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Empire State Tomatoes Safe; How ‘Top Chef’ Judging Works

• No salmonella here! All tomatoes grown in New York were deemed safe to eat by the State Department of Agriculture yesterday. [NY1]

• When it comes to fancy digital menus, Adour’s is the only one that isn’t completely wretched. [TONY]

Top Chef judge Ted Allen says picking this season’s winner wasn’t easy and that he and the other judges used “numerical models” to evaluate the finalists. [Zagat Buzz]

• Nearly half of the workers at the nation’s largest kosher-meat plant were arrested in an immigration raid, meaning both a shortage of kosher meat this summer and higher prices. [NYDN]

• Lee Gross has left his executive chef post at Broadway East for unknown reasons. [NYS]

• Sunday’s post–James Beard Awards partying lasted until 4:30 a.m., so Cesare Casella took a bunch of chefs to his restaurant Maremma to feed them. [NYP]

• It’s always seemed like a bit of a hassle to us, but apparently there are only five steps to becoming a locavore. [NYP]

• David Chang is cooking a hog and Tom Colicchio will cook alongside Padma Lakshmi at this year’s Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. [Mouthing Off/Food & Wine]

• Ruth Reichl is a big fan of Gray’s Papaya hot dogs and claims she can eat a “ridiculous number” of them. [Fork in the Road/VV]

• If all children who are picky eaters could just be shipped off to China, they’d be eating (and enjoying) Sichuanese snails and Tibetan yak in no time. [NYT]

Empire State Tomatoes Safe; How ‘Top Chef’ Judging Works