Food

The landmark Le Bec-Fin plans to close its doors for good after Saturday night service, and we asked readers to share their memories from meals there over the last four decades. Here are excerpts from some of the responses we got: Donald Strumpf, Bryn Mawr: It was 1970 and Le Bec-Fin had just opened. I was invited to lunch there by my childhood friend, Jay Guben. He had this idea that he should start a business that would teach people how to open small, fine restaurants. (That idea later blossomed into the Restaurant School.)

More than 4,000 Philadelphia-area residents swarmed Eakins Oval below the Philadelphia Museum of Art early Saturday, armed with cash pledges to raise a half-million dollars for neighborhood soup kitchens, food pantries and donors of the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger. For Angela Highsmith, a computer-programming student at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, the five-kilometer Walk+Run Against Hunger is an annual ritual measuring how far she's come since she began collecting cash for good causes back in 2006.

SWEET . . . Don't be afraid to indulge your craving for ice cream. So says Arun Kilara, a Pennsylvania State University food scientist. "Somehow people have the notion that ice cream and frozen desserts are major contributors of fat in our diets, and this is not the case," Kilara says. Although it does contain fat, Kilara says, ice cream also contains such nutritional pluses as protein, calcium and carbohydrates. . . . AND SAUER Sauerkraut on pizza? It's all the rage in Montana.

A subcommittee of the LEAP Academy University Charter School charged with looking into the Camden school's food-service contract has found no irregularities in the choice of a new vendor for the 2012-13 year, according to a board statement. While the LEAP board - through its attorney, Nicholas Repici - declined to release documents from the May 14 subcommittee meeting that discussed the solicitation of bids and ultimate award of a food-service contract for the 2012-13 school year, the board issued a statement saying in part: "Following an investigation, the board found no evidence that any school official or board member violated or compromised any laws, regulations, or code of ethics.

Joseph Unanue, 88, who helped turn Goya Foods into America's largest Hispanic-owned food company, died died Wednesday at his New Jersey home in Alpine, Bergen County. His family said he died of natural causes. Mr. Unanue began working at Goya in 1952 and served as president of the Secaucus-based company from 1976 to 2004, at a time when Goya grew from a regional company to a global brand with 15 manufacturing and distribution facilities worldwide. A World War II veteran, Mr. Unanue was awarded a Bronze Star for his service at the Battle of the Bulge, his family said.

Today on PhillyDailyNews.com : View a Storify compilation with videos from protests around the country of fast-food workers demanding better wages. SHADEYA IVY, working at McDonald's while pursuing a degree at Community College of Philadelphia, considers herself lucky - and not just because she recently got a 25-cent pay raise, to 25 cents above the minimum wage. Mostly it's because Ivy, 22 - single, childless and living with a family friend not far from the fast-food outlet in Frankford - isn't in the position of some co-workers trying to raise a family or pull off a long daily commute on a paycheck that, even with a hard-to-attain 40-hour workweek, will place them well short of the federal poverty line for a family of four.

The landmark Le Bec-Fin plans to close its doors for good after Saturday night service, and we asked readers to share their memories from meals there over the last four decades. Here are excerpts from some of the responses we got: Donald Strumpf, Bryn Mawr: It was 1970 and Le Bec-Fin had just opened. I was invited to lunch there by my childhood friend, Jay Guben. He had this idea that he should start a business that would teach people how to open small, fine restaurants. (That idea later blossomed into the Restaurant School.)

HAVE YOU ever been hungry and thought, "Man, I could really go for some beef and mush"? Well, then you're in luck. This weekend, Eastern State Penitentiary visitors will be able to sample historic prison delicacies during "Prison Food Weekend. " The event highlights meals that inmates ate during the prison's 142-year history and offers a chance to sample three from different eras: salted and broiled beef with "Indian Mush" (cornmeal and salt), from the 1830s; hamburger steak with brown gravy and Harvard beets, from the 1950s; and, finally, Nutraloaf, a bland, tasteless brick that's served in today's prisons as a more nutritious equivalent to bread and water for punishment.

June Sharkey Ferns, 72, of Gloucester Township, a former food service manager, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease Saturday, June 1, at Kennedy University Hospital in Washington Township. Born in Southwest Philadelphia, Mrs. Ferns attended John Bartram High School there. In the 1970s, Mrs. Ferns was the cafeteria manager at the headquarters of the Food Fair supermarket chain near 31st and Market Streets, her daughter, Theresa Leckerman, said Tuesday. "She worked her way up to management" from cafeteria cashier, Leckerman said.

EVEN as fast-food chains tout their healthy offerings, they're also coming up with fatty new treats to keep customers interested. Case in point: Dunkin' Donuts is adding a doughnut breakfast sandwich to its national menu starting tomorrow. Dunkin' Donuts says that the Glazed Donut Breakfast Sandwich clocks in at 360 calories, which is less than the 390 calories for the turkey sausage sandwich it recently introduced. The latest concoction may seem to conflict with fast-food chains' efforts to attract people who say they want fresher, wholesome food.

WASHINGTON - Already heavily criticized for targeting conservative groups, the Internal Revenue Service absorbed another blow Tuesday as new details emerged about senior officials enjoying luxury hotel rooms, free drinks and free food at a $4.1 million training conference. It was one of many expensive gatherings the agency held for employees over a three-year period. One top official stayed five nights in a room that regularly goes for $3,500 a night. Another official, Faris Fink, stayed four nights in a room that regularly goes for $1,499.

SMITHFIELD, Va. - The pig is many things in this riverside town in southeastern Virginia. Happy porcine images are everywhere: There's a pig in a chef's hat holding a beer outside a neighborhood grill. Down the road, a cartoon pig is serving pie and another is hawking children's clothes. A blue-and-pink pig statue is painted with a platter of ham and biscuits. In the birthplace of the Genuine Smithfield Ham, the pig is part plaything, part source of civic pride and, as of last week, a big, fat reminder of how global economic forces can encroach upon the smallest of communities.

FEDERAL AUTHORITIES yesterday filed suit against a food distributor in North Philadelphia's Fairhill section, saying the firm failed to improve improper conditions after four Food and Drug Administration inspections dating to 2011. The suit alleges that FDA inspectors who visited New Rich City Trading Corp., on American Street near Huntingdon, discovered "the widespread presence of animals such as rodents, birds, cats, and dogs, as well as the animals' feces and urine, throughout the facility, including on and around articles of food.