BITES : And Zagat Begat Zagat

It was only a matter of time before the Zagat people brought out out a non-restaurant guide: “Zagat Los Angeles Marketplace Survey,” edited by Merrill Shindler and Karen Berk (ZagatSurvey, $10.95).

It covers places to buy anything edible: meat, fish, produce, baked goods, ethnic foods, spices, ice cream, coffee, wine, health foods--you name it. It even reviews supermarket chains. For good measure, it lists cooking schools, cookware stores, party rentals and flower shops.

The listings are quite up to date; we thought we had caught two mistakes but had to eat our words. The top-ranked cooking school happens to be run by a partner of co-editor Berk, but the book comes clean about this.

Like the Zagat restaurant surveys, it’s based on evaluations by anybody who feels like sending one in, so you don’t necessarily know what kind of grain of salt to take the recommendations with. But for a hint, the editors quote snippets from the reports (“one whiff and you’re hooked,” “good shrimp if you can’t get to Chinatown,” “like buttah,” “scary neighborhood”).

Hemp-Style Cooking

Those wacky hemp people, who promote the non-marijuana uses of the hemp plant with such bright-eyed eagerness, have a magazine of their own, Hemp World: The International Hemp Journal. We’ve seen only the November-December issue, but it was pleasant to find among the ads for T-shirts and reggae festivals a section on hempseed cuisine, including a suggested hemp menu for the holidays: hemp-mushroom pa^te, hempseed falafel, hempburger topped with hemp “cheese” and a salad in hempseed oil dressing. (If only they could have allowed a little roast turkey in there.)

For Quick Synergy, It’s Coffee Beer

Two of Seattle’s best-known beverage companies, Redhook Ale and Starbucks Coffee, have joined forces to produce a coffee-flavored beer. Doubleblack Stout, an Imperial stout dosed with a blend of Central American coffees, has been sold in the Pacific Northwest since late last year; last week it was introduced to the San Francisco area.

The co-brewing of coffee and brewski was a cooperative effort. Says Redhook CEO Paul Shipman, “Our brewers and Starbucks coffee specialists experienced an amazing synergy.”

Kohl Puts His Mouth Where His Mouth Is

German Chancellor Helmut Kohl has written an introduction to a cookbook by his wife, Hannelore. His reason, he said, was to show the human side of the German people.

“Of course Germans are serious, diligent, reliable and punctual,” he told the press at the launching of “A Culinary Journey through Germany,” a collection of about 350 regional recipes (written in German and not available in this country). “But if this book can show that we have some things that we really enjoy, like food and drink, then that’s progress for many who look at Germany from outside and don’t suspect this.”

Kohl clearly enjoys food himself. Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that the German chancellor is thought to weigh about 250 pounds, but the exact figure is considered a state secret.