Photo | Mike Persico for Grub Street

You may not know this, but Meal Ticket’s very own Felicia D is also a badass bartender/font of boozy knowledge at the Belgian CafĂ©. Grub Street provides a cool profile of our girl via their recurring Bartender’s Bible series. Choice excerpt:

What’s your patented drunk-handling technique?: Enlist the drunk’s friends as allies, stall and “forget” to serve them another drink, serve fake all-soda drinks if necessary. Gently shaming them works, too, if they are not too far gone.

Not that she’s done that to us or anything. Read the full piece here.

After the jump, Erin Mae Szrankowski touches base with Food Network personality Guy Fieri to talk about his Guy Fieri Road Show appearance at the Merriam Theater this Wednesday, Nov. 18, at 7 p.m.

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All Photos l Felicia D’Ambrosio

David Michael produces natural alternatives to synthetic food coloring

David Michael & Co. has been in the Philadelphia food business for over 100 years, but you’ve never heard of them. That’s because DM is a flavor developer who sells their taste technology to the companies you do know — sellers of consumer packaged goods, or CPGs.   CPGs purchase flavors, stabilizers and coloring agents from the food scientists at DM, as well as technology and product-development insight.

The Innovation Roadshow, held yesterday at the Delaware Avenue Hyatt-Regency, invited food scientists and marketers from DM’s exclusive client list to taste flavors and products that DM predicts will be trendy two to three years out. DM CEO Skip Rosskam offered teases of what’s up next. “Our research indicates persimmon will [be] on-trend in two to three years,” Rosskam said in an interview with Meal Ticket. “So right now, we are educating our clients on this flavor, so they can taste it and get familiar.”

DM also produces prototypes of finished goods that they predict will be highly desirable, like this year’s Pie Pops — portion-controlled, 50-calorie mini pies on a stick — and Meatloaf Cupcakes. “Comfort foods are big in this economy,” Rosskam said. “So we developed an idea for mini-meatloaf “cupcakes” iced with flavored mashed potatoes.” Keep in mind DM would not produce such a frozen, direct-t0-consumer product, but rather the flavorings that would enhance it.

Meatloaf Cupcakes

“We can make a flavor that tastes exactly like roast beef,” said Rosskam. “When you put a roast beef in the oven, a natural reaction happens — browning, caramelizing; and we can do this in science. We recreate taste by reacting a protein with a sugar — this is done with natural chemistry to manipulate and modify the flavor.  We can create a rare roast beef flavor, or a grill-charred beef flavor.  One advantage is such a flavor is meatless — a great addition to a veggie burger.”

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As we speak, the dames of Les Dames d’Escoffier International — the “organization of women leaders in food” — are packing in to the Sofitel for four days of eating and networking at their annual conference. The org features more than 1,400 members from 26 international chapters —  culinary luminaries, food writers, educators, chefs, PR specialists, historians, scientists, authors, retail specialists, caterers, tour planners, nutritionists, manufacturers, stylists and more. But for all their renown, I felt like there was something missing from their legend — a face, a voice. That was remedied quickly upon speaking with Suzanne J. Brown, a coffee and tea marketing specialist and president of LDEI.

Meal Ticket: When did you take the reins of the organization?

Suzanne J. Brown: A year ago. The term for the president is one year, so my term ends at the end of this conference.

MT: So then, you’re gonna be throwing things around, getting drunk, and the whole event will turn into a bacchanal, right?

SB: Yeah, that’s the way we’ll celebrate when I pass the gavel. But seriously, it’s the president’s responsibility to develop the conference and preside over it. She is the one responsible for it. And then the host, which is Philadelphia this year, has a local committee that will, along with our board of directors, actually execute and to find community speakers.

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Courtesy of Zahav

Not like, for real for real, but in word form. UWISHUNU’s blog reprises last week’s food-centric With Love Letters feature, this time getting all warm-and-Philly with Zahav chef/owner Michael Solomonov.  Last week it was Jose Garces revealing his fondness for Osteria; now chef Solomonov shouts it out, too.  Makes sense, since he worked for owner Marc Vetri at Vetri (check out the cover of Il Viaggio di Vetri).

Read the lovey-dovey Q&A on UWISHUNU and look for more With Love Letters features every Friday.

After the jump, chef Jose Garces touches base with Meal Ticket to talk about his upcoming appearance on The Next Iron Chef (debuting Oct. 4 on Food Network), food TV, his new restaurant project and more. Garces can’t say too much about the show just yet — the Iron Chef America victor is competing to join Bobby Flay, Masaharu Morimoto, Mario Batali, Cat Cora and Michael Symon as a titan of Kitchen Stadium — but check out what we got him to share.

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Chef Guillermo Tellez just checked in with some great info on Square 1682, his up-for-fall restaurant in the Hotel Palomar by Kimpton (121 s. 17th St.). A native of Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, Tellez was the longtime chef de cuisine at the renowned Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago, and more recently worked for Stephen Starr as both a menu consultant and the executive chef of Striped Bass. He’s planning a menu of globally influenced New American cuisine, with a serious focus on local, organic and sustainable sourcing.

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Yesterday, Meal Ticket asked you to come up with a cheeky moniker for the as-yet-unnamed pig that’ll serve as the mascot for chef Matthew Levin’s forthcoming barbecue restaurant Rubb. Today, we’re talking to the former Lacroix chef, who’s sharing the latest info on that spot, his anticipated NoLibs restaurant Masano — and a few clues for what we can expect from him in the future.

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Let it be known that it ain’t easy getting info out of Daniel Stern. But Meal Ticket really wanted to try for more details on the chef’s forthcoming Philly projects — R2L in Two Liberty Place and MidAtlantic at 3711 Market (here’s what we got so far) — so we caught up with him via e-mail.

After the jump, find out what he’s willing to divulge about his two new up-for-autumn restaurants, why he thinks Rae didn’t work out in the Cira Centre, how often you might spot him at his flagship restaurant Gayle (617 S. Third St.) and more.

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Photo l Michael Persico

Hot pop.

Moxie, that 19th-century soda superstar, stole the whole food sidebar this week, pushing out other sugary worthies stocked by  The Franklin Fountain.  Since Moxie’s noble lineage and herbaceous, medicinal flavors ate up my entire word count, scope the expanded, soda-centric Q&A below from Ryan Berley, who owns Franklin with brother Eric.

Meal Ticket: How do you find these obscure/old-fashioned sodas? 

Ryan Berley: We’ve traveled the country visiting old soda fountains & confectioneries.  While on the road, we’re always looking for and asking about regional sodas.  Glassbottlesoda.org has a list of the bottlers for most of them. We buy pallets direct from the bottlers and have them shipped to us.

MT: Do you drink them yourselves?

RB:Yes, we do.  I like to have a soda with my lunch.

MT: Have you considered looking for “original” recipe sodas, that are made with sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup?

RB:We always are looking for sodas that use sugar instead of corn syrup, as that was the original way. However, corn syrup has its place in modern cooking and is actually less “sweet” that sugar so it works for certain recipes.  Corn syrup is not inherently evil as many have made it out to be. We do sell a Mexican-made Coca-Cola which uses cane sugar, and our fountain Dr. Pepper syrup comes from Dublin, TX where they are the last bottling plant to use cane sugar in the original way.

MT: Which is each of your favorite sodas?

RB: Mine is Moxie.  Eric likes the “Hot” Blenheim’s Ginger Ale, and suggests it with a splash of raspberry syrup.

MT: Do you blend any of the sodas with cocktails?  I know you sell the Blenheim’s Ginger Ale to Sassafras for a Dark & Stormy.

RB: Only in our off-time.  I like the Fentimans Orange Jigger with a spash of Bluecoat Gin.  And yes, the Blenheims is great in a Dark & Stormy or with Kentucky bourbon over ice.

MT: Besides a Moxie float with teaberry ice cream, do you have any other ice-cream soda pairing recommendations?

RB: Green River (lemon-lime) with Lemon Sorbet.  Manhattan Special Espresso Soda with Chocolate Ice Cream. Try the Nu-Grape soda floated with Vanilla Ice Cream, also known as a Purple Cow, something our dad made for us as kids.