I just read an announcement made by Hershey's Inc. They have formed a wholly owned subsidiary called Artisan Confections Company. Artisan has just completed the purchase of Joseph Schmidt Confections. For those of you not in the know Joseph Schmidt is one of San Francisco's favorite chocolatiers. They have some of the cutest chocolates made in America. I just love their little easter duckies! You can find them in fine food stores across the country. Artisan also acquired the two retail stores operated by Joseph Schmidt in San Fancisco.
Read More......Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Monday, August 15, 2005
The post in which you see inside my brain
I am so....oh I don't know, unsettled, I guess is the word I'm searching to use.
We live in this wonderful world of ours. We enjoy abundance at every corner. I love to fool myself that growing up a poor child in America gave me an edge on the rest of the world. It gave me an edge, but not on the rest of the world. Not by a longshot. As I said before, we enjoy abundance at every turn. Of course there are others that enjoy more than most, and there are those who do go to bed without eating. However, after seeing the results of a nation's president embarrassed by the starvation happening in his country and his refusal to visit the area until it was in epidemic stages of turmoil, I can only say that the numerous times I went hungry as a child were really nothing.
Niger has me so incredibly stressed. The images of childen too starved to even drink water are haunting. We must do something. So I did that. I donated to the humanitarian arm of the LDS church. They have an excellent distribution system and have loaded a plane filled with 80 million pounds of relief supplies expected today in Niger. In conjuction with Catholic Relief Services it will be distributed to those in need. There, I feel much better.
But I don't. Because of this. It is the most eye opening and conscience jarring piece of journalism I've read since this. (registration required; go to bugmenot.com and get a code if you don't want to register) These types of articles give me insomnia a night. We have people starving a world away and Americans are turning food into trash to the tune of 100 million pounds a year. What?!?!?!?!? We can't make a profit from harvesting and selling 60,000 pounds of peaches so let's plow under the field. Only in America.
Lately I've been eating in a few restaurants due to traveling. Each meal has been an abundance of excess. Easily each meal could have been eaten by two people. A baked potato the same size as the shoe I wear (a 6.5, thank you). The local McDonalds is selling a small drink for $1.09. However if you decide to go for the gusto and order a super large one they'll sell it to you for 64 cents. Incredible. I can have a glass of something that isn't good for me in quantities no one person should drink in a days time for less than half of what a small serving will cost.
Throwing away food. Excess in consumption. Plowing under fields of food because the food can't be sold at a profit. Where does it end? The farmers will climb my frame because everyone wants to control what farmers do. The restauranteurs will tell me it's what their customers want: large plates of food that no one should really eat at one sitting. Friends and neighbors tell me that sometimes they just don't feel like eating what they have purchased and toss that three day old meat because it went bad waiting to be cooked. It seems we have reached a conundrum. I cannot solve these problems, however I must do something.
What can I do about this? I can begin in small steps to change my corner of the world. I can continue donating excess monies to humanitarian entities. I can choose, while eating in restaurants, to order half orders or split an order with another person. I can shop daily or weekly with a list and stick to my eating plan. I can adopt an old adage taught me by a wise old woman: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." I cannot go to Niger. I can however remember them everyday and be more aware of how my actions affect the lives of those people around the globe. We can all do those things. Will someone join me?
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National Fig Week
August 23th marks the beginning of National Fig Week!
Figs are a very interesting fruit. In fact thy're not really a fruit! They're a flower that has folded in on itself providing a very tasty little snack.
Figs were first brought to the U.S. by Spaniards. San Diego was their first California home. The first place I encountered a fig was in Oceanside, California. We had a fig tree growing in the front yard. The flavor of figs still takes me back to the wonderful years spent in the hot sun, smelling the salt air and snagging a fresh fig off the tree. Mmmmm.
I didn't know back then how good these little portable snacks were for you. In fact, we all love to talk about the antioxidant benefits of blueberries and other berries. Did you know that figs have higher antioxidants (polyphenols) than any other fruit? The polyphenol level of blueberries is about 325mg compared to figs at 1025mg for the same serving size!
Then when you compare the potassium levels you have an even greater reason to eat these on a daily basis. Everyone knows that you need to keep your potassium levels in balance, especially runners. Most people will grab a banana and think they're covered. Well, sort of, in a 100 gram serving of figs you get 609 mg of ptoassium. Bananas in the same amount only give you 257mg. The closest fruit to figs in potassium levels are dates at 600mg.
Figs are also very high in fiber - in a serving of figs you get 20% of your daily requirement as established by the USDA.
Go grab yourself a few figs!
Read More......
Figs are a very interesting fruit. In fact thy're not really a fruit! They're a flower that has folded in on itself providing a very tasty little snack.
Figs were first brought to the U.S. by Spaniards. San Diego was their first California home. The first place I encountered a fig was in Oceanside, California. We had a fig tree growing in the front yard. The flavor of figs still takes me back to the wonderful years spent in the hot sun, smelling the salt air and snagging a fresh fig off the tree. Mmmmm.
I didn't know back then how good these little portable snacks were for you. In fact, we all love to talk about the antioxidant benefits of blueberries and other berries. Did you know that figs have higher antioxidants (polyphenols) than any other fruit? The polyphenol level of blueberries is about 325mg compared to figs at 1025mg for the same serving size!
Then when you compare the potassium levels you have an even greater reason to eat these on a daily basis. Everyone knows that you need to keep your potassium levels in balance, especially runners. Most people will grab a banana and think they're covered. Well, sort of, in a 100 gram serving of figs you get 609 mg of ptoassium. Bananas in the same amount only give you 257mg. The closest fruit to figs in potassium levels are dates at 600mg.
Figs are also very high in fiber - in a serving of figs you get 20% of your daily requirement as established by the USDA.
Go grab yourself a few figs!
Read More......
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Please comply, restauranteurs.
In a bold move, New York City's health department has asked all city restaurants stop using trans fats in their food preparation, the New York Times reports. To say this is a bold move is really an understatement. 30 to 60 percent of all of the cities' restaurants use trans fats currently in their menus. The request comes on the heels of a report that heart diseas has become New York's largest killer.
The health department is the first in the nation to make such a request in the United States. I applaud them. The harm trans fat can do to a body can be likened to asbestos exposure. Not only do trans fats build placque in your veins but it also inhibits good fats from doing thier job in reducing cholesterol. Denmark was the first country in the world to ban them all together in 2003, Canada has a similar ban up for consideration. I would hope that other cities will follow New York's lead. More on trans fats to come.
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Sunday, August 14, 2005
Ethos Water
I went on a road trip this week to Utah. We stopped at Starbucks our second day out. The first thing I noticed while ordering my chocolate cream frappuccino was the bottle. What bottle? The Ethos water bottle. There it was in all its blue and black splendor. Later in the week while checking my email I noticed a note from Johnathon and Peter. They wanted me to know I could pick up Ethos at Starbucks too.
Soooooo. All of you out there not quite knowing what to do about world food and water crises, I've got one solution for you. It's very simple. You can buy some Ethos Water. The whole purpose of buying a bottle is to get Starbucks (and other retailers) to make a donation to Ethos when you buy the water. The money is then spent building wells in third world nations where potable drinking water is not readily available. At Starbucks a bottle is about $1.80. That's a lot for a bottle of water, but not a lot to provide water for a thirsty nation. Read More......
Soooooo. All of you out there not quite knowing what to do about world food and water crises, I've got one solution for you. It's very simple. You can buy some Ethos Water. The whole purpose of buying a bottle is to get Starbucks (and other retailers) to make a donation to Ethos when you buy the water. The money is then spent building wells in third world nations where potable drinking water is not readily available. At Starbucks a bottle is about $1.80. That's a lot for a bottle of water, but not a lot to provide water for a thirsty nation. Read More......
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Sunday, August 07, 2005
Crunch, crunch, crunch!
Okay about a month ago I told you I had to make up a batch or two of biscotti for the wedding. I just haven't had a chance to blog about it, yet.
It all began when the daughter who would be obeyed said that was one of the few things that had to be at her reception. She wanted orange and lemon biscotti to go with her citrus theme. Okay then!
Never before had I attempted biscotti. I began with a good search of the food bloggers out there to see if any had done some in the recent past. Not a good idea! Why? Well, because food blogs are so addictive I'd spend half a day reading entries and getting great ideas but not doing much else. I did find a couple of good recipes and settled in to make them up.
They seemed simple enough, few ingredients and even fewer steps to follow. This seemed almost too easy. In a bowl of a food processor, mix together 1 and 1/4 cups of flour, 1/2 cup of sugar and 1 teaspoon of baking powder. Pulse slighty to ensure the flour, sugar and baking powder are mixed well. Add in 3 tablespoons of chilled butter. Pulse together until it looks like bread crumbs. Now add 1 egg and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice and 3 tablespoons of lemon zest. Mix well. Add in a 1/2 cup of sliced almonds, mix until it begins to form a ball in the processor. The mixture will be sticky. Pour onto a floured board and fold until less sticky. Divide dough in two, form logs and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
Notice there isn't a lot of flour on the dough. Don't mix in too much when you're working with the dough in prepartion for baking. Pop it in a 350 degree oven and bake for 25 minutes.
Holy Moly! It is more than double its original size! Who would have thought it would get this big??? I sure didn't.
While dough is still warm, cut the log in diagonal slices about 3/4 of an inch thick. Turn it on its side and put back in the oven. Bake it for 8 minutes.
After the 8 minutes, remove the biscotti from the oven and flip it to the other side. (this is where the recipe gets tedious - in out in out - good grief will this end?) Once all the pieces are flipped, you guessed it!, cak in the oven for another 8 minutes. Viola! You have now mastered biscotti! The picture at the top is the finished product. We actually then took the biscotti and dipped it in Schokinag White Chocolate. The result was wonderful. Oh yes, also if you want the orange version of the biscotti just replace the lemon juice and zest with orange juice and zest. It's that simple. Read More......
It all began when the daughter who would be obeyed said that was one of the few things that had to be at her reception. She wanted orange and lemon biscotti to go with her citrus theme. Okay then!
Never before had I attempted biscotti. I began with a good search of the food bloggers out there to see if any had done some in the recent past. Not a good idea! Why? Well, because food blogs are so addictive I'd spend half a day reading entries and getting great ideas but not doing much else. I did find a couple of good recipes and settled in to make them up.
They seemed simple enough, few ingredients and even fewer steps to follow. This seemed almost too easy. In a bowl of a food processor, mix together 1 and 1/4 cups of flour, 1/2 cup of sugar and 1 teaspoon of baking powder. Pulse slighty to ensure the flour, sugar and baking powder are mixed well. Add in 3 tablespoons of chilled butter. Pulse together until it looks like bread crumbs. Now add 1 egg and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice and 3 tablespoons of lemon zest. Mix well. Add in a 1/2 cup of sliced almonds, mix until it begins to form a ball in the processor. The mixture will be sticky. Pour onto a floured board and fold until less sticky. Divide dough in two, form logs and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
Notice there isn't a lot of flour on the dough. Don't mix in too much when you're working with the dough in prepartion for baking. Pop it in a 350 degree oven and bake for 25 minutes.
Holy Moly! It is more than double its original size! Who would have thought it would get this big??? I sure didn't. While dough is still warm, cut the log in diagonal slices about 3/4 of an inch thick. Turn it on its side and put back in the oven. Bake it for 8 minutes.After the 8 minutes, remove the biscotti from the oven and flip it to the other side. (this is where the recipe gets tedious - in out in out - good grief will this end?) Once all the pieces are flipped, you guessed it!, cak in the oven for another 8 minutes. Viola! You have now mastered biscotti! The picture at the top is the finished product. We actually then took the biscotti and dipped it in Schokinag White Chocolate. The result was wonderful. Oh yes, also if you want the orange version of the biscotti just replace the lemon juice and zest with orange juice and zest. It's that simple. Read More......
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Friday, August 05, 2005
The Remains of the Day
Yesterday I went with S'mee (a good friend) to Los Angeles. We were going to drive into the city to find a tailor for her dress for her son's wedding. You see S'mee is short of stature and women's fashion manufacturers think we'er all 5'8" or better.
We head to the center of fashion in Los Angeles. She finds a local tailor and asks him for a quote on how much it would cost to do a few nips and tucks and hemming of said gown. "Try on first" is his response. S'mee dresses in gown he and an assistant pin, pin, pin! The perfect length and dimensions have been met, "come back three hours, lots to sew" came his response. "how much?" S'mee asks. "Come back three hours" again was his response. What we have here... It was finally communicated that it would cost $70 to alter said gown. $70?!? "I only paid $50, I can't pay that to have it altered." It was decided that I would do my best to "frankenstein" the dress and in exchange we would spend the rest of the day indulging my desires. Heh.
So off we went to the other side of town. I noticed last time I was at the Farmer's Market that Maggiano's had a restaurant there. I was hungry for pasta so we'd stop there. That way we'd be able to stop in a Sur La Table too! We had lunch, S'mee choosing the meatball sandwich, me the chicken salad. What? I had wanted pasta. Hmmm. I was totally thrown off track by the inclusion of said chicken salad on the menu. I should have stuck with pasta. It was chicken salad. That's all that can be said.
However, S'mee's meatball sandwich was wow! Great tasting meatballs, the perfectly melted provolone cheese and just enough marinara sauce. They also included a small bowl of marinara sauce on the side for those wanting their sauce dripping. It was served on the perfect onion roll, no too much onion and the onions were sweet. We also started with a dish of bruschetta and crostini. Mmmm.
As you can see in the picture we found a few items at Sur La Table. A tasting spoon? It is a teaspoon on one end and a tablespoon on the other. However the tag listed it as a tasting spoon. I ususally use a stack of little demi-tasse spoons for tasting. But it was only 49 cents and blue! Also found some more of those great window cloths. I love cleaning glass with them. No streaks! And parchment - a couple of rolls with the 50% more free notation, a knife guard, and S'mee grabbed a few tartlett tins.
We then sped off to a couple of bakeries on Fairfax. I read an LA Times article a few months back and always wanted to stop in and have a taste. Hansen's and Royal Cake were the names. They have made baking cakes for the rich and famous and jsut about everyone else in LA. So we popped in to see what the fuss was all about. I must say upon entering both galleries I was very hmmm how do you say "confused". I did read about the rivalry and that Royal was set in the middle of the two Hansen galleries, however, they kind of looked all the same. Each had a myriad of sample cakes on display. I must say I was amazed at the cake just inside the door at Royal. Definitely a cake for royalty. It was so large it could only be for royalty though. You could never eat all the cake available in that cake at a normal wedding. The cakes were reasonably priced. They started at $2 per slice and it was to the moon from there.
There was a bit of difference in the tastings. Hansen's keep their cake recipe a guarded secret (I'm sure Royal does too though). They've worked for years developing the recipe and have had huge success with it. It was a genoise, in many different flavors. In fact just about any kind of flavor you can imagine in cake can be found at Hansen's. The same with Royal. Theirs is also a genoise, just slightly different. Hansen's did have one failing , each cake had an underlying flavor. It seemed to be permeation of butter flavoring. It wasn't off putting, and if I hadn't tasted so many different kinds, I probably wouldn't have noticed it. I can even "remember" what it tasted like today. That being said, if you only eat one piece at an occasion for someone, it probably is not that big of a deal.
However, there are bakers out there that I know do cakes that could rival both of these well knowns. Bakers on a simple corner lot somewhere hoping to be noticed by the passing throngs. Look around, I am sure there is one in your very own neighborhood.
We then motored back to the outskirts of SoCal. The Inland Empire. We stopped for a quick dessert pickup to take back to the guys, cheesecake. We parted ways and motored home. I did stop on the way home at my favorite scapbooking store and picked up some inspiration. I am hoping to redesign the page and needed some color guidance. So I bought a few sheets of paper and a sticker or two and headed back to the heat. It was a fun day, all in all. Read More......
We head to the center of fashion in Los Angeles. She finds a local tailor and asks him for a quote on how much it would cost to do a few nips and tucks and hemming of said gown. "Try on first" is his response. S'mee dresses in gown he and an assistant pin, pin, pin! The perfect length and dimensions have been met, "come back three hours, lots to sew" came his response. "how much?" S'mee asks. "Come back three hours" again was his response. What we have here... It was finally communicated that it would cost $70 to alter said gown. $70?!? "I only paid $50, I can't pay that to have it altered." It was decided that I would do my best to "frankenstein" the dress and in exchange we would spend the rest of the day indulging my desires. Heh.
So off we went to the other side of town. I noticed last time I was at the Farmer's Market that Maggiano's had a restaurant there. I was hungry for pasta so we'd stop there. That way we'd be able to stop in a Sur La Table too! We had lunch, S'mee choosing the meatball sandwich, me the chicken salad. What? I had wanted pasta. Hmmm. I was totally thrown off track by the inclusion of said chicken salad on the menu. I should have stuck with pasta. It was chicken salad. That's all that can be said.
However, S'mee's meatball sandwich was wow! Great tasting meatballs, the perfectly melted provolone cheese and just enough marinara sauce. They also included a small bowl of marinara sauce on the side for those wanting their sauce dripping. It was served on the perfect onion roll, no too much onion and the onions were sweet. We also started with a dish of bruschetta and crostini. Mmmm.
As you can see in the picture we found a few items at Sur La Table. A tasting spoon? It is a teaspoon on one end and a tablespoon on the other. However the tag listed it as a tasting spoon. I ususally use a stack of little demi-tasse spoons for tasting. But it was only 49 cents and blue! Also found some more of those great window cloths. I love cleaning glass with them. No streaks! And parchment - a couple of rolls with the 50% more free notation, a knife guard, and S'mee grabbed a few tartlett tins.
We then sped off to a couple of bakeries on Fairfax. I read an LA Times article a few months back and always wanted to stop in and have a taste. Hansen's and Royal Cake were the names. They have made baking cakes for the rich and famous and jsut about everyone else in LA. So we popped in to see what the fuss was all about. I must say upon entering both galleries I was very hmmm how do you say "confused". I did read about the rivalry and that Royal was set in the middle of the two Hansen galleries, however, they kind of looked all the same. Each had a myriad of sample cakes on display. I must say I was amazed at the cake just inside the door at Royal. Definitely a cake for royalty. It was so large it could only be for royalty though. You could never eat all the cake available in that cake at a normal wedding. The cakes were reasonably priced. They started at $2 per slice and it was to the moon from there.
There was a bit of difference in the tastings. Hansen's keep their cake recipe a guarded secret (I'm sure Royal does too though). They've worked for years developing the recipe and have had huge success with it. It was a genoise, in many different flavors. In fact just about any kind of flavor you can imagine in cake can be found at Hansen's. The same with Royal. Theirs is also a genoise, just slightly different. Hansen's did have one failing , each cake had an underlying flavor. It seemed to be permeation of butter flavoring. It wasn't off putting, and if I hadn't tasted so many different kinds, I probably wouldn't have noticed it. I can even "remember" what it tasted like today. That being said, if you only eat one piece at an occasion for someone, it probably is not that big of a deal.
However, there are bakers out there that I know do cakes that could rival both of these well knowns. Bakers on a simple corner lot somewhere hoping to be noticed by the passing throngs. Look around, I am sure there is one in your very own neighborhood.
We then motored back to the outskirts of SoCal. The Inland Empire. We stopped for a quick dessert pickup to take back to the guys, cheesecake. We parted ways and motored home. I did stop on the way home at my favorite scapbooking store and picked up some inspiration. I am hoping to redesign the page and needed some color guidance. So I bought a few sheets of paper and a sticker or two and headed back to the heat. It was a fun day, all in all. Read More......
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