By Craig LaBan
Inquirer Restaurant Critic

Olivier Desaintmartin was but a wide-eyed country pup from Picardy when he saw his first gleaming “presse” at La Tour d’Argent in Paris. As a 16-year-old cooking-school grunt doing his weekend turn as a student-server in that luxurious bastion of old-school French gastronomy, it’s easy to see how this diabolical instrument of culinary pleasure would have caught his eye.
Posed tableside, with a silver-plated wheel screwing down like a vise into a canister and crushing everything inside to a bloody pulp, it looks more like a medieval …

Unique experiences await your favorite foodie at Action Against Hunger’s joint online auction with the Financial Times and Maitres Cuisiniers de France
Global humanitarian organization ACTION AGAINST HUNGER | ACF INTERNATIONAL is pleased to announce a joint initiative with the Financial Times: the FT Charity Auction, featuring one-of-a-kind experiences for food and wine aficionados. Featured among them is a unique fine dining Experience: 4 Maîtres Cuisiniers de France come to your home and prepare a meal for 10 guests. Invite us into your kitchen!

Bids begin November 30th and end December 21st; …