Monday's links

• Oat and quinoa possible semolina replacers in pasta [Food Navigator]

• Fact about me: Growing up I referred to Sundays as “Bagel day”, the day all the Jews went to their local bakeries to pick up bagels for the week. Yesterday Foodcate posted “10 Bagel Bits for Sunday Morning”. Mmmmm… bagels. Second fact about me: I worked at a Montreal bagel bakery (that is, Montreal-style bagels, not a bakery in Montreal) one summer.

• I wouldn’t eat these Peeps smores, but they’re pretty. [Serious Eats]

• The Easiest Herbs to Grow Indoors [The Kitchn] – Last summer I hung out with a guy with a green thumb. I was completely envious of the amount of basil – in numerous varieties – that sat on his front and back porches, as well other herbs. My herbs die, a result of me forgetting to water them. Somehow I manage to keep oregano alive and I did well with cilantro one year (possibly also basil for a short time). This summer I will once again try windersill herbs and I’ll buy some soil to plant some more balcony herbs. My living room windowsill and balcony have southern exposure.

Links from Thursday and Friday

• Street cart vendors grilled on food safety [The Toronto Star]

• Cheap Eats Toronto talks to a representative of Toronto a la Cart.

• The Toronto Sun muses, “Variety of street food, but where’s Canuck cuisine?”

• Slashfood taste tests Haagen-Dazs new ice cream line

• Older men and postmenopausal women who have one or two glasses of beer or wine a day appear to have stronger bones than both nondrinkers and heavy drinkers, a new study suggests. [MedlinePlus]

• Food science at work: Why did someone’s perfect rice pudding solidify when she put it in the fridge? She asks, Serious Eats readers answer.

• Possible therapy takes bite out of peanut allergy – essentially, the homeopathic method. [Associated Press]

Wednesday link roundup.

• Top 10 Napkin Fold Techniques. The pinwheel is cool, also “The Sachet”.

• 7 thing to know about Nitrites in your Luncheon Meats. [Fooducate]

• An awesome post and comments that I flagged to read “later” last week: Serious Heat: Taming the Chile Fire The accompanying photo is gorgeous. [Serious Eats]

• The 10 Most Disgusting Delicacies to Try Before You Die. WARNING: Contains images. Not for the faint of… anything. I started reading it but couldn’t continue. Duck fetus is on the list. Really. And a bat that can kill you if you eat it. This is way worse than the blowfish, kids. [Culinary Schools.org]

• Grape polyphenols may protect against obesity  [Food Navigator]

• Formulating cakes with sesame oil, hydrocolloids and emulsifiers could replace fat in cakes, leading to low-fat alternatives of family favourites, suggests a new study.  [Food Navigator]

• Who has the freshest candy? Walmart, that’s who. Researchers at Brock University looked at the age of candy bars in eight major retail stores. Results: the average bar was 140 days old.  [Financial Post]

• The Toronto Star on the 8 street vendors approved to broaden the definition of “street meat” in Toronto. Includes a diagram [pdf] of what will be served and where. The Globe and Mail on the same issue, and I include Taste T.O.’s commentary here too because I always like Greg’s snark.

• The Toronto Star asks, “Are you sushi savvy?”

• The Appetizer wants to know what you think is the Best Sandwiches in Canada [National Post]

• The New York Times Well blog asks, What Kind of Chef Are You? I’m healthy, or healthy and innovative. The Internet Food Association discusses.

Food links, Inauguration Day edition

Food science and studies…

• Childhood diet alters hormones for life: Research. The  message seems obvious: what you eat as a child can have a huge impact on health later in life

• Because in the winter we could use all the help we can get: How Food Can Affect Your Mood

• Prebiotic may offer ray of light for IBS sufferers: Study

• New soy concentrates for improved meat texture

• Yesterday David Lebovitz blogged a great corn syrup FAQ.

Branding…

• Heinz ketchup loses the pickle on the bottle.

• I bet that Heinz’s new package design will be nicer than Tropicana’s. For coverage of the Tropicana juice carton redesign see Serious Eats, Slashfood, Packaging Digest and Brand Week (or Google for more, of course). According to Brand Week,

The new packaging has 20 design trademarks and copyrights. It took 30 people five months to develop it. Three alternative designs were scrapped including a revised orange and straw version and a Pepperidge Farm-like depiction of an orange grove.

and

The design team…took half of a mid-season orange and created a cap that mimicked its peel in both color and texture. Because you have to squeeze it and turn it, “the cap symbolically represents the essence of the message which is that it the juice is fresh squeezed,”

I think that the Tropicana redesign looks bland and generic and to me the symbol of the orange with the straw did a better job at conveying the brand. Marketing and branding has long been among my interests too.

From Pepsi product to Coke product: Coke Sued Over Vitamin Water.

File under “cool stuff”…

• A chandelier Made of Gummy Bears
• Yesterday I stumbled upon some kitchen gadget pr0n.

And speaking of pr0n, though this goes under the categories of research and studies:

• Women less able to resist favourite foods. What does this have to do with food porn? The image in the article borders on NSFW (not safe for work). Some mom is going to be writing a letter to the newspaper, calling the image obscene.  Or maybe it’s just my mind.

And strange news…

• Teen charged with assaulting mom with taco. Yes, a taco. There’s got to be a joke about the Taco Bell chihuahua in there somewhere.  I shit you not and yes, I’m going there intentionally. Maybe the kid will use the Twinkie Defense (or if you prefer law.com‘s shorter definition).

Locally…

In Taste T.O., beer aficionado Greg laments the lack of good beer drinking establishments in Toronto, using a TAPS Magazine article for inspiration. The piece takes the reader to Montreal and Halifax. Interesting read. By the way, I think that Greg  (and/or Sheryl) needs to create a Taste T.O. Twitter account.

At Forum Liberalis Carolyn Bennett asks:

“Many experts suggest that Canada needs a comprehensive National Food Policy. What do you think should be essential elements of such a policy in the areas of agriculture, fishery, environment, industry, transportation, health, food protection, food security, aboriginal affairs, international trade and international development? Are there any other areas you think should be included?”

…Tell them what you think.

Finally…

Do bars serve beer floats? They should.

A blog post about what I’ve been cooking and baking coming soon and there’s a blog redesign in the future. I’ve changed templates but I want to do so much more.

Happy Obama Inauguration Day! We Canadians are thrilled.

Three days of links

I’m trying to increase frequency but I don’t really want to post @ work…

• Food Navigator report: Beer and red wine marinade may cut cancer risk from beef.

• News from Israel that does not involve the war: High fat diets upset our biological clock.

• Serious “Drinks”: Top 11 Compounds in U.S. Drinking Water.

• I once learned from my grandmother that laying a piece of plastic wrap on top of ice cream before putting the lid back on prevents crystallization. It works.  New research shows that dietary fibres such at oat, apple and wheat may control crystallisation and recrystallisation in ice creams.

• Antibiotics in veggies? I give up.

• Tip: Creamier (and Lighter!) Sauce With Pasta Water. This sounds familiar, as if I’ve read it before or saw it on a cooking show once.

• Feeling gelty after the holidays (get it? gelty?)? Post-Chanukah suggestions for using up less-than-amazing chocolate.

• Tired of raccoons being a pain in the ass? Eat them. Not that I’m advocating this, but hey.

• TV Squad asks, “At which of the Top Chefs’ restaurants would YOU eat?”. I wonder if these restaurants would live up to expectation.

• The power of Oprah: Advertising Age asks,  Will Oprah Bring Down Blue Corn Chips? I can’t believe I still remember David Letterman’s “Uma… Oprah” bit from the Oscars 14 years ago. It was neither good nor funny, but it was memorable. Of course it’s got a section on Wikipedia (I wanted to check the year to see how far back the memory went).

• Taste T.O. wants to help you get the most value out of prix fixe menus.

• For you food enthusiasts (and you are reading my blog), today Slashfood announced the launch of an online cooking community called Mixing Bowl.

• Around the world  there’s talk about what Barack Obama eats and whether or not he’ll replace the current White House chef. The Globe and Mail’s headline is “Chowbama”. The Toronto Sun has two stories. Chicago Sun Times on White House chefs. The Star Tribune in Minneapolis asks, “Will Obama be a foodies’ president?” …and so on. Blogs are abuzz as well.

Photo links:

Happy eating.

Post script: I’ve just added the tag “food pr0n”. Will be interesting to see if I’m denied access to posts tagged as such while at work. It won’t let me view mightygodking’s award-winning blog (mightygodking.com) or certain posts at other food blogs.