holidays

Modern Matzo

Janice | March 20, 2013 - 10:37 am

[iPhone case available at Sealed With a Case]

At the ripe, old age of 3,500, you might wonder what could possibly be new about matzo. You’d be surprised.

Staying current is a bit of a mixed bag.
Matzoh has a big head start since it naturally boasts so many of today’s culinary buzzwords: it’s vegan and sodium-free with no saturated fat, trans fat, or cholesterol. It’s got the artisan thing going on, with much of it made by hand in wood- and coal-fired clay ovens. And it’s the ultimate farm-to-table dish—the good stuff, the shmura matzoh, is watched every minute from the harvest through the baking to ensure that the grains never come into contact with any moisture that could lead to accidental leavening.

But truth be told, matzoh is not the most versatile of foods.
There’s not much room for tinkering with a centuries-old recipe that’s dictated by Talmudic law. Judaism takes its bread rules very seriously, and the specificity and complexity of kosher matzoh-making puts even a Thomas Keller recipe to shame. Still, a few hardy Jewish souls (yes, you have to be Jewish) persevere so that new matzoh treats can make their way to the Passover table.

Remember when a slab of Egg ‘n Onion was exotic? This year you can buy your Manichewitz in varieties like Mediterranean (flavored with olive oil and rosemary) and Organic Spelt.

Note the labeling: matzo-syle squares. They’re not fooling anyone. It seems that if it’s gluten-free it’s only kinda-sorta matzoh. It’s kosher; even kosher for Passover; just not quite kosher enough for the seder. Sorry, celiac sufferers.

Vermont’s Naga Bakehouse is doing brisk online business with Vermatzah, its handmade, small-batch matzoh. Naga labels it as ‘eco-kosher’ for its embodiment of what it calls ‘ the deep well-springs of Jewish wisdom.’ Since it’s made without rabbinical supervision, Passover purists just call it traif .

The usual oats were swapped out for Streit’s matzoh to create Matzolah, the kosher-for-Passover granola. Named as the best new Passover product at Kosherfest 2013, Matzolah’s creator likes to call it “the Trail Mix of the Exodus.”

We’ve heard the rumors out of Israel about Ben & Jerry’s Jewish holiday-themed ice creams. There was even a jokey thread circulating a while back listing flavors like Moishemallow, Wailing Walnut, and Bernard Malamint. Now we have our own with Chozen’s Coconut Macaroon and Matzoh Crunch.

Chocolate-covered matzohs are nothing new, but Coco Délice hits all the right contemporary notes with their version. It’s coated in high-end, high cocoa-count Belgian dark chocolate studded with cocoa nibs and the requisite sea salt.

You won’t see Ambacht Brewery’s Matzobraü until this summer, but beer’s not kosher for Passover anyway (it’s undone by the fermented grains). At holiday’s end, the Oregon brewer will collect donations of leftover matzoh to use in the mash that forms the base of Matzobraü, a golden ale with the unmistakable toasty notes of the bread of affliction.

This year’s seders begin at sundown on Monday, March 25th.
Happy Passover to all (with a special Chag Sameach shout-out to Barack Obama who will be keeping kosher for Passover 2013).

Posted in food trends, holidays, Passover | Leave a comment

Good Luck Foods for the Bad Luck Year

Janice | December 27, 2012 - 1:55 am

We all have our little fears and phobias.
We might cringe at spiders, run from clowns, or break into a cold sweat when an airplane takes off. But none are as timeless, universal, and even institutionalized (when’s the last time you stayed on the 13th floor of a hotel?) as the fear of the number 13.

2013 is bringing it out in all of us.
Couples are planning to delay weddings and children for 12 months. Car dealers anticipate a huge drop in demand for the new model year. In Ireland, where the last two digits of the year are always shown on car license plates, the system is being modified for 2013. Four-leaf clovers, gold coins, and a Buddha statue are being installed in Times Square to reassure New Years Eve revellers when the ball drops at midnight.

This seems like a good time to try some of the good luck foods from New Year’s traditions around the world. Superstitious or not, it can’t hurt

Beans, peas, and lentils
These are symbolic of prosperity in many cultures because they’re thought to resemble coins when they’ve been cooked. Legumes are often paired with pork, which has its own lucky associations, so the combination makes for a most propitious meal. Italians eat sausages and green lentils just after midnight. Germans usually eat their New Years legumes in lentil or split pea soup with sausage. Hoppin’ John, a dish of black-eyed peas cooked with ham, is a tradition in the American south.
Noodles
Long noodles like are eaten as a symbol of a long life.
Round or ring-shaped foods
These represent a year coming full circle. Mexicans eat the ring-shaped rosca de reyes cake, the Dutch eat the donut-like ollie bollen, and in Greece, families bake a lucky coin into the round vassilopita cake.
Fish
Fish makes frequent appearances on New Years tables. There’s herring at midnight in Poland, boiled cod in Denmark, and the Germans not only feast on carp, they also put fish scales in their wallets for a successful new year. In Japan, herring roe is consumed for fertility, shrimp for long life, and dried sardines for a good harvest.
Grapes
In Spain it’s traditional to eat 12 grapes at midnight, one for each month of the coming year. The taste— sweet or sour— gives a clue to the character of each of the coming months. Spanish state television broadcasts the New Years chimes and nearly 4 million pounds of grapes (in little 12 grape packets) are sold in the last week of the year.

What Not to Eat

Lobster and crab: these are poor choices for a new years meal because they scuttle sideways and backwards which can lead to setbacks, regrets, and dwelling on the past.

Chicken: you don’t want your good luck to fly away.

White foods: the Chinese avoid eggs, cheese, and tofu, because white is the color of death.

And never clean your plate.
A little leftover food will usher in a year of plenty and guarantee a stocked pantry.

Posted in diversions, holidays, New Years | 1 Comment

Christmas Eve: When the Chosen People Choose Hot and Sour Soup

Janice | December 21, 2012 - 2:37 pm

This year is 5773 according to the Jewish calendar, but Chinese history only dates back to 4707.
It makes you wonder what the Jews were eating for that first thousand years.
The streets are empty, the storefronts are shuttered, and everyone else they know is in church or sitting down to a holiday meal.
Chinese food for Christmas makes perfect sense.

Jews have a well-known affinity for Chinese food. While it’s impossible to pinpoint the moment when the first Jewish immigrant put down his borscht and picked up an egg roll, in the early 20th century, the tradition fanned out from its Lower East Side New York beginnings and took hold in urban immigrant enclaves around the country. Chinatowns sprouted everywhere the Jews went— Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto; Chinese restaurants were always close by, inexpensive, and stayed open on Sundays and holidays.

But is it kosher?
A lot of Jews grew up with the notion of Chinese food as ‘safe traif.’ Sure, there’s pork and shellfish in there, but it’s hidden in a tangle of wonton wrappers and mu shu vegetables. Don’t look too deeply—at the plate or into your secular Jewish heart— and it’s easy to ignore. And since nearly all Chinese food is dairy-free, there’s a free pass on the prohibition against mixing milk and meat .

The love goes both ways.
Yes, there are Chinese people who like Jewish food, but they complain that they’re hungry again in two weeks.

Posted in Christmas, funny | Leave a comment

The 5 Worst Food Gifts This Holiday Season

Janice | December 6, 2012 - 2:42 pm

Remember when fruitcake used to be the worst food gift for holiday giving?
Not any more.
These 5 gifts make a lump of coal look good.

Hot Can’s Christmas dinner in a can is a festive meal that eliminates the hassle of cooking. It’s a turkey casserole with all the trimmings conveniently packed in a self-heating can—no potatoes to peel or gravy to stir, you don’t even need a microwave oven. When December 25th arrives, simply take off the rubber cap, pierce the outer jacket with the included key, open the can, and wait 12 minutes for the meal to heat up. Once holiday season has passed, you can hit up the Hot Can website for some Beanz and Balls.

Did you think the fragrance world hit bottom with Brad Pitt’s misguided Chanel campaign? Think again. You can smell like a delivery boy courtesy of Pizza Hut Perfume, found on Pizza Hut’s Facebook page. The company press release touts the olfactory delights of oregano and greasy cardboard boxes with “top notes of freshly baked, hand-tossed dough.”

It’s the horrifying realism that lands the bacon scarf on the list. Extra points for dubbing it Fou-lard, a play on the French words for crazy (fou), bacon (lard) and scarf (foulard). The trompe l’oeil of silk crepe de chine will have you reaching for the lettuce and tomato.

If you’re loving the chicken and waffles trend, you know the combination is all about the delicate balance of contrasting flavors and textures—crunchy, juicy, spicy, crispy, fluffy, sweet, and salty, plus a hit of sticky maple. Take away the textures, as Torani has done with its Chicken ‘n Waffles Syrup, and you’re left with a hot mess of sweet, meat, and grease. If you’re not a fan, you already know.

The Cooler Fun Wine Rack (get it?) brings nursing bra convenience to holiday imbibing. Just the thing for the flat-chested party girl on your list, the innovative drink-dispensing bra has a secret polyurathane bladder flask that holds 750ml of a favorite beverage. The attached tube allows the young lady to dispense into cups or discreetly drink directly from the straw-like end. Her bust is inflated two full cup sizes when filled, and while she’ll look less remarkable by the end of the evening, after 750 ml (1½ pints) who’s going to care?

And the also rans:

Frito-Lay’s new line of caffeinated Cracker Jacks. No prize inside?!

The Fifty Shades of Chicken Cookbook. Who can be bothered with all that trussing?

The Vino2Go Sippy Wine Cup. Cause I’m just not that classy.

The Mr. Gugu and Miss Go Hamburger Sweater. I think it speaks for itself.

Posted in Christmas, diversions, funny | 1 Comment

Eggnog and Other Raw Egg Cocktails

Janice | November 30, 2012 - 1:38 pm

image via Editer

Do you gag at the thought of downing a raw egg?
Salmonella scares and Rocky movies have given them a bad name, but there’s a world of raw egg cocktails out there, and one of them, eggnog, has come into its season.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of a well-crafted Pisco Sour or a true eggnog you probably wonder why anyone would bother adding uncooked goo to perfectly good liquor. I’ll tell you why.

Egg whites transform a humdrum cocktail into a frothy showstopper. A brisk workout in a cocktail shaker creates volume, silkiness, and a beautiful foam topping. It’s like a soufflé in a glass. And while egg whites alone are relatively flavorless, shaken together with the other ingredients the egg whites act as an emulsifier melding the separate components into a whole drink that is truly more than the sum of its parts.

While egg whites add a certain je ne sais quoi to cocktails, all texture without discernible taste, whole eggs or egg yolks announce themselves with a vividly eggy flavor. Whole egg cocktails are less soufflé, more flan. They’re rich and dense, creamy even when there’s no added cream. These are not warm weather refreshers, but they taste just right on a cold winter night.

The rumors of their health risks have been greatly exaggerated.
Salmonella is a truly nasty bacterium, but it’s a lot less common than you probably think. The FDA estimates that only 1 of every 20,000 eggs contains the bacteria, so the odds are 99.995% that your eggnog is safe. At this rate a typical egg eater will run into a contaminated egg once every 84 years. Of course some people can’t take a chance even with those odds. Children, the elderly, pregnant and nursing women, and anyone with a weak immune system should look for egg cocktails made with egg substitutes or liquid egg products which are required by law to be pasteurized. And no, the alcohol in cocktails is not going to kill Salmonella.

Now’s the time to try a raw egg drink.
Trendy cocktail revivalists have fervently embraced the raw egg cocktail in both old-timey drinks and new mixologist concoctions. And from now through New Years Day you’ll probably come across some eggnog somewhere.

Chow has a nice round-up of old and new raw egg cocktail recipes, including their unspeakably decadent and boozy eggnog.

Who’d have thought—I came across not one but two blogs dedicated to eggnog: the photos and recipes Eggnog Blog; and the all-things-eggnog Eggnogaholic with eggnog-themed cartoons, shopping, jokes, and poetry.

Posted in beer + wine + spirits, Christmas, food safety | Leave a comment

Kids, Don’t Try This at Home: Heston’s Christmas

Janice | November 15, 2012 - 2:54 pm

Heston Blumenthal celebrates Christmas 2009 with a meal of dormouse via BBC2

Famously experimental, endlessly inventive, internationally celebrated chef Heston Blumenthal is a man in love with Christmas.

For the uninitiated, much of Blumenthal’s infamy comes from his fondness for bizarre ingredients, unusual mixing of flavors, and outlandish presentations. Signature dishes at his London restaurant Fat Duck include snail porridge and sardine-on-toast sorbet. His sweet and savory bacon-and-egg ice cream is credited with setting off America’s bacon craze.

Blumenthal endorses the notion of dining as an immersive, multi-sensory experience. He’s papered his dining room with rolls of lickable wallpaper tasting of tomato soup and shrimp cocktail, and sets the table with oak moss on a bed of dry ice to waft a woodsy aroma in anticipation of earthy dishes like truffle toast and foie gras. A seafood-themed dinner included five kinds of edible seaweed, trout-flavored candy, brewed-shrimp beer, and a table side iPod playing the sounds of crashing waves and distant seagulls.

And then there’s Christmas.
He’s traveled to the Middle East in the footsteps of the three wise men to cook with gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and to Siberia to milk a reindeer for holiday ice cream; he’s filled a town plaza with a six foot high flaming plum pudding; but until this year he’s never served Christmas dinner at Fat Duck. Blumenthal is kicking off the new tradition with plenty of his trademark sensory magic.

The centerpiece of the meal is going to be an edible Christmas tree festooned with lollipops of salmon, salad, and mulled wine and draped with edible tinsel crafted from jellied turkey. Edible ornaments will crack open to reveal contents like prawns and pig’s head terrine, and drifting snow will taste of Roquefort cheese. Something Blumenthal won’t be including are his infamous white chocolate-dipped dormouse lollipops that received a sensational public drubbing during a 2009 nationally-televised Christmas special.

If all this sounds like so much flash and gimmickry, remember that Blumenthal is considered one of the world’s greatest living chefs and his restaurant has been consistently awarded three Michelin stars. The Queen has bestowed him with the Order of the British Empire and his own coat of arms, and he’s been recognized for his contributions to the science of gastronomy with numerous honorary degrees. He’s playful, but his cooking is mighty serious.

Alas, no leftover turkey for sandwiches the next day.

Posted in Christmas, restaurants, Science/Technology | Leave a comment

Gingerbread Houses 2012

Janice | November 14, 2012 - 1:59 pm

image via Petit Plat

What’s up with gingerbread houses in 2012? Plenty, it seems.
Gingerbread houses have gone green and sustainable, mid-century modern, and gluten-free. They’re big enough to walk through and small enough to dangle on the rim of a mug of cocoa. And we’ve finally had enough of gingerbread houses made of cupcakes.

Here’s a sampling of what’s online this holiday season:

Learn how to make a gingerbread house with a YouTube cooking lesson.

Visit our nation’s official gingerbread White House during the month of December at ObamaFoodorama.

View a time-lapse video of the construction of a life-sized gingerbread house (that’s 600 pounds of powdered sugar you’re watching!).

Peruse the gingerbread house picture gallery or upload a photo of your own creation at the Pinterest board for Gingerbread House Heaven.

Enter a gingerbread house-building contest. A national competition is held annually in Asheville, NC, but there are plenty of local events for both amateur and professional bakers.

Order a gingerbread replica of your home from custom baker Rebecca Russell.

Disneyland always pulls out the stops for its life-size gingerbread house at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort. This year’s house is based on the Haunted Mansion from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas and features a special-effects laden see-through ghost train that travels around the base of the house while ghosts chase a gingerbread man on a push car.

Choose between an A-frame, a Colonial, or a Saltbox with gingerbread house blueprints from BobVila.com.

Shop for kits, pans, and decorating tools at the Wilton Christmas Gingerbread Shop.

Play the online Home Sweet Home and decorate a virtual gingerbread house.

And yes, there’s an app for that.
Download Gingerbread House Maker for Android and Apple gadgets.

Posted in Christmas, cyberculture, diversions | Leave a comment

Everyone in America Eats the Exact Same Turkey

Janice | November 5, 2012 - 3:43 pm

image via Gerry Broome/AP

I don’t need to tell you.
By now, we’re all pretty well acquainted with the miserable conditions and often inhumane treatment that produce the bulked-up shrink-wrapped birds found in supermarket cases. But did you know that they’re basically all the same turkey?

A year’s production: 275,000,000 broad-breasted whites and only 30,000 heritage birds.
Virtually every turkey raised in the U.S. comes from a single genetic line. Even most free-range farmed turkeys have been raised from poults purchased from large-scale breeders working from that line. The broad-breasted white is a genetically-engineered hybrid developed in the 1970′s; ‘broad-breasted’ because breast meat sells; ‘white’ because the little feathers missed in plucking won’t show.

The broad-breasted white was engineered to convert the minimum amount of feed into the maximum amount of white breast meat in the shortest possible amount of time. And what a triumph it is! A factory-farmed turkey is ready for market in as little as twelve weeks (versus around 30 weeks for heritage breeds) and about 70% of its weight is breast.

A lot of turkey parts have to fall by the wayside to get that much breast meat.
Mass market turkeys have scrawny legs and tiny little skeletons. Their body cavities are so small that their organs are too crowded to reach full functionality. They are too frail and front-heavy to walk, roost, fly, or mate. There’s little chance of any muscle development, which is all the better to support the singular goal of breast production.

The broad-breasted white turkey is not a robust bird.
Their oversized breasts constrict their lungs so that they are constantly starved for oxygen. They develop the cardiovascular diseases that seem to find the overweight and sedentary members of every species. Even if they’re not headed to slaughter, the ‘natural’ life-span of these turkeys is only a year or two, versus the eight to twelve year life expectancy of heritage breeds.

There’s nothing robust about their flavor either. All that white meat is flabby; the protein level is low, the taste is mild, and the texture is soft. Gaminess and chew have been bred out, and while broad-breasted whites are higher in fat than other breeds, there’s none of the richness.

A naturally raised, free range broad-breasted white turkey can be a vast improvement over a factory farmed specimen. It has a foraged diet and develops muscle mass that contribute to superior flavor. But for a turkey that tastes like a turkey should taste, you’ll have to seek out a heritage breed. ‘Heritage’ is not a federally-regulated term, and it’s an over-used marketing buzzword, but a true heritage turkey is one of the ten specific breeds that were raised in the U.S. prior to the 1950′s when the poultry industry began to genetically engineer turkeys on the way to developing the broad-breasted white.

Don’t eat a Thanksgiving turkey that tastes like every turkey in America.
You can order a heritage breed turkey online at Heritage Foods USA and D’Artagnan. On the east coast, Mary’s Turkeys can direct you to local markets that carry their birds. Local Harvest and the The US Ark of Taste at Slow Food USA both maintain national directories of heritage turkey farms, markets, and breeders.

Posted in food knowledge, holidays, Thanksgiving | Leave a comment

Rolling Out the Tax Day Freebies

Janice | April 16, 2012 - 10:56 am

Is there any better flavor than the taste of free?

Everyone loves a bargain, but free is a whole other animal. Zero is not just another price. It’s an emotional hot button— push it, and we are irrationally, deliriously happy.

In what’s become an annual but odd rite of spring, Tax Day has become synonymous with free and discounted food. So many national chains are hosting tax relief specials that you can practically eat all day without ever cracking open your wallet.

Here’s this year’s list:

Maggie Moo’s and Marble Slab Creamery: a free scoop from 4-7 p.m.
Panda Express: a free serving of Shanghai Angus steak
Arby’s: free curly fries
McCormick & Schmick’s: extended Happy Hour drink specials from 3:30-11 pm
Sonic: all-day Happy Hour specials
RA Sushi: extended Happy Hour From 3pm-close
PF Chang’s: 15%off on everything but alcohol
Chili’s: free appetizer or dessert
Cinnabon: 2 free Cinnabon Bites from 6-8pm
Hooter’s: 20 chicken wings For $9.99
Bruegger’s: IRS-themed $10.40 specials
Seattle’s Best: free small coffee
Boston Market: buy one get one free
White Castle: free chicken sandwich
Chevy’s Fresh Mex: free taquito
Schlotzsky’s: free chips and drinks

Just remember, if you manage to collect more than $600 in free food, it can be taxed as income.

Posted in holidays, restaurants | Leave a comment

Chillin’ With My Peeps

Janice | March 29, 2012 - 11:47 am

Forget about basketball; early spring is Marshmallow Madness time.

February’s chocolate hearts were remaindered weeks ago, and summer sun block lies in wait. For now, the seasonal aisles of drug stores and supermarkets are stocked with the brightly-hued marshmallow chicks and bunnies of Easter.

More than a billion Peeps will be sold this year. While most will end up in the green excelsior grass of Easter baskets, a third of them are destined for bigger things.

Peeps have become icons of American pop culture. People don’t just eat Peeps; they photograph them, write songs about them, pen odes to them, and make crafts with them. There are online collections of Peeps artwork, recipes, and haiku (Wet rainy spring days with moist cold air, my breath cries: Will you never stale?). There are film parodies from the Tolkien-inspired Lord of the Peeps to marshmallow-soft porn dedicated to the hottest chicks on the web.

There’s an entire subculture of Peeps fetishists that is fascinated by their unique ability to withstand factors that would be the ruin of lesser candies. While countless amateurs toss Peeps into microwaves, PeepResearch.org has elevated the level of scientific inquiry through extensive laboratory studies documented with dry, clinical detachment.

The Peeps phenomenon has been fueled by high profile cultural events. For years National Geographic sponsored an annual Peeps in Places competition inviting readers to submit photographs of Peeps in far-flung locations. Over the years it brought classic entrants like the one-eared bunny at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and soul-singing chicks at Detroit’s Motown Museum. And every spring the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and dozens of other newspapers around the country sponsor Peeps diorama contests. You can read each year’s entries like a cultural barometer, which meant that 2011 saw plenty of marshmallow Justin Biebers and Charlie Sheens (Two and a Half Peeps), and this year was all about the OccuPeeps Movement.

What is it about Peeps that inspires such passion?
We anthropomorphize these winsome critters in ways that are surreal and slightly unsettling, and all they do is peer at us through blank, sugar-blackened eyes, giving back little more than a sugar rush.
I can’t tell you what it is about Peeps, but I do know that nobody ever built a scale model White House for a Cadbury Creme Egg to live in.

Posted in candy, Easter | Leave a comment

Prohibited Pleasures

Janice | January 2, 2012 - 2:50 pm

Did you find any contraband in your Christmas stocking?

Between the Department of Agriculture, The Food and Drug Administration, and the Customs and Treasury departments, there’s a slew of delicacies that have been banned in various locales. But if your gift exchange is shady enough, you might have scored this holiday season.

Absinthe
Contrary to popular belief, absinthe is legal in the United States. The FDA strictly limits the level of thujone, a toxic substance found in wormwood, one of the spirit’s ingredients. Thujone has long been rumored to cause hallucinations in absinthe drinkers, although this has never been confirmed. The legal version is highly alcoholic (up to 74%) and is usually diluted before drinking.

Caviar
Since 2005, caviar connoisseurs have been forced to make do without the eggs of the wild beluga sturgeon. Until the dwindling numbers of this species can be revived, caviar lovers have to satisfy themselves with the roe of salmon, trout, and other more plentiful fish. Strictly speaking, these substitutes are not true caviar.

Sassafras
The dried root bark of the sassafras tree has been used for tea, as a fragrance for soap, a painkiller, an insect repellent, and a seasoning and thickener for many Creole soups and stews. It’s best known for contributing the characteristic flavor to root beer, although few can remember the taste of true sassafras root beer. A potential carcinogen, its use has been banned for 50 years.

Foie Gras
Celebrated for its luxurious taste and texture; excoriated for the cruelty of force-feeding geese and ducks to enlarge their livers before slaughter. It’s hard to stay neutral on the subject of foie gras. Chicago banned the retail sale of this delicacy in 2006, imposing fines of up to $500 per violations. Since eating foie gras remained legal, restaurateurs skirted the ban by serving the dish under the guise of other menu items, claiming that they were giving away the livers with the purchase of the other dishes. The ineffectual ban was lifted in 2008. California is gearing up to implement its own foie gras ban this year.

Raw Milk/Raw Milk Cheeses
Raw milk proponents tout the superior flavor and nutrition of milk that has not been pasteurized or homogenized. Government agencies worry that bacteria present in unpasteurized milk poses a health threat. Raw milk can not be legally sold in about two dozen states, and is limited to direct farm sales in a few others. A few enterprising farmers satisfy raw milk demand by selling ‘herd shares’– customers purchase a share in a cow that entitles them to a portion of its milk.

Throughout the US, unpasteurized cheeses can only be legally sold when they have been aged at least 60 days– the period deemed necessary to kill off potentially harmful bacteria in raw dairy products. True cheese connoisseurs feel that we are missing out on the distinct and extraordinary pleasures of young cheeses, such as those found in European countries where the requirement is a 30-day waiting period.

Here are some resources to help you locate and legally transport some of these forbidden foods:

Keep up with the latest legislation with the Food Law Blog.

Think twice before packing that prosciutto– failure to declare food products at border crossings can result in fines as high as $10,000. Consult the US Customs website to learn what you can lawfully transport.

Read The Devil’s Picnic: Around the World in Pursuit of Forbidden Fruit (available through Amazon.com) for a chef’s tour of prohibited pleasures.

Posted in food business, holidays | Tagged food, holiday, shopping | Leave a comment

Make Plans, Not Resolutions

Janice | December 27, 2011 - 12:49 pm

[image via TheResurgance.com]

New Years resolutions are a sucker’s bet.
We all know it. Even so, there’s something about the next year’s calendar with all its small, clean squares so full of potential.
Resist the urge.
Make plans, not resolutions. Lay foundations instead of boundaries.

DON’T resolve to eat out less often. INSTEAD get your house in good cooking order.
Keep a well stocked pantry, have your knives professionally sharpened, buy lots and lots of condiments, play with your forgotten utensils and appliances (have you ever used the sausage attachment that came with your food processor?).

DON’T resolve to limit your fats. INSTEAD plan to savor every bite.
Experiment with nut oils and buy different grades of olive oil— use the good stuff when it counts. Eat really fresh butter from grass-fed cows. Same for cheese. And ice cream.

DON’T give up meat. INSTEAD plan to broaden your culinary horizens.
Beans, nuts, grains, and even green vegetables contain protein. Did you know that there are 40,000 different varieties of rice? That should keep you busy for a while.

DON’T give up refined foods. INSTEAD plan to make informed decisions.
Know your food—where it’s from and what’s been done to it.

If you must make a New Years resolution, make it this one:
This year, I resolve to enjoy my relationship with food.
Make 2012 a celebration, not a challenge.

Posted in holidays, New Years | Tagged diet, holiday | Leave a comment

Good Luck/Bad Luck Foods for the New Year

Janice | December 23, 2011 - 11:11 am

crossed-fingers

If Friday the 13th is unlucky, then 2012 should be a real doozy.
We have 3 of them coming up on next year’s calendar. That’s the greatest number that can possibly fall within 12 months.

This seems like a good time to try some of the good luck foods from New Year’s traditions around the world.

Beans, peas, and lentils
They are symbolic of prosperity in many cultures because they’re thought to resemble coins when they’ve been cooked. Legumes are often paired with pork, which has its own lucky associations, so the combination makes for a most propitious meal. Italians eat sausages and green lentils just after midnight. Germans usually eat their New Years legumes in lentil or split pea soup with sausage. Hoppin’ John, a dish of black-eyed peas cooked with ham, is a tradition in the American south.
Noodles
Long noodles like are eaten as a symbol of a long life.
Round or ring-shaped foods
These represent a year coming full circle. Mexicans eat the ring-shaped rosca de reyes cake, the Dutch eat the donut-like ollie bollen, and in Greece, families bake a lucky coin into the round vassilopita cake.
Fish
Fish makes frequent appearances on New Years tables. There’s herring at midnight in Poland, boiled cod in Denmark, and the Germans not only feast on carp, they also put fish scales in their wallets for a successful new year. In Japan, herring roe is consumed for fertility, shrimp for long life, and dried sardines for a good harvest.
Grapes
In Spain it’s traditional to eat 12 grapes at midnight, one for each month of the coming year. The taste-sweet or sour-gives a clue to the character of each of the coming months. Spanish state television broadcasts the New Years chimes and nearly 4 million pounds of grapes (in little 12 grape packets) are sold in the last week of the year.

What Not to Eat

Lobster
Lobster is considered a poor choice for a new years meal because lobsters move backwards and could lead to setbacks, regrets, and dwelling on the past.
Chicken
You don’t want your good luck to fly away.
White foods
The Chinese avoid eggs, cheese, and tofu, because white is the color of death.

And never clean your plate. A little leftover food will usher in a year of plenty and guarantee a stocked pantry.

Posted in diversions, New Years | Tagged holiday | Leave a comment

An Endless Fascination with the Turducken

Janice | December 5, 2011 - 11:18 am

cartoon via Dr. Fun

By now, the turducken should need no introduction. In the span of a few years, it’s gone from urban legend to regional curiosity to your neighborhood Whole Foods freezer.

You can buy fresh or frozen turduckens; free range, organic, and kosher turduckens; turducken for your pet (canned or dry); and even mock tofu-based turducken for vegans (with apologies, the tofucken).

When plain old turducken just won’t do, there are endless can-you-top-this variations like the fowl de cochon (turducken stuffed pig), the quaducant (quail, duck, and pheasant), and extreme stunts like the turgooponducheasnishuaichuffguihagaga, an unpronounceable and probably inedible beast that marries poultry-stuffed-poultry with beef, pork, lamb, and frog. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the hotchken; known as ‘the poor man’s turducken,’ it consists of a humble chicken stuffed with hotdogs.
[For the record, the largest documented nested bird roast is the rôti sans pareil, or 'roast without equal': 17 successively stuffed birds, from the massive bustard to the tiny garden warbler; the final bird so small that it's stuffed with just a single olive].

We’ve seen the turducken effect spill over its poultry borders. A cookie is baked inside of a cookie to create the chocoOreochip, a.k.a. the turducken of cookies, and a cream cheese-frosted behemoth known as the cherpumple (cherry, pumpkin and apple pies each baked inside its own tier of a three-layer cake) lays claim to the title of the turducken of desserts.

Then there’s the Twitter hashtag #LiteraryTurducken. In the spirit of the poultry portmanteau, #LiteraryTurducken tweets take a classic book title and stuff two more inside. The days leading up to Thanksgiving saw thousands of clever hybrids like “Go, Dog, Go Tell it on the Brokeback Mountain,” “Barbarians at the Gate of My Little House on the Prairie,” and “The Awkward Age of Innocents Abroad.”

Like Russian nesting dolls rendered in pimply poultry flesh

The mighty Cherpumple

Posted in Christmas, holidays | Tagged holiday, kosher | Leave a comment

A Guide to the Foodie Holiday Gift Guides

Janice | November 28, 2011 - 11:52 am

image via 7DTV

Holiday gift guides are supposed to make life a little easier at this time of year.
In theory, they are carefully curated, well-targeted selections that keep us from slogging through too many websites to come up with the perfect gift. But with so many gift guides out there, now we find ourselves slogging through them.
That’s why Gigabiting has done the slogging for you, to come up with a carefully curated, well-targeted selection of holiday gift guides for all the food lovers on your list.

Hit the ground running this holiday shopping season.
The Wall Street Journal has A Foodie’s Guide to Cyber Monday 2011.

They like kitchen hacks and the science behind the cooking.
Shop for the innovative cook at Seattle Weekly’s Food Geek Gift Guide: 2011.

Let them show their love with wearable food gifts.
The Huffington Post has 12 T-Shirts and Totes for Food Lovers.

They’re cool and they cook; for them, you can pick up a set of knives reflecting the specialized techniques of 20 ethnic cuisines, or a honey dipper inspired by the geometry of the beehive.
It’s Gifts for Your Foodie Friend from the Cool Hunting Holiday Gift Guide.

The cheeseboard is from reclaimed slate, and the espresso machine is hand-cranked.
It’s the Green Gift Guide for foodies from Treehugger.

Turn soybeans into soymilk and fruit juice into boozy hooch.
There are all kinds of gifts for all kinds of DIYers from Kitchen Daily’s 10 Make-Your-Own Food Kits.

They’re obsessed with swan-necked pour over kettles and debate the virtues of wet-processed beans.
Please the coffee lovers in your life with a selection from Dear Coffee, I Love You’s Coffee Lover Gift Guide 2011.

Have any food bloggers on your list? We need some love at holiday time just like anybody else.
My Kitchen Addiction mixes the professional, the practical, and the personal in the Food Blogger Gift Guide.

Here’s a gift that’s one-size-fits-all:
Give a gift to end hunger from the Feeding America Gift Catalog.
$12 buys a child’s breakfast for 3 months; for $90 you can provide 6 months’ worth of dinners for a family of 4.

Posted in holidays, shopping | Tagged holiday, shopping | Leave a comment

Holiday Weight Gain: First the good news…

Janice | November 23, 2011 - 11:06 am

How about the good news first…
Reports of holiday weight gain have been greatly exaggerated. The perception is that we really pack on the pounds at holiday time. The reality (according to the National Institutes of Health) is a typical weight gain of between 0.4 and 1.8 pounds— just about one pound on average. Despite six weeks of free-flowing eggnog from Thanksgiving through New Years, the typical weight gain is surprisingly small— except for the already-overweight who tend to keep growing during the holidays.

And the bad news…
It may be a mere pound, but the weight adds up.
Most people don’t ever lose that extra holiday pound.

Our weight is on an upward creep through the adult years. On the march toward the middle-age spread, and the health complications that accompany it like diabetes and heart disease, we tend to accumulate about 2 pounds each year. About half of that can be traced to seasonal overindulgence.

A January menu of cottage cheese and rice cakes.
40% of all New Years resolutions relate to diet and weight loss. We take alcohol and red meat off the menu and sign up for gym memberships. Unfortunately, research shows that our resolve is not so strong: six out of ten will fall off the wagon by January 6th.

There are unexpected side effects to holiday weight gain.
You’re not the only one affected. Read: Pet Parade: Holiday weight gain affects pets too.
And then there’s that special someone. Last year, BeautifulPeople.com, apparently a dating site for the thin and superficial, canceled more than 5,000 memberships on the basis of profile photos showing evidence of holiday overindulgence. In the words of the site’s founder, Robert Hintze, “Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded.” You can read about it in Dating Site for Beautiful People Expels “Fatties” Over Holiday Weight Gain.

Feel free to make a New Years resolution to send nasty email messages to Mr. Hintze.

Posted in health + diet, Thanksgiving | Tagged diet, holiday | 1 Comment

Modernist Thanksgiving, Anyone?

Janice | November 4, 2011 - 1:14 pm

Modernist cuisine is one of the glories of the 21st Century.
By borrowing from the laboratory, pioneering chefs have blown through the established boundaries of cooking, upending centuries of culinary tradition. They’ve refined and deepened our understanding of techniques and ingredients, astounding us with new and intensified flavors and textures. But can we please keep it out of the kitchen on Thanksgiving?

You don’t want to mess with Thanksgiving.
It’s our most traditional and food-centric holiday. For most families, the food traditions are inviolable—swap out the creamed onions for butternut squash and you’ll never hear the end of it from someone claiming to wait all year for those damned onions.

Call me old-fashioned, but I want my gravy thickened with roux rather than hydrocolloids, and please hold the alginate spherification when you cook my cranberries. This is not a day when my senses should be stunned.

Trading cast iron pans for the rotor-stator homogenizer
The modernist Thanksgiving kitchen is a sterile, precise environment. Cooking is reduced to the often soundless, odorless elements of physics and chemistry. Vacuum-sealed bags of deconstructed turkey swim silently in their sous-vide bath, and the beep of a digital touch pad signals the centrifuge cycle of the sweet potatoes. You’re not just hands-off; you’re in protective gear.

Gone is the cacophony of rattling pans, the sizzle of fat, and the tangle of smells that fill the house. Gone too is the romance of cooking—the creative imprecision of a dash of this and a splash of that; the blast of heat when you open the oven door to baste the turkey; the hand-cramping satisfaction of mashing an enormous pot of potatoes into submission.

On November 25th, let’s put away the autoclaves and cryo-guns, and bring on the tradition.

Read about the ground-breaking text Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, in Gigabiting’s The Biggest, Greatest, Most Revolutionary Cookbook Ever. No kidding.

Posted in Science/Technology, Thanksgiving | Tagged appliances + gadgets, holiday, kitchen | 2 Comments

The 5 W’s of Food Day

Janice | October 21, 2011 - 1:28 pm

The Who
It might be easier to list the who isn’t.
Food Day was created by the consumer-advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Food Day’s advisory board is stacked with city mayors and university heads, Senators and members of Congress, two former Surgeons General, chefs, scientists, public health leaders, and many of the most prominent voices for change in the food policy world (Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, Marion Nestle, Jim Hightower, and many more).
Food Day’s hundreds of partner organizations run the gamut from the Sierra Club to the Episcopal Church, and corporate partners include Whole Foods, Dole, and The Cooking Channel.

The What
It’s a day dedicated to raising awareness and raising funds to promote healthy eating and affordable, sustainable foods.
Food Day is based on Earth Day in that any individual or group, formal or informal, can plan an event. There are thousands scheduled, including policy campaign kick-offs, food festivals, cooking lessons, farm tours, film screenings, school curricula, protests, and themed dinners in restaurants, private homes, and public spaces.

The When
Food Day is Monday, October 24.
We’re in the home stretch.

The Where
Food Day events large and small are being planned all around the country.
There will be high-profile gatherings like the massive, celebrity-packed Eat Real Eat-In being held in New York’s Times Square, and others as low key as a home cook’s pie-making class being held in a Brookline kitchen.
Visit the Food Day website to find events near you, or consider hosting your own Food Day dinner with help from Epicurious’ Food Day event planning kit.

Why
Because it’s time to fix our broken food system.

FOODDAY.org

Posted in holidays, sustainability | Tagged diversions, food, green, holiday | Leave a comment

Babies and Dogs Dressed Like Food

Janice | October 13, 2011 - 9:52 am

Is there anything more precious than a baby? So sweet, so innocent, so defenseless; our hearts overflow with the desire to love and protect them.

And our dogs: pure of heart, willing to lay down their lives for us, we see the unconditional love in their soulful gazes and undying loyalty.Then Halloween rolls around and we dress them like food: we wrap babies in tortilla diapers and give them red felt salsa for hair, and stuff dachshunds between foam hot dog buns and tape yellow mustard stripes down their backs. The sacred trust between child and parent, dog and master— it goes right out the window.

Why do we do it? I guess because we can.

Babies in Food Costumes (20 pics)

Posted in diversions, funny, Halloween | Leave a comment

Where’s the Edible Emblem for Gay Pride Week?

Janice | June 22, 2011 - 12:21 pm

It’s Gay Pride Week, so where are the special holiday delicacies?
This is a celebration in need of a dish– an edible emblem, a culinary signature.

The dish needs to be festive, sure, but it also should bind together the generations in their observance. It should feel as if the spirit of those that came before are hovering over the holiday table. And if it uses a chiffonade, all the better.

All the great holidays have one.
Thanksgiving has its turkey and St. Patrick’s Day has corned beef and cabbage. Even Passover, a Jewish salute to deprivation mind you, has its matzoh ball soup. How can it be that Gay Pride Week doesn’t have a signature food?

From little boys with Easy Bake Ovens to a love of brunch (carbs! sunglasses indoors!), food culture runs deep in the LGBT community. The reverse is true as well; the community has always been well-represented in the kitchen, filling the gap between mom-cooks and the meat-slapping alpha males at the grill.

There is a contingent backing the cupcake; it’s a tad trendy and obvious, but it does make a certain amount of sense. Cupcakes have buttercream and sprinkles going for them, and cupcakes became a rallying cry for the gay rights struggle when an Indianapolis bakery refused to make rainbow cupcakes for a customer’s National Coming Out Day celebration.

Personally, I would like to see something a little weightier with cultural and historical significance; something that hasn’t been co-opted and over-exposed by the mainstream. Plus, cupcakes are already the domain of third grade classroom birthday celebrations—Gay Pride Week shouldn’t have to share.

There isn’t a definitive dish of Gay Pride Week, but there are still plenty of ways to celebrate.

We are fabulous–therefore we eat out! is the motto of Gay Eats, nationwide listings of gay-owned, gay-friendly, and gay-popular dining, with shout-outs to hunky waiters.

The Daily Hookup, a gay-oriented answer to Groupon,, is a deal site with a carefully curated lineup of bars and restaurants.

Be there for the grand opening this month of The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop (the widely anticipated spinoff of the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck) for treats like the Bea Arthur and the Salty Pimp.

Obama Foodorama lets you follow the food adventures of First Pastry Chef Bill Yosses, the openly gay, Executive Pastry Chef known around the White House as ‘the Crustmaster’.

In honor of Gay Pride Week, Fork in the Road, the food blog of the Village Voice, is temporarily transformed into the Big Gay Food Blog.

Posted in holidays | Tagged holiday, Obama | Leave a comment