Tag Archives: Slashfood

Tuesday's links: food science, produce & ice cream, live in the moment.

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Food science:

  • In addition to the hormones in our drinking water, now it’s been discovered that artificial sweeteners are left behind too. At least, in Germany. [Disease Proof]
  • Liquid smoke is safer to ingest than untreated wood smoke. That and other facts about liquid smoke. [Slashfood]

Food and vegetable:

  • What is the difference between “100% organic” and “organic”? How do we know “organic” truly reflects our beliefs? Do food companies use the word “organic” in the same way they use “health”? Which is worse: eating nonorganic produce full of pesticides or not eating produce at all? Is organic food nutritionally worth its higher cost? Aren’t organics elitist? Marion Nestlé answers these questions. [SFGate]
  • The journey of a California strawberry to a plate in Toronto. [Toronto Star] We should all be locavores when the food items are in season and as I’ve mentioned in my blog previously, I refuse to eat imported berries.

Local/local media:

  • Mark McEwan’s new grocery store in the Shops at Don Mills. [City News]
  • Why Corey Mintz doesn’t order salads at restaurants. [Toronto Star] He’s right on, although so is the commenter who suggested that very good or very bad salads should be commented on.
  • The Toronto Star found that five out of 14 soft-serve ice creams bought from trucks and stores across the city had high levels of bacteria.

Misc.:

  • Not completely food related but a beautiful list from detox expert Natalia Rose called My Top 10 List For an Outstanding Life Experience. I like “Cancel any old stories and programs that are not part of your truth today.” because old stories are very much a part of my own psyche and I try to be conscious of it and live in the moment.

Tomorrow (June 24) is National Pralines Day (see my Food Holidays post from yesterday).

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Links from today and the past few days

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Funny:

  • Most Jewish Delis Named in One Minute on Blip TV (found via Serious Eats) Centre Street Deli, Yitz’s and Caplansky’s are in there representing Toronto and I heard some Montreal delis in there. Sax is from Toronto so he’d have to represent.
  • Topless Coffee Shop In Maine Burns Down [Serious Eats] I don’t know where to start with the jokes.

In health:

  • Increased intakes of vitamins C and E and beta-carotene may reduce the risk of uterine cancer [Decision News Media]
  • Not that we’re surprised, but new research reveals that diets low in fat and red meat and rich in fruits and vegetables helps prevent and treat prostate cancer. [Disease Proof]
  • Low Vitamin D Makes it Hard to Think! [Disease Proof] My doctor once told me that north Americans tend to be deficient in Vitamin D because we’re afraid of the sun and slather on the sunblock. Good for protecting cancer, yes, but we need vitamin D. So, get out there and get some sunshine! (P.S. Chose your sunscreen wisely because some are toxic.)
  • Absorption of calcium from ice cream is no different than from low-fat milk. [All Decision News Media] While I like to THINK that ice cream is good for me, I harbor no illusions. When my doctor told me to increase my calcium intake a couple of years ago I kept joking that it was a prescription to eat ice cream.
  • Eating a curry once or twice a week could help prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia [BBC]

In food pr0n:

  • This lemon mint granita recipe from Smitten Kitchen looks awesome and as I was reading I was silently crying about the small size of the freezer in my new, bigger apartment. [Smitten Kitchen]
  • My face lit up as soon as I saw this: Photo of the Day: Orange & Grapefruit Slices [Serious Eats]

Local:

  • Management of local restaurant The Black Hoof is opening a second location across the street and calling it “Hoof Café”. Toronto Life calls The Black Hoof a “temple of charcuterie.

Other:

  • Following up on yesterday’s post about the new Hellmann’s Eat Real, Eat Local campaign…  Grist.org tells Hellmann’s to GET real.  Read it.
  • Great read: Food critic Gael Greene writes a wonderful response to a 10 year old wannabe food critic who is a food prodigy. I read every word, and I rarely do that. The sign off made me groan.  [Huffington Post] (Tempted to post this under “funny”.)
  • Anthony Bourdain’s 13 Places to Eat Before You Die. Not surprising that elBulli (Spain), Per Se (New York) are on the list. I think I’ve heard of Le Bernardin (New York). I like that he includes a sandwich shop in Seattle. It’s a little more accessible to those of us who will never make it to elBulli (although I think that one is more likely to vacation in Spain than Seattle, which just isn’t as exotic). Bourdain describes it at “a sandwich shop with a couple of tables and a true mom-and-pop — even if they’re the mom and pop of Mario Batali.”
    Katz’s Deli in New York made the cut (no pun intended).  What would you add to the list? [Slashfood]
  • Tobacco candy? The headline made me exclaim out loud, “That is SO wrong!” [Treehugger] Tobacco candy is just what it sounds like – fine-ground tobacco mixed with sweeteners and flavorings.
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Links for Tuesday and the days prior

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  • Ten Low Emission, High Protein Foods [Treehugger]
  • Another case for probiotics: Following a gluten-free diet may be detrimental to gut health, which may also affect immune health [Food Navigator]
  • Protein-fibre combo offers ‘promising’ gluten-free options [Food Navigator]
  • Fight Fatigue With Delicious Food [Slashfood]
  • Beauty foods: What you eat as important as makeup, skin products [Newsday]. (Not that this is news.)
  • Belgian city goes vegetarian one day per week in order to promote sustainable and healthy living.Belgian city world’s first to go vegetarian, one day a week [National Post and others such as The Guardian ]
  • A List of Street Food Vendors (in the U.S.) Using Twitter [Serious Eats]
  • On the topic of food vendors, Toronto’s new “a la carte” program was rolled out yesterday. Among the news coverage: Cheap Eats Toronto, City NewsToronto Star. In his review in the Toronto Star, Corey’s expresses an overall opinion that is unfavourable, calling the food “bland” (maybe I should have said “unfLavourable”). The comments to the story are telling as well. Lauren from BlogTO had a much different – and more positive – experience (also, one of the commenters takes a dig at Corey). Torontoist‘s Kaori called the chicken souvlaki “sensational”. She liked the biryani and called the the jerk chicken “delicious”. Now I’ve got to taste for myself.
  • Taste T.O is looking for writers! And once again I question whether I have enough confidence in my writing ability to apply.
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Links from Thursday and Friday

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  • 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]

Links from the last week

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I’ve been lazy so some of these are almost a week old…

  • More Mark Bittman on NPR: Recipes From Mark Bittman’s Food Matters and audio interview.
  • A field of wasabi. Did you know that it was a plant that grows? I didn’t. Had I thought about it I might have realized it.
  • Pumpkin cheesecake with a ginger-pecan crust? Yes, please. It’s not something I’d likely make (I always feel that one needs a stand mixer to make cheesecakes although this recipe uses a blender) but if anyone wants to make one I’m more than happy to be a tester.
  • Cupcakes and beer? I made cupcakes with Guinness in the summer – the ones with salted caramel frosting. Here’s another cupcake recipe that calls for Guinness. The frosting uses Baileys.
  • CBC‘s Spark asks, Does your laptop double as a recipe book? Mine has started to. I owned my laptop for over a year before it occurred to me to take it into the kitchen. Instead was I was doing was either running back and forth between my desktop computer in my bedroom/office and the kitchen, or scrawling down recipes in a notebook and taking that into the kitchen.
  • Obamas Bring Their Chicago Chef to the White House. Story here.
  • A US study has found that perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), which are used in areas such as food packaging, pesticides, clothing, carpets and personal care products, may be linked to infertility in women. Report.
  • In Saturday’s Toronto Star Corey Mintz writes about catering his grandmother’s shiva in an article called “Say goodbye, and pass the smoked meat“. I was touched. My eyes misted a little. Do his articles usually generate that response? (Restaurant reviews don’t count.)  I bet a lot of the feedback he got to the story was from Jewish mothers and grandmothers asking him if he’s single, and “I have a daughter/granddaughter…” I wouldn’t be surprised if my mother thought it. :)
  • In Saturday’s National Post Alison Broverman writes home about summer camp food. Oh, the memories. My memories of Camp Wahanowin don’t include traditional Shabbat dinner, but the memories are scarce and I have no doubt that we had them. I definitely don’t recall Smartiefried oatmeal.
  • Men Smell Like Cheese, Women Smell Like Onions? This according to Slashfood and the Telegraph.  Aren’t little girls made of sugar and spice and everything nice while little boys are made of Snips and snails, and puppy-dogs’ tails? (Wikipedia on that nursery rhyme.)
  • Apartment Therapy is disappointed that Jamie Oliver’s magazine is only available on newsstands in the UK and that the price for US subscribers is around $64. Bonus news item: According to an advertisement on that page, Elisha Cuthbert is making an appearance on Project Runway Canada tonight, on Global Television.  Chris didn’t mention this in his Televisualist column this week.  I don’t watch Project Runway, nor do I have cable. However, I read all of Chris’ Televisualist columns and watch the Gilmore Girls clips that he posts on his blog every friday.
  • This pleases me:  The UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) has published a list of food products that have been voluntarily reformulated to remove six food colours associated with hyperactivity in young children. Story here.
  • FDA joins criminal investigation into Peanut Corporation salmonella. Story here.

If I blogged more often I’d have fewer links. I should blog more often.

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Food links, Inauguration Day edition

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Food science and studies…

Branding…

  • 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”…

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…

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

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

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

Photo links:

Pretty

Pretty clementine granita (Click photo for more info.)

Way cool.

Is this cool or what? (Click photo for more info.)

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.

Links for Saturday.

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Good gosh. Video: Wrap your phone in bacon.

From Slashfood: Make Girl Scout Cookies at Home.

In the New York Times Mark Bittman talks about cleaning out the kitchen with a list of what you should toss and what items you should have.  His list includes aerosol oil, bottled salad dressing and marinades, which he calls “The biggest rip-offs imaginable”, spices older than a year, canned beans (I disagree), imitation vanilla, imitation “Parmesan” (“beware the green cylinder”, he says) and fake syrup.

I ran out of cooking spray awhile ago and have considered buying an oil sprayer. Most of my spices are old. Very old. Three items listed above should go without saying:

  1. Imitation vanilla. I have never bought imitation vanilla. I was raised on the real stuff. Now I make my own with vanilla beans and vodka (rum and bourbon work too).
  2. Parmesan in a can. Just… ew.
  3. “Pancake syrup”. If it’s not real maple syrup, what’s the point?

His supplemental piece is “What to Ditch in the Kitchen”, which I want to read as “What to ditch in the kitch” or “What to ditchen in the kitchen”. Who doesn’t like a good rhyme? The reader comments are worth reading.

Similarly, The Kitchn on How To Stock a Vegetarian (or Vegan) Pantry.

Michele from Serious Eats assembles meals from groceries bought at IKEA.

City News on how to eat healthy despite the recession. On the list (see article for more info):

  • Avoid buying junk food
  • Make a shopping list
  • Remember the fruits and veggies
  • Nice to ‘meat’ you
  • Think of alternates
  • Pump the water
  • Avoid fast food restaurants

More Ways to Eat an Egg, from The Kitchn.

Criticism for food firm sponsors of anti-obesity campaign in the UK.

Slashfood reports on McCormick’s 2009 Flavor Forecast. Cayenne and Cherry? Smoked Paprika and Agave? Toasted sesame and root beer? Interesting.

More news tipped from Slashfood: Ben & Jerry’s Renames Butter Pecan Flavor, ‘Yes Pecan’. *groan* Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
(Truthfully, I like it. It’s my secret appreciation for puns.)

More from the B&J website: If you decide to indulge in some “Yes Pecan” in Scoop Shops during the month of January, Ben & Jerry’s is donating the proceeds to the Common Cause Education Fund.”

Mass listeria, local events, science, coffee meets computer technology and more

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  • More on the local front: I’ve been wanting to check out Harvest Wednesdays at the Gladstone Hotel for awhile and will have to this fall. The Slow Food Toronto-Evergreen annual Picnic at Don Valley Brick Works (now called “Evergreen Brick Works”, but I still sometimes call the Rogers Centre the “Skydome”) is coming up on September 14.

I’ve been interested in it for awhile but tickets are over $100. Yesterday Taste T.O. posted a call for volunteers and I think I’m going to do it. I usually forget that volunteering is a way to have costly experiences for free. They need 100 volunteers. Check it out and let me know if you decide to register either as a volunteer or as a participant.

  • I’d heard of tea cozies, but fruit cozies?? I suppose that if I were to take up knitting they’d make a good starter project, but fruit cozies??
  • Vineyards in California going to pot, or pot going to vineyards. Using concord grape vineyards to hide marijuana fields. I doubt that Ontario growers will follow this model, but you never know. I recall reading that the concord grape vineyards in the Niagara Region were in jeopardy but I can’t find anything about this online so maybe I’m imagining it.
  • A clock that’s similar to a cuckoo clock but releases chocolate at regular intervals. The Swiss created cuckoo clocks and they’re known for their chocolate. Perhaps this was an inspiration for the product?
  • Weird:  Fast food “cutlery” that you use by slippings your fingers into the pockets.  Click the “DesignBoom” link to see how it actually works.
  • The San Francisco Chronicle weighs in on essential kitchen tools. I’m now adding chinois to my list. For awhile I’ve been wanting new knives, a salad spinner (briefly had one, it broke and I can’t seem to properly wash greens), and candy thermometer.  When I get married my gift registry will have a food processor, stand mixer (I swoon over Kitchenaid) and ice cream maker. Right now my kitchen and budget are too small for these appliances. I’ve chosen my kitchen tools while single. Priorities.
  • Latte printer art. It has wide application. I imagine a kid using this to write “Happy mother’s day” in the foam of mom’s cappucino, but also corporations using it in business meetings and at trade shows.
  • Cooking omelets sous vide style. That is, in a sealed plastic bag submerged in simmering water. The article doesn’t mention the words “sous vide”. I remembered it on my own, having read about it – once – in The Elements of Cooking. Go me. Go memory. I still need to buy that book, since I’d borrowed it from the library and didn’t read the entire thing.

An overdue post – food reviews and links

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I’ve been writing this post for days….

Subway\'s Veggie Max sandwichFood review from Friday: Subway’s Veggie Max sub.
What it is: A veggie patty with vegetables.
Options: The usual slice of cheese, array of breads and vegetables, the usual selection of sauces, toasted or not toasted.
I chose toasted on Parmesan oregano bread with cheese, with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, green peppers, carrots and cucumbers and chipotle mayo.
The verdict: The veggies and bread were fresh The option to toast is to toast the bread with the cheese. THe patty alternated between quite good – especially when I got a hit of sauce with it – and having a chemically taste. Overall the sub was just okay. I’d like to try it with a warm patty. In fact, I’d suggest that this should be a hot sub.

Coming soon: My review of the falafel at agenda cafe. It’s the best falafel in downtown Toronto – made by Israeli men who know falafel. The restaurant’s breakfast menu includes Shakshouka (Wikipedia, about.com), which I will try at some point. Maybe this Sunday.

Links:

-Chocolate Tasting 101 from The Globe and Mail.
-Pairing beer with cheese.

The New York Times on The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating. Without the details that they provide, here’s the list:
1. Beets
2. Cabbage
3. Swiss chard
4. Cinnamon:
5. Pomegranate juice
6. Dried plums
7. Pumpkin seeds
8. Sardines
9. Turmeric
10. Frozen blueberries
11. Canned pumpkin

Full story here.

Check out this Vegetarian Sushi Cake and the story that Slashfood ran!