Tuesday Food News
To everyone who started their weekly diets yesterday (bikini season is just around the corner, after all):
It is now only Tuesday morning, and if your throat is already starting to constrict at the thought of another celery stick or mouthful of sawdust (that Fiber One bar in your desk drawer) then check out the following links for some motivation.
None of them offer recipes for magical low-cal elixirs or links to celebrity workouts that promise chiseled buns in just four minutes a day! No, these links will do you one better. Click through them and watch your appetite disappear.
Photo by The Pug Father/Flickr.
Homesick Swine Flu Bug Hitches a Ride to Visit Canadian Relatives
Rationally, we all know that we can’t get swine flu from eating pork, but the pig=death connection still gives us pause no matter how hard the pig PR reps work to rename it H1N1 (does anyone else secretly pronounce it “hiney”?). It certainly doesn’t help that, as CNN reports, the flu virus can seemingly hop from pork to person and back to pig again, like a transient vagabond:
Canadian officials on Saturday said they have quarantined pigs that tested positive for the virus — scientifically known as 2009 H1N1 — at an Alberta farm in what could be the first identified case of pigs infected during the recent outbreak. They said the pigs may have been infected by a Canadian farmer who recently returned from a trip to Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak that has sickened nearly 660 people.
Thanks to this news flash I now picture swine flu as a microscopic flea, jumping from animal to person and perhaps onto my dinner plate where it takes cover among the bacon bits in my Cobb salad. Delicious!
Which one would you rather eat?
In a Separate Study: Blindfolded Dogs Ravenously Consume Everything
A group of researchers asked 18 willing participants to pick out a dish of dog food (admittedly the premium Newman’s Own brand) from a selection of commonly eaten people foods, ranging from SPAM to liverwurst to duck liver paté. Each sample was ground up into a homogeneous meat paste to rule out the variable of texture.
Of course, the inevitable happened. Fifteen out of 18 participants failed to distinguish the puppy chow from the other USDA-sanctioned foodstuffs.
Goldstein said the tasting demonstrated that “context plays a huge role in taste and value judgment,” even though researchers warned the participants that one of the five foods they were going to taste was dog food.
The moral of this story is: Do not attend cocktail parties thrown by people who hate you. You never know what is spread on that Carr’s water cracker.
I don't think I realized how much coffee beans look like cockroaches. Photo by lifties/Flickr.
Caffeine: Not the Only Thing That Gives Coffee Legs
Dreaming of picking up a calorie-packed Iced Frappuccino instead of picking at the boring green salad you packed for lunch? This story’ll make you leave your Starbucks card in your wallet.
CHOW contributer Joyce Slaton quotes a bio prof at U. of Montana, Douglas Emlen, from yesterday’s NPR broadcast on beetles:
“Preground-you know, your big bulk coffee that you buy in a tin-is all processed from these huge stockpiles of coffee … that get infested with cockroaches,” says Emlen. “And there’s really nothing they can do to filter that out. So it all gets ground up in the coffee.”
Maybe you should get today’s caffeine fix from a nice glass of calorie-free iced tea. Tea leaves, thankfully, aren’t featured in this FDA list of foods with predetermined maximum levels of “natural or unavoidable defects” (that is, “insect filth” or “mammalian excreta”) that Slaton so helpfully reminds us of in the same article.
– Christina Lee
Email This Post
Tags: CHOW, christina lee, cockroaches, coffee beans, dog food, Gut Check, liverwurst, NPR, pate, SPAM, swine flu
Bring on the Butcher Shops
Would that prime cuts of beefs and charcuterie could save our flagging economy.
(Photo: Laurent Jung)
Because this area boasts a slew of custom meat purveyors par excellence.
Tallula/EatBar ex-toque Nathan Anda left the Arlington gastrohub last summer to develop his own charcuterie concept, which has since evolved into the Red Apron Butchery. Though he’s still scouting final locations for the shop–something Anda hopes is “weeks, not months away”–Anda already envisions a full-service facility replete with homemade sauces, gourmet foodstuffs and exotic proteins.
“It’ll be an experience, going in there,” Anda insists. He plans to specialize in “stuff that isn’t available everywhere,” tossing out pig ear terrines, cured lamb bellies, handmade lardo and trotters as potential impulse buys.
In the meantime, Anda’s current catalog (cured meats, homemade hot dogs) will be available for retail purchase at Planet Wine and officially debuts in Buzz’s panini line. Anda is also firming up his relationships with various local farmers markets, estimating that he’ll make the rounds to the weekly Ballston, Penn Quarter and possibly one other open-air showplace beginning early next month.
Anda is also talking with fellow Neighborhood Restaurant Group chefs Anthony Chittum (Vermilion) and Frank Morales (Rustico) about weaving some of his wares into their menus.
“Hopefully, in the coming months, he’ll be using my pepperoni,” Anda said of the spicy sausage he’s developed for Morales’ gourmet pies. He also plans to make his products readily available to incoming Tallula chef Barry Koslow–though he suspects the charcuterie-savvy Koslow will not want for jaw-dropping snackables.
“With Barry coming in, it’s [Tallula] going to be awesome,” Anda predicts.
Meanwhile, Robert Wiedmaier’s new gourmet shop, The Butcher’s Block should be up and running shortly. Chef Chris Watson will oversee a gourmet retailer (along with the fledgling BRABO/BRABO Tasting Room) poised to offer fresh breads, wild game and a bevy of Belgian beers.
Down the road in Del Ray, Aussie butcher Stephen Gatward has developed a loyal following at Let’s Meat on the Avenue by serving up hard-to-find items (kangaroo meat, anyone?) as well as neighborhood necessities (smoked dog bones).
For those who enjoy a a dash of intrigue with their entrails, the mercurial Jamie Stachowski continues to peddle his cured goodies in the darnedest places (next delivery: tomorrow at noon).
And I would be terribly remiss if I didn’t give a nod to the gourmet links that spring from the mind of improbable sausage baron, Stanley Feder.
We’ve never had it so good.
–Warren Rojas
Email This Post
Tags: Alexandria, Anthony Chittum, Barry Koslow, beef, BRABO, BRABO Tasting Room, Buzz, charcuterie, chef, Del Ray, EatBar, Frank Morales, gourmet, Gut Check, Jamie Stachowski, Let's Meat on the Avenue, meat, Nathan Anda, Northern Virginia Magazine, pate, Planet Wine, Red Apron Butchery, Robert Wiedmaier, Rustico, sausage, Simply Sausage, Stachowski Brand Charcuterie, Stanley Feder, Tallula, terrine, The Butcher's Block, Vermilion, Warren Rojas
