Ramsay Wants More Fines
Restaurants should be fined for serving food out of season. So sayeth the angry school principal of the food world, Gordon Ramsay. Last week, Ramsay told the BBC, “There should be stringent laws, licensing laws, to make sure produce is only used in season.” Break the rules? You get a fine.
But does Ramsay practice what he preaches? The Word of Mouth blog at the UK Guardian encouraged readers to take a look at Ramsay’s restaurant menus to see if they live up to his stringent standards. Readers found desserts made with pineapple, nonlocal lettuce, and a suspect ravioli containing Italian winter squash.
The meat on Ramsay’s menus, however, was a far bigger problem: Maze Grill features steaks flown in from the United States and Japan. Some commenters also pointed out that if Ramsay really wanted to go green, he could cut back on his own copious airline flights.
Too busy to respond, the chef had his company release a statement that said, “Gordon Ramsay Holdings recognises the importance of sourcing ingredients which are both local and within season. Nevertheless, the overriding concern for all our chefs is they use the highest quality produce, and therefore in some cases, they source ingredients from further afield.”
Today’s special: crow, with a helping of hypocrisy. Goes well with bile of blogger.
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| today at 9:00am
| 0 comments
Tagged with: gordon ramsay, maze grill, seasonal, bbc, produce, guardian
Rock 'n' Roll Lunch
What’s the best way to show your allegiance to your favorite band? Tattoo the members’ faces on your nether regions? Record a tribute album? Make a zine? No, no, and no.
The most delicious way to give your band some love is with a bento lunch decorated as an album cover. Unfortunately it’s mostly a Japanese-language phenomenon.
But, some things just transcend language:
Posted by
| yesterday at 5:22pm
| 1 comment
Tagged with: bento, jacket lunch box, velvet underground, public enemy, bento box, album covers, pink tentacle
For Londoners Who Can't Hold Their Liquor
One of my chuckles this week was reading the London Telegraph’s food blog (yes, it’s called the Slaughtered Lamb, got a problem with it?), where writer Sally Peck debates the recent decision by London mayor Boris Johnson to ban alcohol consumption on all city public transportation.
Yes, my American friends, the British are allowed to drink in public, on the Underground even. Or at least they were.
Peck is for the decision. “While our continental cousins seem to be able to handle drinking in public,” she writes, “we’re just not up for the job. Where they have a civilised picnic in a park, or sip (note SIP) a beer on a hot day, we insist on guzzling and then sprawling most unattractively on the pavement. It’s not safe, it’s not fun, and it frightens the tourists.”
The long string of comments makes for some amusing reading as well. My favorite (in addition to the stunned American who wrote: “You can drink alcohol on the tube?!!!”) was this one: “First smoking and now this. They’ll be trying to ban sex on the underground next.”
Ah, London, cheers to you. Just not on the Tube, apparently.
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| yesterday at 4:48pm
| 1 comment
Tagged with: no drinking on the tube, boris johnson, sally peck, london telegraph, the slaughtered lamb, alcohol in public
The Poor of Mauritania
The Washington Post has done excellent on-above-and-below-the-ground reporting all this week in its series on the global food crisis. To my mind, the most remarkable, and inarguably the most affecting, story was Anthony Faiola’s on Mauritania, which is caught in a trap it didn’t even know was being set. (That said, if you sell off your coastal fishing rights to massive foreign fleets, as cash-starved Mauritania did, you could predict a few problems. But that’s an aside.)
According to the UN World Food Program, 30 nations are experiencing “food insecurity,” and 22 of them are in Africa. Mauritania, especially, is in a very bad position: It produces little of its own food, leaving it exposed to a devastating escalation in commodities prices. The country’s now making agricultural production a major priority, understandably, but for the poor there at the moment, there are simply no options. Faiola profiles a day laborer and goatherd whose family lives in a shantytown: He’s slowly trading away “the family’s morning milk for dinner meat.” With nearly no goats left, and no milk for his children, he’s helpless. Still, he says he’d rather stay in the city than go back to his village. His logic is brutal:
There, you can die of hunger without realizing it. You don’t even see food. Here at least you can see it, even though you can’t get it. It kind of gives you hope. You can see it in a car passing by. That makes me happy.
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| yesterday at 3:40pm
| 1 comment
Tagged with: mauritania, food prices, food crisis, agriculture, commodities, washington post
Copia Change
We’ve already noted that Copia, the Napa-based center for food, wine, and the arts, has been evaluating its program: A year and a half ago it laid off a third of its staff and sold some land to alleviate debt. Now the center is rolling out more changes, or—as the San Francisco Chronicle reports—a “major transformation.”
The Chronicle’s Inside Scoop brings word of a new bistro, which will serve during the day, and a wine tasting room and bar. The wine bar is perhaps the most interesting news. With a selection of “more than 500 wines by the glass,” it will have the largest by-the-glass list on the West Coast. “The space will also include an area for smaller wineries to pour their wines, and will also allow presentations by Copia’s wine education faculty.” Julia’s Kitchen—the on-site restaurant named after Julia Child—will be getting a face-lift as well.
Long-term prospects for the center look good. The newly opened Oxbow Public Market is bringing more foot traffic to the neighborhood, and this month the Napa farmers’ market reopens for the summer season. The scent of Fatted Calf charcuterie from the new store at Oxbow is enough to lure avid foodies up from the city. A mind-boggling array of wines and artisanal salumi is a hard combination to beat.
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| yesterday at 2:12pm
| 1 comment
Tagged with: copia, julia's kitchen, oxbow public market, fatted calf charcuterie, san francisco chronicle
Before There Were Muppets, There Was Wilkins Coffee
Last Friday was the 53rd birthday of the Muppets, an underacknowledged event of cosmic importance. In honor of the occasion (and on the general theme of food), we present a series of extremely brief, often violent, universally amusing ads that Jim Henson did (as a twentysomething) for a DC-based brand called Wilkins Coffee.
The character Wilkins loves the coffee; Wontkins doesn’t. The latter pays the price for his stubborn behavior.
This comes to us via the RiffTrax Blog, which seems to have taken on humorous food items as a regular beat. It’s also recently blogged a space photo of Roscoe’s House of Chicken N Waffles, Collon cookies, and chocolate-covered bacon.
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| yesterday at 12:51pm
| 0 comments
Tagged with: muppets, ads, rifftrax, jim henson, roscoe's house of chicken and waffles, wilkins coffee, roscoe's house of chicken n waffles
Ice Cream 2.0
Thanks to the ad freaks at AdFreak.com, we’ve recently learned that the venerable Carvel Ice Cream mascot Fudgie the Whale has gotten all viral on us. According to Brandweek, Fudgie not only has his own MySpace and Facebook pages, but if you text the name “Fudgie” to number 78247 on your mobile phone, you’ll get a coupon for a free Arctic Blender (an ice cream concoction not unlike DQ’s Blizzard) or a blended coffee (a coffee concoction not unlike Starbucks’s Frappuccino).
I wonder when his friend Cookie Puss will hit the social networking scene (note: Link is not safe for work).
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| yesterday at 10:28am
| 0 comments
Tagged with: fudgie the whale, carvel, ice cream, arctic blender, ad freak, brandweek, adfreak
Sham Pain
A story about a café in New Zealand that accidentally served a woman dishwashing liquid instead of mulled wine has been making the rounds on “news of the weird” lists, and it’s a doozy.
Customer Sarah Ferguson had ordered a glass of ‘Mountain Thunder’ mulled wine from Queenstown’s Old Man Rock Cafe, owned by Chico’s Restaurant Ltd.
She spat out the liquid when she experienced a burning sensation on her lips and mouth.Cafe worker Bethany Sim offered to test the drink and suffered a similar reaction.
Turns out the dishwashing liquid was being stored in a container that used to hold the mulled wine—and still had the wine label on it. Recycling: good. Keeping the labels on: bad.
Both women were hospitalized, and Sim suffered burns and possible scarring of her throat.
Slashfood asked readers to share similar unfortunate mix-ups. Barbara writes:
I once was eating a meal that had ‘sauce’ and don’t ask me how, but somehow some liquid baby soap–lavender scented–spilled and as I was engrossed in reading something accidentally ‘licked’ the soap. I can honestly say it was the ∗worst∗ thing ever!
Jessica Gensmer offers a classic, writing, “A couple of weeks ago, when i had to wake up much earlier for work than normal, i was brushing my teeth and it tasted funny. i had used my husband’s hair styling glue as toothpaste!”
Unclejerry, however, has my favorite: “My mom once brewed some tea in a kettle that she normally ‘burned’ [potpourri] in. The tea smelt good but tasted awful.”
Ewww.
Posted by
| yesterday at 7:51am
| 2 comments
Tagged with: mulled wine, dishwashing liquid, slashfood, mountain thunder, potpourri, food mix-ups, associated press
Baking for Maniacs Pure
At long last, black metal–inspired cupcakes emerge from the shadowed valleys below. The Black Oven, a new baking blog that offers “immaculate confections succumbed to northern darkness,” introduces a recipe for chocolate cupcakes filled with a “cream cheese sea of woe”:
In a perfect world everything would be as stark and void of color as these cupcakes. They are baneful in their absolute disdain for your tastelessness, and are true misanthropes as far as baked goods go.
All the recipes look totally decadent and delicious—from the Frostbitten Molasses Cookies Entombed with Ginger to the Where the Chocolate Beats Incessant brownies—but you have to know a little bit about black metal to truly appreciate all the jokes.
The Metal Crypt explains, “[W]hen we say Black Metal we mean a specific sound: fast tremolo riffing, blasting drums, and satanic lyrics delivered in a high-pitched shriek.” A British band called Venom coined the term for this genre with its 1982 release Black Metal. (In case you were wondering, the title of this post references the lyrics of that record’s title track.) However, Norway—not the UK—was the epicenter of the early black metal movement, which is why Black Oven blogger Megan (a 22-year-old Aquarius with “an unhealthy relationship with black metal”) is going off about Odin (the Norse god of war and death) in her introduction to a recipe for Wintermoon Lemon Curd Cookies.
Now we just need Metalhead Meg to post a recipe for Deathcrush petits fours, and all our Mother’s Day menus will be complete.
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| last friday at 4:23pm
| 1 comment
Tagged with: black metal, baking, cupcakes, molasses cookies, brownies, metal crypt, venom, odin, lemon curd, the black oven
Who'd Ya Rather: Chef or Rock Star?
“Jane,” a 25-year-old food-media professional, has been dating various chefs for the last two and a half years. She explains the allure of being a chef groupie to Time Out New York:
There’s sex appeal that working with one’s hands brings. There also seems to be a common thread of cute hair and good tattoos. And the boys look very hot in whites. The chef coat is a flattering piece of clothing.
Um, that’s all well and good, but it still doesn’t explain why People magazine dubbed Tom Colicchio one of 2007’s Sexiest Men Alive. (Sorry, but I just don’t see it.)
Granted, there are plenty of attractive chefs out there, and several of them—like Degustation’s Wesley Genovart and Allen & Delancey’s Neil Ferguson—were suited up for Esquire’s March 2008 feature on hot New York food industry dudes. The Time Out story also name-checks Tailor’s Sam Mason, David Chang, Del Posto’s Mark Ladner, and Harold Dieterle, the Top Chef winner who opened Perilla last year.
Are there any crush-worthy chefs from other cities that the article neglected to mention? And, more importantly, is it fair to call chefs “crush-worthy” at all? Personally, I can kinda relate to rock star groupies, as I’ve always been a sucker for a sweet, scatterbrained guitarist (and no, I’m not talking about Bret Michaels here), but in order to run a restaurant kitchen, one has to be a bit of a ball-buster, and possibly a little anal and crazy, right? Is that what the ladies are into these days?
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| last friday at 2:25pm
| 0 comments
Tagged with: time out new york, chef groupies, tom colicchio, sexiest men alive, degustation, wesley genovart, allen and delancey, neil ferguson, esquire, tailor, sam mason, david chang, del posto, mark ladner, harold dieterle, top chef, perilla, bret michaels, people magazine, groupies
Alice's Restaurant Now Open
Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” is, famously, not really about a restaurant. It’s a pro-counterculture, anti–Vietnam War song that tells the story of Guthrie’s draft induction, with the famous line, “[Y]ou want to know if I’m moral enough to join the Army, burn women, kids, houses, and villages after bein’ a litterbug?”
Today, when the word counterculture more often brings to mind coffee shops, maybe no one will be surprised that Guthrie has helped open an Alice’s Restaurant at Hard Rock Park, a theme park from the folks who brought you the Hard Rock Café. The park opens May 9 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
The bricks-and-mortar Alice’s Restaurant will seat more than 100 people, and feature a comfort-food menu that includes fried green tomatoes, crab cake poppers, and New England clam chowder. The menu is a collaboration between Guthrie and the restaurant’s chef, Tim Head (insert head shop joke here). And, yes, it will be open for Thanksgiving Day (which plays a big part in the song).
“Most theme park food isn’t really cuisine, but they’ve created a nice space here,” Guthrie tells the Georgetown Times. He also says, “And it’s nice to see real foods—you know, stuff that comes from a critter.”
One journalist, Meridith Ford at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, musters up a little sellout outrage, writing, “My how times have changed.” It does seem like a long, improbable path from the Chicago Seven trial to Hard Rock Park, but then, Jerry Rubin became a stockbroker.
All I know is, the waitstaff is sure to get sick of people joking about getting anything they want. I hope there’s a “no substitutions” clause on the menu.
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| last friday at 12:17pm
| 1 comment
Tagged with: arlo guthrie, alice's restaurant, hard rock, crab cake poppers, fried green tomatoes, hard rock cafe, hard rock park
Green Grows the City-O
In this time of news stories about rising food prices and global food shortages, there’s almost nothing so inspiring than reading about people who are taking vacant lots strewn with garbage and turning them into urban gardens, coaxing food from land that has been neglected. And when they then take that produce and feed their family and neighbors—folks who might not have access to fresh veggies in their neighborhoods—it’s all the better. The New York Times has an article about urban farming that’s a bright spot amidst the doom and gloom of food news these days.
From New York to Oakland, Milwaukee, and Detroit, the greens are growing, in areas that “have low-income residents, high rates of obesity and diabetes, limited sources of fresh produce and available, undeveloped land.” Kids are even getting into the act: One farm in Brooklyn supplied arugula, Asian greens, and heirloom tomatoes to local restaurants, farmers’ markets, and a CSA.
Beyond the food itself, there’s also an education to be had. As one urban farmer says, “[T]he next time we ask a kid where a tomato comes from, he won’t have to say a supermarket. He can say, Here’s an urban farm, and here is where I’m growing that tomato that you’re talking about. How great is that?”
Pretty great.
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| last friday at 10:07am
| 1 comment
Tagged with: urban farming, new york times, inner city farming, added value community farm
Vintage Hollywood
It seems once anyone has made a bit of money, he next wants to make wine. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, those with the means to chase their wine dreams are growing grapes on the steep hills of Malibu, an unlikely location. As the article points out, “Acreage is scarce, the climate’s tricky and water is an issue. So — why not make wine?”
Wealthy lawyers, restaurateurs, and movie stars (Emilio Estevez, namely) are putting in small plots of grapes alongside their Malibu digs, making their own wine for friends and family.
Though no one spends millions on exclusive Malibu real estate to make a living as a vintner, planting wine grapes where the side lawn used to be is the new must-have home improvement. Total vineyard acreage in the Malibu region … is still small, with perhaps 150 acres planted to vines. In the last five years, the number of vineyards in the region has more than quadrupled.
This isn’t a practical decision, by any means.
“Malibu is the most challenging place I’ve ever worked,” says a vineyard consultant who advises several Malibu growers, who he says have put way more into their vines than they’ll ever get out. “It costs two to three times as much to grow grapes in Malibu as it does anywhere along California’s Central Coast,” he notes.
There may be added bonuses, however. Los Angeles attorney Michael Barnes’s Syrah vineyard “acted as a fire break for his canyon home during last fall’s wildfires.”
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| last friday at 8:22am
| 0 comments
Tagged with: growing grapes, wine grapes, michael barnes, emilio estevez, la times, malibu, vineyards
Binge Across America
Many touring rock bands can’t afford to consume too many calories on the road. More often than not, a successful run through America’s indie circuit is fueled by a meager diet of Taco Bell bean burritos, with an occasional box of Ho Hos as a special treat. But Herb Wiley, a slim guitarist who plays with Jersey City’s Black Hollies, definitely isn’t dying of starvation.
The band’s tour food blog, Diary of a Foodman: The Amazing Consumption of Herbert Joseph Wiley V, lists everything Wiley eats each day on the road, and seriously, the dude can eat. A typical day looks something like this:
Start Time: 6AM EST
1 Naked Green Machine Superfood Drink
2 Eggs Over Medium
1 Morning Star Vegetarian Sausage Patty w/ side of Potatoes, Peppers, and Onions
1.5 Cups of Black Coffee
1 Quorn Vegetarian Turkey Sandwich on Two Slices of Whole Grain Bread w/ Mayonnaise
3 Baby Gherkin Pickles
1 Raw Revolution Power Bar
1 Banana
2 Spirulina Pills
1 Serving of Dried Apricots
1 Bag of Ukon gold Potato Chips
1 Slice of Pizza
1 Cup of Chicken Vegetable Soup in a Beef Broth
1 Vegetarian Burger w/ side of French Fries
2 Pints of Blue Moon Ale
End Time: 10:30PM EST
If you are what you eat, then what is Herb Wiley? He seems like a vegetarian, until he slurps down some chicken soup in beef broth—between a slice of pizza and a veggie burger. Maybe he’s a health nut, but who washes down spirulina pills and dried apricots with a bag of potato chips? His food diary, which is actually written by Black Hollies bandmate Jon Gonnelli (whose nom de plume is Palestinian Bluetooth), doesn’t answer these questions.
However, it does illustrate some of Wiley’s on-the-road culinary adventures, like learning to make a fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich from a chef/musician in Cleveland. The blog also documents some of Wiley’s interesting insights along the way. Here’s one quote that most food-lovers can relate to: “Life is a bowl of cherries with whipped cream, chocolate ice cream, a side of toast, two eggs over easy, and a pocket full of gas.”
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| last thursday at 4:44pm
| 0 comments
Tagged with: bands, musicians, tour food, herb wiley, black hollies, diary of a foodman, jon gonnelli
What's Your Craving?
Hungry to kill a few minutes at the office? The Honda Crave Reader may satisfy your appetite. It’s a marketing website, meant to show how the Honda CR-V can meet your needs, but the game it plays has nothing to do with cars. The site seems to use the same technology as the clever 20q electronic game to guess what you’re craving in 20 questions. Based on the vague queries—such as “Does it roll?” and “Is it brown?”—I was pretty shocked when it quickly guessed my cravings for a milkshake and a pie (and displayed images of the craved items in the backseat of a digitally animated CR-V).
Unfortunately, you can’t get too specific with your cravings: The closest it came to my pad thai craving was “Chinese Food,” and it took a few extra tries to name “Squash” when I was really thinking of butternut squash. But in the Q&A process, I learned that if you crave an eggplant, it’ll magically appear in the glove compartment—which is almost as fun as a walk to the greenmarket.
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| last thursday at 3:52pm
| 0 comments
Tagged with: honda crave reader, honda, cr-v, fun, games, cravings, crave reader
Google Food for You Too
We’ve all heard about it, the vaunted Google grub: Free food for all employees at a variety of restaurants and cafés on campus. It may just be the best employee perk ever.
Now you too can experience Google food, via the recipes in a new cookbook by Charlie Ayers, Google executive chef until 2005. It’s all in his Food 2.0. Ayers shares the secrets behind the dishes he crafted to fuel the Google machine, at the request of company founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle:
‘They wanted power foods that would leave their minions stimulated and energetic after lunch, not slumped over their keyboards,’ Ayers writes. ‘And they wanted it done with the highest quality organic, sustainable-sourced ingredients…’
Apparently the key to world technological domination is Quorn cabbage sushi and watermelon saté with honey-vinegar dipping sauce.
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| last thursday at 2:28pm
| 0 comments
Tagged with: google food, charlie ayers, larry page, sergey brin, san francisco chronicle
The Bacon Key Is Stuck
Apparently, this receipt for a Whopper with bacon times 15 is for reals. The photos seem to prove it: They show a burger stuffed with an insane proportion of bacon (albeit sadly thin Burger King bacon). Featured on the blog About:Blank (warning: This site may contain ads that are Not Safe for Work or Toddlers), the Whopper with bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, and more bacon was a special request by Burger King customer KautionTape, who says, “[T]hey hit the Bacon key on the register like a hundred times, only to hear the guy in the back go ‘WHAT THE HELL??!
’”
When will the bacon madness end? Only God can tell us.
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| last thursday at 12:35pm
| 1 comment
Tagged with: whopper, bacon, burger king, god hates bacon, about:blank
Make Mine a Migas
Have you ever made the mistake of perusing food blogs too early in the morning, before you’ve had your breakfast? Dangerous stuff: Suddenly you’re drooling on your keyboard and telling a growling stomach to pipe down. If you want to avoid this situation you had better not take a look at the most recent post on Homesick Texan. I’m not sure your empty tummy could withstand the temptation of “Migas in the Morning.”
For those uninitiated in the ways of migas:
This dish of eggs scrambled with fried corn tortilla strips, salsa and cheese is ubiquitous in some of the Texas capital city’s most popular breakfast spots … I have fond memories of spending lazy mornings in this bustling Congress Avenue diner, scooping spoonfuls of the crunchy, cheesy eggs and bacon-laced refried beans into fluffy flour tortillas. There’s no better way to start the day.
Take my advice, read this post only on a full stomach—with the intent of writing down the list of ingredients for your own initiation into the morning ritual that is migas. You have been warned. Any keyboard drooling or tummy growling will be your own fault.
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| last thursday at 10:10am
| 0 comments
Tagged with: homesick texan, migas, tex-mex, breakfast
Take Back the Loaf
So global wheat prices are up by—well, a stupefying amount. What’s a stupefying amount, you ask, because you’re a nitpicking, no-adjectives-for-me Grinder reader. How about, say, 287 percent since the beginning of 2006, according to the Toronto Star. That’s made wheat farmers very happy; bakers—yeah, not so much.
Still, I wasn’t expecting this, gleaned from that same Star story:
The U.S. baking industry’s trade association, representing firms such as Kellogg Co., Sara Lee Corp. and Interstate Bakeries Corp., plans a march on Washington by the firms’ employees later this month to press for a reduction in U.S. wheat exports.
No word on whether Sara Lee herself will participate in the march. (She’s chained to the stove, so marching isn’t easy for her.) Looking at the American Bakers Association’s website, it isn’t clear if the Star was erroneously referring to a March lobbying effort or to an unspecified future event. More details as we learn them: We’re on the Little-Debbie-goes-to-Washington beat. (Also, for the economically curious, Porfolio’s instant analysis is that even an export cap wouldn’t help bakers. Prices would drop along with demand, so farmers would switch acreage to another crop.)
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| last thursday at 8:04am
| 1 comment
Tagged with: wheat prices, bread, food prices, food crisis, toronto star, bakeries, green, sara lee, portfolio
The Nude Deal
Spring, when the hearts of young and old, men and women, lightly turn to … beer! With hotter weather coming, some people are combining their two favorite passions: nude beaches and beer.
Wisconsin brewer Stevens Point brewed up a summer wheat beer it calls Point Nude Beach, and the American Association for Nude Recreation has made it the official beer of its annual convention (held this year August 11-17 at Turtle Lake Resort in Union City, Michigan, for those interested).
But Stevens Point should mind: Quirky labels and caps have a habit of getting banned.
In other weird beer news: A man will be buried in a specially designed Pabst Blue Ribbon coffin. According to USA Today, he’s getting some use out of it before he goes. “He threw a party Saturday for friends, featuring his coffin filled with ice and, what else, Pabst Blue Ribbon.”
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| last wednesday at 3:47pm
| 1 comment
Tagged with: beer, nude beaches, pabst blue ribbon, coffin, nude beach, pabst, beer coffin, usa today, point nude beach, stevens point brewery
The Most Hated Man in France
Don’t blame John Foster, managing director of British baking company Fosters of Barnsley. It’s not his fault his Yorkshire bakery won a contract to supply baguettes for the French rail system. Foster may be the “most hated man in France,” according to an article in the UK Guardian, but really it’s the fault of the European Union and a tricky little loophole in the laws.
In order to preserve tradition, French law forbids the use of fat in the country’s baguettes. But that is the ingredient that allows the Fosters loaves to retain their freshness over time. EU bakers outside France are not bound by these regulations, thus allowing Fosters to snag the contract.
‘Their own bakers could give them a good product, but it didn’t fit the railway’s needs,’ said Foster. ‘In Yorkshire we’ve a tradition of giving customers what they want. They asked for baguettes which don’t go stale and we said yes, we can do you them. We’re shipping the stuff out by the wagon-load.’
Hold on to your chapeau. Fosters’ next assault on all the French hold near and dear: brioche.
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| last wednesday at 2:31pm
| 0 comments
Tagged with: fosters of barnsley, french railway system, john foster, most hated man in france, baguettes, guardian
To Infinity and Beyond
I get a geeky thrill when science education and cooking demonstrations collide, so this YouTube clip from the 1987 PBS program The Ring of Truth: Atoms really turned on my Bunsen burner. In it, Chef Kin Jing Mark’s skill at pulling noodles becomes an amazing visual demonstration of halving. It’s a classic—and should be required viewing for followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
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| last wednesday at 12:46pm
| 0 comments
Tagged with: pbs, science, youtube, flying spaghetti monster, kin jing mark, the ring of truth, atoms, noodles
Why Fish Need Oxygen Masks, Too
Remember the jumbo squid? A new study in Science suggests that the squid’s spread—they’re moving up and down the Pacific Coast in both North and South America—might be explained by the expansion of low-oxygen waters, which squid can tolerate. Of course, the expansion of low-oxygen, or hypoxic, water affects far more than squid: It potentially endangers fisheries around the world. That’s because, well, fish get picky about oxygen: When its levels drop, they die.
But let’s review. We’re used to hearing about hypoxia off the Gulf Coast or at the mouths of major rivers—that’s caused when nitrogen runoff (from fertilizer, principally) produces oxygen-hogging algae blooms. This is very different: Scientists believe that these deep-water hypoxic zones are caused by warming waters, which simply hold less oxygen. (An author of the paper uses a bottle of soda water as an example: “If you open it warm, it’ll fizz all over the place. If you open it cold, it will slowly fizz out as it warms.”) The Science paper looks at decades of oxygen data from the deep ocean: In the Atlantic just south of Africa, for example, the hypoxic layer, which suffocates most marine life, almost doubled in thickness over the last half century. In short, this may ultimately be a major problem for fisheries, and for us fish-eaters, and it likely won’t be fixed until the climate’s fixed, too.
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| last wednesday at 10:02am
| 0 comments
Tagged with: oceans, fisheries, hypoxia, jumbo squid, science, green, fish stocks, climate change
10 Worst Beers According to Whom?
The St. Petersburg Times (Florida, not Russia) brings us a list of “The World’s 10 Most Disgusting Beers.”
So … what exactly makes a beer “disgusting”? Unbalanced flavors? Rancid off-notes? “Artificial” taste? Poorly considered flavorings?
Unfortunately, the writer of the list neither defines his rules of engagement nor lays down his procedure; did he actually try some of the 10 beers he’s dubbing the worst? None? All? And from a field of how many? Copious cribbing of tasting notes from RateBeer hints at something approaching “none,” but it’s impossible to tell.
Fortunately, the cranky amateur media critics of the SPT comments section are there to knock the writer back into line:
by Dan May 4, 2008 12:27 PM
Joey, you are a poor excuse for a writer. How about some objective reporting instead for a change? Lets face it, you really only had what. . . one maybe two of the beers on the list. Thanks for the information. Go back to covering bingo.
by Dallas May 4, 2008 12:27 PM
Aren’t all of these American? Kinda hard to rate world beers when you don’t include any foreign brews on your list. Trust me, there are plenty. For that I give your list a big FAIL.
Posted by
| last wednesday at 8:07am
| 3 comments
Tagged with: st petersburg times, ratebeer, bad beer, disgusting beers
Soup Kitchen Stadium
Iron Chef has made us all feel like warriors in the kitchen—but those guys (and gals) work with pretty stocked pantries. There was once a charming public-access TV show in San Francisco called Feast or Famine, in which hipster chefs went to random folks’ homes to prepare dinner for them based only on what was already in their cabinets and fridges. Besides mocking their hosts severely for their food choices, the two chefs would manage to put on some pretty nice spreads with very limited resources—even if they had to occasionally climb through a neighbor’s window to borrow an onion.
Chef Bob Ballantyne knows about challenge cooking. He volunteers at a soup kitchen for the homeless in Colorado, and has to come up with meals that are nutritious and tasty. And he has to do it with donated food.
A couple of months ago, he blogged about making a Saturday lunch based on the 35 pounds of elk meat that came in, while imagining that he was locked in an Iron Chef–style challenge with Cat Cora. Only problem is, elk has a gamy flavor that is hard for a lot of his clientele to appreciate. But with the aid of a gallon can of teriyaki sauce and something called “artificial shallot,” he comes up with a menu that includes elk meatloaf with teriyaki mushroom gravy, sautéed spinach, and roasted root vegetables. “I have learned over the three years of cooking for the Soup Kitchen that anywhere you can put a vegetable or fruit into the diet, you do it,” he notes.
In the end, he writes, it was neither he nor Cat Cora who ultimately won the Iron Chef challenge, but the 167 people who “were able to eat another meal…. and judging from their reaction to it… eat a good meal.”
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| Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 6:15pm
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Tagged with: iron chef, cat cora, elk, meatloaf, soup kitchen, homeless, bob ballantyne, chef 2 chef
Passport to China
Armchair travelers have always journeyed through the pages of a book, but a new cookbook by husband-and-wife team Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid brings the concept to life, meals included. The Los Angeles Times calls it “a rare cookbook with the heart of a travelogue” and compares it to a Lonely Planet guide with recipes.
Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China is the couple’s sixth book (others include Mangoes & Curry Leaves and the sublime Hot Sour Salty Sweet). According to Amy Scattergood’s review in the Times, “It reads like a tattered food diary, an expat travel journal, a far-flung love story, a Graham Greene novel unbound and reassembled with recipes.” The dishes are from various regions of China, but the focus is on the outlying areas away from urban centers, which are increasingly modernized and Westernized.
If you can’t swing the plane ticket to China, this might just be the next best thing.
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| Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 2:58pm
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Tagged with: jeffrey alford, naomi duguid, mangoes and curry leaves, hot sour salty sweet, chinese food, chinese cooking, beyond the great wall, recipes and travels in the other china, los angeles times
The Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab: An Update
You remember, of course, the Grinder’s coverage of the Chesapeake Bay blue crab fishery last month: Officials were warning of severe catch restrictions; crabbers were waiting nervously.
We’re here to report that things have, in fact, gotten worse: In a first for any Chesapeake Bay industry, the Maryland governor is asking the feds to declare the blue crab fishery a federal disaster. Since new regulations, which reduce the catch of female crabs by a third, will threaten the livelihood of many watermen, the federal money—possibly $15 million—would go to retraining the fishermen for aquaculture and oyster reef restoration projects. But the relevant federal agency won’t declare a disaster if it concludes that poor management—say, catch limits that are too high—caused the problem. In short, you can’t fish a population into the sand and then call it a natural disaster.
Choice detail, from the Annapolis Capital’s description of Senator Barbara Mikulski: “Ms. Mikulski, who wore a crab-shaped lapel pin, said watermen are an important part of the Chesapeake Bay culture.” Wait—does that mean the other politicians weren’t wearing crab pins?
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| Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 2:40pm
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Tagged with: chesapeake bay, fishery, fisheries management, green, maryland, crabs, blue crab, baltimore sun
Pity the Russian Locavore
A correspondent for the Russian newspaper and website KP.RU—Komsomolskaya Pravda, not to be confused with Pravda—lost a bet.
The terms of the bet: go a week without Chinese goods. She failed, and, as a result, had to take on an equally daunting assignment: go a week eating only food made in Russia.
The initial fridge survey turned out to be a shock:
My favorite lemon juice turned out to be made in Israel that I used for salad dressing instead of vinegar. And speaking of salads, my tomatoes were from Turkey, onions from Crimea, peppers from Bulgaria, and I had no idea where my cucumbers were from… I ended up giving a whole basket of fruit to the neighbor’s kids, as well as my Swiss candy and chocolate.
Visits to local farmers’ markets and student-targeted convenience stores yielded a pile of out-of-country goods and a consistent, shocking revelation vis-à-vis price: Buying Russian means paying more, sometimes much more. Price differences on the order of 20, 30, and even 40 percent were typical.
Beer? Forget about it. Even domestic brands are made from foreign-made concentrate powders. But bread may have been the most depressing part of the picture:
‘The flour is Russian,’ said Yury Katsnelson, the [Russian Bakers and Confectioners Guild] president. ‘So is the sugar and salt. But part of the sugar is made from sugarcane imported from Brazil and Cuba. It is, though, manufactured in Russia. Half the yeast is Russian, and the other half is Turkish or French. Almost all the oil is Russian. The cream and milk are rarely imported. But the raisins are all from Central Asia, Turkey or Iran.’
American shoppers can take a bit of morbid comfort from the story’s overall message: The tangled web of international trade that ensnares any given American shopping at Sam’s Club seems to be just as thick—or thicker—for our Russian counterparts.
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| Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 1:20pm
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Tagged with: locavores, russia, komsomolskaya pravda, russian goods, chinese goods, russian foods
Why Water When You Can Brine?
With tomato-planting season upon us, you may be interested to know that Italian researchers have discovered that irrigating cherry tomatoes with seawater diluted to a concentration of 12 percent makes them both healthier and tastier—and, says NPR, may “encourage the use of slightly brackish water in tomato agriculture, extending precious supplies of fresh water.”
According to a piece on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, the higher salinity in seawater stresses the plants, causing the fruit to produce more antioxidants. In addition, the extra salt doesn’t make the tomato taste saltier, but instead ups both its sugar and organic acid content.
But don’t run right out to your garden and start pumping the Morton through your soaker hose. The researchers grew their tomatoes hydroponically, and stressed that, if you’re watering with seawater, all other factors must be controlled for success. In addition, pouring salt water all over the ground could really mess up your soil. (On the other hand, I imagine it would keep down the slug population.)
And speaking of growing your own tomatoes, you might want to make sure you get a few plants into the ground (or even a pot on a sunny ledge) this season: Growers in New Jersey and Pennslyvania are planting fewer tomatoes this year because immigration problems are leaving farmers worried about having a stable work force to harvest their crop.
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| Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 11:19am
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Tagged with: salt, seawater, tomatoes, npr, science friday, hydroponics, immigration, talk of the nation
Cöökie Mönster Fights the Tuesday Blues
Assuming that you have the capacity to view humorous video files at work, this death metal rendition of Cookie Monster celebrating the deliciousness of cookies should be good for roughly 5 to 10 minutes of high spirits. Then it’s back to your wearying, soul-killing routine.
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| Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 9:14am
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Tagged with: cookie monster, death metal, sesame street, video, music video, dave and thomas
