Chefs with Issues is a platform for chefs we love, fired up for causes about which they're passionate.

Chris Cosentino thinks you shouldn’t sous vide unless you can chop a darned onion.

Read more about Chef Cosentino at his site OffalGood.com, and catch him in the kitchen at Incanto or at his salumeria Boccalone.

Chefs with Issues is a platform for chefs we love, fired up for causes about which they're passionate.

Back in December, Chef Michael Symon sent out what he thought was an innocuous Tweet, reminding his over 20 thousand followers to eschew the center aisles and do their holiday food shopping at the perimeter of the grocery store. Little did he know that he'd be called an "elitist" - and much worse - for his trouble.

We invited the Iron Chef to sit down and expound on his wishes for clean, healthy food for all, the importance of cooking with family and why his grandfather just flat-out rocks.
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Editor's note: Read "Hope Survives: 30 Years of AIDS," an AC360° special report.

New Delhi-born Suvir Saran is the executive chef of Dévi restaurant in New York City, where his authentic Indian flavors earned one Michelin star in 2007 and 2008, as well as two stars from The New York Times and three stars from New York Magazine.

He is also the author of "Indian Home Cooking: A Fresh Introduction to Indian Food, with More Than 150 Recipes" and "American Masala: 125 New Classics From My Home Kitchen."

This is the second in a two-part interview with Saran on the subject of HIV/AIDS activism, the disease's impact on the food world and his personal life, his identity as an Indian and a gay man and the healing power of a good meal.

Read part one

How has being a world-respected chef influenced your ability to perform advocacy work?

I may be respected around the world, but my bank account does not reflect the wealth of one who has achieved much. I never worry about this fact. I treat money as transient, something we have to only be leaving us. To me amassed wealth is almost akin to some corruption that takes away from our soul and spirit.

And so, I take my place in the world of food as a means to also that little fame and my few minutes in the limelight as a means of sharing, educating, learning and leaving some legacy. The cookbooks I have written, my restaurant Devi, my affiliation and my presence at Cornell University, UC Berkeley and at Yale, as also other campuses and corporate dining facilities have given me a larger platform than I could have ever created for myself. Since I bring with me critically acclaimed books, with quotes from very celebrated authors and chefs of repute – people listen to me and invest some time in what I have to say.
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Editor's note: Read "Hope Survives: 30 Years of AIDS," an AC360° special report.

New Delhi-born Suvir Saran is the executive chef of Dévi restaurant in New York City, where his authentic Indian flavors earned one Michelin star in 2007 and 2008, as well as two stars from The New York Times and three stars from New York Magazine.

He is also the author of "Indian Home Cooking: A Fresh Introduction to Indian Food, with More Than 150 Recipes" and "American Masala: 125 New Classics From My Home Kitchen."

This is the first in a two-part interview with Saran on the subject of HIV/AIDS activism, the disease's impact on the food world and his personal life, his identity as an Indian and a gay man and the healing power of a good meal.

Read part two

How did food help you to connect to the community?

After coming to the US, I started studies as a student of the visual arts and also working in retail. Each night I would cook dinners for friends and their friends. Each night brought new faces and new personalities into my world. A large number of those who came into my world in the early 90's were people that had been affected with HIV/AIDS personally and through loved ones. Seeing people one day and then hearing they had gone the next day or week or month, was one of the most difficult things to come to grips with.
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Chefs with Issues is a platform for chefs we love, fired up for causes about which they're passionate. Today's contributor, Rob Weland, is the executive chef of Poste Moderne Brasserie in Washington, D.C. Chef Weland grows approximately 20 percent of what the restaurant uses in the restaurant's onsite courtyard garden, as well as composts about 40,000 pounds of food a year. He recently attended Terra Madre, the international conference devoted to sustainable food, as a Slow Food USA delegate

It’s the time of year for lists and wishes - everyone’s reading and writing about the trends of 2010, what to expect for 2011, and ultimately, what they want to see happen in the upcoming year.  While I love the idea of macarons outpacing cupcakes on the trend-o-meter, what I really want to see is a more valiant effort on the part of chefs, farmers, policymakers and citizens to make sustainably produced food a reality for ALL Americans.

When my U.S. Delegate application to attend Slow Food’s Terra Madre in Turin, Italy, was accepted, I was humbled and honored.  We had few delegates attending from the Washington D.C. area, and it consisted mainly of farmers, artisan producers and food activists.  I was the only chef, and wish that more from our region, the epicenter of policy creation in the country, could have attended.
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World-renowned chef, author and Emmy winning television personality Anthony Bourdain visits Los Angeles' Koreatown in the next episode of "Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown," airing Sunday, April 21, at 9 p.m. ET. Follow the show on Twitter and Facebook. This story ran in 2010, and we're sharing it again as Bourdain explores the role of food in Asian-American identity.

Susan Chun is a Producer with AC360°.

A negative review of a new restaurant can be devastating, especially when it comes from the New York Times. Restaurant critic Sam Sifton recently reviewed Eddie Huang's Taiwanese/Chinese restaurant Xiao Ye on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and while Sifton had a lot of praise for Huang's food, he also had a lot of criticism over the menu and the chef himself. He declined to give Xiao Ye a star.

But that didn’t really discourage Eddie Huang, who is a writer as well as a chef and restaurant owner. Huang responded publicly to the review by posting an e-mail from his mother Jessica on his blog "Fresh Off the Boat". Jessica called it a "review of your life". She wrote, "You have always tried to be different or funny for the sake of funny, to cover up your anger and discomforts about how we Asian are being perceived. It is not necessary to do that, your true talents will lead you above it all."

Her e-mail prompted a lot of comments from readers of Eddie's blog on both his food and his Asian American identity. CNN Eatocracy's editor Kat Kinsman recently sat down with Eddie and Jessica at Xiao Ye to talk about these issues and find out why Eddie was actually pleased with the review.

Read more:
Los Angeles food trucks are in it for the long haul
Bridging generations and cultures, one blistering bowl of bibimbap at a time
Sundays are for dim sum
8 things to know about L.A.'s Koreatown
The ever-changing flavor of L.A.'s Koreatown

Chef Michel Nischan's Wholesome Wave initiative has been deeply rooted in the farming community since its inception in 2007, nurturing relationships between communities in need, and growers in search of local customers.

Now, Nischan tells Eatocracy, Wholesome Wave is partnering with New Orleans-based non-profit organization MarketUmbrella to offer food buying support, via a new program called MarinersMatch, to Gulf fishing families affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The spill, which released over 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico from April 20th through its final sealing-off on September 19th, has had a tremendous economic impact upon the thousands of commercial fishermen, crabbers, oystermen and shrimpers who have long made their living from the Gulf waters. While areas remained unaffected, and BP has provided cleanup assistance jobs to some displaced workers, much of the community remains without a steady source of income.

MarinersMatch mimics Wholesome Wave's signature Double Value Coupon Program, which allows recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Electronic Benefit Transfer (SNAP EBT) or food stamps to receive double benefits when shopping at any of 160 participating farmers markets in 20 states around the nation. In this partnership with MarketUmbrella, a New Orleans-based organization devoted to growing the field of public markets for public good, the presentation of a valid fishing license and a photo ID will entitle the bearer to $40 worth of farmers market tokens for each purchase of food from local farmers along the New Orleans and Mississippi Gulf Coasts, while supplies last.
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"When the public kicks up, when the public wants more, when the public demands to know where stuff comes from and how things are made - you watch what happens," said chef and healthy food crusader Jamie Oliver.

"Because ultimately, business will always win. Money will always win - and they’re happy to sell you rubbish or they’re happy to sell you good stuff. Ultimately, the public has to decide."
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Chefs with Issues is a platform for chefs we love, fired up for causes about which they're passionate. Chef Jamie Oliver's TV series include "The Naked Chef," "Jamie's Kitchen," "Jamie's School Lunch Project," "Jamie's Great Italian Escape," "Jamie at Home" and the Emmy award-winning "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution." Chef Oliver has inspired people all over the world to cook and care about the food they serve their children.

Your kids deserve better. Because Congress failed to pass the Child Nutrition Bill last week, unhealthy school lunches will remain unhealthy.

While the bill wasn't perfect, it would have created stronger nutritional standards and provided more money for the school lunch program - adding six cents per lunch for the first time in 30 years. This was the first step on the long ladder to fresh food, and now it's a missed opportunity.

Among other things, this bill would have banned the junk food that is served in schools and competes with the fresh food your kids need. Eating this junk every day will take 10 years off their lives and cost you a fortune - adding thousands of dollars to the family health care tab.

CNN Opinion has the FULL STORY

Catch up on our school lunch coverage.

This is a LKL Web Exclusive by Chef Cat Cora, President and Founder of Chefs for Humanity

I was born in the 60's in Mississippi. I was also born gay. Yes, that's right BORN gay. Believe me, I tried to pray "it" away at church every Sunday like a good Christian girl from the South. I tried to date "it" away, dating good guys who didn't understand why I wouldn't, no couldn't, be with them completely. I wanted so badly to be straight like my friends. But I couldn't change it anymore than I could change having brown eyes. And I knew I would never fit into what kids thought was normal.

When I finally met my first love, I was 17. I fell in love and didn't have one friend who I could tell. There was no giggles and gossip and no gushing about how beautiful, smart and wonderful she was. There were definitely no "meet the parents" dinners. I endured the love and loneliness alone. The passion was liberating but the breakup was almost unbearable.

Get the full story at Larry King Live