appetites,” said Sergey Brin, president, Technology, Google Inc. “We welcome all culinary engineers to try out for our exceptional team.”

The Cookoff
Qualified chefs are invited to submit their resumes to Google at jobs@google.com. When a critical mass of submissions has been received, the top candidates will be invited to Google headquarters to prepare a meal for the “tasting committee.” Four finalists will compete in a Google Chef Cookoff, whose two winners will be offered the roles of Executive Chef at Google.

I’m still waiting for the formation of the Google Cricket Club…

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/050712/kyodo/d8b9kaf80.html

A restaurant in the Manchurian city of Jilin admits Japanese customers only if they firstly apologise for their country’s occupation of China in the 1930s.

I wonder what’s on their menu…

What more fitting celebration could there be of the 50th birthday of that icon of American culture - McDonald’s - than with that other great icon of American culture - the drive-by shooting? No one was hurt when shots were fired outside Macca’s at Parramatta Road, Stanmore, in the early hours of Saturday. This, incidentally, is the same Mickey D’s where a pivotal scene in Melissa Marchetta’s acclaimed 1992 novel, “Looking for Alibrandi“, is set, ie, where the central character is almost gang-raped in the car park.

At about the same time that the Stanmore McDonald’s was dodging pot shots, McDonald’s were doing a live webcast of the opening of their official 50th birthday McDonald’s outlet in Chicago. Here is the broadband real video archive of that milestone in world culinary history. Here’s the Maccas 50th birthday corporate website.

McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) shares fell 46c or about one and a half per cent on Wall Street on Friday to $30.30, but to be fair, the whole market belly-flopped on Friday. Stay tuned for the webcast of McDonald’s Q1 earnings report this Thursday.

The official McDonald’s 50th birthday press release can be read on their corporate website, but I’d like to reproduce just one heart-rending paragraph here:

Also recognized at the 50th Anniversary celebration was one of McDonald’s first-ever customers. Glen Volkman of Eau Claire, Wis., then a high school junior, was one of the first customers served at the original McDonald’s location in Des Plaines on April 15, 1955, ordering a cheeseburger, French fries and shake for about 80 cents that day. Proud of his unique McDonald’s experience, Volkman has followed the success of McDonald’s since and attributes McDonald’s global success to ‘’good food and good people.'’

A more pertinent celebration of fifty years of McDonald’s came on Friday when The McLibel Two (Helen Steel and Dave Morris) stomped on a 50th birthday cake outside McDonald’s Euroheadquarters in Finchley. And here is some viewer reaction to the BBC’s screening on Thursday night of the documentary, McLibel.

Footnote: Three days after the opening of the first McDonald’s at Des Plaines, Illinois on 15 April 1955, Albert Einstein died.

April 15, 1955, and the first McDonald’s “restaurant” opened in Des Plaines, Illinois, named by milk shaker-salesman Ray Kroc after the McDonald brothers, Dick and Mac, whose hamburger stand in San Bernadino, California became his inspiration. The rest… yeah well you know.

I’m going to commemorate half a century of Macca’s today in the most symbolic fashion I can think of: by eating a works hamburger from the corner shop. It will be more nutritious (though how nutritious will be open to debate), contain none of that chemical mixture they call “special sauce”, and I’ll be supporting local small business.

And tonight I might get out the “Super Size Me” DVD again.

I stopped going to Macca’s about three years ago (though I did have a dinner at the now-defunct McDonald’s subsidiary Boston Market next to the RPA the night after Adara was born). At my worst I was a twice-a-day Maccas person, when they had an outlet across the road from my place of work in Hunter Street, Newcastle. Then the 1989 earthquake shut the McDonald’s (and most business in Hunter Street) down rather abruptly. Perhaps the one and only reason to be thankful for the earthquake.

These days, the only fast-food franchises I visit are Australian-owned, in particular Oporto and Michel’s Patisserie.

Read the Corporate Responsibility section of the McDonald’s website. The McDonald’s Australia website has a PDF download of a piece of glowing propaganda called the MacPack (it’s 3.4 megs and they don’t tell you much about corporate responsibility or community involvement on their non-flash website).

And when are we going to get McDelivery like they have in Mumbai?

Perhaps a more useful resource is McSpotlight, the official website of the McLibel case. The updated documentary of McLibel was screened on BBC Four a few hours ago and had its world premiere in the cinemas last weekend.

And this Sydney Morning Herald article from 2003 documents the successful resistance to McDonald’s expansion in and around the city.

The Guardian reported yesterday that Vieux Boulogne is the world’s smelliest cheese. It then proceeded to give a list of the fifteen smelliest (authentic Somerset cheddar coming in 14th).

The conclusion was reached following a series of scientific tests at Cranfield University.

Meanwhile, check the Guardian today for a cheese quiz (I scored 7 out of 8 ).

All I will say is go to eBay and enter “cheese virgin mary” as your search keywords.

(Informercial advisory: I have an affiliate relationship with eBay.com and earn a commission in some cases for bids and other referrals from this site.)

A ten-year old cheese sandwich bearing the image of the Virgin Mary is currently up for bids on eBay. Knarf.ca, a Canadian blog devoted entirely to ebayrama (or is that ebayrilia?), picks up the story.

My whole body smells like a lunch box!
- Chen Chong-yi (Democratic Progressive Party, Taiwan), 26.10.04

What a great moment for democracy it was in Taipei on Tuesday. A debate about whether a multi-billion dollar arms budget should be placed on the parliamentary agenda this Friday turned into an open battle of its own.

“You’ve got no shame!” screamed Chu Fong-chih of the opposition Nationalist Party, after throwing a take-out box of chicken and rice at Chen Tsung-yi, a legislator from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party who backed the special budget, the China Daily reports.

Associated Press has vision of the fracas. I wonder if there is a Hansard available?

I guess over in Beijing they will see this as a perfect example of how their offshore province is totally incapable of governing itself. But would it enhance proceedings in the House of Reps in Canberra? Could this be a new tactic for ALP house business leader Julia Gillard to try out? And how would Bronwyn Bishop handle it if, heaven forbid, she gets elected Speaker?