Flash in the Pan

The Food and Drug Administration has found the rare Saintpaul strain of salmonella in some fresh serrano chiles from Mexico, and that the bacteria were in irrigation waters, and so is warning consumers not to eat them or raw jalapeno peppers from Mexico. That leaves me with the question of how to know for sure a pepper's country of origin.

Labels: FDA, peppers, salmonella, warning

I've been playing around on and off, trying to find a pancake recipe I liked. After making a number of changes here and there in what I saw, the family voted this one a keeper.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 3 TBS. sugar (reduce to 2 TBS. if using a sweet syrup)
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 2 eggs, separated
• 1 1/8 cup milk
• 2 TBS. butter
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Directions

1. Put butter and milk into microwave-safe container and heat until butter melts. Heat large pan or griddle over high heat.
2. In a large bowl, mix flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder.
3. In a medium bowl, beat egg whites until stiff. In another medium bowl, lightly beat egg yolks until mixed.
4. Add milk and butter mixture to egg yolks, mixing constantly.
5. Add milk and egg yolk mixture to flour mixture and gently mix until completely combined.
6. Folk egg whites into batter, taking care not to deflate the whites.

Cook the pancakes. Yields about 15 3-inch pancakes. (Definitely enough for four people.)

Labels: pancakes, recipes

I didn't think of Businessweek as a source of dining information, but it turns out to have an eating and drinking column. This week it covers red espresso, actually Rooibos tea made from a legume found only in South Africa [UDDATE - I originally had types America, showing that I should have had more of something before typing, and thanks to the person who wrote in pointing out the error]. Apparently it's being marketed as a non-coffee espresso, like the Postem of the latte crowd. According to David Kiley, stick with the real brew and save the Rooibos for actual tea, hot or, where it is exceptional, cold:

If you are a tea drinker, and you do not drink coffee because you don't care for the taste, red espresso may appeal to you. I drink a lot of tea and a considerable amount of espresso. I have no objection to coffee or caffeine. Indeed, I'd go so far as to say I need a cup of coffee a day. So, for me, red espresso brewed to take the place of espresso joins that list of stuff that doesn't hit my taste buds well, such as Postum, lite mayonnaise, Diet Coke, NutraSweet, Lactaid Milk, nonalcoholic beer, and "yogurt" made from tofu.

Supposedly the person who invented this did so because he found himself drinking six shots of espresso a day. Good lord.

If I were brewing tea, though, I'd probably stick to a fuller cut leaf and not something pulverized. That would be like using a cheap tea bag.

Labels: coffee, espresso, tea

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

• Professor of Pistachio One of the world's largest ice cream equipment manufacturers runs Gelato University outside Bologna, where it teaches 6,000 would-be professionals a year. (Financial Times)


• Going Against the Whole Grain Sara Lee, General Mills, and others, get smacked for claiming "whole grain" when products are mostly refined white flour. (Businessweek)


• Briber Works ... Ah, Worked An English school used chocolate bars as bribes for good behavior - and it worked. But higher officials chided him for not using healthy food. (Financial Times)


• That Metallic Taste Coca-Cola lovers in Hong Kong will be getting 25ml less of the drink per can as the company is shrinking the size of the container to save money on the cost of aluminum. (MarketWatch)


• The Big Eatsy For the first time since Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Times-Picayune is again reviewing restaurants. (NYT)


• Brain Food The head of the World Trade Organization has suggested to his staff members that they eat bananas to keep them going through difficult negotiation sessions. (Reuters)


• Ho, Ho, Ho The 51st annual world Santa convention included a focus on exercising, not dieting, to get those jolly guys more easily down chimneys. (AFP)


• Keeping His Sunny Side Up A French waiter who threw an egg at the car carrying Nicholas Sarkozy during his visit to Ireland said that he'll be ready with "more than a dozen" should the president of France return. (AFP)

Labels: news, odd, weird

A bottle of New Amsterdam gin arrived from the company's PR firm for testing, claiming that it had "a taste so smooth you can drink it straight." So I tried it that way ... and have to agree. This gin is perhaps the most gentle on the palate of any that I've tried. The taste is not so explosively floral as Bombay Sapphire, but it's agreeable and balanced and would lend itself well to mixed drinks. It's certainly proven its worth in gin and tonics, one of my occasional pleasures during the summer months. A fifth runs about $14, with various other sizes available, and although I would never recommend a beverage based on the bottle design — and consider the industry's stressing of container aesthetics to be bordering on silly — this one is attractive, if that matters to you.

Labels: alcohol, beverages, drinks, product, review

The New York Times science Q&A section has a question on mold: If there's some on the surface of food, has it permeated throughout? Their answer, quoting the US Department of Agriculture, is yes, it may well have. By the time you see the surface mold, root threads are embedded.

Some molds can cause strong allergic reactions, including respiratory problems, in susceptible people. And in some varieties, the threads produce toxic substances called mycotoxins, which can make people very sick.

Eww, not good. If you're really feeling adventurous, go for a "safe" mold: blue cheese.

Labels: food safety, mold, science

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

• Bam - You're Insulted In a new British television show, Eating with the Enemy people prepare their favorite home dishes and food writers try to out-snark each other. (The Observer)


• The Naked Video Game Jamie Oliver is star of a cooking video game with recipes and as it runs on a portable Nintendo DS, you can bring it to the grocery store and have it manage your shopping list. All without calories. (Press release)


• No Take Out for You and You and You An anti-immigrant group in Italy is pushing for a law that would let cities bar ethnic restaurants "incompatible with the historical context." Is any part of Italy not historic? Oh, right, that's the idea. (Reuters)


• Self-Cutting Sandwich A New York man is claiming in a lawsuit that a Subway shop put a 7-inch knife into his sandwich. (Reuters)


• Good Thing He Didn't Ask for Doughnuts A Florida policeman was fired for trying to get free coffee and tea from a Starbucks. Didn't anyone tell him that it's over roasted? (AP)


• Golden Ticket A French woman found a candy wrapper in the trash and, with it, a winning number for a contest where the prize is a flight into space. (Reuters)


• Single-Handedly Keeping Breweries in Business An Australian man, convicted of a seventh DUI charge, was spending almost $1,000 weekly on beer. (Reuters)


• Uh ... Surprise Police say that a pizza restaurant clerk didn't know that her parents and her husband were planning to rob the establishment. (AP)


• He Deserves a Break Today A man who was convicted of robbing a McDonalds in 1994 is among the finalists in a contest to write a new jingle for the chain. (AP)


• Financial Decline of Wine Shrine A Napa Valley food and wine museum is in the financial dregs, and California citizens could get stuck with the tab. (Sacramento Bee)


• Free Willie Some Canadians are bidding to get a New Brunswick restaurant to free a 100-year-old lobster. (AFP)

Labels: news, odd, weird

A baseball star in the 1970s and 1980s, Greg "The Bull" Luzinski, has a barbecue sauce out under his name: The Bull BBQ Sauce. He was a great slugger, but I found his culinary exploits to fall short. The sauce tasted both overly-vinegary - without being a Carolina style - and too sweet as well. It may sound like a contradiction, but that's the results to the literally in-house testing panel. I also tend to write off products that include Liquid Smoke (on the ingredients label) because that isn't the job of the sauce. If you can't get smoke flavor from the grill, the meal is a loss anyway. And my wife noticed the high fructose corn syrup component in the listed Worcestershire sauce, which automatically put the product on her "do not buy" list. I'd say that if you're in the market for a good barbecue sauce, take another trip around the bases and keep looking.

Labels: barbecue, opinion, review, sauce

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

• The Stress of Dealing with a Food Crisis At the G8 summit, world leaders prepared themselves to deal with the issue of a food crisis by having a 19-course dinner prepared by 25 chefs. (The Guardian)


• Yes, We Have No Bow-wowersBeijing officials have called on restaurants and hotels to stop serving dishes containing dog during the Olympics. (Financial Times)


• Cocoa Chanel An Ivorian fashion designer makes outfits from jute sacks used to ship cocoa from the Ivory Coast. (Reuters)


• World's Hottest Curry Title? A London restaurant took at shot at serving the world's hottest curry and is waiting on the Guinness Book of World Records to confirm this. Every diner had to sign a disclaimer. (AFP)


• Iron-Rich Diet A Peruvian doctor had to pull 17 metal objects - including nails and a knife - from the body of a patient who ate them. (Reuters)


• Curdled Carriers Thousands of liters of sour milk, sent by farmers protesting low dairy prices, are clotting the EU's main sorting center. (Reuters)


• Cooler Armor A Connecticut man used his lunch cooler to protect himself from the gunfire of two would-be robbers. (AP)


• Some Strong Tea A Japanese calmed down a knife-wielding robber by serving him tea. (Reuters)

Labels: news, odd, weird

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

• I'll Drink to That The Museum of the American Cocktail returns to its home in New Orleans on July 21. (Organization web site)


• Shaken, Not Whirred Japanese beer company Asahi unveiled its new robot bartender. (Engadget)


• Hops Go the Brewers Craft beer companies are facing "rapidly rising commodity prices, industry consolidation, and a slowing economy" and trying to figure out how they're going to make money. Oh, wait - we'll pay more. (Businessweek)


• Life's a Bowl of Cherry Pits A son out spat his father to take his seventh International Cherry Pit Spitting Championship. (AP)


• Battle of the Courses A restaurant in a part of Beirut controlled by Hezbollah is war-themed, with a bullet-shaped menu and chefs working in military fatigues. (Reuters)


• Hot Dogging An American successfully defended his world title in Nathan's annual hot dog eating competition. (Reuters)


• No Starch Decision A UK court ruled that Pringles are not a potato snack, and so not subject to a tax. (AP)


• Hope They Are Red An international body has adopted a standard for tomatoes. (AFP)


• No Restaurant for You Three retired family members have at least temporarily lost a 50 year battle for a top Paris restaurant valued at $110 million. (AFP)

Labels: news, odd, weird

A recent grilling special issue of Cook's Illustrated (with which I have a love hate relationship - good tips, but an arrogant approach to the best way to do this, that, and the other) mentioned using a pommade in making well-done burgers. I had forgotten about this, even though I use the technique in meatballs and meatloaf. The French word means a cream or ointment. In a cooking context, it's a term for making a paste and adding it to another mixture so that, after cooking, the result remains moist.

In this case, a good pommade is simply bread (one slice per pound of meat) soaked in enough milk to make it soggy, then rubbed into a paste. Mix the pommade with the ground meat, add in salt and any other flavorings you like (a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce per pound of meat is a touch I like), and then make patties without packing the meat in. Cook as you normally would, watching for over cooking.

If you're used to feeling the burgers on top for how well done they are, remember that the pommade will make them feel squishier, therefore less done. I'd use a thermometer the first time or two using this technique. At least, I would have, had I thought ahead. Last week I tried it and the burgers came out medium well, rather than the medium rare most of my family prefers. Guess I'll have to try it again - and not spare the digital readout.

Labels: burger, meat, technique

Yesterday, Starbucks announced that it would be closing "600 underperforming company-operated stores in the U.S. market, which includes our previously announced plans to close 100 stores," according to A Message from Howard. He started with all the wonderful things that happened since becoming CEO again, and mentioned such upcoming things as the introduction of "healthy, good-for-you beverages" starting July 15. (Healthy? Good-for-you? Is this still a coffee spot?)

In addition, in Southern California, we will introduce a refreshing, indulgent cold iced beverage. Steeped in Italian heritage, it will be an exclusive product that our customers can only find at Starbucks.

Sure, other companies will probably call it something else once they lift the concept. But then came the bad news - under performing stores would close, full- and part-time employees would lose their jobs. At least they say they'll be offering employees either a position at a nearby store (though once you're out of major cities, heaven knows what "nearby" will mean) or some severance. And given how they have benefits even for many part-time workers, I can't fault them. The chain simply expanded faster than its audience.

I even have some sympathy for CEO Schultz. Clearly he's been torn between the business becoming enormous and wanting the atmosphere of a cafe with comfortable seats for deliberate loitering over a cup of coffee and the smell of freshly ground beans in the air. But you can't be big and neighborhood at the same time, which shows that even success doesn't mean that you'll be happy and free of conflict.

Now, if only they'd stop over-roasting their beans.

Labels: business, coffee, Starbucks

The New York Times has a short science piece on whether mayonnaise increases the danger of food poisoning as the weather gets warmer. The good news: a number of studies suggest that commercial mayonnaise is not at fault, as the degree of acidic ingredients makes the substance pretty unpopular with the microbe crowd.

One prominent study published in The Journal of Food Protection found, for example, that in the presence of commercial mayonnaise, the growth of salmonella and staphylococcus bacteria in contaminated chicken and ham salad either slowed or stopped altogether. As the amount of mayonnaise increased, the rate of growth decreased. When temperatures rose to those of a hot summer day, the growth increased, but not as much as in samples that did not contain mayonnaise.

However, summer brings another danger - cold drinks and condensation that can leave water marks. Luckily, mayonnaise can bring a solution. You smear mayonnaise over the spot, leave it overnight (or even a day or more), wipe it off, and the spot is gone. There are a number of sites online that describe this technique; I know about it because my wife read it in some book, tried it, and was delighted to find that it worked. No, adding bacon, lettuce, and tomato is not necessary.

Labels: food safety, mayonnaise, science