Blurt | Solid State | Omnivore | Mistress Maeve | Freyne Land
I can't wait to do some cooking with all the delightful stuff that came my way this week:
Mixed Potatoes
Spring Dug Parsnips
Savoy Cabbage
Mesclun Braising Mix
1 Bunch Basil
1 Bunch Scallions
1 Bunch Mizuna
Champlain Orchards Apples
Butterworks Farm Yogurt
Dulse Seaweed
Pearled Barley
Patchwork Bread.
The Jelly Belly company is primarily known for making colorful, Reagan-sanctioned pellets in 50+ "life-like" flavors such as "juicy pear," "crushed pineapple" and "toasted marshmallow."
In recent years, though, the company has branched out. They capitalized on the Harry Potter phenomenon by producing a real-life version of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans: Sardine, vomit and ear wax are a few of the gross tastes you can find in each box.
And now the company has another unusual product, Bean Boozled, seemingly tailor-made for playground bullies or perhaps those into S&M. There are 20 kinds of BB beans: 10 in delicious flavors like coconut, cafe latte and peach and 10 in gross flavors such as baby wipes (hopefully unused), pencil shavings and skunk spray.
The catch is that each tasty treat looks exactly the same as a nugget of nastiness. For example, both the toothpaste and berry flavors come an an icy, electric blue color, while tutti-frutti and vomit are pink with colorful dots. There's absolutely no way to tell the difference.
Fun party game or stupid marketing ploy? You decide.
One more note: One of the "unpleasant" flavors is moldy cheese. Pardon? I love me some moldy cheese. I'd take a big hunk of Bayley Hazen Blue over a box of jelly beans any day.
One thing I didn't mention in my article about the Vermont Yak Company this week was that Rob and Kate Williams, two of the yak farm's owners, invited me and my husband to their house in Waitsfield for a multi-course yak dinner...and man does it taste good.
First we snacked on slabs of yak summer sausage, local cheddar and Wolaver's beer as we toured the farmyard. I must admit it felt a bit strange to be introduced to an animal while holding a slab of summer sausage made out of its cousin, but coming to terms with that kind of thing is all part of farming, right?
Then we and the Hartshorns, also business partners, headed the the Williamses for yak bratwurst with three dipping sauces -- I liked mine with the garlic aioli -- divine yak chili and tender strips of yak sirloin with an organic salad. There was also artisan bread with a curry oil dip.
Yak meat is dark red and savory, but (to me) it tastes just a bit milder than beef. It is also fairly lean, but is still high in heart-healthy omega-three fatty acids. I hear the dairy is great, too, but have never tried it. If my affection for water buffalo yogurt is any indication, I'll probably like it.
The evening was full of fun conversation and delicious food, and the experience really helped me with my article. Rob blogged about it here.
Throughout the winter months, my CSA share occasionally provided popcorn on the ear with instructions about how to prepare the snack in a microwave. It seemed easy enough: put the ear in a paper bag, tape the bag shut, nuke it.
Not having a microwave at home I ended up with a bunch of ears, but today I had a brainstorm: I could bring a them to the office and make popcorn for everybody. I headed to work armed with the sea salt, butter and corn, sure that I was going to make my coworkers' days by providing a fun and tasty snack.
No so much. I placed the corn in the bag, reminding myself that folks put paper towels in the microwave all the time, so it must be safe. I was actually more worried about the tape, to be honest. I put the bag in the machine, set it for three minutes, and stood there listening for the inevitable explosive noises of popping.
After 30 or 40 seconds I sniffed the air and decided that something wasn't quite right. I hit stop, opened the door, and noticing smoke coming from the bag, decided to throw it in the sink and douse it with cold water. Lucky. Parts of the bag were scorched. If I hadn't taken it out, I'm pretty sure it would have caught on fire rather quickly. I'm thanking my lucky stars that I didn't walk away or use the restroom while I was waiting.
In any case, the office smells unpleasant and I don't have a tasty snack to help me smooth things over with my coworkers. I sent an email to Pete's Greens suggesting that they let their other shareholders know that the whole paper bag + electromagnetic waves = potential burning down of the building.
I'm feeling a little shaky...not sure if it's the smoke inhalation or the knowledge that I could have set off the sprinkler system in our building. What a bad start to the afternoon!
Since I've been so busy recently I've been buying a lot of food from the Cheese Outlet/Fresh Market on Pine Street. I'm usually a pretty good little localvore, but the other day I noticed a bag of Tyrrells Lightly Sea Salted Potato Chips from Herefordshire, England.
They came from far away, but I saw all kinds of enticing language on the package. Like, "We are the only small chip maker in the UK to grow our own potatoes...It's not unusual for a potato to be dug in the morning and made into chips by lunchtime." How could a foodie resist?
By the time I busted open the 1.24 ounce bag, which cost me a ludicrous $1.99, I was convinced that these would be potato chips worthy of being served to the gods. And they proved to be a tasty snack: crisp, golden, properly salted, not too greasy. But "flown across the Atlantic using massive quantities of jet fuel and still seemingly worth it good?" Not even remotely. Tyrrells crisps may be "an artisan delicacy," but they tasted like, well, potato chips.
Although I strive to make ethical food choices, I also allow myself to indulge in some of the fruits of globalization: Avocados, bananas, balsamic vinegar and European cheeses are some of the faraway items I'll spring for. But if I'm going to get something from outside my local "food shed," it better taste like nothing else on earth.
Which products from afar are your guilty pleasures?
* The picture comes from the Tyrrell's website
You may already have seen these in Patrick Mullikin's article called Kitchen Kitsch, but just in case you missed it, I wanted to call attention to these fun potholders by Vermont artist Sarah Green.
If you're tired of the standard options for keeping your hands burn free, you can head over to Etsy.com and put your mitts all over Oscar, Lars, Chad, Tommy or Steve.
Seeing this potholder inspired me to search for other fun kitchen items, specifically aprons with similarly fun patterns or with sexy style, but I didn't really find much that worked for me. What did I find? Aprons with naughty slogans (Master Baster, and so on), lots of French maid costumes and "naked aprons." Ick. I did find a fun company called Carolyn's Kitchen that sells cute, vintage inspired aprons, but they weren't exactly what I was looking for. Finally, I headed back to Etsy where I found just the thing: the Tijuana Mama apron. That's hot!
It makes me want to bust out my sewing machine.
It may have been 80-degrees today, but it's still April, and usually, that means the only local vegetables available to Vermonters are baby spinach, sprouts and perhaps some tiny mesclun greens. But not if you have a Pete's Greens CSA share. This week we got:
Baby "salad turnips" and their greens
A nice big head of Napa cabbage
Overwintered parsnips
Potatoes
A mixture of green and purple choi
A bag of mixed braising greens
Organic oats
Mixed, cracked grains
Buttermilk
A baguette
Smoked cheddar from VT. Milk Company
Tonight my dinner was 100% local: Polenta with braising greens, shiitake mushrooms and smoked cheddar with pork chops from Jericho Settlers' Farm (cooked in local sunflower oil, no less). Mmm.
Regular and even irregular readers of this blog may have noticed that I, um, haven't been around much lately. In an earlier excu..post, I mentioned that I've been working on a major project and had started a new exercise regimen. Recently, I even added house-cleaning to my roster of daily activities, much to my s.o's relief. All of these activities have caused my blogging to come to a screeching halt, save for a few yogurt-related posts.
Anyway, I'm writing today to say that the four-month project which involved the creation of the 2008 7 Nights Guide to Restaurants and Bars ended last Friday, and as of today, I'm back to my rigorous blogging schedule.
But before I start talking about new kinds of yogurt or weird food news, I want to put in a plug for the forthcoming "Dining Guide." 7 Nights is two different things: It's an online site that encourages diners to comment on their eating and drinking experiences and it's a magazine-style publication that we release each May.
This year's print edition will have more than 700 places to chow down in the Green Mountains, and includes listings from two regions of Vermont we've not included in past editions -- the Northeast Kingdom and the Upper Valley. Each restaurant listing includes the days that a restaurant is open and which meals are served, phone number, price range, a brief description, and more.
So, if you haven't already, sign-up for our online dining guide, become a member of the 7 Nights "Bite Club," and look for our '08 guide in mid-May.
And look for my next blog post tomorrow!
I love raw oysters as much as the next gal, and probably more. In fact, not long after sucking down a bunch with James-Beard-Nominated author Rowan Jacobsen, I realized that cooked oysters, which lack the subtlety and nuanced flavors of the glistening, opalescent raw shellfish, no longer do it for me.
But I still have limits. I can imagine eating a couple dozen at one sitting, but 35 dozen? (For the non-mathematically inclined, that's 420 slippery beasts). That's how many the slim, punky-looking Patrick "Deep Dish" Bertoletti, 22, ate in order to win the Acme World Oyster Eating championship belt. And he did it in eight minutes. Eight! I like to eat, a lot, but I can't even imagine...
You can read more about the contest here.
This is my fifth yogurt trial so far...if you've read any of the
others, you can skip right down to the "taste test" portion. If not,
I've reprinted my intro below:
What's the deal with little cups of yogurt? Just a few years ago, fermented-dairy eaters had a choice between Dannon and Columbo. Remember Columbo? I didn't...I had to ask my coworker to help me come up with the name of "that other major yogurt company when we were growing up."
Now, I see customers standing dumbstruck before the yogurt shelf, not knowing whether to reach for full-fat sheeps' milk, low-fat cows' milk or even a soy. So, I figure, it's time for a massive yogurt taste test. You ready?
If I were a purist I would taste only plain yogurt, but this is my game, and I don't wanna. So I'm going to do the best I can comparing different brands by eating their most enticing flavors.
Old Chatham Sheepherding Company: Maple
Cost: More than $2
Packaging: Pretty simple. The background is mainly green, and there's a, well, maple colored stripe around the bottom. There's also a simple drawing of a black sheep, which is cute and slightly creepy at the same time. Why creepy? The sheep's eyes kind of look like they're glowing, which gives it the appearance of an evil zombie sheep.
On the back there's a good amount of information about the farm's yogurt-making practices. They use all-natural ingredients and manage the farm organically, for example. There's also a note about the fact that sheep's milk is easier to digest than cow's milk.
Nutrition Info: 6 oz. serving. 160 calories. 12% fat (DV). 0 g. fiber (DV). 11 g. sugar. 8 g. protein. 6% vitamin A (DV). 3% vitamin C (DV). 29% calcium (DV). 3% iron (DV).
Active Cultures: L. bulgaricus, S. thermophilus, L. acidophilus, Bifidus.
Appearance: Pretty white, with some whey off (that means there's liquid hanging around atop the yogurt). Around the edge there are some bubbly markings.
Aroma: A pleasant "ferment-y" smell.
Mouthfeel: Of the non, non-fat yogurts I've tried, this is the lightest. It has a lovely (yet fleeting) silky mouthfeel. At the bottom of the container the texture became inconsistent. I stirred it up, but there were a few small blobs.
Taste: It may sound strange, but the first word that comes to mind is "effervescent." Yes, I know that's a touch descriptor, but what I mean is that it is tangy in the same way that carbonated beverages are tangy. It's slightly sour without being at all pucker-y. The maple flavor isn't very strong.
Notes: I appreciate the nutritional profile of this yogurt: It's neither super-decadent nor non- or low-fat. And it doesn't have a lot of sugar. And for those who can't tolerate cow's milk, this could be a great option. Overall, I like it, I'd buy it again, but I won't lust after it.
*Picture from the Old Chatham website
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