Food News You Can Use

News from around the horn:

From Big Red Kitchen, this cool iPhone app and website from AlaskaSeaFood.org, all about cooking frozen fish. No, not the fish sticks from elementary school cafeterias, but fresh-frozen sea food.


Actor/commedian Sarah Silverman joins the school lunch improvement movement. Big ups to Sarah, Woody Harrelson, and Scarlett Johansson for lending this voice to a problem we have ignored for way too long.



On NPR, more news on the basil blight that's quickly moving through this country.



Is local / organic farming sustainable? Lots of folks think, no, according to Heather Rogers at the American Prospect.


Why do we like the food that we like? Paul Bloom peels back the onion on pleasure in SEED.






Good Magazine is teaming up with Let's Move to help raise awareness about childhood obesity. Check out their infographic contest.

Simple Currant Scones

We tried this idea the other day. Wasn't a 100% success, but it might work for you, depending on your grater.

I always have trouble cutting butter into a pastry dough. Scott Peacock says to use your hands (as described in our cheddar scone recipe here), but that seems to take forever and I always miss a couple of pieces. The easiest way, in my opinion, is a food processor, but then you have a lot of extra cleaning to do.

But here's an idea from a friend: freeze the butter and then use a cheese grater to grate the butter into the dough.

We used a Pampered Chef grater, which was so simple even a two year old could do it. And it worked great, except that the butter melts from friction and collects in the innermost corners of the grater. I'm guessing about 5% of the butter never made it into the dough. So it's not perfect, but it works.





If you used a box grater, you'll have to work a bit harder, and the very last sliver of butter will melt in your hand, but you can just toss that into the dough and cut it in with your hands, pastry cutter, fork, or whatever.


Maybe I just need to find a better pastry cutter?

Or ... and I'm leaning towards this one ... just use the food processor, but to make the clean up worth your while, make a double batch and freeze half of it. That's what we did with the strawberry shortcakes the other day.





We have shortcake biscuits in the freezer, which take about 15 minutes to thaw before tossing into the oven.







(By the way, I guess I'm the last one to find out that to make homemade whipped cream, all you have to do it take some cream and whip it. Seriously. It's that easy. You can add a wee bit of sugar and vanilla extract if you want, but basically, whipped cream is — get ready for this — cream that has been whipped. Who knew?)







Lots of options ... will have to work on all of them before deciding which one to stick with.

Simple Currant Scones

2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
(1 tsp sugar for sprinkling over the scones later on)
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick (8 Tbs) butter (freeze for 30 minutes)
1/2 cup currants or raisins
1/2 cup sour cream
1 egg

Preheat your oven to 400º.

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a 4 quart mixing bowl.

Grate the frozen butter into the dry mixture using a box or cheese grater. Mix thoroughly with your fingers, a fork, or a pastry cutter. (Or, mix the whole thing in a food processor.)

Blend the sour cream and the egg in a measuring cup or small bowl. Stir the wet mixture into the flour, slowly with a fork. Just as lumps start to form, with your hands, press the dough into the bowl to make a ball. Don't worry if the dough doesn't look wet enough — it should still hold together. If not, gently knead it once or twice and try again.)

Pat the dough into a circle on a lightly floured surface, and pat it down to about 3/4 of an inch thickness. Sprinkle with sugar, and then draw a knife through the dough to form eight triangles.






Using a small spatula, place the triangles onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes, just until the tops are golden brown.



Favorite variation: add lemon zest to the dry mix and sub blueberries for the currants.

How Food Shapes Our Cities

Today's Pause and Ponder:

"Architect Carolyn Steel discusses the daily miracle of feeding a city, and shows how ancient food routes shaped the modern world. Understanding the flow of food will help us reconnect with what we eat."

From her October 2009 TED Conference presentation.

Essential Kitchen Equipment: the iPhone?

I dropped my iPhone in the sink the other day. The sink was empty, save for a single 2-cup measuring cup that was full of water, and guess where the phone landed. Yep, perfect swan dive into the murk. Shorted out, temporarily brought it back to life, but eventually gave up its ghost.

Which is why I'm dubious of any iPhone app that claims to be a kitchen essential. Kitchen essentials are made out of Solingen steel, copper, silicone, or hardwood. Not chips and circuit boards and other hydro-adverse components.

But even though I know in my heart of hearts that electronics in the kitchen can be trouble, I keep finding myself dragging my MacBook or iPhone in there. Which results in a kabuki dance of jumping back and forth from the work space to the safe zone, from the floury counter top or water-filled sink to the corner of the bar where the directions lay.

Time saving? I can find the recipe I want in a blink of an eye, instead of searching through a shelf full of cookbooks, but I'm doing laps around the kitchen during the actual cooking process.

So I think the answer is, it's a given that modern technology is going to make our iPhones seem like extensions of our arm, something we didn't know we needed until we started using them, so we can fight it or embrace it.

Some apps like Grocery IQ have become second nature already. We love how it lets us sync the grocery lists, so M. can add stuff the same time I am, on different phones and in different stores. If I'm in the middle of shopping, she can add a couple of things and they pop up on my list, and if she's shopping for something but I just grabbed it, it disappears from hers.







It also has a very useful barcode scanner with thousands of items in its database. Every now and then it won't recognize something, but it usually surprises me by calling up a locally produced item.


But the recipe apps ... not so much. They all seemed okay, but never managed to impress me. One of them only recognized key words in the ingredients list and not in the title, so searches were always coming up empty. Most of them are poorly organized, so you're groping your way through their lists to find what you want.

I am very impressed, however, with the new How To Cook Everything app from Mark Bittman, courtesy the folks at Culinate and Wiley Press. Somehow they managed to cram nearly all of MB's 900 page opus into a $1.99, 23 meg app. I shouldn't say "cram," however, because HTCE is intuitively organized with a learning curve of about three seconds. While it seems most apps start with a good idea, then try to figure out how to minimalize everything to fit it onto a phone, the HTCE app looks like it started with the premise that we're talking about a hand-held device, then adapted the features of the book to this delivery system.

HTCE is in fact not just a recipe app but a guide on how to cook everything, just like the book. There are sections on kitchen basics, how to pick a chef's knife, food safety and produce selection, and the essential kitchen techniques. The recipes are organized in so many ways that it's easy to find what you're looking for, whether you're searching by ingredient, by MB's recommendation, or by preparation time.

And the recipes are the most interactive of any iPhone app I've ever seen. Let's take his Fried Chicken Made Easy. On the overview page, there's a sidebar showing different spice rubs, in case I have the time to play around with this.








The next page is the ingredient list, which has a couple of cool features. If there are ingredient substitutions for this recipe, I can pick the one I want by touching the adjacent button. Then I can export this list to my shopping list, which I can view by grocery store aisle, alphabetically, or sorted by the recipe to which each item belongs. And while it won't sync to another person's phone, I can export the list and send as an email.



Also impressive is the way that it handles recipe steps. In describing the steps, if there is a technique that requires further explanation, there's a link taking you to that page. And whenever anything needs to be timed, there's an embedded timer for each step. Let's say you're boiling the pasta while simmering the sauce. With this app, while you're reading the directions, you can also have multiple timers running, each labeled telling you what it's for. If the first timer dings and you can't remember which step that timer went with, the label clearly shows you.




And because they are embedded and pre-set, you're not bouncing back and forth between the app and the phone's built-in timers. That feature alone is worth the price of admission. And what's funny is, I never used a timer before, because I hate setting them. These are already set, so now I find myself using them when I don't even need to.





So, I'm hooked. But let's just wait and see for how long. The next time I'm trying to clean whole wheat flour out of the headphone jack or worse, heading to the Apple Store to replace a phone that just met the disposal up close and personal, we'll see what song I'm singing.

How to Live to be 100

Dan Buettner shares the 9 common diet and lifestyle habits that are found in the world's longest living communities.

For Really Great Salsa, You Need ...

... an iPad.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Stephen Gets a Free iPad
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

Reason #237 why you need an iPad

The seeds from your everything bagel will not find themselves into the nooks and also the crannies of your keyboard.

That is not insignificant in this household. Well, not for the entire household, but for the grazer-typist looking me back in the mirror.

Technology in the Kitchen?

Apparently you need an iPhone in the kitchen these days.

Top Kitchen Toy? The Cellphone


I'm not buying it. An iPhone as a permanent part of my gadget drawer would leave me with an interesting warranty claim. It would only be a matter of time before I dunked it in boiling water with the pasta, hacked a corner off whilst chopping onions, or otherwise voided the warranty by getting too close to something hot or greasy.

Occasionally I'll drag the laptop into the kitchen, but it's always safely atop the bar, far from wet or dusty hands, and even then I find myself going through a dozen bar towels trying to keep my hands clean before scrolling down a line or two to the next item.

Having said that... going to download BigOven and see if they can convince me otherwise...

Motivation via ridiculous investments

My brother runs a couple of marathons a year. He usually gets on a pretty tight routine, ramping up the miles, mixing up LSD runs with speed work, and on race day he's right where he needs to be.

But sometimes, real life gets in the way, and he doesn't feel like getting up that extra hour earlier than normal, just to run by himself in the dark. Or after a long day, kids' soccer practice, projects around the house... he just can't bring himself to hit the road after all of that.

So what he does is a time-honored tradition among weekend warriors: he drops a load of dough on the most overpriced piece of gear he can find, and then he leaves it out in the open so that he has to look at it all of the time.

You drop $150 on running shoes, and you're not going to let them gather dust in the closet.

Of course, this is only really necessary if you're at the end of your rope. Me, this year I'm going for the ascetic, monk-like approach. I started the summer with new bike tyres, and I'm not going to add another thing until the first snow, I've promised myself. There's a small rip in my ten year old seat bag — I duct-taped the seam from the inside and it's as good as new. Repaired my shoes with Shoe-Gu, so they'll last another 2-3 years. Felt like my cleat/pedal connection was a little messed up, and REI had Crank Bro pedals on sale. Lordy, they were tempting, but instead of buying new, I tore everything apart and repacked the bearings, lubed everything, and I'm pretty sure they'll last another couple of years. Best of all, I got a flat, and instead of replacing the tube, I patched it up and put it back on. Of course I did it wrong, flatted again, and had to do it all over. But even still, saving that one tube has a grace all unto itself.

So choose your poison. Even though the two methods are diametrically opposed, they both work.

Embrace Your Inner Geek

Embrace Your Inner Geek

If you are exercising, and you don't know that you are exercising, do you get the same benefit as if you were doing the exact same amount of work but under the supervision of a personal trainer?

Maybe, maybe not.

A while back, a Harvard psychologist conducted a study using hotel maids. Despite the high level of physical exertion required for the job — hauling vacuum cleaners around, carrying linen, and lots of walking — very few of the maids felt that they got any exercise. Without changing their work requirements, half of the maids were told how many calories their daily efforts burned. The other half were kept in the dark.

Only a month later, the first group had lost weight and dropped their blood pressure, while the other group remained constant, even though both were doing the exact same amount of work.

That's the power of getting techie with your program.

You can hop on the treadmill, turn on the TV, and phone in a workout, and you'll burn X calories.

Or, you can hop on the treadmill, hook up the heart rate meter, log in your miles and speed, and the studies show that your body will respond to an exercise placebo effect: you'll think you're getting a better workout.

Two ways to accomplish this:

Without spending a dime, you can start writing down your workouts. Miles, minutes, distance, effort level. Lots of folks use a heart rate monitor, but studies have shown that simply rating your effort on a 1-10 scale can be as just as useful. Keep a log, and periodically tally up your numbers.

But sometimes that's not enough motivation, and in those cases, you have to whip out the plastic and buy the shiniest gadget you can find.

For instance, you can get a bike computer for around $30. That will tell you speed, distance, elapsed time, lap speed/distance, and max speed. But is that geeky enough? Because for five more Benjamins, you can upgrade to a GPS-based system that will track your entire route, tell you elevation gain, average climbing rate (VAM), power output, cadence, and a whole bunch of other functions. You'll spend so much time analyzing data, you won't have time to ride.

Geekiness doesn't have to be electronic or computer-based. You can buy running shoes with crazy insoles or support mechanisms. It's amazing what you can spend on a softball bat these days. And super hi-tech wicking, cool-max, dri-fit, polar-tech duds always work.

The key to success is that the item needs to make you think about your work-out. Technology becomes the anti-iPod: you are not tuning out the world, but instead tuning in to your pain or effort. Think about exactly what you're doing, analyze it, over-analyze it. Make it a conscious effort to improve.
Now get out there.

VeloTunes

Workout Music

This is a touchy subject for some folks. Most trainers say, if it helps motivate you, go for it. But there are some who say that critical parts of your workout need all of your mental energy. You need to pay attention to your pain, feel the effort, and think about what you're doing. In other words, a distraction from your base miles is good, but a distraction from your skill development (speed or power workouts or technique work) is not so good.

Shhhhhhh... don't tell the battalion safety officer, but I've been road biking with my iPod. I know, I'm like the last guy who wasn't riding with one. And I'm still kind of a wuss about it. I got a non-stereo, single ear bud thingy from Radio Shack, because I can't set the iPod to mono, so I only keep it in one ear, so i can still hear traffic. But still, that would be a 4C or a 15-and-15 or something if I got caught on post doing that.

But it's working. For base mileage workouts, it makes 2-3 hours just disappear.

So here's what I've been listening to lately: my Velo Tunes list.


The Old Apartment Barenaked Ladies Spectacle (Live)
One Week Barenaked Ladies Stunt
Got To Get You Into My Life The Beatles Revolver
Central Reservation (Ben Watt Remix) Beth Orton Central Reservation
Resignation Superman Big Head Todd & The Monsters Beautiful World
Broken Hearted Savior Big Head Todd & The Monsters Sister Sweetly
Rat Race Billy Idol Devil's Playground
Sherri Billy Idol Devil's Playground
Cherie Billy Idol Devil's Playground
Atom Bomb The Blind Boys Of Alabama Atom Bomb
Demons 4:31 The Blind Boys Of Alabama Atom Bomb
Badlands Bruce Springsteen The Essential Bruce Springsteen
The River's Gonna Run Buddy & Julie Miller
Shadow Stabbing Cake Comfort Eagle
Love You Madly Cake Comfort Eagle Adult
Sly The Cat Empire Two Shoes
The Car Song The Cat Empire Two Shoes
Sol y Sombra The Cat Empire Two Shoes
Party Started The Cat Empire Two Shoes
Saltwater The Cat Empire Two Shoes
The Rhythm (Bonus Track) The Cat Empire Two Shoes
Cruel & Gentle Things Charlie Sexton Paste Magazine Sampler 19
Beat's So Lonely Charlie Sexton Pictures for Pleasure
My Brilliant Feat Colin Hay My Brilliant Feat - Single
Timothy Dada Puzzle
9 Crimes Damien Rice 9
Rootless Tree Damien Rice 9
Dogs Damien Rice 9
9 Crimes (Demo) Damien Rice 9
Warehouse Dave Matthews Band Recently
The Crane Wife The Decemberists The Crane Wife
The Island The Decemberists The Crane Wife
Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then) The Decemberists The Crane Wife
O Valencia! The Decemberists The Crane Wife
The Perfect Crime #2 The Decemberists The Crane Wife
Sons & Daughters The Decemberists The Crane Wife
After the Bombs The Decemberists The Crane Wife
Peace Frog The Doors Morrison Hotel
Missing (Todd Terry Remix) Everything But The Girl Amplified Heart
Notice Gomez How We Operate
See the World Gomez How We Operate
How We Operate Gomez How We Operate
Hamoa Beach Gomez How We Operate
Girlshapedlovedrug Gomez How We Operate
Charley Patton Songs Gomez How We Operate
All Too Much Gomez How We Operate
Candy Iggy & Kate Pierson Brick By Brick
Kid Fears Indigo Girls Indigo Girls
Shed Your Skin (Tom Morello Remix) Indigo Girls Rarities
Thin Line Indigo Girls 1200 Curfews
Queen Of The World The Jayhawks Smile
(In My) Wildest Dreams The Jayhawks Smile
Coma Girl Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros Paste Magazine Sampler 7
The Man Comes Around Johnny Cash American IV: The Man Comes Around
Matter Josh Joplin Group Usefull Music
Camera One Josh Joplin Group Usefull Music
I've Changed Josh Joplin Group Usefull Music
Love Vibration Josh Rouse 1972
Jenny Was a Friend of Mine The Killers Hot Fuss
Mr. Brightside The Killers Hot Fuss
Smile Like You Mean It The Killers Hot Fuss
Somebody Told Me The Killers Hot Fuss
All These Things That I've Done The Killers Hot Fuss
Andy, You're a Star The Killers Hot Fuss
On Top The Killers Hot Fuss
Change Your Mind The Killers Hot Fuss
Believe Me Natalie The Killers Hot Fuss
Midnight Show The Killers Hot Fuss
Everything Will Be Alright The Killers Hot Fuss
When You Were Young The Killers Sam's Town
Read My Mind The Killers Sam's Town
Send Down The Rain Majek Fashek Spirit Of Love
Extreme Ways Moby 18
Dashboard Modest Mouse We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Fire It Up Modest Mouse We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Florida Modest Mouse We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
We've Got Everything Modest Mouse We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
People As Places As People Modest Mouse We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Invisible Modest Mouse We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Crystal New Order Get Ready
Ceremony New Order Singles
Perfect Kiss New Order Singles
Shellshock New Order Singles
Bizarre Love Triangle New Order Singles
True Faith New Order Singles
1963 (Edit) New Order Singles
Round and Round New Order Singles
Regret New Order Singles
Crystal (Radio Edit) New Order Singles
Baro Nil Lara
I Will Be Free Nil Lara
Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair (Jaffa Remix) Nina Simone & Jaffa Verve Remixed
Barcelona Nights Ottmar Liebert Nouveau Flamenco
Spanish Dancer Patti Scialfa Artist's Choice Emmylou Harris
Tony Patty Griffin Flaming Red
Long Road Patty Griffin 1000 Kisses Alt-
Home And Dry Pet Shop Boys Release
Love You 'Till the End The Pogues Pogue Mahone
Don't Stand So Close To Me The Police The Very Best of Sting & The Police
Voice Of Harold R.E.M. Dead Letter Office
Star 69 R.E.M. Monster
Texarkana R.E.M. Out Of Time
Meadowlake Street Ryan Adams & The Cardinals Cold Roses
Somethin' To Believe In Shawn Mullins Beneath The Velvet Sun
N.Y.C. Steve Earle El Corazon
Copperhead Road Steve Earle Essential Steve Earle
The Revolution Starts... Steve Earle The Revolution Starts Now
Desert Rose Sting The Very Best of Sting & The Police
Joyful Sound String Cheese Incident Outside Inside
Way Away Toad The Wet Spet Bread And Circus
Fly From Heaven Toad The Wet Spet Dulcinea
Crucify Tori Amos Little Earthquakes
A Sorta Fairytale Tori Amos Scarlet's Walk
Fast Car Tracy Chapman Tracy Chapman Folk
Even Better Than the Real Thing U2 Achtung Baby
Ultraviolet (Light My Way) U2 Achtung Baby
Beautiful Day U2 All That You Can't Leave Behind
Walk On U2 All That You Can't Leave Behind
Vertigo U2 How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
Lack Of Water The Why Store The Why Store
Put the Message In the Box World Party Goodbye Jumbo
Diavolo In Me (Devil In Me) Zucchero & Solomon Burke Zucchero & Co.