Obama to award Oprah, Bill Clinton Presidential Medals of Freedom

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-to-award-oprah--bill-clinton-presidential-medal-of-freedom-214439983.html

President Barack Obama announced on Thursday the latest recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor presented to "individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States," "world peace" or to "cultural or other significant public or private endeavors." Among them, two of the president's biggest political supporters: Oprah Winfrey and former President Bill Clinton. According to the White House release, Winfrey is being honored as "one of the world’s most successful broadcast journalists" and for "philanthropic causes and expanding opportunities for young women."

Winfrey and Clinton aren't the only Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients with historical ties to Obama. The late Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye represented Obama's home state of Hawaii on Capitol Hill. Ernie Banks, the Hall of Fame slugger, played his entire career for the Chicago Cubs — the crosstown rival of the White Sox, the president's preferred hometown team. And former Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican who served with Obama on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Obama was a junior senator from Illinois, will be honored for his "bipartisan leadership and decades-long commitment to reducing the threat of nuclear weapons."

“The Presidential Medal of Freedom goes to men and women who have dedicated their own lives to enriching ours," Obama said in a statement announcing this year's list.
I CANNOT BELIEVE HE OPENLY REVEALED THAT!--DEMETER

Also among the 16 recipients named on Thursday were writer and women's rights activist Gloria Steinem; the late Sally Ride, the first American female astronaut to travel to space; jazz trumpeter, pianist and composer Arturo Sandoval; and legendary college basketball coach Dean Smith. Two advisers to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — Cordy Tindell "C.T." Vivian and the late Bayard Rustin — were named for their efforts during the civil rights movement.

The awards will be presented at the White House later this year. More than 500 people have received the Presidential Medal of Freedom since President John F. Kennedy established it in 1963.

Haute cuisine (French: literally "high cooking", pronounced: ot kɥi.zin) or Grande cuisine refers to the cuisine of "high level" establishments, gourmet restaurants and luxury hotels in France. Haute cuisine is characterized by meticulous preparation and careful presentation of food, at a high price level, accompanied by rare wines.

Haute cuisine was characterised by French cuisine in elaborate preparations and presentations served in small and numerous courses that were produced by large and hierarchical staffs at the grand restaurants and hotels of Europe....

HISTORY

The 17th century chef and writer La Varenne marked a change from cookery known in the Middle Ages, to somewhat lighter dishes, and more modest presentations. In the following century, Antonin Carême, born in 1784, also published works on cooking, and although many of his preparations today seem extravagant, he simplified and codified an earlier and even more complex cuisine.

Georges Auguste Escoffier is a central figure in the modernisation of haute cuisine as of about 1900, which became known as cuisine classique. These were simplifications and refinements of the early work of Carême, Jules Gouffé and Urbain François Dubois. It was practised in the grand restaurants and hotels of Europe and elsewhere for much of the 20th century. The major developments were to replace service à la française (serving all dishes at once) with service à la russe (serving meals in courses) and to develop a system of cookery, based on Escoffier's Le Guide Culinaire, which formalized the preparation of sauces and dishes. In its time, it was considered the pinnacle of haute cuisine, and was a style distinct from cuisine bourgeoise (cuisine for families with cooks), the working-class cuisine of bistros and homes, and cuisines of the French provinces.

The 1960s were marked by the appearance of nouvelle cuisine, as chefs rebelled from Escoffier's "orthodoxy" and complexity. Although the term nouvelle cuisine had been used in the past, the modern usage can be attributed to authors André Gayot, Henri Gault, and Christian Millau, who used nouvelle cuisine to describe the cooking of Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapel, Jean and Pierre Troisgros, Michel Guérard, Roger Vergé and Raymond Oliver, many of whom were once students of Fernand Point.

In general, nouvelle cuisine puts an emphasis on natural flavours, so the freshest possible ingredients are used, preparation is simplified, heavy sauces are less common, as are strong marinades for meat, and cooking times are often reduced. While menus were increasingly short, dishes used more inventive pairings and relied on inspiration from regional dishes. Within 20 years, however, chefs began returning to the earlier style of haute cuisine, although many of the new techniques remained...wiki