Flash in the Pan

Strange News from the Food Front (7/20/2009)

2009-07-20T09:00:00.015-04:00

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

Butter Statues - Every year, the Iowa State Fair has big statues made of butter. Making the public vote cut: 40th anniversary of the moon landing. What didn't? Michael Jackson, presumably doing the moon walk. (AP)

Chilling Cattle - Heat waves in Veneto, Italy is driving farmers to try showers and fans to keep their cattle cool. (UPI)

That's Mr. Cupcake to You - Guinness certified the world's largest cupcake at 150 pounds, 15 pounds of filling, and 60 pounds of icing. (UPI)

Did He Spill A Drop? - A Vermont police officer pulled over a driver for drunk driving. What made him suspect? The glass of beer left on the trunk. (AP)

No Hot Dogging - The Oscar Meyer Weinermobile crashed into a Wisconson home. Was it shaped like a bun? (AP)

Laurent Ponsot, Wine Detective - Ponsot, a former vintner, tracks fake wine. (Financial Times)

And Nabbing a Vintage Villain - French police arrested a man who allegedly stole 500 bottles of wine, worth millions of dollars, from top Parisian restaurants. (AFP)

Making Lemonade - Seven Pennsylvania children got into trouble with the police for selling lemonade without a permit. (AP)

Onion Juice - A new system converts onion juice into a different type of juice -- electricity. (Reuters)

Sub Swiping - A serial robber in Florida seems to favor sub sandwich chain stores. (UPI)

Jail B&B - A Missouri jail is raising money for new mattresses by letting people stay overnight in a new addition. Comes with snacks, mug shots, and shirts. But how about the cake with a file inside? (AP)

Doesn't Melt In Your Hands - Swiss chocolate maker Barry Callebaut says it has a melt-resistant version of the treat. (UPI)

Meatball Mania - A Chicago restaurant is prepping 200 pounds of beef for the American Meatball Eating Championship. (UPI)

Strange News from the Food Front (7/13/2009)

2009-07-13T09:00:00.013-04:00

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

Eat It and Like It - A 71-year-old man complained to his 66-year-old common law wife about her bad cooking. She allegedly beat him and apparently told deputies, upon her arrest, that she had been drunk and burned the bread. Toast, anyone? (AP)

Cops Own Doughnut Shop - Some Michigan police really wanted their doughnuts, so when the owners of the local shop were planning to close it, nine officers chipped in and bought it. (UPI)

Have Cork, Will Travel - A service offering a select few consultations from top sommeliers has an entry fee of £50,000, or about $81,000, and that doesn't include the wine. Check the ins and outs of adding a temperature recorder to a case of wine to make sure it didn't get overheated. Alas, it did. (Financial Times)

Here Comes the Orient Express - Some top British chefs are creating dishes for toddlers, hoping to get kids into restaurants. What are the chances that they still ask for grilled cheese and chicken fingers? (UPI)

Pastel, Stale, and Coming for You - The first store devoted to selling Peeps is scheduled to open. It won't just be the marshmellow concoctions (whether dream or nightmare is up to you), but also such things as t-shirts, plush toys, and pillows. In a blind taste test, could anyone tell the difference? (Washington Post)

Water into Wine - A German company claiming that its powerder turns water into Chianti is angering Italian farmers. I'm betting that the Catholic Church does not have a stake in the venture. (UPI)

Dining the Parisian Way - You can get a great meal in Paris, but only when the restaurants are willing to give it to you. It seems that only recently has it been possible to find establishments open on weekends. (Financial Times)

Egg Foo Young for Everyone - A crash between a truck and a car sent an estimated 9,000 pounds of Chinese food spilling onto a Chicago toll road. No one was seriously hurt, but no word on what the what the fortune cookies read. (UPI)

Chicken Feet: Take a Hike - As part of a trade war, China is prohibiting the importing of U.S. chicken, about half of which is chicken feet. (Reuters)

Mediterranean Britain? - Climate change is bringing some differences in British agriculture, including growing peaches, olives, and pecans. (Daily Telegraph)

Burger Blooper - Burger King has to apologize for depicting in an ad a Hindu deity eating a beef burger, showing that the company had no regard for sacred cows. (UPI)

Who Took the Cheese? - There has been such an upsurge in people stealing cheese from a British grocery chain that it is adding security tags to the product. (UPI)

Recipe: Super Fast Vanilla Ice Cream

2009-07-12T19:44:00.004-04:00

One problem I've found with making your own ice cream is having to plan ahead. Using a compressor-type machine like the Cuisinart Supreme I reviewed is that even so, you still need to make and chill the mix so you're not waiting forever for it to freeze. But here's a Philadelphia-style vanilla I improvised today that's pretty good -- no custard base, so not as rich as you'd get with eggs, but you don't even have to heat the liquid to dissolve the sugar. You go immediately from mixing to the freezer, so it's great for a whim.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1 cup half and half

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/8 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

In a bowl, mix the heavy cream, half and half, sugar, and salt until the sugar and salt are completely dissolved.

Stir in the vanilla extract until completely mixed in.

Freeze using ice cream freezer directions.

Makes about 3 cups of ice cream.

Fish Fillets at Twenty Paces

2009-07-10T08:05:00.001-04:00

In my writing day job, I often cover intellectual property issues, and something funny came up on one of my regular reading lists: a set of patent lawsuits over fish sticks. That's right, those frozen, breaded refugees from a grade school cafeteria. (Oh, am I probably going to get email from some overly earnest junior PR people working on one of the food accounts for that reference.)

Apparently, Alfred and Paul Fraser are co-owners of patent number 4,781,930, called Method of preparing a fish product. Here's what it covers:

A method of preparing a fish product comprising filleting a fish to appropriate thickness, immediately immersing the filleted fish in a vegetable oil for a period of 5 to 10 minutes at room temperature to effect absorption of the oil to a depth such as to inhibit excretion of the natural fluids from the fillet and prevent incursion of air and moisture, draining the excess oil from the surface, covering the surface with crumbs and then freezing the fillet.

The now 21-year-old patent (which means it's expired) was for dunking fish in oil, draining the excess, and then covering it in crumbs and freezing it for later. Back in 2006, the Frazer boys decided to start suing pretty much everyone they could find in the fish stick business, including Gortons and Mrs. Paul's. The defendants ended up winning the fish fillet follies, getting a Massachusetts court to provide a summary judgment:

Five defendants didn't even start with fresh fish and didn't soak what they had in oil.

Two of the defendant companies had either filed for bankruptcy or been dissolved.

The remaining two defendants who might have been sued were not properly served with the suit papers, as a "return of service merely noting delivery to 'girl at front disk'" apparently didn't meet comply with state rules.

Oops. Maybe the Frazers will go off and drown their sorrows -- hopefully not in oil and likely for longer than five to ten minutes.

Strange News from the Food Front (7/6/2009)

2009-07-06T09:04:00.000-04:00

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

Cross-Species Competitive Eating - In the world of pigging out, it's animals 1, humans, zip. (AP)

Big Value in Small Change - A pub customer paid for his pint and received as part of his change a 20 pence piece worth about $11,400 (£7,000). (Daily Telegraph)

Wiener Winner- New York's Joey Chestnut retained his title in the annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest with a personal best of 68 hot dogs. (UPI)

Buddy, Can You Bear a Sub? - A New Jersey man claims that a bear attacked him for his Italian sandwich. The animal probably got lost and thought it was in Manhattan, where no one would have blinked. (AP)

Cheesy Wedding - A woman who is a professional cheese sculptor married a retired Navy commander that she met while working on a cheese version of a U.S. air craft carrier.(UPI)

Maybe More Grill Time, Less Air Time? - Gordon Ramsey's restaurants saw profits fall by about 90 percent. (Daily Telegraph)

Hot, Cold, or Embalmed?- A Canadian funeral home offers free coffee at a drive-through window. Please tell me that they don't take burial orders at the same time. (UPI)

Pez Sues For Pause - Pez Candy, maker of the eponymous candy and dispensers is suing the Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia in California for infringing its trademark with a giant model Pez dispenser. (Courthouse News Service)

Field of Diets - A Chicago Cubs fan says that he's going on a 500-calorie-a-day diet until the team can win five games in a row. (Chicago Sun-Times)

Don't Touch That Grill - The city of Highland Park, Michigan, in its wisdom, outlawed outdoor barbecuing or grilling. (UPI)

McDonald's Comes to Stop for Bicyclists - A McDonald's in the UK refused to serve a couple of bicyclists on a tandem bike at its drive-through window because of the potential danger to them by cars. What about the danger from what's inside the sack?(Daily Telegraph)

Bug Weight Loss - Apparently, someone studied whether cockroaches would get fat on fast food. (They do.) (LiveScience.com)

Recall of Giant Brand Nonfat Dried Milk

2009-07-02T11:50:00.000-04:00

Giant Food has announced a recall of Giant Nonfat Dried Milk, 9.6 ounce size, UPC number 6-8826707833, code FEB 0511S.

The items were removed from store shelves because they were produced with nonfat dried milk that is part of a national recall by Plainview Milk and may have the potential to be contaminated with salmonella bacteria.

Customers who have purchased the product should discard any unused portions and bring their purchase receipt to any Giant Food for a full refund. To date, Giant Food has received no reports of illnesses associated with consumption of this product.

If you need more information, you can call Giant's corporate brands at 1-877-846-9949, M-F, 9 a.m. -1 p.m., or Giant's customer service line at 1-888-469-4426, M-F, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

Giant Food operates 182 supermarkets in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia, and employs approximately 22,000 associates. For more information, see www.giantfood.com.

Recipe: Bicuits and Chorizo Gravy

2009-07-01T10:25:00.001-04:00

Biscuits and gravy is an old, and great, southern breakfast. This version adds a bit of bite through the chorizo sausage.

Ingredients

1 pound chorizo sausage
4 1/2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
3 cups milk, heated until warm but not scalded
8 biscuits (I have a buttermilk biscuit recipe here)

Directions

Prepare four plates. For each, split two biscuits and place the halves, split-side up, on the plate.
Cut the chorizo into 1/4-inch slices. Don't worry if the sausage begins to crumble or the slices start to come apart.
Over high heat, place to sausage into a 10-inch fry pan. Cook for two minutes.
Sprinkle flour over sausage slices and cook another three minutes.
Add milk all at once and stir mixture until flour dissolves. Continue stiring until the mixture comes to a boil and the gravy is thickened.
Pour gravy over each set of biscuits.

Serves 4.

Recipe: Improved Buttermilk Biscuits

2009-07-01T10:20:00.000-04:00

I've been fiddling with my biscuit recipe for years. Here's the latest, and best, version.

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose power
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1 Tbsp. sugar
4 Tbsp. Sacco buttermilk powder (note, you can omit this, substituting buttermilk for the water when added in the recipe)
5 Tbsp. butter, cold

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Cut butter into dry ingredients until mixture resembles coarse meal.
Add water slowly, mixing until all dry ingredients are damp and dough loosely holds together. Dough should be wet.
Turn dough out onto well-floured board and knead for about 30 seconds. Instead of traditional bread kneading motion, fold dough in half, press flat, and repeat.
Roll dough out approximately 3/8-inch in thickness, then use biscuit cutter or cup. Take scraps, form into new ball, roll out to 3/8-inch thickness, and cut additional rounds. Place biscuit rounds on ungreased cookie sheet with at least 1-inch separation.
Bake biscuits for approximately 18 minutes or until golden brown.

Review: Cuisinart Supreme Ice Cream Maker (ICE-50BC)

2009-06-30T08:20:00.002-04:00

Even with the seemingly perpetual presence of grey skies in the Northeast, making me think that our home has been surreptitiously swapped for a small community near Portland, Ore., it's time for ice cream. Well, here in Massachusetts, people queue up even in January, so who am I kidding? It's always time for ice cream. You could go find a local shop selling something other than what you might get in the grocery store, but instead consider an initial hefty investment to start churning it out at home -- or switch off to sorbet or frozen yogurt, if you like. The Cuisinart Supreme Commercial Quality Ice Cream Maker is a compressor-driven model (that's the reasoning behind "commercial," because it's clearly designed for consumers) rather than one of the more common types that use a container that you freeze overnight. With a few caveats about a product claim and operation, this is a good machine for those who are serious about ice cream.

Operation is simple. You set the unit on a counter and plug it in. A small bucket slips into the machine. Pour in the ice cream mix, place the paddle into the bucket, place the drive arm on top, and set the timer. (Soft ice cream/sorbet/yogurt takes 30 to 45 minutes; hard requires 45 minutes to an hour.) The unit will turn off when the timer ends or will also shut itself down if it's done freezing the contents. You will have to slip a plastic cover for the pail into place on the mixing arm. It's easy to set it slightly off, but if you do, the arm raises up and stops working. Once you see how it fits into place, it will become clear.

Chief among benefits is the ability to make a treat any time you want. There is still preparation, as you must put together the stuff to be churned and then chill it for a good four to six hours. But you can do that in the morning and not depend on having remembered to clear out enough room in a freezer to fit in a bulky container. Or you can make enough of a basic sweetened cream mix to last a few days in the fridge and make something as whim takes you, adding in fruit puree, a bit of melted chocolate, vanilla, or other flavoring to get some variety.

I mentioned caveats. One is that there is a warning not to tip the base on its side or turn it upside down. If you do, you are suppose to put it back upright and then leave it alone for 24 hours before using it again. I'm not sure why you'd turn it upside down, and the sucker is pretty heavy and it would seem to be harder to store sideways. Anyway, give it time to get over the shock of the rude handling, or perhaps the world will meet some unspecified doom.

More annoying is the claim of 1.5 quart volume. That actually is the room you have, but when I did a test run of mango ginger sorbet (recipe here), we got a thick outside shell of sorbet frozen hard with a core of cold slush. I had to take a spoon and get the hardened sorbet out and then finish freezing the slush. When the unit was only partly filled, though, everything came to a good consistency. So if you have a full 1.5 quarts, I'd try freezing it in two batches. But otherwise, it's marvelously convenient and one of those single-use appliances worth getting.

There's one other caveat. A few years ago, a number of consumers were complaining about the plastic paddle being flimsy in an earlier version. It's still plastic, but I haven't gotten the impression that it is overly flimsy. I'm guessing that there's been enough time for Cuisinart to correct any problems. If after a few batches I find otherwise, I'll report back.

Street price seems to run around $250 to $300. Given the cost of high quality ice cream, et. al., figure that buying 1.5 quarts of really good quality ice cream, not the normal store-bought, would run at least $9. (Think three pints of Ben & Jerry's.) You can make it for half of that, so that would be a savings of $4.50 a batch. That would be about 66 batches to recoup the machine cost, or maybe a few summers' worth. No, this isn't a big money saver, but the quality of what you can create will easily exceed most of what you can buy.

Strange News from the Food Front (6/29/2009)

2009-06-29T08:55:00.011-04:00

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

Orange Violence - A Tennessee couple has been accused of a fight that escalated into assault by Cheetos. (AP)

When Chips Are Down - A former FDA head, whose book argues that people are addicted to sweets, apparently once found himself in thrall to a pair of chocolate chip cookies. Clearly he was outnumbered. (Crispy On The Outside)

Strawberry Brat Spat - There will be three different purveyors of strawberry-flavored bratwurst at the Cedarburg Strawberry Festival in Wisconsin. (UPI)

Can 'O 'Possum - A baby opossum managed to get itself stuck in a soda machine at a gym in upstate New York. Police were stymied until a worker came with a key to the front panel. Did anyone try some change? (AP)

Must Have Been Thirsty - A couple of would-be New Zealand liquor store robbers changed their mind mid-stick up and settled for a beer from a customer's six-pack instead. (UPI)

New Kind Of Ice - Scientists have created the final fifteenth predicted form of ice. Maybe they didn't have a fridge nearby? (Technology Review)

Chili Grenade - Security forces in India are developing a grenade powered by the searing "ghost chili" to incapacitate people. (Reuters)

Shops Find Eel Supplies Slippery - Shops in the U.K. that sell a traditional meal called eel, pie, and mash are finding that a fishing ban is making the requisite jellied eel tough to find. (Daily Telegraph)

Does It Include Tip? - A Chinese investment fund manager paid $2.1 million in a charity auction to have lunch with Warren Buffet. (AP)

Look For The Ketchup - Canadian police are looking for a man who ran naked past a fast food restuarant and snagged a woman's fries in the process. (Reuters)

Grocery Sale Or Else - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin dropped by a grocery store in Moscow without warning and started telling managers to lower their prices. (AFP)

Recipe: Mango Ginger Sorbet

2009-06-28T06:43:00.006-04:00

I came up with this to test an ice cream maker -- and it's definitely worth making. The ginger is subtle and the lemon helps keep the mango from becoming cloying.

Ingredients:

1 lemon
1-inch piece of ginger root, peeled
2 1/4 cups water
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 very ripe mangoes (soft to the touch)

Directions:

Roughly chop ginger and place into medium saucepan.
Peel zest from lemon and place into saucepan.
Juice lemon and reserve juice.
Put 2 cups water into medium saucepan. Bring to boil and boil for five minutes.
Add sugar and continue boiling until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool as you perform the next steps.
Peel mangoes and cut flesh from pit. Place pieces of mango into a blender with 1/4 cup water. Blend until pureed.
Pour puree into saucepan and mix. Pour half of mixture back into blender and blend again until smooth. Pour blended mix into a 1 1/2 quart container. Repeat with other half of mixture in saucepan.
Cover container and place in refrigerator for at least four hours.
Freeze in ice cream freezer according to directions until the resulting sorbet is soft.

Makes about 1.5 quarts.

Product Review: Traeger Junior (BBQ055) Pellet Grill – Part II, Smoking

2009-06-24T09:45:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned last week, the Traeger Junior Pellet Grill uses an electric system to feed and burn pellets (not the same as for home heating systems) to generate the BTUs for cooking. It's clean -- no carting off ash after cooking, and only a semiannual vacuuming to clear out any residue from pellet burning. Although the smallest model, you can easily fit enough food to feed six (not only do they claim that, but we were able to do it). What I didn't like about the unit is that it didn't get hot enough with its indirect heat source to do a good job of actual grilling. However, I thought that the real strength might be in smoking. I was right.

We fired up the grill on the smoke setting and put in a couple of racks of pork ribs that had been sitting with a rub of salt, pepper, allspice, and ground coriander seed for a few hours. The smoke setting got the kettle thermometer just over 100°F, so closer to cold smoking than to hot. In mid process, I contacted Traeger and mentioned the first part of the review and that we were going to smoke the ribs. They suggested starting on high, getting the meat's internal temperature to about 100°, and then shifting to smoke for the best results. A bit too late for us, but no matter.

I've used conventional smokers before. One advantage of the Traeger is that it can go for long stretches largely unattended, as it continues to funnel pellets at a pre-determined rate into the fire box. That certainly beat continuingly going out to check on the fire and fuel supply. (We didn't have the opportunity to test the pellets "flavored" with different types of wood, like apple or hickory, so made do with what we had on hand.) I'd estimate that it takes only a small part of a bag to run the unit for hours, so it is relatively economical in fuel use. (One 20-lb. bag runs only about $15 to $18.)

After a few hours, I noticed that the kettle temperature was still only about 100°, so I shifted the feeder to medium. I remembered that the high setting had resulted in a kettle temperature of about 300 to 400, so thought that medium would get us smack in the hot smoking range, which is what happened. Although I haven't tried it yet, I suspect that the "smoke" setting would be good for fish or for smoking meat where you planned to cook it some other way after. Medium gets you a bit less smoke, but more heat.

Ultimately, I shifted the unit to high. That eventually caused a bit of a hiccough, though late enough that it didn't matter. Although I had filled the pellet bin, the pellets fed into the system from the middle and left a hole, with additional pellets not feeding in, so the fire eventually went out. But, things were done enough after a total of seven hours. The results were fabulous without barbeque sauce. (We still have some two days later.) Because the two rib racks had to overlap a bit to fit in the unit, part way through cooking I had to shift them. Still, it was an easy way to smoke a lot of food. So although I wouldn't recommend the Traeger Junior for grilling, at under $500, it's a convenient, effective, and well-constructed smoker if you have an outlet you can reach with the power cord. The budget constrained will have to go a different route, but if you like smoked food, this could quickly pay for itself over the cost of heading to a barbeque restaurant, assuming there's a good one in your area.

Review: Banana Seals

2009-06-23T05:24:00.000-04:00

We all find ways to deal with open bags of food. Around here, it's fold up the open top and clip or maybe use a big twist tie. Congratulations to Seal-A-Bag for doing something different and intelligent. The Banana Seal is a long plastic two-part strip. You place the open end of the bag across one part of the strip and push the other into place, essentially jamming the bag closed across the width. The seal is reusable, which is smart. You can get them in 11.5-, 9.5-, or 7.5-inch lengths, which should do you for most of your storage needs.

The one thing I find strange is the pricing. One costs $0.99. But a four-pack is $4.99 and an 18-pack is $19.99. But buy four separate singles and you pay $3.96; 18 singles would be $17.82. Who came up with the idea of charging a premium for buying more than one at the same time? Until the company gets its act together and tries some reasonable4 volume pricing, purchase singles.

Review: Kyocera FK-075 Ceramic Paring Knife

2009-06-22T08:19:00.000-04:00

Although most people think steel when considering a knife, there's another material that can do an amazing job: ceramics. And the Kyocera FK-075 ceramic paring knife is as sharp as they come -- or, at least as sharp as I've found. (We reviewed the Kyocera ceramic Y vegetable peeler back in 2007.) The edge is so keen that it's scary. We've had to tell people to be mindful, because at first glance you could swear it was a toy. I do wish that it came with a blade guard, as a number of paring knives that I've reviewed over the years have had. The knife cleans up easily. According to the Kyocera site, the company can sharpen the blades when they eventually dull, though that seems to be taking a very long time. The downside is that you can't sharpen it yourself and so you'll have to factor in the shipping time back and forth when it comes to that. You get your choice of several handle colors. The price is $29.95, so steep compared to some other blades that do an admirable job. If you're on a budget, check the Zyliss paring knife, which we reviewed last year and cost about $8 at list price.

Strange News from the Food Front (6/22/2009)

2009-06-22T06:12:00.000-04:00

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

Criminal, Drawn and Buttered - A man accused of breaking into a Maine restaurant, eating 11 lobsters, and washing them down with a white wine, after which he left the fridge open, cause $1,000 in damage, was found on a bench in a presumably post-prandial nap. (AP)

Drinks for Insults - A Spanish bar offers a free drink to patrons who can insult the staff in particularly clever ways. (UPI)

Prosecutor Looking for Fast Food Toy Ban - A prosecutor in Brazil is asking a court to ban toys included with kids fast food meals because they help children develop bad eating habits. (Reuters)

Step Away From the Bologna - An Oklahoma man claims that he was assaulted over his bologna and cheese sandwich. Maybe the person was incensed when he saw the victim adding mayonnaise to the snack. (AP)

Banning the "Devil's Vegetable" - A British navy captain has banned Brussels sprouts from his ship because he hates what he calls the devil's vegetable. He claims that avoiding mass flatulence has nothing to do with his decision. (AFP)

Man Finds Jesus In Coffee - Some people seem to worship their coffee. A New York man found the image of Jesus, less than an inch across, on the inside of his mug.(UPI)

Will Steal For Prison Food - A homeless man in Taiwan had stolen a pair of shoes and was kept in jail overnight. The police station apparently is prepared to give a meal to someone down and out. (Reuters)

Who Needs an Opener? - A martial artists poked his way into the Malaysian Book of Records by piercing four coconuts with his index finger in just under 31 seconds. (AFP)

Food for Dad from Church - The Church of England, concerned about fathers not attending mass, celebrated Fathers' Day by serving beer, bacon rolls, and chocolate. (Daily Telegraph)

Review: ZenSoy Organic Pudding

2009-06-20T17:40:00.000-04:00

There was a brief time that we thought someone in the family would have to cut gluten from the diet. If you've never investigated the possibility of some kind of ingredient restriction, it can be a challenging thing. Whether gluten (which appears in so many things as to make your eyes cross), dairy, nuts, or what have you, it becomes a challenge to find things that don't suffer some form of "contamination." Desserts can be particularly challenging, given the often high amounts of flour, sugar, milk, and eggs. Some samples of ZenSoy organic pudding came in -- gluten-free, no milk or egg products, no nuts, and pretty good. The banana, chocolate, and vanilla flavors were decent. The texture felt a tough gummy, but that's really a quibble. The quality is good and if you need to avoid some common allergens, or if you'd just a switch from the usual, they're worth the try.

Review: Traeger Junior (BBQ055) Pellet Grill – Part I

2009-06-18T11:22:00.007-04:00

We actually got this Traeger pellet grill in for testing last fall, but shortly after it came, the cold really ramped up and the snow started. So we're finally getting a chance to test out grilling with pellets. I'm breaking the review into two parts, because although we did some grilling yesterday, the smoking test is still to come.

The approach is interesting. Instead of using gas, which to my taste often ends up with too neutral a flavor, or charcoal, which can be messy whether you go with real hardware charcoal or briquettes, the grill uses a pellet design. Small wood pellets, which look for all the world like rabbit food, go into a hopper. (Note that they're a special type developed for cooking food and not the same ones used in furnaces to heat a building and come with different "flavors," so you can get apple or maple or some others.) A slowly-turning electric auger (yes, it has to be plugged in somewhere) feeds pellets at a controlled rate into a firebox. In the firebox is a heated rod that burns the pellets. Depending on the setting, you can go for high heat grilling, medium, or smoking. In the latter setting, the ignition rod keeps turning on and off, letting the pellets smolder and turn into a smoke source.

Even this, the smallest unit, is hefty, with a shipping weight of 76 pounds. Part of that is because of the augur motor and other electrical paraphernalia, but a good chunk is due to heavy construction and thick steel shell. This isn't the type of unit that is going to easily blow away in a wind. Assembling it is a bit fussy, and I found that the instructions were not necessarily all that helpful. But I can see that trying to find a way that will work easily could be a hassle. You have to clamp the heavy burning unit to the grill's body, so you want it low to the ground. But then you have to get the whole thing elevated to attach the legs, which is inconvenient. I had help in assembling, and you might find that useful. Not the most fun solo project.

The design is pretty clever. A large drip tray sits under the grill and conveys fat out to a spout that juts out through one end of the unit. Hanging under the spout is supposed to be a small bucket, which will catch the grease, only the bracket for the handle broke off during shipping when inside the box. So that's now on the list of things to fix. You then follow instructions to fire up the grill for the first time and then season it by letting it run on high for 45 minutes.

All that was fine, and I noticed that by the end, the thermometer read about 400 degrees. We let it cool down and then started it again, using high to grill some salmon that I had coated in a cilantro-parsley pesto. (It was variation on an idea that I had seen on Steve Raichlen's Primal Grill program, which used tuna and a more traditional pesto.) I had covered the drip tray as instructed with aluminum foil, heated the unit, used an oil-dampened wadded paper towel held by tongs to grease the grill bars, and put on the fish. And waited. And waited. Although the instructions say that the grill (which sports a supposed 19,500 BTUs) should heat in ten minutes, I had left it on longer. The grill didn't seem to get hot enough to do a good job. For example, the bars weren't leaving marks on the fish. Overall, the salmon probably took about 15 to 20 minutes of cooking time, and was maybe medium by the end of this. This was, as they suggest and as I'd have done anyway, with the cover closed.

Ultimately, it was tasty, but I was disappointed by the amount of heat. It was in the lower 70s with a bit of a breeze where we are, and the instructions note that cooking in cooler weather can take longer. So it might be that on a somewhat warmer day the grilling action would have been more responsive. Also, given the drip tray and firebox arrangement and the inability to change the height of the grate, the heat is going to be indirect, which is why I'm thinking that I'll be doing at least an additional test with smoking a brisket or turkey, and perhaps a third test with a roast at the medium setting. They sell through dealers with a list of $499, but some web research suggested a street price of $50 to $100 less. I'll hold off on a full opinion until after the smoking, but as a grill alone, I'd pass at that price.

Note - here's part II of the review. It's pretty cool as a smoker.

Strange News from the Food Front (6/15/2009)

2009-06-15T06:45:00.000-04:00

Now, after a long break, it's back to food reviews and strange news.

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

Worse Than Burger Breath Burger King has released a new men's cologne called Flame. The front of this affront to taste (in more ways than one) is a host of the show Britain's Got Talent. Can we vote this off of store shelves? (Daily Mail Online)

Coupon Madness Few things are more dangerous than too much success. A San Francisco coop market learned that after placing into local phone books a coupon for 20 percent off on Wednesdays and Thursdays, which have become days that patrons wait to get a parking spot and then face very long lines. (UPI

John Belushi Would Have Been Proud So far in June there have been at least two food fights in U.S. schools that have resulted in police interventions and arrests -- one in New York City and another in Portage, Wis. (UPI, AP)

Yellow Lobster From the equal-time-for-other-primary-colors we have what may be a rare yellow lobster having been caught off Prince Edward Island and now on display in the tank of a seafood restaurant on Cape Cod. But her claws aren't bound (much to the dismay of the other lobsters in the tank) and she's fed sushi-grade tuna. (Boston Globe)

No Coke For You Venezuela has banned Coke Zero as a danger to health. Regular Coke apparently remains healthy. (Reuters)

And No Free Beer, Either Molson has suddenly changed its policy of giving its retired workers free beer. The roughly US$900,000 was apparently too much of a sudsidy for the company to pay. (Reuters)

It's OK, It's After Memorial Day A crowd of 5,000 appeared dressed in white and invaded a square at the bottom of the Champs Elysees in Paris, set up tables and chairs, and had a sit-down meal. Where are the parking valets when you need them? (AFP)

Meating Fashion A teenager made a dress out of real salami and bacon for an Aqua Teen Hunger Force birthday party. Well, there's one course taken care of. (Crispy on the Outside)

A Really Hot Dish A traveler from Mumbai en route to Frankfurt had to return because a package of curry powder in his checked in luggage set off smoke and fire alarms when some of the spice mix escaped its packaging. (AFP)

Recipe: Roasted Brussel Sprouts

2009-02-05T20:08:00.003-05:00

Well, call this a recipe of sorts, as it's not exact. But if you cook at all, the idea is easy to implement.

The approach was sparked by a lunch at Hope and Olive, a restaurant in Greenfield, MA that has killer salmon cakes at lunch. Both my wife and I were also impressed with the brussel sprouts. A waitress said that the restaurant first roasts them in a pan until they are halfway cooked, and then finishes them in a deep fryer.

It may sound weird, but it works. However, we wanted a version that didn't require the deep fat. (Who needs the calories or the mess?) So we treated them more or less the way we treat roasted potatoes.

Take the sprouts, trim the bottoms, and then split them lengthwise. Put into a pan, splash some olive oil on them, and toss. Sprinkle with kosher salt or sea salt and some pepper. Roast at about 450ºF for maybe half an hour, or until well caramelized. If you want a variation that I think would be good, saute some garlic in the oil before it goes on the sprouts.

Review: Yotta Bars

2009-01-13T06:17:00.003-05:00

Yotta bars are a snack food in the new tradition of hiding-vegetables-so-you-don't-notice-them. Each is a combination of granola with fruit and six to nine different vegetables. There's a bit of irony in the marketing, as they stress that they both "eat like a fruit" and "nothing beats the taste of fresh vegetables."

But enough quibbling. The bars taste good, and are certainly better for you than a candy break. I don't think that all the versions equally mask the presence of the vegetables. For example, the orange tastes just like that, but the cherry has some aftertastes that don't taste like fruit. However, those secondary flavors are pleasant, even if a bit unusual in their juxtaposition. You can get them at Whole Foods stores and various places online. List price seems to be in the $1.60 each range, though they're available for less.

Strange News from the Food Front (1/12/2009)

2009-01-12T09:17:00.000-05:00

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

Frozen Pizza A pizza parlor employee forgot to turn the heat off one night, so the owner turned off the heat, period, and threatened to fire any employee who complained. The manager won't - she's married to the owner and gets her own space heater. (KING-TV)

Cheesy Vacation In an apparently different pizza climate, 54 current and former employees who saved $115,000 in tips over 13 years are taking a week-long tropical vacation. (AP)

Big Bean Country The leading coffee-producing countries. (The Economist)

Lamb Rashers A new development in bacon, from our friends at Crispy on the Outside, who follow the subject with obsessive care, is lamb bacon. (Crispy on the Outside)

Chipped Business Waterford Wedgwood goes into receivership. (The New York Times)

Head (En)case To avoid a new helmet law, many motorbike-riding Nigerians are tying things like dried fruit shells to their heads. (Reuters)

Lotsa Latte Chicago public schools spent $67,000 on espresso machines for a culinary arts program, but largely haven't used them. Would Starbucks gift cards have been cheaper? (AP)

Swallow that Gum To avoid the roughly 70 pieces of discarded chewing gum per square meter of sidewalk space (which seems too large to be believable), the Mexican government is now telling people to swallow their wads. (AP)

Lobster Liberty An aged lobster - conventionally clocked at 80 years and a full 20 pounds - avoided ending up on a plate when a New York restaurant gave it a reprieve. (AP)

Unhappy Hour Depressed consumers are still drinking, only at home or during happy hours. (Consumerist)

Burrito Betrothal A couple gets married at a Taco Bell. (UPI)

Strange News from the Food Front (1/5/2009)

2009-01-05T11:20:00.000-05:00

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities (and an apology for a delay in posts caused by repeated Blogger.com outages):

Cracker Cash Proving that snacking can be rewarding, a California couple found $10,000 in a box of crackers. (AP)

Brain Busted Supermarkets know a whole lot more about how you shop than you might like. (The Economist)

Decaf Detection A new product lets you test whether the coffee you're drinking is decaf or hitest. (MedGadget)

Somewhere Over the Rainbow Manhattan's famous Rainbow Room has closed. (AP)

God Made Her Do It A New York judge ruled that religious duty doesn't excuse smuggling monkey meat into the country. (AP)

Now That's a Pour Someone built a device to achieve the perfect beer pour. Does it drink, as well? (Engadget)

Top Tuna Two sushi bar owners in Japan paid more than $100,000, or $370 a pound, for a blue fin tuna. (AP)

Big Bread A 22,000 pound bread was part of the Magi celebration in Mexico. (AFP)

Strange News from the Food Front (12/22/2008)

2008-12-22T06:15:00.000-05:00

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

Soda Subsidy New York's governor proposed a 15 percent "obeisity tax" on non-diet sodas. (New York Daily News via Crispy on the Outside)

Food Fight For the second time in a month, a Florida man was arrested in part for throwing food at his girlfriend. (AP)

Apple Apples A Japanese farmer puts stickers on some of his apples so they grow with Apple logos or iPod outlines. (CNET)

Lotsa Latkes In Hanukkah news, a student ate 46 latkes - or seven pounds - to win an eating contest on Long Island. (AP)

Legal Sweet Tooth A lawyer gets arrested for feeding a piece of candy to his shackled client in court. (AP)

Burger Body Bath Burger King has a men's body spray that makes the wearer smell "like flame-broiled meat." Eww. (Crispy on the Outside)

Cut-Rate Caviar Police in Milan seized 88 lbs. of smuggled caviar and are giving it to the poor. Wonder if they're also providing the blinis. (Reuters)

Product Review: Knob Creek Bourbon

2008-12-21T17:30:00.000-05:00

With the review bottle of Knob Creek Kentucky Bourbon that came in for testing, my wife has declared that I've turned her into a bourbon drinker, with the caveat of her being a "drinker" is a highly relative term. In this case, she's tried adding it to eggnog. I've done the same, but prefer Knob Creek at a cool room temperature and straight up for sipping. I've had bourbon before, but rarely tried one that I'd want without some kind of mixer. Knob Creek is relatively mellow, so you're not choking on the vapors, but still a bit assertive and smoky. Aged nine years, I've probably had older ones, but this certainly holds its own. Although one cute feature is no longer available in time for the holidays, you can order a bottle and add a personalized note right on the label -- good for gifts.

Product Review: TRUFresh Shrimp [UPDATED]

2008-12-19T18:00:00.001-05:00

We tested some frozen shrimp dish samples from TRUFresh Shrimp and wee reasonably impressed. Of course, making something well at home is going to be better than packaged food, but these individual serving packages were surprisingly good. There are two varieties: a green salsa verde, and lemon herb.

The salsa verde was pleasantly spicy (though not the thing if you like completely bland food), and was particularly favored by my teenage daughter. I like it and the lemon herb as well. The company emphasizes its quick-freezing process that supposedly avoid turning the shrimp into rubber. I found that they were slightly tough after the five minute heating in boiling water, but nowhere near the throw-it-on-the-car-as-a-tire stage.

The company provides instructions for heating in a microwave, but explicitly says that the recommended method is in boiling water. I stuck with the hot water bath. The products are supposed to be available in stores throughout the Northeast, but I'm not sure where and don't know how much they run. Overall, a good product, especially if you want access to a quick meal whose primary virtue is not how fast you can choke the thing down.

[UPDATE: I heard back from the PR people. Suggested retail price is $2.99 for a one-serving box, and as of 12 Dec. 2008, they are available in the Northeast of the U.S. at grocery chains, including Price Chopper, Hannaford, Kings, and ShopRite.]