Category: Food, Drink & Health

BMI Calculators. No cheating.

[If your browser doesn’t have Java, here’s the formula.]

Beer floats worth rooting for, an uncertain summer taste treat.

First posted by NewMexiKen last August.

From B.J. Roche in The Boston Globe:

New England’s maple sugarmakers are finding themselves in the middle of an intrigue that touches on international trade and the ethics of big-box retailers. Last week we noted the busting of BJ’s Wholesale Club in New Hampshire for selling lower-grade syrup in Grade A bottles. The Massachusetts Maple Producers Association has lodged similar complaints against Trader Joe’s in Hadley, but Massachusetts has no laws regulating maple syrup classification. Syrup is graded by color and flavor from Grade A Light Amber, the costliest, down to Grade B and a commercial grade sometimes used in curing tobacco. “Large packers buy barrels of B grade and even commercial grade and blend this with various A grade syrups to achieve the grade, and, ostensibly, the price point, that some of the large retail chains specify,” notes Dick Uncles of the New Hampshire Department of Agriculture, Markets, and Food. Sugarmakers have voiced concern that the misgraded (and off-tasting) stuff will turn consumers off the real Grade A syrup. The source of all this syrup is Quebec, which exports its huge surplus. “I don’t have any problem with the stores buying cheap Quebec syrup or selling it cheap,” says Mass Maple coordinator Tom McCrumm. “What I have a problem with is calling it something that it isn’t. People buy that stuff for $6.99 a quart, I’m selling for $14 a quart, and they think I’m ripping them off.” For the real thing, go to: www.massmaple.org, www.vermontmaple.org, or www.nhmapleproducers.com.

NewMexiKen heartily recommends the Costco chicken pot pie. You buy it freshly made, bring it home and bake it.

Definitely a tasty treat for your tummy.

“I have lost 147 pounds. I weigh less than my photo.”

James Lileks is on the Atkins diet.

“Atkins it was, then. Here’s my new diet.

Breakfast: Sixty-seven eggs with cheese. Fourteen strips of bacon washed down with the drippings. The plates are made of sausage; save those for last. If someone offers juice, recoil in horror: Are you trying to KILL me?

Your juiceless future is the hardest thing to accept at first; after all, nothing says Healthful Morning Breakfast like a bright orange glass of citric goodness, but there are 10 billion carbs in a single juice molecule. You could have some toast, but no-carb bread costs too much. All the Atkins stuff is preposterously priced. A package of lo-carb pancake mix costs $6.19. Apparently the process of extracting carbs is hideously expensive. Probably requires zero gravity. That’s what they’re doing on the International Space Station. It’s one big orbital Atkins factory.

Lunch: a small pig.

Supper: Now we get down to the serious business. Good news: It’s steak time! Bad news: It’s steak time! Again! Somewhere in the second week of your new regimen you’ll actually weep at the thought of another bacon-wrapped filet mignon. I can’t do it. I just can’t. I’ve eaten 2.3 cows in the past week. I had a tongue smoothie for an afternoon snack and a butt-steak non-dairy sundae with Bac-o-Bits sprinkles for dessert.

You beg to the ghost of Dr. Atkins: Please, sir, a carrot. One small tiny fresh wet crunchy baby carrot. Don’t tell me to mince some steak and form it into the shape of a carrot. I can’t do it. I need milk! Can’t I have milk? It comes from cows! Can’t we call it liquid steak?

This is the hardest phase, and it passes. I’ve jumped the hump; I’m in that blissful state of ketosis psychosis. I have an absurd amount of energy, and frankly I’ve never felt better. When I’ve lost a few more pounds, I’ll start cutting back on the meat.

Because these daily heart attacks are really getting annoying. Did you know that the ambulances hand out punch cards? They do. My 10th myocardial infarction will be absolutely free.

Read the whole Backfence column.

Firm sells out of Turkey & Gravy flavour fizzy drink

NewMexiKen hopes this isn’t the next big fad from Seattle like Starbucks.

From the Los Angeles Times

Call it the Amish paradox. An exercise science professor has discovered that a pocket of Old Order Amish folks in Ontario, Canada, has stunningly low obesity levels, despite a diet high in fat, calories and refined sugar — exactly the stuff doctors tell us not to eat.

They’re at a paltry 4% obesity rate, compared to a whopping 31% in the general U.S. population, which, as we all know, is getting fatter by the minute. This group of Amish manages to keep its overweight levels low despite a diet that includes meat, potatoes, gravy, cakes, pies and eggs. So what’s their secret? Exercise, people. Exercise.

From the Rocky Mountain News, a report on the increased demand for bison products.

Dineen credits The Fort restaurant, a 41-year-old institution on U.S. 285 near Morrison [Colorado], for making buffalo popular in metro Denver.

“(The Fort founder) Sam Arnold has been talking about buffalo for more than 30 years,” Dineen said. “The Fort is known internationally for serving buffalo.”

Following in Arnold’s footsteps is Ted Turner, media mogul and bison rancher who founded Ted’s Montana Grill, with metro locations in Aurora, Littleton and Larimer Square.

Turner’s 15-restaurant chain (with plans for 25 more by 2005) is making it easier for bison producers to make inroads with other chain restaurants, Dineen said.

“We’re seeing more interest from multiunit restaurants than we did before Ted’s,” he said.

The popularity of high-protein diets such as Atkins also has helped raise demand for bison, he said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a site devoted to the flu. NewMexiKen hopes none of his readers needs to view this site, though the Preventing the Flu page could be worth a visit.

From The New York Times

Traditionally, of course, a proper table is covered with a cloth. Tablecloths originated in Rome and represented wealth and dignity during the Medieval period. Damascus in Syria produced the best cloths, called damask, like my family heirloom. Centuries ago, several tablecloths were laid one on top of another, each to be removed after a course. This practice is still followed today in some cultures, in North Africa, for example. Then in early 18th century England, very fine wood tables were meant to be shown off, so doilies, named for D’Oyley, a London draper who is said to have invented them, came into use. These in turn became place mats.

On to the plates. The plate is the flat dinner plate, which evolved from wooden trenchers, which were in turn preceded by slabs of stale bread.

The plate is then flanked by knife and tablespoon on the right and usually two forks on the left. Utensils are placed to make picking them up and using them efficient and simple. The knife should be turned so the blade edge is on the left, next to the plate, a consideration dating from when knives were razor sharp. The forks, a larger dinner fork and a smaller salad fork, are placed in order of use from the outside in. In France the forks and spoons are usually turned so the tines and bowls face down.

As Americans prepare to stuff themselves with turkey and pumpkin pie, two new books ask what’s so bad about gluttony, anyway?

Here are three propositions that sit together uneasily: 1) The United States is a deeply religious country. 2) Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. 3) Americans are the fattest people in the world.

The absolute fattest? Well, there may be a few South Sea islands where the people are heavier. But the United States, with 61 percent of its adults — and one-quarter of its children — overweight, certainly beats out everyone else. And that means there is a moral irony to be confronted, especially as we look forward to a national holiday later this week in which ritual overeating is deemed a gesture of gratitude for divine providence.

According to a 1998 Purdue University study, obesity is associated with higher levels of religious participation. (Broken down by creed, Southern Baptists have the highest body-mass index on average, Catholics are in the middle, and Jews and other non-Christians are the lowest.)

From Boston.com

NBC’s Dateline surveyed 100 restaurants in each of 10 fast food chains around the country. “The 1,000 restaurants we sampled totaled 1,755 critical violations, and 613 restaurants were cited at least once. That’s more than 60 percent with problems inspectors consider potentially hazardous to your health.”

The 10 chains with the number of “critical violations” for each chain (100 different locations):

10. Taco Bell: 91
9. McDonald’s: 136
8. KFC: 157
7. Subway: 160
6. Jack in the Box: 164
5. Dairy Queen: 184
4. Hardees: 206
3. Wendy’s: 206
2. Arby’s: 210
1. Burger King: 241

The full story: Dirty dining?

Slate: Explainer

According to the Chile Pepper Institute chile is “anything consisting of the Capsicum plant or the fruit from the plant” and chili is “a culinary dish consisting of chile powder, beans, tomato and ground beef.”

From The Saint Paul Pioneer Press

“How do you get teens to crave milk? Load it with caffeine.

Hyper Cow, a new brand from Maplewood-based milk producer Schroeder Co., wins the dubious distinction of being the first caffeinated milk beverage.”

Next, McDonald’s and Dr. Phil Announce the “Supersize for Weight Loss” Plan. “Thus Dr. Phil’s Shape Up! Chocolate Peanut Butter bar is only marginally different in nutrition terms from a Milky Way–slightly less saturated fat, significantly more sodium, no fewer calories than a Milky Way Lite.”

“Inspired by the seductively rich New Orleans desert, Häagen-Dazs Bananas Foster ice cream evokes its decadent namesake. Creamy, smooth banana ice cream is infused with a swirl of brown sugar and rum.” Mighty fine.

The Bleat:

Oh, I don’t think the chains suck. There’s a garlic / olive oil / fresh diced tomatoes / angel hair pasta dish at Olive Garden I like; between that and the salads, I know that if I ever end up there, I’ll have something good to eat. Nearly everything on Perkin’s menu is a little drier and saltier than I’d like, but their breakfasts are American classics. TGIF has really thick napkins. Pizza Hut is deplorable on so many levels it hurts my pizza bone, hurts it to the marrow. But Applebee’s food was lousy. The bun was dry. The fries were damp and limp. The brisket was old and the BBQ sauce was mostly sugar with sugared hickory sugar added. Gnat’s hamburger looked like a steamroller had backed over it six times. The coffee was tepid. If this place can’t get burgers, fries and coffee right, I’ve no hope for anything else on the menu.

I’ll give them high marks for the decor, though. It was the standard explosion-in-an-antiques-store design, with old enameled signs galore covering the rough woodwork. I love that stuff. The overall effect is disjointed and annoying, but the individual items are often quite fascinating. The Block E Applebee’s had a large amount of Hubert Humphrey memorabilia – the Happy Warrior squinting alongside the jugeared mug of LBJ on a crude red-white-and-blue poster dominated the back wall. You won’t get that at a hoity and/or toity cafe, and if they did have such a display, it would be intended ironically.

Slate describes the procedure.

Café Poca Cosa is back as the best Tucson Mexican Restaurant in the 2003 Tucson Weekly Best of Tucson.

Everything about this atmospheric downtown restaurant screams “unique Mexican flavor,” thanks to the supreme talents of its owner and chef, Suzana Dávila. The colorful dining room and impeccable presentation are cause enough for excitement–but wait until you taste the food! Servers, dressed in minimalist attire, bring a chalkboard to your table with the day’s dishes (they change daily) written in Spanish. Choose a single dish, or be adventurous and let Dávila combine three mystery items for you. There are no corners cut with your food, and you can taste it. From the enormous, artistically prepared side salads to the warm corn tortillas that accompany every meal, your taste buds will sing the praises of this stylish eatery.

Michael Jackson chooses our best [from article “Beer and America” in June 2002 American Heritgage]

For many American consumers, wine was either “Burgundy” or “Chablis” before the renaissance that began in the 1960s. That is hard to credit today; and so, too, have we largely forgotten the fact that beer in the United States has also enjoyed a renaissance, perhaps even greater than that experienced by wine, and less commonly understood. “Pilsner,” the first golden beer, conquered the world so thoroughly that 50 years ago “modern” beer was a standard pilsner type in a can, a convenience product along with the sliced white bread and processed cheese. That’s all changed now, and here are some of the finest results of the American brewing revolution.

1. Tuppers’ Hop Pocket Pils, for its dizzyingly heady bouquet. Also the more cedary, appetizing Hop Pocket Ale. Creator Bob Tupper is a schoolteacher and beer enthusiast who hosts seminars and tastings in Washington, D.C., at a bar called the Brickskeller, which has more than a thousand bottled beers. A “pocket” is the sack in which hops are traditionally pressed. The Hop Pocket beers are among a wide range produced at the Old Dominion microbrewery, in the Virginia suburbs, near Dulles Airport.

2. St. Victorious is a strong (8.5 percent alcohol by volume) dark brown lager. This style is known as a double bock, and it is regarded in its native Munich as a warmer for winter or early spring. This example is creamy, nutty, and portlike. It is produced by Victory Brewing, of Downingtown, Pennsylvania. The founders Bill Covaleski and Ron Barchet met at the age of 10.

3. Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout is the ultimate dessert beer. It has an astonishingly chocolatey taste—but contains none. Stouts gain their color and flavor from grains that have been highly roasted during the malting process. Brewers use the term chocolate malt to describe a variation in which carbonization is avoided. Traditional stouts are fermented with ale (as opposed to lager) yeasts, which impart a fruitiness. This stout tastes like a Sacher torte. The company was established in 1988 and built a brewery in a former matzo bakery in Brooklyn, New York, in 1996.

4. Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold has a grainy dryness in addition to the big maltiness that characterizes all beers from this brewery, in Cleveland, Ohio. The Gold is one of the few lagers to model itself on the firm-bodied, minerally style of Dortmund, Germany. The brewery also has an amber red, yet maltier, Vienna-style lager, named Eliot Ness. There are bullet holes from his era in the brewery’s restaurant, formerly the Market Tavern.

5. Expedition Stout tastes like beef braised with prunes and port wine. This immensely strong (10 abv) stout is from the Kalamazoo Brewing Company, in the Michigan city of the same name. The world has very few breweries specializing in stout. Most of those produce only one; this brewery has been known to offer 10 very different stouts at the same time.

6. New Glarus Wisconsin Belgian Red. New Glarus is a Swiss settlement in Wisconsin. There the brewer Dan Carey, who worked extensively in Europe, has created his own counterpart to a Belgian cherry beer. It is based on raw and malted wheat and four types of barley malt and is fermented with a mixed culture of ale yeast and other microorganisms. The beer has an almost purple color, a textured body, a malty background, and a beautiful balance of almondy fruitiness and tartness. It has won several awards in Europe.

7. La Folie is in a rare style that is given an intentional sourness by maturation in uncoated wood. The classic example is Rodenbach Grand Cru, made in Belgium. Rodenbach’s former brewer Peter Bouckaert now works in Fort Collins, Colorado, where, at the New Belgium Brewing Company, he produces La Folie. It is a blend of two brews, matured in red wine casks and tuns for periods of between one and three years. Semiwild yeasts are used. The blend has a further fermentation in the bottle, with a red-wine culture. La Folie has a dark, pinkish amber color, a sustained bead, a toffeelike start, then apple and passion-fruit notes. Quite sour in finish, but a beautifully balanced, food-friendly beer.

8. Anchor Steam Beer is an American original. This style of beer, something of a hybrid between an ale and a lager, was developed during the California Gold Rush. Brewers were trying to make the new lager styles without access to the necessary cooling. They improvised by using very shallow fermentation vessels, with a high proportion of the brew exposed to the air. The result was a highly carbonic beer. When the casks were tapped, the emerging CO2 seemed like steam. Anchor Steam is firm, dry, lightly fruity, and very complex.

9. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is the most universally admired product among American lovers of specialty beers. In its emphasis on hop aroma, its floweriness, its clean, lean malt background, and its digestibility and drinkability, it has set a style that is often described as American pale ale. The brewery was established on a shoestring in 1981 by partners with minimal experience. It has been run in a quietly single-minded manner and became the biggest micro.

10. BridgePort India Pale Ale. BridgePort, founded in 1984 as Columbia River Brewing, is the oldest pub-micro in Portland, Oregon, a great city of small beers. There are about 20 breweries here, more than in any other city worldwide. The Northwest especially favors very hoppy styles like India pale ales. This example has a lemony, grapefruity, resiny aroma; an oily palate, with suggestions of vanilla pod; and a rush of minty bitterness in the finish. No fewer than five hop varieties are used. Today’s American IPAs are typically far hoppier than those produced in Britain. Pale ales sent to the British Empire in India were given a heavy dose of hops as a preservative on the long sea journey.

An internationally recognized authority on beer and spirits, Michael Jackson has been chronicling the microbrewery movement from the beginning; his most recent book on beer is The Great Beer Guide.