Too Numerous To(o) Count

Marmalade Surprise

2012-01-05T21:13:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, there was a surprise in my tangerine.

It looked fine on the outside. No mold, no holes. I was sitting at my desk, excited for my citrus snack, when, upon splitting the globe open, found a clear slime. Liquidy, totally clear, and with an unsettling resemblance to...snot.

I shared my discovery with my officemate Rachel. After a little inspection, she stuck her finger into the goop, tasted it, and proclaimed, "It tastes like tangerine."

I, however, was not eager to taste the slime. The tangerine I had enjoyed the previous day was slime free. What if a bug or fungus made it? Rachel and I started to worry for Rachel.

We both googled tangerine goo, slime, gel. Nothing but Yahoo questions without answers.

But we're scientists. We don't stop at, huh, thats weird. Even better, I'm a food scientist. Citrus fruits are high in pectin, and pectin gels form in the presence of heat, acid, and water. There. A hypothesis. Thinking about my fruit, I realized I kept them in front of my heater. All the ingredients to make a pectin gel.

We hypothesized the remaining two tangerines might also have formed our suspected pectin gel.

Today's tangerine:

A well-controlled experiment? No. While we have but merely anecdotal evidence, I'm happy believing the slime is a pectin gel, unlike a rough, natural marmalade. And that's why I ate today's tangerine.

Tears of Gettysburg

2011-07-20T20:03:00.004-04:00

Last weekend, Reid and I drove to my cousin's wedding in Charlottesville, VA. On our way back, we stopped by Adams County Winery, where our friend August became head winemaker in January. He graduated with a Master's degree in Food Science, focusing on Enology, from Cornell.

Inside the winery, August and his wife Sara showed us the make room, and indulged all of our nerdy curiosities.

Adams County Winery makes over 20 (!!!) wines, many of them sweet and fruity, similar to styles typically made at cooler climate wineries. Their most famous is Yankee Blue, a blueberry ice wine that nearly always sells out. August showed us the blueberries chilling for their next batch. They handpick the berries from the winery's own blueberry patch, nestled under a bird net.

The winery boasts some cutting edge technologies, including a cross-flow filtration unit,

a new giant steam cleaner (with an enormous plug),

a fully automated bottling line that can bottle up to 1100 botttles per hour,

and a rocking chair made from an old aging barrel.

Inside August's lab, we saw the Spec 20 he's using for assays, and the green food coloring he uses to calibrate linearity, a la Gavin Sacks.

In the tasting room, we tried some of the wines. (August hasn't worked a vintage yet, so none of these wines are truly "his." He has made a Riesling, I think from frozen juice.)

After our sampling, we got a wine slushi (Tutti Frutti--notice it it Reid's hand), and checked out the milk vats the winery used to use for winemaking that now sit behind the barn in the PA sun.

The highlight of our visit was a sneak peak tasting of the winery's estate grown Lemberger. Deep red, fullbodied yet fruity with notes of raspberry, this wine will stand out in the flimsy cold climate red category.

August--with his intelligent approach to winemaking--is certain to produce some outstanding wines in the very near future. I'm so excited for August and Sara!

American Gouda Lovers Beware

2011-07-11T14:08:00.002-04:00

European health officials are testing fenugreek seeds for E. coli 0104, the deadly strain behind Europe's massive E. coli outbreak ("As of today 11 Jul 2011, the cumulative number of non-HUS [hemolytic uremic syndrome] STEC [Shiga toxin producing _Escherichia coli_] cases in the EU is 3041, including 16 deaths, and 757 HUS STEC cases, including 28 deaths."--ProMED)

Fenuwhaaaa? Fenugreek seeds are used for sprouts, but I know them better as an unexpected addition to some cheese curds and Goudas. The seeds have a nutty texture and a very subtle maple flavor. The seed is traditionally used in Indian cooking in curries.

Egyptian official are denying that their seeds contained the deadly bacteria, but if there's anything we in the food safety community have learned in the past few years...cough Peanut Corp. of America cough...bacteria will surprise you.

They sometimes survive in dry, arid environments and shatter our paradigms of critical control points.

Cheesemakers, beware! I recommend checking with your supplier for the source of your fenugreek seeds, or giving them a good roast.

Addendum: A loyal reader, DJ GosaGosaka (follow her on twitter @gosagosaka) noted that fenugreek is often used homeopathically to increase milk production in breastfeeding women. And hence I learned a new word: galactogogue! (A substance to increase milk production.) A quick Pubmed search found few clinical studies performed to test its effects...and some reported adverse effects like a maple-like odor to urine and sweat, diarrhea, and aggravation of asthmatic symptoms. Mothers, beware, too!

What happens when you age 2BuckChuck

2011-07-07T20:28:00.003-04:00

I've never knocked Trader Joe's infamous Charles Shaw wines, aka Two Buck Chuck. I like value, and these wines generally tend to be somewhat drinkable, especially the third or fourth glass.

Last week my dear friend Steph brought over a bottle of Charles Shaw Chardonnay for our True Blood watching night. The ladies didn't get into it that evening, but a few days later I popped it open in a I-feel-like-a-Sunday-night-glass-of-anything moment.

Before I describe this wine, there's something you need to know about me. I loathe oaked Chardonnay. In fact, the words "buttery, oaky, toasty" send shivers down my spine. I prefer my butter on in a tub of popcorn, not in a glass.

But I'm trying to appreciate oaked Chard, if nothing for the fact that it's nine times out of ten the default white wine at a cheap open bar, like the ones you find at scientific conference receptions.

So when I tasted the wine, I was very pleasantly surprised. Oaked, sure, but subtly, like passing a leaf bonfire in the fall while driving fast in your car. Just a hint. And balanced, with rich apple and honey flavors balancing the oak. Wow, not bad I thought. And then I looked at the bottle.

(Full disclaimer: this photo is not mine. I recycled the bottle before I realized it would make a dramatic photo.)

2005! 2BuckChuck ages well.

Then I googled the 2005 "vintage" and read that it won the CA State Fair blind judging that year--a good year for Ole' Chucky Shaw. Still, what a value, not counting inflation.

Frenchmen Poetics

2011-06-17T10:51:00.001-04:00

This week I was in New Orleans, LA for the Institute of Food Technologists' Annual Meeting.

After the IFT Student Association Mixer at Maison on Frenchmen St., Anne (a fellow food scientist) and I stumbled upon Matt, a Poet for Hire.

We hired him. To his surprise, our poetic prompt was "Food Science."

Here's what he composed in a mere 15 min.

Local is not always better

2011-05-09T21:57:00.000-04:00

Efficiency is key to sustainability. A study from Cornell challenges that local is always better for the dairy industry. We have a complex food production and distribution system--learn about it!

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/April11/FoodMilesStudy.html

Beer to Biogas

2011-03-31T21:40:00.000-04:00

My latest article in the Cornell Daily Sun here, about microbial communities in brewery waste digesters.

A diagram of an anaerobic digester, from an excellent description of the process.

Cardoon arrives

2011-03-24T21:20:00.002-04:00

Think outside the box, the rennet box...

Thistle rennet.

Made from Cynara cardunculus, an enzyme found in the stamen of the thistle plant cleaves cheese proteins differently than animal-derived rennets most commonly used to make cheese.

Traditionally used in some Portugese sheep's milk cheeses, the result can be ooey gooey slightly bitter bliss (especially when using moisture curds in the contemporary style).

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/01/serious-cheese-creamy-thistle-rennet-cheeses.html

A few friends and I have been helping Chef Dano develop some cheese for a homemade cheeseplate to be unveiled this summer.

He wanted something unique, and thistle-renneted cheeses can't be any more unique for American cheese, let alone the Finger Lakes region.

With no obvious commercial sources of thistle rennet available online, I naturally did what I've been know to do: impulsively buy plants with some marginal nutritive value (e.g., my dwarf meyer lemon and dwarf Gran Nain trees.)

Las Saturday, I found a vendor of live Cardoon plants online and for about $20, became an impatient to-be owner of a 4.5 inch cardoon plant.

It came yesterday, surviving a most unpleasant late March snow/sleet storm in Ithaca.

Hope it will bloom this summer so we can make some CHEESE.

My 2-minute spiel on Listeria

2011-03-21T15:18:00.002-04:00

This spring, I took the Science Communication Workshop (Comm 5560) with Dr. Bruce Lewenstein. Over the weekend, 14 graduate students and post-docs learned about science journalism, and how to effectively present our work to general audiences.

One of the class exercises was talking about our work...on camera. We were trained by some of Cornell's press office staff.

I'm pretty shy, but I liked the chance to practice. Here's my (boring) video on Listeria!

Maple Magic

2011-03-20T22:24:00.000-04:00

This weekend, we drove to the Arnot Teaching and Research Forest for Maple Weekend.

Networks of trees are connected by sap lines. The collective network is called the "sugarbush."

We learned about maple sap and forests. Can you identify the trees? (Answers below)

Then we toured the Sugarhouse, where sap was being boiled into maple syrup in a large evaporator.

We tasted a sample of syrup made today in the sugarhouse. I was struck by the buttery notes...which got me thinking of fermentation.

Sequencing studies have explored the microbiota of maple sap. The predominant species are gram-negative rods: Pseudomonas and Rahnella. Lactic acid bacteria have also been detected. I wonder if we tasted the by-products of some fermentation in today's maple syrup.

Vince Razionale Visits

2011-03-13T23:27:00.000-04:00

Saturday evening, Vince Razionale of the Cellars at Jasper Hill gave a guest lecture and led a tasting of six Jasper Hill cheeses.

The cheeses, wearing their traveling pants.

Steve and the other CCC leaders plated 60 plates for our 54 anticipated guests.

The crowd included (but wasn't limited to) students, cheesemakers, chefs, professors, and hockey fans.

On the cheese plate:

12 o'clock - Weybridge, from Scholten Family Farm

2 o'clock - Landaff, from Landaff Creamery

4 o'clock - Cabot Clothbound Cheddar

7 o'clock - Oma, by von Trapp Farmstead

9 o'clock - Bayley Hazen Blue, by Jasper Hill Farm

The cheese missing from the plate was my favorite of the evening: Winnimere, by Jasper Hill Farm.

This washed rind cheese breaks down so much during aging, it needs its pine wood shell just to keep it intact.

To serve it, Vince cut off the top and our guests dipped (clean) spoons into the gooey center. Vince described this cheese is high in demand, and he often has to turn down requests for it.

A highlight of my cheese-tasting year, it's best described as "a luscious bacon pudding with a hint of smoke and sweetness."

After the tasting, we took Vince out to my favorite restaurant in Ithaca, Just-a-Taste, and then capped the night with a sampling of beers leftover from our Beer & Cheese pairing. Our cherished bottle of Ommegang's Zuur had aged considerably in the month, becoming a less sweet and more roasty sour ale.

A big thank you to Vince from the Cheese Club at Cornell!

IL to NY to CA to IL and back to NY, in a box

2011-03-10T18:45:00.001-05:00

My mom has a knack for finding one-of-a-kind decor.

She found a dozen gold-rimmed, bird-adorned glasses. She sent them to me...over 2 weeks ago, via UPS. The shipment history: Illinois to Buffalo to Gardena, CA, back to Illinois, back to Buffalo, finally to Ithaca.

I asked her if perhaps she sent them via Pony Express instead of UPS.

Despite the long journey, they arrived without a scratch.
Thanks, Mom!

Plant Inspecting

2011-03-09T19:00:00.001-05:00

Silin, a labmate and leader of the Environmental Sampling Plan Team (EnviroSamp?), and I walked around the processing plant today to consider potential sampling sites.

We've got a handle on all the drains (16 or more), and some suspicious cracks in the wall.

Silin also looked like a tiny person holding this GIANT wrench:

Jasper Hill Tasting

2011-03-08T21:22:00.008-05:00

This Saturday, March 12, the Cheese Club at Cornell is hosting a special lecture and tasting with Vince Razionale of the Cellars at Jasper Hill (the "Blank at Blank" naming parallelism at its best).

Here's a preview of cheese we (hope we) will taste.

More info on the event.

What I'm most excited to try: the Moses Sleeper, a bloomy rind Ayrshire milk cheese.

Ithaca is SNOW

2011-03-07T21:05:00.014-05:00

Last night, the biggest snow storm of ~~the century~~ my time here hit.

One look outside of my window, and I knew I wasn't driving. My landlord and his son-in-law were clearing the lot.

We walked up Buffalo.

Even the mayor helps with snow maintenance in Ithaca.

Cars were buried.

Does a gnome call Buffalo St its home?

Finally, we hit the Bowels of Ithaca: Collegetown.

Ithaca is (snowy) GORGES.

Through Central Campus.

Ran into Food Scientist Claire, pretended I was The Sartorialist.

Offered a ride by a friendly person.

Declined.

Some of us were more chipper than others.

Snow Art: guess that building!

Cornell owns Big Red plow trucks.

The Vanities of Stocking Hall

Dairymen humor me.

Learning by experience

2011-03-06T13:06:00.000-05:00

I know about Listeria monocytogenes...on paper, in a culture tube, but I've never sampled for it in the environment.

My lab, the Food Safety Lab at Cornell University, was asked to create an environmental sampling plan to test for L. mono in the Cornell Dairy Processing Plant in its new location. (R.I.P. runway of Stocking Hall).

L. monocytogenes is a foodborne pathogen that can persist in food processing environments. Not only can it cause serious illness in humans - especially susceptible populations like the young, the elderly and the immunocompromised - it's considered a food adulterant by the FDA. Keeping a plant Listeria-free is good for safety and for preventing regulatory headaches.

I volunteered to be on a student team to design the sampling, processing, and record documentation.

To help keep track of the steps, I'll blog about our experience.

Someone else will listen to your complaints

2011-03-05T15:22:00.001-05:00

When foodborne illness strikes, who do you call?

Public health departments could be on your list.

A recent article published in the Journal of Food Protection surveyed 190 local and state public health departments to find out how many had consumer complaint departments. A majority (81%) of health departments did have such departments, but mostly in largely populated areas compared to less densely populations regions.

Complaining can be usefull; 69% of outbreaks were identified through consumer complaints. Consumer complaint systems also helped official collect data on timing of illness and food histories - crucial epidemiological tools to figuring out outbreaks. Consumers also complain about unsanitary conditions at restaurants.

I have to admit that I've never called anyone (other than my sister/best friend/boyfriend) when I've gotten sick. So I tried to find Tompkins County's health department number: the best I could find.