Monday, December 22, 2008
Strange News from the Food Front (12/22/2008)
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)
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Product Review: Knob Creek Bourbon
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.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Product Review: TRUFresh Shrimp [UPDATED]
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.]
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.]
Product Review: George Foreman 360 Grilling Machine
This is the first time I've had a chance to try one of the George Foreman-branded grills. After trying it a bit, I can largely recommend it. On the plus side, it gets real hot, real fast, and cooking food from both sides speeds the time to meal. A good amount of grease does pour off the grill when you use the built-in tipping stand that causes the hot liquid to roll off the grill and into a receptacle. There are replaceable surfaces, so you can switch from a grill to a quesadilla maker to a baking dish. The surfaces clean up quickly, and we had great luck grilling burgers, pork chops, fish, and vegetables. There is also a lot of space, and you should be able to cook a 1.5 pound, or perhaps larger, steak.
Now for the cons. Be careful how you set the grill, otherwise you might have the grease container at the edge of a counter and accidentally knock it over, spilling a big mess, as I did. If you like rare or medium-rare meat, then this can get tricky. The grill will cook far faster than you're used to because both sides are getting heat simultaneously. Because of the speed, you won't get the same degree of grilling char marks on the surfaces, and if you look for those, a steak or burger will have already sailed into well-done territory. It's still worth using if you're in a hurry or if the surface appearance isn't so important.
We did try the baking dish for a deep-dish pizza, as the marketing lit says is possible, but I wouldn't even bother. The lid keeps the dough compressed, which makes for a heavy pie. I've yet to try it for a frittata, and suspect that will work well. It would also be good if there latches to keep the lid closed when moving it from a cupboard to a surface for cooking and back again. However, it's a fast way to make dinner with a lot less grease. Retail price is about $150.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Strange News from the Food Front (12/8/2008)
A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:
- Drinkable Art A start-up prints images in caramel on latte foam. (Boston Globe)
- Kentucky Kleaning Some KFC workers got into trouble for bathing in sinks used for cleaning dishes. Hey, at least they were clean when working. (AP)
- Better than a Gallic Shrug A French literature major, having worked as a grocery store checkout clerk, has parlayed the experience into a best-selling memoir in France. (Washington Post)
- Power of Pepperoni A pizza delivery man, finding himself on the wrong end of a gun barrel, fought back with a hot pepperoni pizza (AP)
- Don't Ask About the Hole A man working without pants at a drive-through doughnut shop gets probation. (AP)
- China Gets First Michelin Star Of course, the obvious line would be that an hour later the restaurant in question would want another one. (Financial Times)
Product Review: Tahoe Creamery Ice Cream
New England is a hotbed for great ice cream, even during the winter, which might make you wonder about the sanity of the populace. My family is cheerfully in the cold treat camp, and it means somethign when each of us is trying to get to an ice cream brand before anyone else. That's what it's been like with Tahoe Creamery ice cream - fabulous texture and marvelous flavors. The vanilla is as good as I've had, and that's saying a lot. I even liked the Coffee Crunchy Toffee and the Mint Chip, though I'm typically not a big fan of coffee or mint ice cream. Thumbs up also on the Flow Cookie Dough. I only wish that some of the blueberry flavor had been included, as I've become a convert to blueberry ice cream made with wild Maine berries, and a comparison would have been fun. If you're in the mood for a treat, head to the Tahoe Creamery web site. At $39 for six pints packed in dry ice (not counting shipping), it's not cheap. But it is really good.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Strange News from the Food Front (12/8/2008)
A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:
- Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime (Or Ten) New Yorkers are tipping less, and that's tough on the restaurant crowd. (New York Magazine)
- Drink and Watch Someone has come out with a combination beer tap and LCD television. All it needs is a fridge. (Engadget)
- Double Points for Side Dish Cooking titles (you can fillet a fish on one, oh joy, or rapture) are popping out for game consoles. (Washington Post)
- Soup and Shawl A temporary Manhattan store selling independent designer lines is also serving soup. (AP)
- Free Market Coffee A libertarian, barrista, and contributor to Crispy on the Outside considers the economic and aesthetic implications of Starbucks. (Doublethink Online)
- One Hump or Two? Australians are being told to eat camels to stop global warming. No, I can't make this up. (AFP)
- Did You Check Your Pockets? The Moroccan subsidiary of McDonald's had to apologize for distributing maps, as part of a Happy Meal, that didn't show Western Sahara. (AFP)
Monday, December 01, 2008
Strange News from the Food Front (12/1/2008)
A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:
- Bootleg Russian Vodka The economy is hitting Russia hard, and many hard-drinking Russians are having to forgo commercial vodka, sometimes substituting dangerous homemade brew. (Reuters)
- Zero-G Coffee Cup An astronaut has developed a cup for drinking coffee in zero gravity - good for when you're orbiting the planet, or in the middle of a very steep drop in your car. (Space.com)
- Take the Coffee to Go Cafes are closing at a rate of two a day in France. (NYT)
- Foul Fiend Flailed with Frozen Fowl An alleged carjacker was stopped from stealing a woman's car when another shopper clubbed him with a frozen turkey. (AP)
- Patent Pending Panini McDonald's is apparently trying to patent a way of making sandwiches. Ingredients held between two slices of bread - who would have thought it? (Slashdot.org)
- Fierce Flatulence A 13-year-old Florida student was arrested for disrupting his classroom by turning off the computers of other students and by passing gas. (AP)
- Sweet Jesus German church authorities are reacting negatively to a man who's making a business of casting chocolate versions of the baby Jesus, wrapped in gold foil. (Reuters)
- Online Food Forensics An Australian restaurant owner tracked down five young people who ordered a large meal and then skipped out on the bill by finding them on Facebook. (Reuters)
- Plummeting Pumpkins Hundreds of people on Long Island, NY paid $9 each to several hundred pumpkins being tossed from a second floor to splatter on the ground below. (AP)
- Thanksgiving Theft A thief stole the entire Thanksgiving dinner from the porch of a Wisconsin family. (AP)
