Italian lady: I think sometimes I even like coming grocery shopping more for the music they play than the food selection they have.
Spanish guy: Eh, they never have any reggaeton.
Italian lady: Oh, are you sure it’s not in the pasta section?
–Whole Foods, Union Square
“I’d rather have somebody pee in my mouth after they’ve just won an asparagus-eating contest.”
The Black Table Beer Run in its review of Coors Light.
Warning, much of this website, while amusing, is tacky and sexist.
One little milk study and everyone’s having a cow.
For decades, biochemists and physiologists in the dog-eat-dog world of sports drink technology have struggled to find the perfect elixir — the right balance of carbohydrates, electrolytes, protein and fluid to keep athletes in peak form after various types of exercise.
So it was big news when exercise kinesiology professor Joel Stager and co-workers at Indiana University in Bloomington declared they had stumbled upon the perfect drink for elite cyclists recovering their energy after strenuous exercise.
That beverage was chocolate milk.
Read more from the report in the Los Angeles Times.
The American Podiatric Medical Association has ranked 100 American cities on “their walking conducive environments and habits.” Here’s the top 10:
#1 Portland, OR: Portland consistently ranked in the top 25 percent in each of the competition’s criteria. With cool summers and relatively mild winters, walkers in Portland can hit the streets and trails year round.
#2 Colorado Springs, CO: Colorado Springs scored extremely high in both the general physical fitness index and the percentage of adults that participate in sports.
#3 Madison, WI: Ranking fourth in miles of trails per square mile, Madison also has more residents that bike to work than any other city in the nation.
#4 Boise, ID: The largest city in the Gem State boasts a high percentage of adults that participate in athletics, and ranked fourth in the number of residents that walk for exercise.
#5 Las Vegas, NV: More than glitz and gambling, this desert oasis has a high number of households that are physically active and participate in sports.
#6 Austin, TX: Home to the main campus of the University of Texas and a vibrant downtown, Austin scored favorably because of its many parks and the number of residents that bike for exercise.
#7 Virginia Beach, VA: More than just a haven for beach goers, Virginia Beach reached the top ten due to a low crime rate, lots of parks and the number of residents that play golf.
#8 Anchorage, AK: Despite a chilly climate, Anchorage made the list because of its vast square mileage of parks and more dog owners than any other city in the U.S. Nearly 50 percent of Anchorage residents walk for exercise.
#9 Fremont, CA: Topping the list for the number of residents who walk for health, Fremont outscored many cities because of the number of residents that take public transportation to work.
#10 Raleigh, NC: With several parks to choose from, Raleigh residents have many places to walk.
Albuquerque is 17th. Here’s the list of all 100 (small PDF).
According to a Reuters report via Yahoo! News, grocery shopping cart handles are among the most bacteria infested items we come in contact with in daily life.
You know the handles, the ones little kids in the baby seat sometimes gum when they are teething.
And this from MSNBC.com about a science project:
The 12-year-old compared the ice used in the drinks with the water from toilet bowls in the same restaurants. Jasmine said she found the results startling.
“I thought there might be a little bacteria in the ice, but I never expected it to be this much,” she said. “And I never thought the toilet water would be cleaner.”
Her discovery: Seventy percent of the time, the ice had more bacteria than the toilet water.
Thanks to Dwight Perry for the pointer.
It’s early in the year, and we are sure that many other candidates will come to our attention — they always do — but, thanks to an alert reader, we think we’ve found a finalist for the Best Correction of the Year 2006.
It came in the Wednesday “Dining Out” section of the New York Times, and it reads in its entirety:
“Because of an editing error, a recipe last Wednesday for meatballs with an article about foods to serve during the Super Bowl misstated the amount of chipotle chiles in adbobo to be used. It is one or two canned chilies — not one or two cans.” (Emphasis added.)
Pass the Pepto-Bismol, please.
None of the news items below alone makes El Pinto a great restaurant (just as someone at Duke City Fix not liking it doesn’t make it a bad restaurant. It’s pretty far from Central and Carlisle for the DukeCityFix crowd to be enthusiastic about it).
NewMexiKen likes El Pinto for the ambience — the cottonwoods, the maze of rooms, the fountain, the patio in warmer months. And, after all, New Mexican food tastes pretty much the same everywhere anyway.
Some of the readers of NewMexiKen have been to El Pinto with me, so I thought they might enjoy reading about its recent prominence. The excerpt is from The Albuquerque Journal:
Muy caliente! El Pinto Restaurant is one hot restaurant, and we’re not just talking chile.
The restaurant’s nachos topped Saturday’s Wall Street Journal list of best in the nation.
On Thursday, President George W. Bush, along with first lady Laura, stopped in for a chile fix.
In mid-January, the Food Network featured the restaurant during one of its episodes of “The Secret of: Comfort Foods.”
And on Aug. 30, ESPN SportsCenter filmed one of its “50 States in 50 Days” episodes from the North Valley restaurant with host Linda Cohn calling El Pinto’s salsa “the best in the nation.”
…This is what the Wall Street nacho reviewer said about El Pinto’s: “(The) Nachos are built like lasagna, one layer at a time, so no chip is cheeseless: first chips, then cheese, until there’s a pyramid topped with sour cream, guacamole, lettuce, tomato, chicken and green chili (their spelling) sauce.”
It was the fifth visit to El Pinto for this President. His predecessor prefered La Hacienda in Old Town.
From The Citizen Scientist:
Martin Hocking and Harold Foster of Canada’s University of Victoria have studied the problem of increased colds among airline passengers. In an article for the Journal of Environmental Health Research (“Common cold transmission in commercial aircraft: Industry and passenger implications,” 2004) , they reported that 20 percent of passengers who flew on a 2.5 hour flight developed colds within a week.
Depending on three different flight scenarios, Hocking and Foster found that airline passengers in three different scenarios were 5, 23, or 113 times more likely to catch a cold than if they had not flown at all!
The scientists also found that the threat of catching tuberculosis is substantially higher if an infected passenger is aboard a flight.
The most logical reason for infections would seem to be the limited amount of cabin air shared by the passengers. But Hocking, Foster and other scientists have found this is only one factor. The very low humidity in an airplane seems to be much more important.
There’s more.
A good, informative, useful report on How to Get Great Sleep from Psychology Today. Some key points:
Experts generally apply the “30-30 rule”: It’s insomnia if it takes you 30 minutes or more to fall asleep or if you’re awake for 30 or more minutes during the night — at least three times a week. No matter how little you sleep, it isn’t insomnia unless your nighttime habits drag you down during the day.
Believe it or not, “You don’t want to sleep like a baby,” says Michael L. Perlis, associate professor of psychiatry and psychology at New York’s University of Rochester and director of the behavioral sleep medicine service there. “You want to sleep like an adolescent.” Babies wake often; they are not yet able to consolidate sleep into one stretch. Adolescents sleep like there’s no tomorrow.
Now you’re even more tired and worried about the consequences of not sleeping than you were the day before — while you’re at your greatest vulnerability to irrational thought. Is this, you worry, the beginning of decrepitude?
Pretty soon, this self-defeating cycle takes on a life of its own. Under the influence of anxiety, your brain learns very quickly, without your knowledge or consent, to associate the bedroom with wakefulness. You lie down to rest and your brain goes on high alert. “It has been shown that people who have difficulty falling asleep are supersensitive to bedroom-related stimuli,” explains Perlis. “They become physiologically aroused in the bedroom environment” — their nervous system switches on just when they want it to calm down.
It’s the psychophysiologic equivalent of the perfect storm….
Interesting commentary on food shopping from Emily Esterson at New West Network. Albertson’s, one of just three “regular” grocery chains in Albuquerque, was sold yesterday to SuperValu (which I’d never even heard of).
Key quote from Esterson: “Wal-Mart was just as crowded and slow. The prices only marginally better on certain items, and the food, well, sort of franken-foodish in its cheerful coats of wax and cellophane.”
Second key quote: “Drive 30 miles to Whole Paycheck. Deal with the prices at Wild Oats (and make a second stop for toilet paper, paper towels and dog food?). We don’t have the income to spend $5 on organic carrots, or $9.99 for a pound of ranch-raised organic beef.”
Do cell phones cause brain tumors? The question has been asked since the phones first arrived on the scene, and now one of the largest studies ever to examine the issue shows that the answer is no.
The new report is in line with most other large studies and should reassure the hundreds of millions of regular cell phone users around the world.
Cell phones do cause public displays on inanity on a consistent basis, however.
If there’s a wine bottle in your grocery cart, you’re probably buying healthier foods than your fellow shoppers who are buying beer.
So say researchers who peeked at the purchases of Danish grocery shoppers. Their findings:
- People who bought wine bought more olives, fruit, vegetables, poultry, cooking oil, and low-fat cheese, milk, and meat.
- Beer buyers bought more prepared dishes, sugar, cold cuts, chips, pork, butter or margarine, sausages, lamb, and soft drinks.
Which reminds me, Trader Joe’s will be opening in Albuquerque soon — some months before they open a store in New York City.
Older people who exercise three or more times a week are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia, according to a study that adds to the evidence that staying active can help keep the mind sharp.
Researchers found that healthy people who reported exercising regularly had a 30 to 40 percent lower risk of dementia.
The study, published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine, reached no conclusions about whether certain types of exercise helped more than others, but researchers said even light activity, such as walking, seemed to help.
AP via DenverPost.com
NewMexiKen exercised already today — I think. Or maybe not. Hmm, my short term memory isn’t what it used to be.
Link via Wash Park Prophet.
A friend reports that a colleague tells the story of a prolonged bout with a kidney stone. It wouldn’t pass and wouldn’t pass, so finally surgery was scheduled.
The night before the operation, the hospital brought in the paperwork for his signature. Reading through it (he’s an attorney) he discovered one problem — wrong kidney. Oops!
The kidney stone passed during the night that night.
Jill, official oldest daughter of NewMexiKen, reports from Target:
Chocolate. Chip. Cookie. Dough. Pop-Tarts.
Was anyone else aware of this proof of God’s hand on Earth?
If only they came in a deep-fried version….
This from USNews via Left Off Colfax:
But “if you’re already drinking five or six cups a day, I’d be hard pressed to come up with a reason you should cut back,” says Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health and a leading investigator of coffee.
…A word of caution: Decaf coffee may be an exception to this rule. A recent Stanford study found that even consumers of filtered decaf had modestly higher levels of fatty acids and other precursors of LDL, or bad cholesterol.
Without Looking Like an Asshole from Waiter Rant. Some of the recommendations:
2. Don’t ask, “What’s cheap?”
6. Remember the mark up — Most establishments mark up the price of a bottle from 1 ½ to 5 times the wholesale price. … Since you’re paying so much I recommend getting something you can’t get at the gas station….
9. DO NOT SMELL THE CORK!
10. DON’T SMELL THE PLASTIC CORK EITHER!
11. … But SWIRL the wine! Don’t spin it like you’re trying to separate U-235 in a centrifuge machine!
25. Merlot is a perfectly good wine. Don’t believe all that “Sideways” crap. God I hate that movie!
26. It’s wine, not the Blood of Christ. Don’t worship it. Enjoy it.
It’s an informative and amusing post.
At the New West Network, Ted Alvarez has a terrific series on New Mexico’s wonderful San Luis Valley, an area that was mistakenly made part of Colorado 150 years ago. He begins part one of “Paradise without a PR Agent” with this:
In the storied valleys of the Rocky Mountains, Aspen has the glitz and glam, Vail has an unparalleled ski valley, and Jackson has rugged class.
The San Luis Valley has an intergalactic spaceport inside of Mt. Blanca.
You’ll probably want to read about Emma’s Hacienda in the town of San Luis in part three, The Holy Grail of Mexican Fare:
Emma’s Special consists of a beef taco, a green chile enchilada, a red chile enchilada, Spanish rice, beans, and sopapillas, and each item was positively transcendent, if quite spicy. The further I got into the meal, the more my value system crumbled: With each bite, the food at Emma’s Hacienda gained ground and eventually surpassed all of my Texas benchmarks. I remain humbled to this day by the accomplishment.
San Francisco Chronicle Wine Editor Linda Murphy lists Top 100 Wines 2005. She begins:
It was love at first sight nearly 30 years ago when Gray Franscioni, a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo graduate and scion of a Monterey County farming family, met and later married Rosella Munoz, a hair stylist whose family had relocated to Gonzales (Monterey County) from the Mexican state of Durango.
While running the Franscioni ranch, the couple in 1996 planted Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Syrah vines on their Santa Lucia Highlands property west of Gonzales. They called it Rosella’s Vineyard, and now, 10 years later, Rosella, the daughter of migrant workers, is an icon in California winemaking.
On The Chronicle’s Top 100 Wines of 2005 list, Rosella has her name on an amazing eight wines — seven Pinot Noirs and a Syrah….
Twenty-two Pinot Noirs make the top 100. Murphy notes:
It’s a fact that the very best wines on Earth are expensive, though not all expensive wines are great. Quality commands top dollar, and demand regulates what top dollar is. The post-“Sideways” consumer rush to buy Pinot Noir, low yields, the gentle handling the Pinot Noir grape requires and the custom farming done by the Franscionis and others make buying stellar Pinot Noir mostly a costly proposition.
Strictly hypothetical mind you: Is it OK to eat whipped cream by itself?
Colorado Luis suggests four (from two years ago) and calls for nominations. His suggestions:
Luis explains:
Some of these beers change from year to year, for example, this year Goose Island’s Christmas Ale will be an IPA. My vote for best holiday beer is still the Frambozen, which reminds us a good ten years after fruit beers were trendy that introducing real fruit into the brewing process can create a sophisticated and tasty product without too much residual sugar.
Key point: “consider having a children’s table.”
Here’s more, including a table setting diagram, a wine glass chart and decorating advice.
How about some “three sisters soup” in tomorrow’s Thanksgiving menu? Read about American Indian foods in this interesting article by Kim Severson in The New York Times. Two excerpts:
As American Indians try to reverse decades of physical and cultural erosion, they are turning to the food that once sustained them, and finding allies in the nation’s culinary elite and marketing experts.
One result is the start of a new sort of native culinary canon that rejects oily fry bread but embraces wild rice from Minnesota, salmon from Alaska and the Northwest, persimmons and papaws from the Southeast, corn from New York, bison from the Great Plains and dozens of squashes, beans, berries and melons.
Modern urban menus are beginning to feature three sisters soup, built from the classic Indian trilogy of beans, squash and corn.
…Native foods encompass hundreds of different cultures. “There’s only now becoming a more pan-Indian sense of what Native food can be,” said the author Louise Erdrich, whose mother was Ojibwa. She writes about tribal food in many of her books and is working on a cookbook with her sister, a pediatrician on the Turtle Mountain Reservation.
“You’re talking about evolving a cuisine from a people whose cuisine has been whatever we could get for a long time,” Ms. Erdrich said.
American Indian food is the only ethnic cuisine in the nation that has yet to be addressed in the culinary world, said Loretta Barrett Oden, a chef who learned to cook growing up on the Citizen Potawatomi reservation in Oklahoma.
“You can go to most any area of this country and eat Thai or Chinese or Mongolian barbecue, but you can’t eat indigenous foods native to the Americas,” said Ms. Oden….
One item that won’t be featured on her show is fry bread, the puffy circles of deep-fried dough that serve as a base for tacos or are eaten simply with sugar or honey and are beloved on Indian reservations. That bread is fast becoming a symbol of all that is wrong with the American Indian diet, which evolved from food that was hunted, grown or gathered to one that relied on federal government commodities, including white flour and lard – the two ingredients in fry bread.
Henry Shukman writes about chilis in a New York Times review of three new Santa Fe restaurants: Aqua Santa, Trattoria Nostrani and Kasa Soba.
One of the many things I’m grateful to New Mexico for, now that I’ve lived there on and off for over a decade, is converting me to the chili. It happened one afternoon, on a long, lonely drive through the Black Mountains. I stopped at a small general store and bought tortilla chips, and on a whim, a jar of hot sauce called Religious Experience: The Wrath. It was the name that did it. I set the jar between my legs as I drove, and began by touching just the corner of a chip to the oil on the salsa’s surface. As I drove I kept mechanically doing it. Something happened. The pain started up, but instead of shying away from it, I dipped back for more. Soon I was shoveling it in. By the time I reached my destination, I was a high, happy devotee. And the jar was empty.
Among hot sauces in NewMexiKen’s kitchen (all unopened I confess):
Dr. U.B. Burnin
Dave’s Insanity Sauce
Viper Venom Hot Sauce
Whoop Ass Hot Sauce
Two Flaming Arrows
Smart Ass Hot Sauce
Arizona Gunslinger
Sudden Death Sauce
At the Freakonomics Blog, Steven Levitt wonders whether “fresh fruits, whole-grain bread, and a salad bar are the real way to fight crime.” He’s doubtful, but it’s interesting.