I’m embarrassed that it’s been 2 months since last I posted. Shameful! But to be fair, I’ve been very busy at work and I started taking a chemistry class because I’m thinking it might be time to get my masters in Food Science. But, I’m still working things out and it’s a bore, so I’ll spare you the details.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned Claudio’s balls to you before, so sorry if this is old news. I think mozzarella cheese is ok at best and I wouldn’t typically nosh on a hunk of mozzarella if given other choices…that is until I tried a mozzarella ball from Claudio’s from the Italian Market section of Philly (is that it’s own section? I’ll say yes). This mozzarella changed my world! It is perfectly buttery and salty yet mild in flavor and the texture is almost that of farmers cheese; so fresh, soft and velvety that I could eat it for days just as is. The best part is that you can watch them make it right in the shop. Claudio will instruct you to eat it at room temperature and eat it that day; he’s the expert and I do what he says — he hasn’t steered me wrong yet.
First, I’d like to wish everyone a happy new year! I think this is going to be a great year, so don’t disappoint us, 2009. My poppy’s good friend makes the most amazing honey-it tastes good and it’s from local hives, so it helps with allergies (you ingest pollen from local plants and increase your tolerance to them). I adore honey in general, but Spitzer’s honey is special and I got a big ol’ jar of it for Christmas! Lucky me.
I just came across a very disturbing article about Chinese honey laundering; who knew that was even a thing?! Apparently, the Chinese use an antibiotic to keep their hives healthy but this chemical is potentially fatal to people and has been banned in food by the U.S. The way honey exporters have gotten around selling this tainted product is by shipping the honey to other countries like Russia and India and calling them Russian and Indian products. Tricky tricky. And it’s awful because many honey importers and producers here don’t test their honey for harmful chemicals. So, buyer beware! It is nearly impossible as a consumer to know where the honey has come from unless of course you have a local apiary that you can buy that sweet sweet nectar of bee butts.
It has been an obscenely long time since last I posted. Shame on me! Since then I have picked 18 pounds of apples only to convert it to apple butter, made sauerkraut, let it ferment and then canned it. That’s a long time! I’v also gotten my wisdom teeth out, had more oral surgery and haven’t been feeling like eating all that much, which might also explain why I haven’t been writing about food (except on delish.com since I am contractually obligated). But, I’ve found a couple rad websites about cake: Bakerella has these sweet cake pops that I want to be friends with and Cakespy is another cute site that won me over by naming 50 ways to kill a twinkie. Can they ever really die?
Now that I have my kraut ready, I need to find a good German butcher near me to get some killer brats from my New Year’s Day dish. I LOVE new years and robots, but that’s a different story.
I think I need this bacon cooker-majig if I’m going to use up my 15 pounds of bacon. It just makes sense. (I still haven’t cracked into my bacon pile)
I just got the most glorious phone call from our warehouse guy, the kind of phone call you hope for your whole life, he said there was a 15 pound box of bacon with my name on it. I guess one of the truckers that rolled through here had some extra pig meat? I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m going to be cookin up some bacon!! I’ll need to come up with some creative uses for that much bacon. It’s times like these that I wish my roommates were meat eaters. Actually, most times I wish they were carnivores, le sigh. 15 POUNDS OF BACON=Best day ever!!
I wanted to add onto my post from yesterday because I forgot to mention that I don’t for a minute believe that the appearance of kissables changed from the old recipe to veggie oil chocolate. They would still employ the exact same panning techniques, polishing methods and use the same ingredients to coat it. I think Matt and the gang lied to us about that. The fact that they pan those little guys is pretty amazing, just as a side note.
So, it seems that people are in a real tizzy over this video from Good Morning America. Even my aunt asked me about it. I’ll give you the long and short of the video so you don’t have to watch it. Basically, Hershey got called out on replacing cocoa butter with vegetable oil, a cheaper fat. I’m a) not shocked and b) not offended. The FDA has very strict guidelines about chocolate standards of identity, so you can’t just go throwing anything into chocolate and still call it “Chocolate.” Once vegetable oil is added to chocolate, it is no longer considered to be chocolate and the product label must be changed. Hershey did in fact change the labels for their products right on the front of the packaging and if you just read the ingredients, it said veggie oil right there, plain as day. Everyone feels tricked and betrayed by their beloved Hershey. And to that I say, it’s f*cking hershey, get over it. It’s not a high quality product to begin with (still love it, though).
It’s hard right now for chocolate makers. Milk prices are soaring and so is the cost of cocoa beans. The most expensive product right now is cocoa butter, so of course in times of financial difficulty companies are going to try to figure out ways to save money without passing the cost onto their consumers. Hershey’s just trying to be profitable and it’s not like they used vegetable oil in their standard chocolate bars, they just used it in candies (kissables, almond joys, etc), which really shouldn’t have affected overall flavor a great amount. It would have changed the way it melts and the mouthfeel more than flavor. I just think this is a dumb thing to get worked up about, especially when so much food right now is making people sick. Can we focus on making and growing food that won’t give us E. Coli and forgive a little vegetable oil?
I’m ridiculous, I know. This was from the day at the Astoria Beer Gardens, which was filled with brats ‘n beer. Thought this would be a good Friday post, just looking forward to the weekend and am thankful that I’m not this guy. I didn’t realize that they publicly executed the Chinese dude in charge of food safety. I’m sure the same fate is in store for the guy in charge of the lethal baby formulas. Yikes.
I am feeling a little guilty lately about my eating habits and food choices. I am pro-local, but at the same time, I’m also pro-good food. Does it make me a hypocrite to preach about buying from CSA’s and neighborhood farms and yet I eat chocolate from Africa and avocados from Mexico? I ponder this as I sip a cup of tea from Careme knows where. That’s the other disturbing thing, I know that certain foods are shipped from afar, wasting precious fossil fuels, but other morsels I haven’t a clue where they actually hail from. This is particularly upsetting after the most recent findings of melamine in Chinese baby formula, the chemical responsible for the death of American pets and now Chinese babies. I also found out that America tests less than 1% of our cattle for Mad Cow Disease and the Bush Administration is fighting to make sure that we DON’T test all our meat. It really makes you wonder, what are we eating? It makes me want to be more cautious and raise my own livestock, grow an even bigger garden and get laying hens. If only we could all be farmers!!
In other news, I finally saw those hideous commercials saying hey kids, High Fructose Corn Syrup is totally fine for you! It’s just like sucrose. I mean, it’s probably even better for you than sucrose since it’s in every God-forsaken bit of junk we cram into our big fat American faces. Nothing gets me going like the subject of HFCS!
I went to visit my Poppy & Fran yesterday before they holiday in Germany. Since he’s been busy canning, I scored some tomato soup, jalapeno jelly & his garden-grown tomatoes and jalapenos! I’m finally going to pickle my cherry bombs with jalapenos today. And since I have so many of dad’s peppers, I’m also going to try this recipe for Cowboy Candy, which was fortuitously sent out in the Chowhound at Home newsletter today. I like the idea of eating a “cowboy” food (cowboy cookies rule!), but the Cowboy Candy has me a tad afraid.
Ever the provider, Poplicious also made me some deer filets and pierogies for dinner. I can’t even tell you how perfect this deer* was; it melted in your mouth and actually tasted like meat. Store bought meat these days just doesn’t taste like anything, probably because all the animals are being fed crappy #2 corn and not the grass and silage they should be. But, I won’t get on my soap box about that right now. There is this awesome farm near me, Hendrick’s, that has outstanding grass fed meats (and cheeses); I’m a lucky gal. I also scored some dried deer slices, which are made from meat off the hind quarters. Mmmmm, dried deer butt. Popperoni’s hunted meat stores are running a little low, but archery season opens at the end of this month!! Happy hunting….
*I always say deer just because I have been around and eaten so many game animals like elk, antelope, bear, etc. and “deer” helps to specify what mystery flesh we’re consuming. Besides, the word venison comes from the Latin “to hunt/pursue” and used to refer to any animal that was hunted, not just deer.
