Bacon is so popular as to seem inescapable these days, so it would be impossible to inject any more shock and awe into the topic. Right?
Meet the Bacon Explosion, which according to the New York Times has “swept the Internet.” And why wouldn’t it? The four-pound log of bacon and sausage basted with barbecue sauce flies in the face of our health-conscious times (not to mention common sense). It’s already been the topic of threedifferentthreads on Chowhound. And no doubt is giving the Bacon Mat Cheese Roll a run for its money.
At times I think we have the perfect job working in CHOW’s test kitchen. Our responsibilities are to cook food, eat food and occasionally write about food. But alas no job is perfect because, as anyone who has ever spent time in the kitchen knows, what’s left when the cooking and eating are over is a pile of dirty dishes. So many dishes that it sometimes feels as though we do nothing else.
So we decided to do a very unscientific study of how much time a week we spend standing over the sink. Some of us were more adamant than others about keeping a detailed record of our dish duty, but what we came up with was in general we each spent about six hours a week scrubbing away, making us possibly the highest paid dishwashers in San Francisco.
There are many cool products inspired by designboom’s “beyond silver” design competition, but none as noteworthy to my shark-phobic eye as this tea infuser. I don’t think it’s overstating anything to say that it’s the most frightening tea infuser imaginable.
You’ll need about a pound each of guacamole, queso dip, and salsa for the field, plus 58 Twinkies, a pound of bacon, and one bag each of Nacho Cheese Doritos, Cheetos, tortilla chips, and Chex Mix for the stands. Then there are incidentals like 15 Vienna sausages with cheddar cheese helmets for the players, and Slim Jims for the goal posts.
I don’t have anything clever to say about it, but I do admire that they stuck to their guns when it came to the “blimp.” At the end of the ingredients list it says: “20 Oz. Football-Shaped Summer Sausage (optional) (on second thought, no, this isn’t optional. Go buy one.)” This bad boy then gets suspended over the stadium on a string.
Oh, and they say the whole thing is 24,375 calories, costs $86.47, and has a “total deliciousness” score of “1 Billion trillion, dude. One billion trillion.”
Former CHOW Grinder writer Stephanie Lucianovic and I are Netflix friends (as well as friends in real life) and we share a soft spot for old British television series. When Stephanie told me about one set in London in the 1900s featuring elaborate cooking scenes with lots of period detail, I knew I’d be on the hook for at least a few episodes.
The Duchess of Duke Street stars Gemma Jones and may be a bit dry for some tastes, but if you’re someone who enjoys period pieces, detailed historical food imagery, and you don’t mind some cheesy camera moves (the series was filmed in the 1970s), you might consider adding it to your Netflix queue, too.
I hate to be a shill for people who send me free things, but man, I got some really good stuff in the mail the other day from McCormick, the spice company. It sent a little bag of toasted pumpkin seed, almond, cranberry snack mix seasoned with the Indian spice mix garam masala, which was seriously delicious. There is also a recipe on its website. One of my favorite CHOW recipes, an easy, vegan version of saag paneer, calls for garam masala, but I don’t reuse the spice mix for anything else. Now I will!
I’m not above taking a shortcut now and again in the name of health, but I’ve never understood the appeal of fortified waters. (And some of them may not actually be good for you after all.) So the idea of fortified water for your dog just seems ridiculous. (Please note that I am a proud and at times probably overattentive dog owner, but even I have my limits.)
Our Hero Enhanced Dog Water is “triple filtered” and “fortified with nutrients to meet the needs of dogs at all stages of their lives”; the website even talks about “the bond between man and dog [being] strengthened by, of all things, water.” All of which just gets my hackles up, especially the trite name. I mean do we really need another prepackaged, supposedly health-conscious bit of mumbo jumbo to spend our money on? If you wanna do right by your pup, how about trying homemade dog food instead?
Though I must admit, the further I read, the weaker my objections grew. For instance my dog’s sensitive stomach has foiled my attempts to add glucosamine to her diet, which she could really use for her slightly tweaked hips. But maybe Our Hero’s Hip & Joint formula might work!
It includes the kind of horror stories you’d expect, like a woman choking on a diamond ring that was cooked in her crème brûlée, but it also has some surprising info, such as February 13 being one of the busiest nights of the year at the Four Seasons because, “Men bring their mistresses then, so they can bring their wives on Valentine’s Day.”
Feiler also reveals good news for groups of Valentine’s Day haters: “The easiest reservation to get at an overbooked restaurant is a six-top on February 14, because the only people who dine out that night are couples.”
“Blowfish testicles prepared by an unauthorized chef sickened seven diners in northern Japan and three remained hospitalized Tuesday after eating the poisonous delicacy.”
The chef-owner of the restaurant that served the sassy balls had no license to serve blowfish; that’s a serious infraction when you consider that improperly prepared fugu killed three people in Japan in 2007 and sickened 44 others.
As to why the grilled, potentially deadly blowfish testicles were something that a group of otherwise rational people might want to pay good money to eat, the article was mum.
The Editor’s Corner over at Yahoo! News UK has reprinted a complaint letter written by a disgruntled Virgin Atlantic passenger documenting his self-described “culinary journey of hell” aboard the airline. And the letter was apparently so effective that Sir Richard Branson personally called the author, Oliver Beale, regarding the feedback.
But how could he not after reading passages like this:
“Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat there with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.
“Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil … Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.”
