food museum blog

Seeking and Not Finding Pumpkin Ice Cream

Sometimes a quest becomes damned depressing.  This is the time of year when the lovely people at Ben and Jerry's come out with a pumpkinny ice cream---this time it's Pumpkin Cheesecake. Now I had  spotted this at a local market but was not heading right home and didn't want either to slurp it all down, or to have it melt before I could even try it.

So later I stopped in at Smith's supermarket, having failed to find any at Trader Joe's,  where the dim bulb manager seemed amazed that I even knew of this seasonal flavor, and wondered why the store didn't have it--the same store that was shoving Halloween down our throats in August, and pushing Thanksgiving and Christmas simultaneously as of November 1st.

Walgreen's was next--I knew they carried a few B&J items but no, said the manager, that's all decided at corporate and in truth all 7000 stores do not really have room to carry more than a few basic popular flavors. "You have a huge aisle always overflowing with seasonal, um, items," I said, but that does not extend to ice cream? "

"No--you see if they don't sell, then we have to pay for them and throw them out."

"What? What about donating them to the local food bank?" I asked.

"That's not possible. Management thinks the employees will steal the food, you see--or that they will  deliberately damage things so as to make them unsaleable."

Temporarily silenced, I stood there while he pointed to a couple of security cameras. "See those?"

"70 percent of the cameras in the store are intended to watch the employees. And that's true in all the big supermarkets as well."

Lord. Makes you want to pour hot fudge over the pumpkin ice cream, if you ever find it, that is.

Moderation at Meals, Excess in Watches

The Ozzies are reporting that people who pursued a weight loss program featuring low carbs were more depressed in the long run that those dieters who went low fat, even though both groups lost the same amount of weight.  I recall a few weeks ago I became testy after a 2 week almost no carb effort to jump start a return to moderate eating. MY GOD, I WAS GRUMPY. That's when I realized--hey--I need my lovely carbs, at least some.

And that's the point, isnt it? We need a happy melange of fat, carb, sour, sweet, salty, veg, vino, etc. I am noticing now, in maybe Week 12 of the "moderation diet," that I typically am eating half of what I used to eat at both lunch and dinner. Special occasions? Different. Less, but more than half. A special occasion is self-declared, incidentally, as well it should be.

So I can relate to the irritable, low carb, Down Underers.  What I cannot relate to, however, is Bernie Madoff apparently owning 17 Rolex watches.  How many clunky, ugly timepieces does one little guy need?

Bowl Cover Thief on the Loose

Listen, people, en garde. Should you encounter a tall, mischievous-looking woman of Teutonic appearance in a hotel corridor, lurking near the maid's cart, just walk right on by. She's lifting plastic shower caps to use as bowl covers and means no real harm.

When she visits the U.S., bowl covers are high on her shopping list and she ferrets them out, somehow, somewhere. I remember bowl covers--they were big throughout my childhood, and maybe yours. Elasticized things in several sizes, that one's mother used to seal leftover mashies from drying out in the fridge.  Everyone had them, and no one thought bowl covers would ever become as scarce as hen's teeth, to quote an elderly friend of mine, but they did. Instead, we progressed on to embrace plastic wrap, until learning it was killing us with chemicals.

A few years ago I was stunned to see bowl covers hanging on an odd dispenser in the soup section of a major supermarket chain and I pounced on them, buying up several sets, and passing them on to friends. Today, looking into my wax paper and tin foil drawer, no bowl covers, not a one.

I remembered that in the early 1980's my sainted mother bought a few archaic things at the Vermont Country Store, like wood handled butter spreaders, and, YES, bowl covers.

They still have them, described as "Reusable 1950's Vinyl Bowl Covers." Did the copywriter intend to suggest that cartons of  actual 1950's bowl covers survived in an underground bomb shelter somewhere only to be discovered and handed off to the VCS for sale? Or not?

Of course, duh,  Google knows its bowl  covers--the copy with this polka dotted offering from Kitchenworks in fact, says, "They look just like shower caps!" 

So there.

To Ice Or Not To Ice The Hot Tea

If a person about to order an iced tea notes that a large HOT tea is $1.09, vs $1.80 for iced, and if she knows full well that the ice machine and actual slices of lemon are freely available at the drinks area, if that person then creates her own iced tea from a hot tea, thus saving 80 cents, is that person a white collar criminal?  

Now said individual has been frequenting the coffee joint for over a week, as she is living in an Internets-free bungalow,  buying gallons of coffee, and risking obesity by indulging in pastries she never eats when at home, so it's not as if she's a piker or anything, and her inclination to "cheat"  came only after the thought of another coffee became repellent.

(A person's spouse just this morning commented that it might have been less expensive to rig up the Internets for a month than to support the coffee shop for two weeks.)

Curiously, for years this ersatz criminal's mother claimed full credit for introducing iced coffee to the iced tea-infused American Deep South. Mom and daughter were in Georgia eons ago when the Mom ordered an iced coffee. The white waitress was as stunned as if the mother had demanded the end to segregation. ( I digress.)

"Do you have a tall glass?"
"Yes, Ma'am."

"Do you have ice?"
"Yes, Ma'am."

"Do you have coffee?"

No fool, the waitress  had by then comprehended where this gambit was going. Mom was presented with a mug of coffee, a glass filled with ice, extra ice in a dish, real cream, and a long spoon. She created her iced coffee with grace, the waitress watching her every move.

When all was perfect, the mom held the glass high and proclaimed, " Iced coffee!---and thanks very much for making it possible," she added, directing her most merry grin at the woman, who seemed pleased indeed to have been present when a  direct yet cordial Yankee  had achieved alchemy of a sorts with hot coffee and ice.

( Iced coffee tks to http://www.mon-ami.co.nz/us/mealsSummerDrinks.php,  not tea, pictured.)

Empathy With Bernie

Confession: Of late I have developed a clearly unhealthy interest in the gustatory experiences of Bernie-- Yes, I Madoff With Your Dough, Especially If You Are Jewish and Trusted Me--Madoff, currently confined to a tiny holding cell in New York City. I read that the first night in the slammer he was served refried chicken and CANNED string beans on a styrofoam plate.

Quel horreur !

Aside from the fact that Bernie is bad, and that he betrayed the trust of so many, he has not been a canned string bean man since summer camp in the Catskills 60 years ago. When was the last such bean you tasted? ( Not the dilly beans you pickled and canned yourself!)

Now were there some decent olive oil,  fresh black pepper, and a tad of seasoned vinegar available, perhaps in a cruet perched over the urinal,  Bernie could bring those beans some life.

The man apparently has no reading material, no paper and pen..........and nothing to eat. OK, better than the dirt, salt and veggie shortening that many of the poorest  Haitians are turning into mud patties and eating.  No question.

A world in which mega-luxury types have yachts dotted about the world's briny, while their fellow humans eat dirt--ain't it amazing?

Still--the Bernie thing fascinates. What is Ruth Madoff eating? Has she an appetite? Why hasn't she vamoosed  long-since to Namibia, a nation with which the USA has no extradition treaty? It's a democracy, was once a German colony---am I seeing a skewed/perverse poetic justice in that?-- and its people are not reduced to mud pie eating.

Exquisite Excess

We have an unemployed, unmarried mother of 6 deciding she absolutely had to have more children; we have a whistle blower filled with info on the nefarious Bernie Madoff ignored for years by the SEC; we have our beloved and leguminous Peanut Corporation of America knowingly shipping out salmonella-afflicted products, inspection reports by the state overlooked by the overworked USDA, slapped in a file cabinet; we have Republican leaders deeply involved in the financial and international debacle of the past eight years whining and wringing their hands on tv because their wisdom is being overlooked----whatever!!

Justice: PCA filed for bankruptcy. Its CEO took the Fifth before Congress days before, his emails piling up as evidence against him.

Questions:  

Did Bernie's wife squirrel away $15 million in chump change before his arrest? Has she Madoff with it?

Where will the nation's Lovebirds in Chief have Valentine's Day dinner? ( In Chicago.)

What would happen if you didn't   A--pay your taxes; B--have a financial plan ready, accurate to the penny, as you are asking for,  ooh, billions of dollars?

Does anyone really like that bizarre red velvet cake?

The Dog Ate My Brownie

Yes, I've been away, and not able to update this blog. And yes, there's a distressing new war winding down in a small country, in addition to those other wars in the Middle East, plus assorted conflagrations elsewhere.

Closer to home, an espresso brownie created by the Chocolate Maven from which I had nibbled only the tiniest of  layers, was found and devoured by the resident terrier. Said animal was in the car with me, on the way back from puttering and sniffing and chasing lizards in an enclosed  garden I care for periodically.  Normally the lively and ever-alert Lillian J. Russell is restrained ( gently) in the backseat. But as there were no shady parking places when I stopped to run an errand, I
( foolishly forgetting the baked good) set her loose in the vehicle, windows open,  so she could seek out the least sunny spot.

Friends, within seconds she had found the brownie. Now I know chocolate is supposed to be dire for dogs. But thus far in our acquaintance this one has survived, nay thrived, after eating half a bag of dark choc Hershey Kisses at Halloween, two squares of Belgian dark chocolate  innocently left on a low coffee table when the would-be snacker had a phone call over Christmas, and today, the brownie.

The balm of  Gilead that brownie was meant to be, soothing me after my perusal of the global news of violence and mindless destruction, unavailable. Sigh.

I think I'll go read about the 12,000 calories per diem the waterlogged Mr. Phelps must stuff into his elongated Olympian frame. Presumably some of those are likely to be, must be, from chocolate.

( Having stayed on the ball all day, the brownie thief collapses, CD cases as her pillow.)

Thanksgiving Dinner Thoughts, PLUS, Confessions of A Retail Saboteuse

Martha's Living is all into briny turkey,  though the November cover features a turkey grilled in Texas, the WaPost wants me to crush the bird's backbone,  and Gourmet is offering a maple-glazed bird. Every autumn the home and food mags twist themselves inside out to do something "fresh" with America's own gobbler. But some of us say, hey, it's a large fowl, so roast it like a chicken, already. Big whoop.

Appropriately, the beast is not my assignment this Tgiving---I am working my mind around a new approach to sweet pots, sticking to the same old, same old for mashies made from Yukon Golds, and pondering a creamy leek gratin dish (from ?? ) instead of creamed onions with sherry/bourbon/brandy or whatever. The leek recipe is too rich but will do, once I am finished making it simple, stupid.  And I am building a crunchy offering from a base of Belgian endive.

So I was fondling the B.E. the other day in my local Sunflower Market when my red pencil eyes noted the labeling above the endive basket--"Belguim endive."  Now this is so wrong. First of all, the glorious country of Belgium is spelled incorrectly. But, more to the point,-- Do we say France toast? Or England mustard?  Or Spain onions? Come on!  ( OK, Vienna sausage...)

But when I gently asked the produce guy to correct the label to read "Belgian endive", he looked at me as if I were the village crank, ( testy older dame, more like,) and said, "It's that way in the book."  "Well in that case "the book" is incorrect," said I.  He waved the little sign around a bit, huffed and puffed, and then graciously waved me off.  ( I didn't go into the pronunciation of endive, honest!)

Of course he didn't know with whom he was dealing....I asked the checker to show me "the book," where, voila, "Belgian endive" appeared.  So.........On my next visit to the store, I wandered over to the endive to eyeball the sign. Same one, unchanged. Armed and dangerous, I whipped a Sharpie out of my pocket, plucked out the label, turned it over, wrote the veg up properly, reinserted the label, and sidled off.

Off the subject, but still---  If you happened to be in Lowe's in St Pete, Florida this October and wondered who had unplugged all the Christmas singing merry-go-rounds and talking Santas, wonder no more.

( Thanks to http://www.belgianendive.com/ for the pic.)

If Nobody Made Money From War, Would We Be Having One?

War is such a jolly thing for so many purveyors of supplies, isn't it? It's often a chance to charge more for ordinary things, like food for the troops. An Army marches on its stomach, yes--the food supply chain is utterly vital. ( Apparently there was little money to be made from armor, either for soldiers or their vehicles, though that may be changing.)

According to the NYTimes, "... investigators from the Justice and Defense Departments are examining deals that the Sara Lee Corporation, ConAgra Foods Inc. and other American companies made to supply the military, officials said.

The inquiry centers on whether the companies overcharged the Army’s principal food supplier for the war zones, a Kuwait-based company called the Public Warehousing Company. Investigators are also looking into whether Public Warehousing improperly took payments from the food companies.

Public Warehousing, which supplies enormous amounts of fruits, vegetables and meats for more than 160,000 troops in combat zones, said in a statement that it had done nothing wrong and was fully cooperating. "

Public Warehousing feeds troops in both Kuwait and Iraq, apparently. And operates on many levels globally. ( I saw no mention of Halliburton on its website, but there is much to read there. )

Food News From All Over

"Functional" foods are on display at the annual Institute of Food Technologists convention in Chicago. Wait--I thought we were all attempting to eat fresh, as local as possible, unprocessed foods, right? Not if these food fantasists win us over. The NYTimes reported that even sushi and brownies can be, um, enhanced.

"There was also sushi concocted from fish paste colored by lycopene and green-tea infused rice, and brownies with phosphatidylserine, a chemical compound that is said to enhance memory. "

Twinkie anyone? ( Am currently browsing the chemical contents of Twinkies courtesy Steve Ettlinger's book, Twinkie, Deconstructed, Hudson Street Press, 2007.)

The NYTimes also reported that thieves intent on raising money for drugs are stealing copper wire and other metals from California farm equipment, including irrigation setups, causing crop losses , as well as lost time, to farmers.

Meanwhile,  Austin-based organic food purveyor Whole Foods is battling the FTC   regarding its wish to purchase Wild Oats, a 565 million dollar deal---anti-trust watchdogs say the acquisition would cause prices to rise. ( You may recall that Whole Foods CEO John Mackey was caught out posting on the Internet anonymous, false and negative comments about rival Wild Oats in past years...)