There is a lot of buzz on the 'net today about the video that the Humane Society took inside Hallmark Meat Packing, where workers are shown abusing downer cows as a means of getting their sick carcasses to the slaughter line. The video is sad, disgusting, and when you consider that this company is a major supplier for school lunches, downright scary. (link: Video of animal abuse at Hallmark Meat packing - be warned it is graphic)
Continue reading "Are you supposed to waterboard cows?" »
For a number of reasons - mostly sloth, indecision, not wanting to brave the tundra outside my door, er, I mean research - I have been wandering around the web a bit today and there is some amusing stuff out there. Things I want to eat, things I want to drink, things I want...so I thought I'd share a few.
Before we start, we should pour ourselves a drink. Something interesting. Something local. Something that includes at least one basic food group. How about Bacon Vodka? McAuliflower of Brownie Points has been doing a little meandering of her own lately, but I think she still lives close enough to be local and I am quite sure she will back me up on bacon being its own food group so I am covered, right?
More tidbits after the jump...
Continue reading "Wandering the web...bacon, booze and other tasty tidbits" »
photo: Kathleen Morgain
Would you like to learn to bake bread like those gorgeous loaves in the picture? If so, you are in luck. Kitty and Don Speranza, a pair of talented and passionate cooks who own The Inn at Crippen Creek Farm in Skamokawa, WA, are now offering cooking classes to the community as well as their overnight guests.
Before moving out to eventinierTown, Don and Kitty owned and operated Mangiamo! Catering and Italian Eatery in Portland, Oregon. Their bread is such a huge hit at the Two Island Farm Market on Puget Island in Cathlamet, WA during the summer months that they started a bread subscription service to keep their customers happy in the off-season. (Ahem, their bread is so good that I buy their focaccia all summer long instead of making my own.)
Continue reading "Cooking classes in Skamokawa" »
The
first week of January is the time of year for lofty goals and noble
aspirations and the food world is no exception. Food-related
resolutions seem to fall into two categories: Proscriptive and
prescriptive. There are far more of the former and they mostly take the
form of "I will change my diet by not eating sugar, fat, HFCS, bread,
chocolate, and so on." There are, to be fair, some positive "I will
eat..." resolutions out there (mine is to grow some vegetables along
with the herbs in my garden) but most of them are framed in the
negative. What a way to start the year, with a list of things you are
going to deny yourself!
Far more fun are the prescriptive
resolutions. I particularly like "I will make ____ for the first time."
and the ones that start "I will learn to..." If I was forced to make
New Year's resolutions - and thankfully, I am not - I would fall into
this camp so I have a soft spot for them.
Continue reading "Berry Marshmallows with Chocolate recipe" »
Tonight I bring you the tale of the plastic knife and the pot roast, in which we
will attempt to answer the question: Will the little red plastic knife be able to
cut up vegetables for a pot roast or will it have to call on the reinforcement
knife lurking in the background?
The bright red beauty is a Zyliss salad knife - theory being that if you cut
your salad with plastic/nylon instead of metal the lettuce won't oxidize and turn
icky brown. I tear lettuce for salad by hand so that purpose was of little interest
to me, but I have been looking for kid-safe tools and wondered if it would work to
cut veggies but not fingers.
Setting my expectations at some reasonable level, I decided that I would try
something soft to start with. Handing the knife and a tomato to someoneElse, I
watched, ready to admit defeat when the knife mangled the tomato.
Except it didn't.
Continue reading "Plastic knife pot roast (with recipe)" »
First,
since I can't put the link in the title, and I was recently at a
writing workshop where it was pointed out that you shouldn't throw out
obscure words without enough context to make it fairly clear what you
meant: equifinality
While I have been know to snark about Rachael Ray
(hereafter known as RR) from time to time, she does have a good idea
from time to time. I even laud some of her goals: if 30 minute meals
(hereafter known as 30mm) got people "into the kitchen" (whatever that
means; is there some study somewhere?) and if CAKE
helps get people thinking about some of the problems we've got with
kids (and adults) and food in the US (and elsewhere), then brava!
Continue reading "Equifinality and the 30 minute meal" »
Scattered.
If I had to pick one word for my life the last while, it would have to be scattered. Just as one crazy thing is brought under control, the next careens into view. Like garlic butter in your cake pan. Or a teetering stack of biscuits.
One of my surest cures for scattered is bread. As I gather the bits of ragged dough and knead them together into a cohesive whole, I am, likewise, remade just a bit, my loose edges reintegrated and all that. It's one of my favorite meditative states.
Continue reading "Simple, flaky biscuit recipe" »