So-called extra virgin olive oil sometimes not even olive oil, forget about virgin

Imported olive oil is not a heavily regulated business. It’s not even really regulated much at all. And here’s the result, reports Tom Philpott:

Researchers found that 69 percent of imported extra virgin olive oils sampled from California supermarkets failed to meet requirements to merit that label. Interestingly, 90 percent of the California-produced samples did. I guess the California olive oil industry is too young and immature to realize the benefits of fraud; the Europeans have been adulterating olive oil since Roman times, Mueller reports.

But—free markets!

Mac and Cheese

This is quite possibly the funniest thing I’ve seen all week. Kristi Watts, on the 700 Club on Christian Broadcasting Network, interviews former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and asks her about her must-have Thanksgiving dish. Mac and cheese, she answers, which Watts agrees is absolutely necessary at any Thanksgiving table. But, somehow, Pat Robertson has no idea what mac and cheese is. “Is it a black thing?” he asks. This year, this clip is for what I’m thankful.

I have to agree with Watts, though: The world needs to get on board with mac and cheese. I make it with Cabot Hunter’s sharp cheddar and pepper jack. No Gruyere here, thank you; this is America.

In case Utah wasn’t strange enough

I’ve never been to Utah, probably to my detriment (I think). So, if you have, the strange booze laws may not be as, well, strange, to you. I was aware, thanks to the Winter Olympics some years back that Willard helped rescue, that you couldn’t get normal beer there, but I was unaware of this stuff:

So-called Zion curtains separating diners from bartenders are not only back, the opaque partitions unique to Utah are now closing on eateries whose only alcoholic beverage is beer.

Restrictions placed on new beer-only restaurants are driving at least one Utah chain, Wing Nutz, to expand out of state. Another, Wingers Bar & Grill, is questioning whether it should open more restaurants in the state.

The change means servers at new eateries that serve only beer may not pop off a cap on a beer bottle or pull the tab on a can in view of customers. They must install partitions or build backrooms to store or pour beer with a 3.2 percent alcohol content by weight. Heavier beer is not allowed.

Good news is bad news for craft beer drinkers

Good beer is getting too damned popular. Poor Rhode Island:

Earlier this year, three major craft brewers – Avery, Dogfish Head, and Great Divide – announced that they were pulling out of some markets because the demand is outstripping brewing capacity. In other words, craft beer has become so popular so quickly that brewers can’t produce enough of it to satisfy everyone.

In each case, Rhode Island has been among the states where, for now, those brewers have stopped distributing. Massachusetts, thankfully, has been unaffected, though it is easy to imagine that beer aficionados in the Ocean State will hop across the border and grab their Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA, Great Divide Yeti, and Avery Maharaja in Bay State liquor stores. So don’t be surprised if it suddenly becomes more difficult to find your favorite beers in places like Attleboro and Seekonk.

So, good news: People like good beer. A lot. Bad news: The makers of good beer can’t keep up. However, it is interesting that this is forcing them to leave markets and not hike prices, a la Econ 101. But, luckily, New England states are so small that you can pop over to another one with relative ease.

Also:

Burton Baton Burton Baton is an interesting beer. It often gets classified as an imperial India pale ale, but it’s not purely an IPA. Burton Baton is actually two beers in one. Delaware-based Dogfish Head makes Burton Baton by fermenting two types of beer – its renowned 90 Minute IPA and an English old ale – and then blending them together in a large oak tank, where the new beer sits for a month. The result is a wonderfully complex beer. Dark amber in color, the beer pours with a head pocked with fat bubbles. A lot of hops and a smidge of vanilla comes through in the aroma. Grapefruit, oak, and a lot of alcohol emerge in the taste. Because of the balance in this beer, the hops are subdued compared to other imperial IPAs, and it’s not at all bitter. Burton Baton is a robust beer boasting a panoply of flavors.

I’ve never had this beer, but I Need. One. Now.

How much do we spend on food?

Interesting (and interactive) map from The Ration on how much countries spend on food, and how very unequal the cost is. Natalie Jones explains:

A one dollar bag of rice in the U.S. is not the same as a one dollar bag of rice in Indonesia. For an American, who, on average, devotes about seven percent of his or her spending to food, it won’t matter that much if the price of rice doubles to two dollars. An American can likely take the money that would have gone to a “non-essential” item and put it towards food instead. But for an Indonesian, who devotes 43 percent of his/her spending to food, it could mean less to eat.

Related: Nearly 25% of New York households with children do not have enough money to buy food. Also, look for corn prices to go up next year as unseasonably hot weather has led to tighter supplies.

Chewing gum makes you smarter, happier

Paul Kedrosky points to a new study showing that chewing gum makes you (not your teacher, of course) smarter and happier:

RATIONALE:

Recent research suggests that chewing gum may improve aspects of cognitive function and mood. There is also evidence suggesting that chewing gum reduces stress. It is important, therefore, to examine these two areas and to determine whether contextual factors (chewing habit, type of gum, and personality) modify such effects.

OBJECTIVES:

The aims of the present study were: (i) to determine whether chewing gum improved mood and mental performance; (ii) to determine whether chewing gum had benefits in stressed individuals; and (iii) to determine whether chewing habit, type of gum and level of anxiety modified the effects of gum.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS:

A cross-over study involving 133 volunteers was carried out. Each volunteer carried out a test session when they were chewing gum and without gum, with order of gum conditions counterbalanced across subjects. Baseline sessions were conducted prior to each test session. Approximately half of the volunteers were tested in 75 dBA noise (the stress condition) and the rest in quiet. Volunteers were stratified on chewing habit and anxiety level. Approximately, half of the volunteers were given mint gum and half fruit gum. The volunteers rated their mood at the start and end of each session and had their heart rate monitored over the session. Saliva samples were taken to allow cortisol levels (good indicator of alertness and stress) to be assayed. During the session, volunteers carried out tasks measuring a range of cognitive functions (aspects of memory, selective and sustained attention, psychomotor speed and accuracy).

RESULTS:

Chewing gum was associated with greater alertness and a more positive mood. Reaction times were quicker in the gum condition, and this effect became bigger as the task became more difficult. Chewing gum also improved selective and sustained attention. Heart rate and cortisol levels were higher when chewing which confirms the alerting effect of chewing gum.

CONCLUSIONS:

Overall, the results suggest that chewing gum produces a number of benefits that are generally observed and not context-dependent. In contrast to some previous research, chewing gum failed to improve memory. Further research is now required to increase our knowledge of the behavioral effects of chewing gum and to identify the underlying mechanisms.

Delicious animation

A pretty awesome animation by Alexandre Dubosc using all kinds of delicious edibles.

How to break an apple with your bare hands

Useful skill, fun party trick, or absolutely pointless knowledge?

We report. You decide.

Vegan Black Metal Chef makes some pad thai

This is pretty awesome. Heavy Metal Chef Brian Manowitz cooks up some pad thai accompanied by some black metal (subtitled included for those not versed in the sweet sounds of black metal).

Not that I would endorse veganism in any way, except maybe for the positions of one through five on the FBI America’s most wanted list. Five through ten can be vegetarian. Everybody else: yeah, that’s right, pescatarian.

Still mourning the end of “Good Eats,” although this helps a little.

Holy crap, the Chinese are beating us at beer-swizzling too

Chart above from a paper (PDF) by Liesbeth Colen and Johan Swinnen, via Felix Salmon at Reuters.

Not charted: Number of dreams shattered.

Now, that patriot himself, Al Bundy:

Voting has never been the American way. We didn’t get away from that pansy country England by voting. We did it by throwing their stinking tea in our American harbor. And why? Because Americans don’t like tea. We like coffee. And Americans don’t like wine. We like beer. Ice cold. Ice cold, best in a bottle, but find in any way you can get it, belching, burping, wake-up-in-a-pool-of-it beer. So let’s show them how a man votes. Let’s get blitzed and take it to the streets. Let’s strike a blow anywhere they dine alfresco, anywhere they eat Brie cheese, and any way they wear their pants up high around their waist in the European way. The only thing Americans understand is mindless Tom and Jerry cartoon violence. So, let’s go kick some elite butt. Give me beer, or give me death!

Dear John

I imagine one day I will be an old man who writes many letters.  So be it.

Dear Subway,

Let me begin my offering my upmost appreciation and thanks for the fine establishment you have become.  Seriously, since February 16^th of last year I have spent $430.07 on sandwiches, most being less than $7 purchases.  I may not be Jared, but if there was a button that said “Sandwich Lover” with your logo behind it, I would be the guy wearing it.  My hunger for your sandwiches runs so deep I’m probably the only person who prefers actually having “Subway For Life” rather than the $27,780 check you give to the winner of your Subway for Life sweepstakes (by the way – allowing people to enter the sweepstakes only through 32 oz. sodas and Pizza Supreme Doritos is kind of gross considering loyal customers like me keep returning for the sandwiches).

So it is with disappointment that I find myself writing this letter.  As the loyal customer I am, it was disheartening to learn today that you have threatened other sandwich shops for use of the term “footlong”.  If ever we could put aside the debate on sandwich terminology with “hoagies,” “grinders,” and “wedges” battling it out, surely people know what a footlong is.  It isn’t to be owned or trademarked by you or anyone.  In addition, the U.S. Patent and Trademark office is backlogged enough with real applications that can spur innovation that create jobs and should not have to answer to your lawyers who are simply trying to abuse the system without offering any actual contribution to society.

While it is true that I won’t be able to pull myself away from your tasty sandwiches I will likely end my promotional campaign.  Everywhere I go I champion your commitment to customer satisfaction.  Your sandwiches are those for the masses, the kind that get hard working Americans through the day and home to their families.  I remind people what a good, tastefully smart lunch will do for them and encourage them to join me in my frequent visits to a nearby sandwich shop of yours.  But if you continue an immoral and devious plan to abuse our good society and system of trademarks you would also be mistaken to think I could champion your company any longer.

So please, drop any threats of litigation and pull your application from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.  Let your sandwiches speak for themselves, they will leave customers with pride, and save them from the embarrassment of spending dollars on a company that utilizes unfortunate business practices.

Yours in patriotism,

Jack Burden

We Lose at Booze

Via Robert Farley at LGM (and pointed out by Ghost), this is outrageous. How can we expect to “Win the Future” if we can’t even keep up with Argentina’s thirst for aguardiente? Or even Nigerians?

One story that I’m particularly fond of regarding the pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock is that they had to land because they ran out of beer. How far we’ve fallen since the days of our forefathers.

Just be clear: We at V+V are certainly doing our part. America, it’s your turn.

The consequences of having the white meat

Nadia Arumugam wrote an interesting piece at Slate about the economic history of America’s obsession with the white meat of the chicken:

Once Americans signaled a clear preference for breast meat in the ’60s and ’70s, producers needed an outlet for the dark meat that wasn’t selling domestically. They knew that foreign markets, notably in Asia, prized the moist, succulent, and richly flavored leg meat. (In Asia, it’s the breasts that end up in bargain buckets.) And so they worked to convert a domestic waste product into a profitable export. American chicken legs were purchased eagerly by Asian importers, and for a while a happy equilibrium was struck. Yet in the 1980s, when chicken consumption in the United States increased at a phenomenal rate, the poultry industry needed new outlets to absorb the growing numbers of discarded legs.

It was most fortuitous, then, that the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, resulting in the relaxation of trade restrictions that had hindered commerce with the formerly Communist state. U.S. chicken exporters, eager to exploit this fresh market, were able to underprice virtually all other animal protein produced in Russia, and American dark meat flooded the country. The chicken legs became so popular that locals endearingly nicknamed them “Bush legs,” after President Bush Sr.

Well, that’s a much more endearing Bush-Senior-inspired slang term than the one that Japan coined.

Taco Bell’s seasoned beef not so much

CC photo by Flickr user Steven Depolo

Reports Paula Forbes at Eater:

Alabama law firm Beasley Allen has filed a class action lawsuit against Taco Bell that claims the chain is falsely calling its taco filling “seasoned beef” and “seasoned ground beef” when allegedly the mixture, which would be more properly called “Taco Meat Filling,” only contains 36% beef. The firm is not asking for money, but is instead asking the chain to make changes to their menu to reflect the food they are serving.

….

The USDA defines beef as “flesh of cattle,” which is a little biblical but seems straightforward enough. They define “Taco Meat Filling” as 40% meat, so if the lawsuit is correct, it seems like Taco Bell would have to up their beef levels to even qualify for that. The self-described “Mexican inspired” chain denies that their advertising is misleading and “[intends] to vigorously defend the suit.”

Things I Drink And So Should You: Ft. Snow and the French 75

I am not a winter person. I’m not. I hate it. Worse: I ‘m one of those people who constantly reminds everyone around them that I hate winter and think it’s awful. If you are among the thousands of people I have accosted with my rantings against, of all things (really, of all things), weather, I apologize. I will do it again, and soon, but I am sorry for having done it. It is regrettable.

I hate winter for so many reasons: all of the reasons. It’s dark all the time. It’s cold. It’s damned treacherous on occasion. We’ve had three blizzards up here this winter and it’s only the middle of January. The snow. Oh God, how I hate snow. It combines two of my least favorite things: cold and wet. You might think it’s pretty, and, really, it’s not bad to look at. But snow is like that girl at the bar, the ridiculously attractive girl with the glasses, who comes in and orders the same thing you’re drinking and puts great music on the jukebox. She’s great. But she’s going to be a ton of work and you’re going to get tired of her within weeks if not days. Fuck her. And fuck snow.

I’m on my third snow day of the year today. It’s actually the third of the last two weeks. Most of my co-workers, and no doubt all of the kids, were pretty ecstatic at this development. Snow days mean — when they cancel school the day before, as they did yesterday — sleeping in, and drinking heavily beforehand. Snow days also offer a quiet respite from the drudgery and din of work, screaming and arguing and running around replaced by lazily sipping at coffee while curled up on the couch engrossed in a good book. And snow days also mean a run on bread and milk and eggs at every grocery store. A local news blog called Universal Hub ushers in storms by whipping out their French Toast Alert system, a mix between your local television station’s StormCenter or whatever and Homeland Security’s color-coded Threat Level System. When the flakes start falling and families are going to be snowbound, it’s time for French Toast.

I’m not like most people, so I don’t do French toast. There’s no booze in it, so I don’t particularly look forward to it, though I suppose you could put a little rum in the batter, which might not be too bad. Also, I’m a bacon guy (but who isn’t? Unless you’re a bacon lady, obvs.). That said, I do feel like I need to have some kind of snow day tradition, so I thought about it for a while. A hot toddy just seemed too obvious. The Blue Blazer and all that stuff, though fun to watch and easy to drink (who doesn’t love on-fire scotch? You don’t? Fuck you.), is just a little too gimmicky. Hot buttered Rum is a bit to fey for me; also, would mean drinking butter and rum. Irish coffee is coffee. So, I kept thinking until I came up with the perfect drink, even though it’s not a winter drink at all. I figured that since I love the whole French Toast Alert thing, because it seems so ridiculous to me, that I should include either French or Toast in it. There are no drinks with toast in them, and thank God for that. So, I went with French.

And I chose the French 75, which is not generally my kind of drink, even though it combines two of my favorite boozes: gin and champagne. It’s the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of drinking (“You got gin in my champagne!” “You got champagne in my gin!”), only even tastier and a hundred times classier. Whoever did this is a genius, because, let’s face it, you’re not having one. You’re just not, so don’t even go into it thinking like that. You’ll only disappoint yourself as you go through the entire champagne bottle, which, again, you will. You will also have a raging hangover, but you will have earned it and not regret the small animal on the treadmill in your brain. The French 75 hangover is one you cherish, one you do not look back on ruefully, but with tender memories.

Also, use good gin and crappy champagne. Not Andre crappy, because you want to enjoy it, but don’t break out the Dom Perignon either. A good 20 or 30 dollar bottle will get the job done just fine. I use Hendrick’s gin and Veuve Cliquot, because, well, because that’s the gin I drink and the champagne I drink, and once I find something I like, I tend to stick with it until someone introduces me to something better (this might explain why I persisted in watching The Office until someone alerted me to the presence of Parks and Rec, and then I was all, great my fake-documentary style sitcom needs are taken care of!). Anyway, the important thing is that you have gin and champagne and you put them into a glass. And then you drink it.

The French 75 is alarmingly simple. Because it’s classy though, it prefers to be called elegant rather than simple. All you need, as I’ve mentioned several times, because it bear repeating on account of awesomeness, is gin and champagne. Gin, champagne and lemon, really. Gin, champagne, lemon and a flute glass. And a little bit of sugar. It’s really elegant. Get your shaker out and pour half a glass of champagne in there, adding a spoonful of sugar, a couple shots of gin and some lemon juice. BUT! Do not use one of those garbage plastic lemons for your lemon juice! Please! On so many levels, that is a terrible thing to do, not just in this drink, but ever. Seriously: don’t use the fucking plastic lemon. Use a real lemon. It’s not difficult. You cut the fucking thing in half and squeeze it. End of story. But, like, really. Don’t use the plastic lemon. Also, you need a real lemon because you are going to cut a long thin strip of the peel, coil it and let it hang over the rim of the glass (ELEGANCE!).

So, slowly stir the gin, champagne, sugar and lemon juice. Pour it into the flute. Add your lemon peel. It’s now a French 75 and you can drink it. It’s ready. Enjoy it. You will. Look out the window at the freshly fallen snow. Sip. Pick up a good book because there’s nothing on TV in the middle of the afternoon. Sip. Gaze longingly from the glass to the window. Sigh. Sip. Put off shoveling a little longer. Finish the drink and make another one. You know how to do it now. You just did it. It’s easy. And elegant. You’re now having the most elegant snow day ever. You’re welcome.

Cheers.

No more cheap booze in Britain

See what happens when you elect a Conservative-LibDem alliance?

BARGAIN supermarket booze deals will be outlawed by ministers today.

Shops will be banned from selling wine, beer or spirits for less than the cost of duty and VAT.

Ministers believe the move will stop the worst examples of alcohol being sold at a big loss to lure customers.

Cops fear the bargain booze glut has fuelled UK binge-drinking. But Home Office minister James Brokenshire is expected to stress today’s plans are just the first step in tackling the problem.

An average 70cl bottle of spirits currently costs £10.89.

But three-quarters of this price – £8.07 – goes to the Treasury in duty and VAT. Under today’s plans, shops would be prevented from selling the bottle for less than £8.07. The same rules will apply to beer, wine and cider.

Shoppers would not be able to buy a 440ml can of average-strength lager for less than 38p – ending deals which saw four-packs sold for 94p.

A litre of cider, which has lower level of duty, will have to be sold for 40p or more. Plans to slap a minimum price on booze have been delayed as ministers feared they would fall foul of European law.

FORTY PENCE FOR A LITRE CIDER? WHAT A RIP.

Twenty seconds of research has not led me to a definitive answer as to whether Four Loko is legal in Britain. Therefore, I cannot ascertain which country has fallen further into totalitarianism.

The price of tea (corn) in China (Algeria)

CC photo by Flickr user Dodo-Bird

Prices of food staples around the world are getting higher as supplies tighten:

The world has moved a step closer to a food price shock after the US government surprised traders by cutting stock forecasts for key crops, sending corn and soyabean prices to their highest level in 30 months.

The price jump comes after the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation warned last week that the world could see repetition of the 2008 food crisis if prices rose further. The trend is becoming a major concern in developing countries.

While officials are drawing comfort from stable rice prices, key for feeding Asia, they warn that a sustained period of high prices, especially in grains such as wheat, would hit poorer countries. Food price hikes have already led to riots in Algeria and Mozambique.

“Stocks of corn and soyabean are at incredibly tight levels … and the markets are surging to incredibly strong prices,” Chad Hart, agricultural economist at Iowa State University, said.

….

In Chicago, the price of soyabeans rose as much as 5.2 per cent to $14.20½ a bushel, the highest since late 2008. The USDA said that domestic stocks-to-demand would drop to the lowest point in nearly half a century.

Corn prices jumped 5 per cent to $6.37 a bushel, the highest level since July 2008.

The good news (if you can call it that?): Corporations in the agriculture business making tons of cash:

The boom in agricultural prices has lifted the outlook of the agribusiness sector in the US. Cargill, the world’s largest trader of food commodities, said its profits had tripled year-on-year during the second quarter of its fiscal year.

The shares of Deere & Co, the world’s largest manufacturer of tractors and combines, surged 2.3 per cent, approaching an all-time high. But food companies such as Nestlé fell as analysts said they would struggle to pass rising wholesale costs to consumers.

Matt Yglesias notes that U.S. policy is probably making it worse:

A good rundown from Lester Brown suggests a few ways in which American policy is making things worse. Most notably, ethanol subsidies aren’t a good way to clean the environment, but they’re a great way of raising the price of agricultural commodities. Farmers like it, but people who need to eat suffer. Similarly, pro-sprawl and anti-density policies incentivize the redevelopment of farmland as exurbs. Nice if you’re an oil-exporter, not so nice if you eat food.

In the long run, higher prices will probably lead to higher crop yields and it’ll all even out. But in the interim expect hungry people and food riots.

Booze and Big Love

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution notes a paper, titled “Women or Wine, Monogamy and Alcohol,” that purports a correlation between teetotalling and polygyny:

Intriguingly, across the world the main social groups which practice polygyny do not consume alcohol. We investigate whether there is a correlation between alcohol consumption and polygynous/monogamous arrangements, both over time and across cultures. Historically, we find a correlation between the shift from polygyny to monogamy and the growth of alcohol consumption. Cross-culturally we also find that monogamous societies consume more alcohol than polygynous societies in the preindustrial world. We provide a series of possible explanations to explain the positive correlation between monogamy and alcohol consumption over time and across societies.

This is made even more interesting by the thought that the production of beer may have been one of the impetuses for ancient humanity to settle down and start civilization.

Happy last night of Chanukah! It’s not too late to make some latkes…

Feeling sad because you haven’t had any potato pancakes this Chanukah?  Never fear, I come bearing a recipe for the best latkes ever.  My goal when making latkes is to replicate my mom’s perfect latkes– crispy on the outside, golden brown, and a little soft on the inside.  This is harder to accomplish than you might imagine.  Latkes are finnicky– throw them in the frying pan, and they might fall apart, or burn on the outside, or get so crunchy that you might as well just be eating potato chips.

I won’t lie and say these are super-easy: they’re time-consuming and you have to watch them carefully on the stove to get the right done-ness.  But I will say that they are quite delicious.  This recipe is from the wonderful Mollie Katzen, of Moosewood Restaurant fame.

The three times I’ve made them, I’ve been cooking for a group and I’ve doubled or tripled the recipe.  Recipe after the jump.

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Baking Case File #5: Incredible Pumpkin Cupcakes

These cupcakes are kind of amazing.  My brother agrees.

The batter was really great, too.  This is my baking helper and friend extraordinaire, K.  Seriously, though, this batter is like no other.  it’s light and fluffy and sweet but not too sweet, and pumpkiny without being overwhelmingly pumpkiny.

I’ve had my eye on this recipe since at least last pumpkin season, over a year ago.  It comes from Smitten Kitchen, and like pretty much everything else Deb makes, it is fantastic.  It’s also one of those recipes that seemed out of my league, but as it turns out, it’s quite doable.  Having the use of my mom’s KitchenAid standing mixer helped a lot, and it was also a good recipe to try as a team, since there are a number of steps to it.  Since I didn’t make any adaptations, it seems unfair to just cut & paste the recipe from the SK blog, so if you want to attempt it yourself, you can find it here, complete with the beautiful frosting roses that Deb created and I did not even attempt.  More pictures of K. & my baking after the jump.

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