You wouldn’t think chicken things would be so expensive, but maybe that includes the Coke.
Tag Food
The Ten Foodies You Meet In Hell
Online trend-watcher mag EcoSalon recently had this article about “The 10 Types Of Foodies”. It’s mostly on-track, although even the writer can’t really make any distinction between Number 1 and Number 10. I suppose her editor wouldn’t accept a “Top Nine” list.
I have to cop to being at least five of the ten nine at one point or another in my foodie phase. The one phase she’s missing, that I definitely went through, was the “knows every unknown spot in town”. In big cities, where there’s a lot of genuinely first-rate high-end dining, you earn a lot of foodie cred for knowing the local scene.
I consider myself sort of post-foodie now. I gave up serious cooking, I can’t afford high-end dining, and having tried all those local joints I can’t be bothered to go back to the majority of them. I never take pictures of food anymore. I rarely bother with wine, and now that I’m lactose-intolerant I have to curtail my cheese eating quite substantially. Being able to buy pretty much anything you could possibly want online has diminished the thrill of scoring hard-to-find items, and I was never much for weird exotic things in the first place. It’s a lot simpler.
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Traditiiiooonnnnn! TRADITION!
If you’re Jewish, you know there is nothing that trumps tradition. And there is no greater Jewish tradition than going out to the movies and Chinese food on Christmas Day while all the goyim are at home for once, thank God.
Smithsonian Magazine food blogger Jesse Rhodes speculates on how and why American Jews developed such an affinity for Chinese food (A lot of which, let’s face it, is treyf. Oy! So much pork!). There’s even a link to a study by a pair of sociologists named Tuchman and Levine (such nice Jewish names!) looking at the interplay of Jewish and Chinese immigrant communities in New York City, with some frankly dubious assertions, but no mention of the obvious: the Chinese restaurants were the only ones open on Christmas!
Since Christmas and Chanukkah more or less crossover this year, does this mean even the Jews will be staying home on Christmas Day and eating latkes instead of eggroll? Who’s gonna go with me to the movies?
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Hungry As A Horse
Whenever we make spaghetti, my wife complains that I don’t make enough, even though I usually make half a box (which, technically, should serve four). This spaghetti measurer ought to solve that problem.
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Infographic Of The Day
Click here for a larger version
You’ll want to look at the larger version to see the detail, but it’s a three-dimensional graph of assorted recipes for baked goods plotted according to the amounts of the core ingredients of baking — flour, sugar, and eggs — are in them.
The Boston Globe explains that this is the work of Harvard mathematician Michael Brenner, stemming from his involvement in the groundbreaking “Food and Science” molecular gastronomy course there. Being a quant guy, Brenner noticed the distribution of various ingredients across recipes and wondered how they related to one another in graphic form. His plot shows some interesting things about the way baking recipes are put together, and, he suggests, might push baking into new areas as it shows untried combinations.
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Mmm…Brominated Vegetable Oil
Mountain Dew may *LOOK* like a glass full of antifreeze, but it’s actually a glass full of flame retardent!
I guess I’ll never have to worry about spontaneously combusting. Thanks, Pepsico!
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In Which I Rate The Ingredients Of Chex Mix
- Corn Chex — the undisputed Number One item in a bowl of Chex Mix. All of your truly great snack items are corn-based: Bugles, Doritos, Corn Nuts, Cap’n Crunch. The taste of the corn combines with the savory seasoning blend, without the greasiness of, say, Fritos. Without the Corn Chex, it isn’t even really a snack food.
- Rice Chex — the light and crispy player that almost convinces you you’re eating something that’s good for you. Almost.
- Wheat Chex — dark and deep, complex and compelling. You don’t want too many Wheat Chex, but when you need that bass note, you know to dig deep for those chocolate-brown bad boys.
- Rye Toasts — why must you be so frickin’ hard to chew? The seasonings work so well with that toasty rye flavor, but gaw-DAYUM it is hard to bite through them without feeling like you’re going to break a tooth.
- Pretzels — stop hiding in the Chex Mix and go back to your own bag, ferchrissake. And why the hell is there no salt on you? What sort of self-respecting pretzel doesn’t have SALT?!?
- Those Squiggly White Things — what the hell are these things? Seriously, WTF? Piss off!
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The Oldest Soda In America
It’s been a little over 20 years since Bridget and I lived in Bloomington, Indiana, and though there was very little to recommend the experience, developing a taste for Vernor’s soda was definitely one of the culinary highlights. Vernor’s is a regional product that was originally made in Michigan and has mostly been sold in the Midwest for it’s 150-ish year history. As with everything else now, the Internet makes it a global product, but its base is still there. If you’ve never had it, it is rather like ginger ale, but more nuanced in flavor and not as gingery-tasting as good ginger ales. It’s worth trying, and there’s a diet version if you need it.
Über-foodblogger J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, a more recent convert to Vernor’s, posted a nice appreciation of the drink at Serious Eats the other day and explores the claim that Vernor’s is the oldest soda made in America.
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O. M. F. G.
My only complaint is that they look a little small. A whoopie pie needs to be a good 4 or 5 inches in diameter, like the size of a burger. Those look more like the size of a macaron. I do note with approval, though, that the creme filling is the proper Marshmallow Fluff variety and not that hopeless whipped cream. I’ll have to be making a batch of these…for research purposes, you understand.
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Reheating The Meaty Treats
Expecting to be inundated with leftovers after your big Thanksgiving meal on Thursday? Most everyone I know looks forward to having a couple of meals of leftovers, but by the end of the holiday weekend you’re probably sick to death of them. So take a break and have something else and save some leftovers for a few days down the road. This chart gives you an idea of how long various components of Thanksgiving dinner will last in the fridge or freezer. You ought to be able to wring a few days of turkey-free dining out of things before you have to bite the pullet…er, bullet.