food museum blog

Eat Crap, Win Voters' Hearts and Minds? Part Two: The Booze Factor

"Mocked for not finishing his waffles, he (  Obama) has made a joke about his newfound willingness to drink beer in blue-collar bars and sop up the gravy at working-class diners. After he lost the Pennsylvania primary to a beer-swilling, whisky-downing Hillary, Obama mordantly announced to his staff, "OK, now I'll eat anything."  This week's Newsweek cover story is about Senator Obama and his team.

So many silly issues, dumb attacks about nothing--I wonder how many of those who voted for G.W. Bush because they thought he was the kind of guy they'd like to have a beer with have actually had a beer with him during the past eight years. Please contact me, wherever you are.

Meanwhile, if you haven't had a politically incorrect laugh lately, take a gander through That Hillary Show, my new personal favorite web offering. The most recent video is up top, wherein Hillary urges Bill to keep drinking with the denizens of a bar in West Virginia. The creation of the clever and focused Rosemary Watson, it features a dogged, yet addled Hillary fighting on, and on, and on. The show has finally had some play at the NYTimes and The Atlantic--wish I had blogged the link earlier because I have been enjoying these for some time.
( This YouTube  pic of Rosemary at left is lousy, but all I could find at the mo'.)

Eat Crap, Win Voters' Hearts and Minds?

In between mel0dramatic reports on lame bowling skills and memories of shooting ducks as a wee lass and all the flotsam and jetsam of American political discourse, I have noted disparagement of Senator Obama's campaign eating style. Apparently he doesn't finish all his waffles!  He shies away from fat-laden nightmares like Philly cheesesteaks ( I may be making this one up) and so on. He's not into multiple brewskies, either.

So the guy is trim, healthy, and against all the odds during this marathon primary season, he wants to stay that way and hold off the carbs. What a nutcase!  What a crappy exemplar of all that is American!

Please, superdelegates, end the agony soon so that Barry O' can take a break to revisit farmers markets and Senator Clinton can hole up in her Georgetown home tossing back whatever she damn pleases.

This tidbit from the NYT a few days back may amuse....

ps  Not getting into the use of "waffle" as a verb...

(Thanks to http://www.easywafflerecipe.com/ for handsome, healthy-looking waffle photo.)

Flavored Snapple Antioxidant Power Waters Under-Amaze Foodie

Water, water, everywhere, including from the tap, but Americans choose to buy it in both big and little plastic bottles--or wrestle home the 5 gallon jugs from the water store ( my choice thus far,) or install filtered gizmos at the kitchen sink, or pour tap water into those Brita pitchers...or.....

Now, yes, flavored water has been around a while--and I'm not talking about the Cokes and the Dr Peppers and all those hideously uber-sweetened fizzy things that once were merely made with sugar and now are all corn syrup all the time--the drinks that made Americans Great, and I mean, like, Huge.
No--I am tiptoeing into the topic of , maybe, specialty waters?

A pr person emailed to ask if I would try some Snapple Antioxidant Waters and comment about them on this blog. Sure, I said. They arrived. I tried a half glass of chilled Agave Melon, subtitled "The Power to Restore."  Then I sipped Raspberry Acerola--"The Power to Defy."  Wow. The literary context of these drinks is formidable, maybe to provide the breakfast reading we once enjoyed on the back of cereal boxes, before we shifted to bulk grains in clear bags, who knows?

Ok, so--the restorative one is presumably for use after working out. The defiant one is aimed at keeping me, ( me?) "young at heart." Oy. Even worse, it "wants to keep my mind spry." And it contains a heckuva lot more "protective anti-oxidants" than the Agave Melon.

The taste? Like very diluted regular sweet juice. Curiously flat. Reminiscent of the watered-down  juice  we gave our kids back in the day, after realizing they were getting crazed on the full-fledged liquid.

The waters arrived in a box containing absolutely zero product info. Dutifully, I went on the Internets and enjoyed an amazing fantasy website put up by the Snapple people--a plane flying over lovely landmasses and such, but the hard facts were elusive. In fact, when I clicked on "Real Facts," the first thing I learned was that a goldfish's attention span was three seconds. Now this did not surprise me, given that my childhood fish, Joe, swam around ALONE in the same bowl for 12 years until being flushed down the toilet by my mom. He was dead at the time. ( In later years, I became fairly certain that numerous "Joes" had entered and exited that bowl during my happy childhood. )

Note to Snapple: wha???

But I digress.

Finally, driven by the need to be a responsible recipient of free drinks, I looked at the labels of these not really waters.  Modified corn starch???  And Epigallocatechin Gallate. ( Among many other ingredients.) OMG!  I'm off to have a slug of a real health drink, Cabernet Sauvignon.

Good luck, Snapple. Thanks for the Nutrient Enhanced Water Beverages you sent me. Full disclosure: a friend of mine walked off with the Mango one, and the other one, whatever it was.

Crawfish, Gators, Armadillo and All That

We had a crawfish festival here in St Pete recently, complete with Cajun bands---and we had a hankering to go eat mounds of the little freshwater mini lobsters but the cost was $12 to enter a park here lined with the usual kind of vendors selling earrings and funnel cake and assorted tacky items, so we passed. After all, the music was so "enhanced" we could hear it for free from blocks away, and my local fish store has crawfish, along with cooked $5 apiece lobsters, and great local clams, and oysters, ditto, though not as superb as Dutch oysters, and a slew of local fish with wild nicknames, as well as flounder and arctic char and , and.....
I ate gator once a few years back, unmemorably--the fish store has frozen gator--but a few days ago a friend visiting from the frozen tundra of Vermont joined me on a walk in a park smack dab in the center of St Pete where we spotted three 12 inch-long baby gators, all sweetly small and stripy, slowly swimming along with their cute schnozzes up out of the water.

ps Just a day before we had seen an armadillo snuffling about in yet another naturey place within St Pete.
Haven't eaten that.....But here's a recipe--oh goody--how does one remove the armor plate, though?

( Thanks to http://www.nuawlins.com/crawfish.htm for crawfish pic.)

Tiptoeing Into The Cuban Thing

Recently we wandered into a storefront Cuban eatery on 49th street North in St Pete to explore its black beans and rice, Cuban coffee and so on.

The waitress, NOT Cuban, as she told us, rolling her eyes, said all the beans contained meat, but you could try the white rice and tostones???  Hmmm. All veggie Son of Foodie wanted beans and rice...well, he ordered a cafe con leche and salty, dry as pressed wood, plantain cakes, while I leapt on the fish sandwich, having been told by the same waitress that the owner/cook caught his own, and at only $7.95 each.  Tatsy fish, lightly seasoned, was cooked just right, albeit smashed in the Cuban sandwich manner between two large slices of bread.

As I removed the bread casing, I found zero sauce, oil, nada, between fish and bread. And no garni of any kind on the plate. So the fish really rather resembled aquatic roadkill. When I got to talking with Cuban-born Nelson Guerra of The Cuban Delight Cafe, he said that the stark presentation was "the way we always do it," and then elaborated on the differences between Tampa Cuban bread--authentic!--and Miami Cuban bread--Not!  Apparently the earliest immigrants brought their traditional breadmaking ways to Ybor City, the cigar-making section of Tampa I have blogged about before and Fidel crushed this bread style once he took power in Cuba. Huh? Really? Did it represent freedom and rebellion?  ( Will research further. Miami Cuban bread is loaded with lard, apparently.)

Anyway, when I asked about the grouper, and was it REALLY grouper ??, Nelson said that he had been among the whistle-blowers on the Chinese catfish-sold-as-Florida grouper story of recent months. "So this fish I ate today was real grouper you caught? " "Not exactly," said he.  While he has negotiated with a distributor to buy only verifiable grouper, that fish family is large and widespread and, in fact, the fish I had just eaten was South American.

So what about the whole sustainable fish thing? Nelson shrugged: "My customers want and expect grouper." But neither they nor I check piscatory passports, most likely.

(The non-Cuban waitress not only tried to sell us the false fresh-caught by Nelson fish story, she also misinformed us about the beans--the black ones, as we figured,  never have meat.)

( Photo by Bob Croslin of roast pork plate appeared in the St Pete Times review of this cafe, probably before Nelson took over...http://www.sptimes.com/2005/05/05/Weekend/Home_cooking__Cuban_s.shtml)

Consider Nevada ?

Apparently the Culinary Workers Union of Nevada estimates that by 2020 Nevada will need 250,000 trained food workers, including chefs, sous chefs, waitrons, busboys, et al. So if you are into vast new housing tracts, sand, water issues, and pretty purple mountains, head there. As 58% of the union's members were not born in the US, if you are fluent in both chopping and English, you should make a rapid rise.

Munching on Mazzaro's', With A Visit to Come

I haven't even stepped foot in Mazzaro's Market yet, the legendary Italian deli in St. Petersburg, FL, and already I am swooning--because--last night Foodie Spouse, whom I am visiting in St Pete--( he's on a job)- surprised me with delectable calamari salad, breaded grouper with horseradish, eggplant involtini, and bread---a traditional yeasty wreath bread--along with a mighty fine Pinot Grigio, as crisp as the supper required.

Apparently Saturday is the not-to-be-missed day, when people gather from all over town to have coffee, and begin leisurely breakfasts that meander into lunchtime, along with wine tastings.

Mazzaro's started out as a coffee roasting operation in a warehouse section of town....did I mention the fresh pasta offerings?

Small Town Caterer Continues To Make Good

Martha Stewart is launching new products at a dizzying pace of late. Announced in May, a fresh and frozen line of foods for Costco under the label Kirkland Signature by Martha Stewart.  ( Her Mega Martha Macy's "home products" line was just launched nationwide.)

And soon, a wine deal with Gallo. ( I remember when this was the schlockiest of giant bottle vino...)Martha Stewart Vintage, at about $15 a pop, rolls out in some markets next January.

AP reported: "The initial launch of 15,000 cases will include three wines: 2006 Sonoma County Chardonnay, 2005 Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvingon and 2006 Sonoma County Merlot. The wines will be offered in Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, N.C., Denver, Phoenix, and Portland, Ore."

A San Francisco Chronicle article noted that the hooch is aimed at Martha's female fans. Wine industry analyst Jon Frederickson stated: "They say, 'Gee she's endorsing wine, she's my role model, maybe I'll step up and try this product. "

Not when I can get a decent red for $7 at Trader Joes, thank you!  But am I a fan? I am impressed indeed by her biz and style acumen. And a very high end, aesthetically-driven pal of mine in San Fran swears by her curtains.

No, I am more arrested by quirky wine labels on very drinkable wines --like the blended red produced by the Goats Do Roam people in South Africa. ( Martha has no discernible sense of humor when it comes to her products, so............)

"( Charles) Back ( of Fairview Winery) is proudly South African and has a deep-seated belief in the potential of Cape wines and a strong sense of integrity. But he also has a quirky, irrepressible sense of humour, which led to the creation of the first Goats Do Roam label, which many with great amusement interpreted as a friendly jibe at the French – and in this case, the Côtes du Rhône growers’ – sense of proprietary right when it comes to branding the source of a wine.

‘Not so’, says Back, though with the barely disguised air of a naughty schoolboy delighting in his own mischief. The ‘legend’ goes that some errant members of Fairview’s long-established goat herd, supplier of milk for Fairview’s internationally award-winning cheeses, took the gap when Charles Back’s young son Jason and buddy Justin had left open the gate to the paddock containing Fairview’s famous goat tower. The little group happily roamed among the vineyards, showing rare discernment by selecting the ripest berries off some of the choicest vines…"

Those #$?%&*!! Blue Booze Laws

Yesterday morning I was loading up at Trader Joe's, after being away a bit, and when I pushed the cart over towards my favorite el cheapo Pinot Noir, GASP!, that annoying white rope was up in the wine department, like limp tinsel  on the mis-shaped  last-tree-in-the-lot on Christmas Eve.

Grrr....The so-called Blue Laws passed during Depression-era years used to bar liquor sales anytime on Sunday. Here in New Mexico one may not purchase alcohol before noon on the first day of the week.  This website indicates that 19 states still have Blue Laws on the books. ( Many communities have their own laws re booze, also.)

Now--I have a crazy nostalgia for the time when nothing much was open on Sunday and people took a break from consuming and mindless shopping. But in today's economy, with many people working multiple jobs, Sunday shopping is probably here to stay.

So each time I encounter that rope, I ask---what, are we babies? Do they think we will tap the bottle open on the floor and down the Pinot by 9:30 am well before the 11 am service?  What is this about?

Another law encountered here is that underage checkers cannot touch the booze that lurks among the tp, celery, and dog chews in your groceries---only a "mature" individual who has undergone rigorous training in the reading of drivers licenses can do so.  Does this law protect the young checker from a life of decadence and debauchery? Is it in place to irritate eldery tipplers? Wha?

Please advise.

Report From The Road --Eats

The Blue Bell banana ice cream at the pharmacy in Claude, Texas, led to the still-warm glazed donuts served up with a fervent God Bless You somewhere farther down the pike, and then, just before closing time to the warm embrace of the weary people at Savoie's Cajun joint in Shreveport.

Blackened snapper, fresh onion rings to weep over, slaw, and crawfish etouffee for Foodie Spouse. Oh yes--a few miles off the highway but hey, when in Luziana one must pursue food.

Saturday evening in Mobile, we sat outside at the Blue Gill on the causeway to fully enjoy the ongoing Humidity Festival, along with deep fried soft shell crab, slaw, and a cool Land Shark brew. A live band that was fine but decibled for a stadium seating 100,000 entertained us. ( Not having lost my hearing in the 60's, I applied impromptu earplugs.)  And the crowning event, other than jumping fish, was the approach and then takeoff of an airboat seaplane, right into the blushing pink sunset.

Into the homestretch towards St Petersburg, Florida,---  ( In August?? Yes!  If you've lived in DC for years, in what was once a low lying marsh, you have already survived multiple Humidity Festivals of gargantuan proportions, )---we exited in Gainesville and fell into the aromatic arms of the buffet at Chutnees's.  The cuisine is from Hyberabad---you could taste each spice distinctly and yet the blend in the bharta and the dal and all the rest was smooth---many tiny red chiles sparked the veggie dishes, too. The owner told us that they are totally low fat in their cooking style as well, though there was no hint of deprivation...oh my no. Though we have eaten at many fine Indian veggie buffets, this one has shot to the top of the list.

( Crawfish etouffee pic from a California website ( !!) with thanks--http://www.rotarycajun.com/food.shtml)