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You, too, can cook for Google

By Times Staff
Published August 9, 2005

Google, the Internet search kingpin, is conducting a huge search of its own: It is scouring the world for a pair of executive chefs.

Former celebrity chef Charlie Ayers, who once cooked for the Grateful Dead, resigned in May. Google said it is looking internationally for two "quick and creative thinkers" who can develop menus ranging from vegan entrees to organic wood-fired pizzas. Google's most celebrated perk for its 4,100 employees is free gourmet meals, and it serves 2,300 meals a day and counting.

The requirements: five or more years as a sous chef and three years as an executive chef. Must be able to cook for vegetarians and carnivores alike, and use organic food whenever possible.

This is no job for the weak of stomach. In this kitchen version of The Apprentice , top candidates will prepare a meal for 30 employees at the Googleplex. Four finalists will compete in a cookoff, with the two best getting jobs.

"I'm not sure they're going to get a chef who's already a celebrity," said Marc Marelich, former executive chef at Cisco Systems. "But with Google being in the spotlight so much, I don't think it will be hard for whoever they pick to really step up and become a star chef."

M&Ms for the mega appetite

First there were regular-size M&Ms, then tinier ones. Now, the Masterfoods USA division of Mars is bringing out a supersize version, called Mega, with each milk chocolate or peanut piece about 55 percent larger than the equivalent standard-size M&Ms.

Mega M&Ms will mostly be sold in packages that are intended to be passed around, like 12.6-ounce and 19.6-ounce bags, rather than in single-serving bags.

And Mega M&Ms will be aimed at adults rather than children. Although the animated M&Ms characters appear on the packages, they are absent from an ad blitz that began last week. And the colors of Mega M&Ms are meant to appeal to more mature audiences; the regular hues like red, green, yellow and blue are being supplanted by shades like maroon, gold, beige and teal.

Other chatter

JAPANESE KIDS LOVE THEIR "BEER:' Kidsbeer, a nonalcoholic brew aimed at children, is catching on with young drinkers in Japan and is posting monthly shipments of 75,000 bottles, according to its maker Tomomasu Co. The beverage uses the Latin American plant guarana as an ingredient and is colored brown to make it look beer like. "Even kids cannot stand life unless they have a drink," reads its advertising catch phrase.

Information from Knight Ridder Newspapers, Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and Kyodo News International was used in this report.

[Last modified August 9, 2005, 01:22:12]