Until now, cooking instructor Dan Clapson’s usual audience has been about 15 University of Calgary students. But now that Kraft Canada’s legal department has asked Mr. Clapson to drop the “KD” from the title of his “Kick the KD” program, he’s set to attract a lot more attention as the latest David facing a corporate Goliath.
On his blog Wednesday, Mr. Clapson says he didn’t know that “KD” was copyrighted. That may be true, but the blog he maintains for the course uses colours and font styles that are clearly riffs on the brand.
More believable is Mr. Clapson’s claim, made in a cheeky press release, issued Tuesday, that he used the term KD not to diss the famous macaroni and cheese but as a symbol of uni students’ penchant for boxed and packaged foods over home-cooked fare.
Indeed, a quick tour of his online recipes indicates that while he is pushing students in his 10-week class to cook from scratch, the man is no nutritional saint.
While his version of mac and cheese does not come from a box, it is a gut-buster. It includes bacon, homogenized milk, four kinds of cheese and one cup of beer (Steam Whistle – a sponsor – to be exact). He calls it “Hangover Mac ’n Cheese.”
Other recipes on his site include Beer Nut Cake and Steam Whistle Banana Muffins. Yes, really.
To be fair, Mr. Clapson’s class does dabble in the odd healthy, vegan meal, too. A cookbook is slated to come out later this year. We await the non-KD title.
Copyright issues aside, is Mr. Clapson onto something? Just how much KD do students eat? And fess up, readers, are you still hooked on the orange stuff?
