cookiesinheaven

Through the salvaging practice, melamine-tainted pet food has likely contaminated America’s livestock for as long as it has been killing and sickening America’s pets — as far back as August of 2006, or even earlier. And while it may seem alarmist to suggest without absolute proof that Americans have been eating melamine-tainted pork, chicken and farm-raised fish for the better part of a year, the FDA and USDA seem to be preparing to brace Americans for the worst. In an unusual, Saturday afternoon joint press release, the regulators tasked with protecting the safety of our nation’s food supply go to convoluted lengths to reassure the public that eating melamine-tainted pork is perfectly safe.

And it gets worse. Tomorrow the New York Times will report from China, detailing how nitrogen-rich melamine scrap, produced from coal, is routinely ground into powder and mixed into low-grade wheat, corn, soybean or other proteins to inflate the protein analysis of animal feed:

The melamine powder has been dubbed “fake protein” and is used to deceive those who raise animals into thinking they are buying feed that provides higher nutrition value.

“It just saves money,” says a manager at an animal feed factory here. “Melamine scrap is added to animal feed to boost the protein level.”

The practice is widespread in China. For years animal feed sellers have been able to cheat buyers by blending the powder into feed with little regulatory supervision, according to interviews with melamine scrap traders and agricultural workers here.

Labels: FDA, food safety, food supply, Government

Labels: Dishes, Duchovny, Mulder, XFiles

Labels: California, Oceans, Seafood

With her famed Berkeley, Calif., restaurant, Alice Waters helped give rise to a new cuisine based on locally grown, seasonal ingredients. Waters and her biographer discuss what has made the Chez Panisse such an offbeat and memorable place to eat for more than three decades.

Looking back, Waters would say it all began for her with a bowl of cafe au lait. As a student on a sojourn to Paris during the 1960s, Waters had never sipped anything so good. Soon, trips to the French countryside introduced her to the power and pleasure of local foods: mussels just off the boat, freshly pressed virgin olive oil.

Waters came back to Berkeley transformed. She hatched a plan to convert a run-down old house into an elegant bistro.

This little restaurant in an old house on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, California, was the dream of Alice's life, and tonight, August 28, 1971, was its opening night. She had named the restaurant in honor of Honoré Panisse, the most generous and life-loving character in Marcel Pagnol's film trilogy Marius, Fanny, and César. Alice wanted Chez Panisse to be an easygoing, unaffected gathering place, like César's Bar de la Marine on the Old Port of Marseille, where friends could laugh, argue, flirt, and drink wine for hours on end. At Chez Panisse, they could also have something simple and delicious to eat. - Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution.

Alice Waters didn't yet know Goines at this point, but he was precisely the kind of non–Ken doll she'd hoped to meet when, in January of 1964, she transferred— indeed, fled—up north from the University of California's Santa Barbara campus with three of her fellow disgruntled sisters at the Alpha Phi sorority. "The women we'd met in Santa Barbara were all lined up to get married when they were 22," says Eleanor Bertino, who roomed with Waters on both campuses and also had been her classmate for one year at Van Nuys High School, in Southern California. (Waters grew up in Chatham, New Jersey, but moved west with her family in 1961, her last year before college.) "We pledged the same sorority at Santa Barbara because it was the only way you could have a social life," says Bertino. "Very shortly, there were four of us who were like, Oh, my God—this is not for us. There had to be something more exciting and interesting than living in a sorority. Halfway through our sophomore year, we all transferred to Berkeley. None of us were politically involved, but we just liked the fact that there was activity going on up there. I mean, we were nice girls, not radical at all. I remember going to see an English teacher of mine before I left Santa Barbara, and she said, 'I'll send you brownies in jail.' I had no idea what she was talking about." - Vanity Fair

Labels: Alice Waters, Books, NPR, Organic

Labels: Chocolate, FDA, Hershey

The Hershey Co., the nation's leading candymaker, said Monday that it will shut down a plant in Reading and cut 260 jobs as part of a wider move to cut labor and materials costs.

The closing is the company's second plant-closing announcement in a little over two months after Hershey said it would take dramatic steps to reduce its North American manufacturing and expand in faster-growing markets in the developing world.

It plans to build a new plant in Monterrey, Mexico, and shift more manufacturing to contractors in the United States, and has struck agreements with Indian and South Korean companies to make and distribute its products in Asia. - PennLive.com

When the company announced the job cuts in February, orange lawn signs popped up, saying "Save Mr. Hershey's Dream." On the road to the Giant Center arena, where the meeting was held Tuesday, Mike L. Cvetko held up signs that read: "World boycott of Hershey products" and "Is it need or is it greed?" - AP

Labels: Chocolate, Hershey, Outsourcing

Labels: Benefit, blogs, Cancer, Lance Armstrong

The same food safety net that couldn't catch poisoned pet food ingredients from China has a much bigger hole.

...When U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspectors at ports and border checkpoints look, they find shipments that are filthy or otherwise contaminated. they rarely bother, however, in part because ingredients aren't a priority.

Because these oils, spices, flours, gums and the like haven't been blamed for killing humans, safety checks before they reach the supermarket shelf are effectively the responsibility of U.S. buyers. As the pet deaths showed, however, that system is far from secure.

..But except in rare cases, companies don't have to prove that a shipment of ingredients is safe — no tests must show that it's pesticide-free, for example — and the FDA rarely checks whether overseas processing conditions are up to par. - AP

Labels: FDA, inspection, Pet Food Scandal

Labels: restaurants, Santa Barbara

Labels: earth day, Ottmar Liebert, Tibet

Labels: FDA, food supply, Recalls

Labels: Santa Barbara, The Hungry Cat

Labels: Drinks, Food History, Kentucky Derby

The EARTH DINNER cards are designed to spark stories and memories of the foods and people we love, and perhaps to inspire new thinking about the foods we choose everyday.

Each card is designed so that everyone in the group can participate. Incorporate the cards into the whole evening. Above all, try to make sure each person has an opportunity to both share and listen to each other's stories. If you don't get through all of the cards, save them for your next celebration, or use them weekly at your dinner table! There are no wrong answers. Everyone wins this game!

Click to download a sample of EARTH DINNER™ cards

A third card quizzed us on the correct price for Kopi Luwak, the world's most expensive coffee. I aced this one. (One of the occupational hazards of being a food writer is that one's gray matter is completely used up by useless food knowledge.) I was surprised that the card didn't explain why the coffee is so expensive, but then I remembered the process behind this rare commodity. Let's just say it's not a topic for the dinner table.

Labels: Dinner, earth day, Food History

S.F. FIRST CITY TO BAN PLASTIC SHOPPING BAGS

Paper or plastic? Not anymore in San Francisco.

The city's Board of Supervisors approved groundbreaking legislation Tuesday to outlaw plastic checkout bags at large supermarkets in about six months and large chain pharmacies in about a year. - SFGate

Last year, 1 Bag at a Time, an online eco-tote company in California, sold 100,000 reusable bags. Sales leaped to 250,000 totes in the first three months of this year -- a change its owner attributes in part to Al Gore's global-warming film, "An Inconvenient Truth."

...Change already has swept Australia, where public concern over the pileup of plastic bags -- and talk of a bag tax -- gave rise in 2003 to a reusable, polypropylene tote called the Green Bag. Though made with petroleum products, it's considered eco-friendly because each one eliminates dozens of throwaway bags.

Two years after the campaign took off, the Sydney Morning Herald said at least 10 million to 15 million of the bags were in circulation. They even had become a fashion icon, the paper reported -- though "they come, mostly, in the sort of bright, unnatural green that looks good on no one."

Australia's success has brought Green Bag look-alikes to the U.S. and inspired hope that consumer habits can change.

"I was in Australia last year," said Jackson, the Snohomish planner, "and I have to tell you it was just unbelievable being in Melbourne. Everyone has got their Green Bag. It's a citywide phenomenon. You don't see anyone using paper or plastic -- either one."

...Flimsy plastic shopping bags have been banned outright in some countries, including South Africa, Rwanda, Bangladesh and parts of India, where plastic-bag litter was blamed for drain blockages that contributed to fatal floods and landslides during monsoons.- Seattle PI

Labels: Environmental, grocery stores, plastic

Labels: Cyberculture, Fun

Labels: Art, Breakfast, Flickr

With a $15,000 grant from Share Our Strength, the New Orleans Food and Farm Network created the Neighborhood Food Access Map, a project that identifies where to find food from grocery stores, farmers’ markets, restaurants and emergency kitchens. The maps, posted in New Orleans neighborhoods and distributed to community organizations where residents can easily find them, have been such a huge success that an online mapping tool has been added to make it even easier for people to access the information.

Learn more about Share Our Strength’s ongoing efforts to support relief in the Gulf Coast.

An NPR story on the lack of SuperMarkets in the Big Easy.

Labels: New Orleans, Share Our Strength, Supermarkets

David Dain Smith lives in Missouri, but his California winery is just a click away, waiting to spring to life in the dim glow of his computer screen.

Smith is making wine through Crushpad, a winery where the grapes are real but the experience is as virtual as members want it to be with e-mail updates, live chat and Web cams.

For Smith, a 49-year-old microbiologist working in pharmaceutical sales, the dream of making wine seemed like it would have to wait until retirement."Do you have $3 million sitting around? Well, I don't," Smith said.

He's now making Dain wines, to some acclaim, while keeping his day job. At $5,000 to $10,000 to make the minimum one barrel a year, Crushpad costs more than stomping grapes in a garage. But it's far from the financial plunge of setting up a winery. - AP

Labels: blogs, Cyberculture, Wine

...Put down the truffles and power up the PC. It's time to weigh in on a fundamental question: What is chocolate?

Two of California's oldest confectioners, See's Candies Inc. and Guittard Chocolate Co., are battling an attempt to loosen government rules that dictate what ingredients go into the sweet stuff.

Legally, the candy that melts hearts and comforts the brokenhearted is made with cocoa butter and, in the case of milk chocolate, whole milk. But the Grocery Manufacturers of America, a trade group, wants to let confectioners substitute cheaper ingredients — vegetable oils and milk protein concentrates.

...Guittard and See's Chief Executive Brad Kinstler want America's chocoholics to complain loudly to the Food and Drug Administration before April 25, the day the agency will stop taking public comments on the issue. - Latte Times

Labels: Chocolate, FDA, Guittard

Selections of fine wines from local wineries. Local restaurants, catering companies and specialty food purveyors offer exquisite samples of their food. Live and lively music. Combine them all together and you get the ingredients for a great weekend adventure.

Roblar Winery, Culinary School and Gourmet Market, Santa Ynez Valley’s highly anticipated new winery and visitor center, will officially open its doors to the public on Saturday April 28th, 2007. Located in the heart of the Santa Ynez Valley, Roblar Winery & Vineyards will celebrate the grand opening with gourmet food pairings, chef demonstrations, live music and special offers on select wines and gifts.

• FREE pair of one-day VIP passes (access to private members' lounge and patio)

• FREE subscription to Roblar's Food and Wine eMagazine

• Invitation to Grand Opening Reception (April 2007)

• Invitations to Special Barrel Tastings, BBQs and other Special Winery Events

• Priority Notification and Reservations for Cooking Classes

• Discount Certificates (includes discounts on gourmet food items, cooking classes, wine tasting and picnic lunches)

Labels: Food Events, Wine

Labels: blogs, meme

Labels: Bake Sales, Cookies, Greenpeace, Santa Barbara, Whales

How does a woman with five kids make a few hundred thousand marshmallows? Very, very well. World, meet Laura Dhuyvetter, the only woman in the history of time to have five kids under the age of ten and launch a company that is inarguably one of the world's most important gourmet s'mores creators.

It was a glorious age, if you were a candy watcher: "He did tremendous rabbits and chicks and shell eggs," recalls local candy wholesaler Jack Lees, admiring the work of Harold Schafer, now deceased.

It is a common refrain, more a lament, really, among Philadelphia's aging band of candymen. This season (even as Hershey decamps, in part, to Mexico), Harry Young, another stalwart of Easter, is gone: His iconic shop on Girard Avenue closed after his death last year.

But a happy reversal of fortune is playing out beneath the massive rafters and overhead flywheels that spun the belts to mix the buttercream at the Schafer's plant: Michael and Julie Holahan have opened a candy store.

Imagine a wedding dress made entirely of icing. Michele Hester did - complete with elaborate lace bustier and sleeves, flouncy skirt and a huge bow that looks like satin.

It's all made of sugar and eggs, a concoction she calls SugarVeil that's more commonly used for elaborate cakes and other edibles.

....And after years of cold calls to chief executive officers and hours on her feet at trade shows selling her inventions, a remarkable thing happened. Martha Stewart came by.

Labels: Candy, Food Section, Martha Stewart, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Texas

Labels: celebrity chefs, Los Angeles, Restaurant

Nancy Silverton is rebelling a little later in life than most. At 52, the Los Angeles chef, who translated her training at Lenôtre into a widely respected career as a pastry chef, cook and business owner, has really gotten into prepared foods. “I’d forgotten how good V8 juice tastes!” said Silverton, who spent a year combing the aisles of supermarkets and specialty stores in search of kitchen catalysts for her seventh cookbook, “A Twist of the Wrist: Quick Flavorful Meals With Ingredients From Jars, Cans, Bags and Boxes” (Knopf). “I’m waiting to get the phone call from Alice ... ,” she said of her mentor, the world-renowned food purist Alice Waters. - NYTimes

Labels: Books, Bread, celebrity chefs

Montecito Country Kitchen - Ecole de Cuisine, founded in 1999, is located in beautiful Santa Barbara. The classes they offer feature a two-hour demonstration of a three or four course meal, with some student participation followed by a dinner and wine tasting of the meal prepared. The menus reflect each seasons harvest drawn from the local farmer's markets. The classes focus on creating an entire meal and to share the very special experience of gathering friends and family around the dinner table.

Labels: cooking schools, Santa Barbara

John Moe, senior reporter and occasional host of American Public Media's "Weekend America," wondered if there was more to Peeps than simply devouring them out of the box. So he channeled the creative juices of chef Jason Wilson, who owns Crush restaurant in Seattle, toward concocting an Easter feast fit for Peeps.

"He took to the assignment with gusto and with a blowtorch," said Moe, whose Peeps show will air today on "Weekend America."

On the menu were Peep fondue, green "eggs" and ham, Peep-crusted foie gras, Peep macaroni and cheese, and Peep-otatoes. - Seattle PI

Labels: Peeps, Seattle

Labels: buddha, Japanese, Music

Labels: Los Angeles, Magic Castle, Restaurant, Yamashiro

Due a recent decision over at the USDA's National Organic Program, organic coffee, in the U.S. at least, may be a thing of the past.

...The USDA decision, which affects the way small farmer cooperatives in the Third World are certified, will also dry up supplies of organic cocoa and curtail bananas. So eat your organic Dagoba bars now while they're still available. - Grist

....Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture quietly released a ruling that alarmed organic certifiers and groups who work with third-world farmers. The decision tightens organic certification requirements to such a degree that it could sharply curtail the ability of small grower co-ops to produce organic coffee -- not to mention organic bananas, cocoa, sugar and even spices.

Kimberly Easson, director of strategic relationships for TransFair USA, the fair trade certification group, puts it bluntly: "This ruling could wipe out the organic coffee market in the U.S." - Salon.com

Labels: Coffee, Organic, USDA

• In 1953, it took 27 hours to create one Marshmallow Peep. Today, it takes six minutes.
• The first Peeps were squeezed one at a time out of a pastry tube and the eyes were painted on by hand. Now, machines create 3,500 Peeps' eyes per minute.
• Just Born's Bethlehem, Pa., factory makes more than 1 billion Peeps a year -- that's 4 million Peeps a day.

Vegetable oil, for the pan
Powdered sugar
2/3 cup cold water, divided
2 envelopes (2 tablespoons ) unflavored gelatin
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Colored sugar for decorating
Tiny amount of melted chocolate for decorating
Chick-shaped cookie cutter

Line the bottom and sides of a 13- by 9-inch baking pan with plastic wrap; oil and then generously dust bottom and sides with some powdered sugar.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, place 1/3 cup cold water; sprinkle the gelatin over the surface.

In a heavy saucepan with a tight fitting lid, add sugar, corn syrup, salt, and remaining 1/3 cup water; stir to dissolve sugar. Cover the pan and place over moderately low heat. Remove the cover after 4 to 5 minutes. The steam will have caused any sugar crystals to dissolve and the syrup will be bubbling lightly. Increase the heat to high, insert a candy thermometer, and boil the syrup, without stirring, until it reaches 2240 degrees F. Immediately remove from the heat.

Fit your electric mixer with the whisk attachment. slowly and carefully pour the syrup into the gelatin while the mixer is beating constantly at medium speed. When all of the syrup has been added, increase the speed to high and whip for approximately 10 minutes until the mixture is lukewarm very white, and the consistency of marshmallow cream. Add the vanilla extract toward the end of mixing.

Pour the marshmallow mixture into the prepared pan; smooth the top and sprinkle liberally with colored sugar of your choice. Let the pan stand, uncovered, at room temperature to dry. out. NOTE: Depending on the humidity, this may happen in several hours or take up to 8 hours. Generally speaking the longer you let it set up, the easier the marshmallow sheet will be to cut.

When ready to cut, invert the pan of marshmallow onto a clean cutting surface; remove the plastic wrap and coat the top with colored sugar (it should adhere easily).

Use cookie cutters to stamp out your peeps (or bunnies) and toss them in a bowl of sugar to coat the edges. If you find your cookie cutter getting sticky, was it and lightly coat with vegetable oil. With a toothpick apply a dot of chocolate to form an eye.

Store the marshmallow peeps in an airtight container.

Makes about 80 marshmallows.

Labels: Easter, Peeps

An infection is coming, and almost no one has heard about it. This infection isn't going to give you flu, or TB. In fact, it isn't interested in you at all. It is after the wheat plants that feed more people than any other single food source on the planet. And because of cutbacks in international research, we aren't prepared. The famines that were banished by the advent of disease-resistant crops in the Green Revolution of the 1960s could return, Borlaug told New Scientist.

The disease is Ug99, a virulent strain of black stem rust fungus (Puccinia graminis), discovered in Uganda in 1999. Since the Green Revolution, farmers everywhere have grown wheat varieties that resist stem rust, but Ug99 has evolved to take advantage of those varieties, and almost no wheat crops anywhere are resistant to it.

The strain has spread slowly across east Africa, but in January this year spores blew across to Yemen, and north into Sudan. Scientists who have tracked similar airborne spores in this part of the world say it will now blow into Egypt, Turkey and the Middle East, and on to India, lands where a billion people depend on wheat. - New Scientist

Labels: Ug99. Global Rust

Del Monte Foods has confirmed that the melamine-tainted wheat gluten used in several of its recalled pet food products was supplied as a "food grade" additive, raising the likelihood that contaminated wheat gluten might have entered the human food supply.

"Yes, it is food grade," Del Monte spokesperson Melissa Murphy-Brown wrote in reply to an e-mail query.

...Wheat gluten is sold in both "food grade" and "feed grade" varieties. Either may be used in pet food, but only "food grade" gluten may be used in the manufacture of products meant for human consumption. Published reports have thus far focused on tainted pet food, but if the gluten in question entered the human food supply through a major food products supplier and processor, it could potentially contaminate thousands of products and hundreds of millions of units nationwide. - Huffington Post and Goldy's

Labels: deregulation, food supply

Labels: Whales

.....it’s not a pizza with Asian ingredients piled on top. It’s a natural and organic pizza franchise giving back to the environment with eco-friendly operations. The menu includes sandwiches, wraps, salads, desserts, beer and wine—all made with fresh, all-natural and organic ingredients. But the house specialty is organic, gourmet pizza made with high-quality toppings and a variety of crusts, such as gluten-free, or multi-grain. Vegans aren’t forgotten with the Very Vegan Pizza Pie and those with lactose intolerance can order to their hearts’ content with the Follow Your Heart Soy Mozzarella option.

Every detail of the operation is positive for the earth: Each franchise uses eco-friendly cleaners to sanitize their stores; provides eco-apparel, such as organic cotton uniforms to their employees; uses recycled products whenever possible and recycles all of the wastes; and uses company-owned hybrids as delivery vehicles. Even the company’s website is hosted by a ‘Green Web Hosting’ service provider that uses renewable energy wind power to offset the energy usage of its servers. Pizza Fusion began franchising in early January and already has a number of stores opening across Florida with plans to compete nationally in the pizza and organic markets. - SpecialtyFood.com

stop by their website....say "thanks" and maybe order up a "pie to go".

Labels: Ecology, pizza

• Well Fed Network
• Starbucks Gossip
• A Slice of Cherry Pie
• Spittoon (for you wine aficionados)
• The Foodie List
• Cheesaholics Anonymous

Labels: blogroll

Labels: Berries, blogs, Strange Food

A mahogany topped island takes center stage in this dream kitchen. Even with its top-of-the-line modern amenities, this room blends seamlessly with the period of the home. On one end of the Kitchen, a large picture window provides visual access to the impressive 5,000 bottle Wine Room (32’ x 8’). On the other end is a Breakfast Nook that adds to the room’s period charm. Large windows and double French doors bring in an abundance of light and views of the kitchen terrace which provides yet another venue for informal dining.

Labels: Santa Barbara, unaffordable housing