June 2005 Archives

Get those cameras and entries ready!

Food Fight #3 ends July 6th. Rules and prize info here. The winner this time get a tin of Survival Spice™, a Desert Island Foods™ T-shirt and a DIF refrigerator magnet.

There may be prizes for runners up if the competition is particularly fierce, and I hope it is. And remember, have fun with it. Fun counts, a hot dog can beat a filet mignon if it's done really well in an imaginitive enough way. Okay, that might take some doing but it's possible...

What are you making?

Raided the fridge for dinner yesterday, time's a bit tight these days keeping up with Desert Island Foods™ biz.

I had made this stuffed pork loin for about 25 friends and family members this winter and had some left over. Normally I would have done a roulade with it but with having to do 2 full loins in the time I had, I figured I'd try it this way. The stuffing was probably hot Italian sausage, pine nuts, parsley, garlic, Colman's mustard and fresh bread crumbs, though I tend to do it differently every time. I seared it on the grill with a bit of pecan wood then finished it in the oven, you can see a bit of the smoke ring in the pork if you look closely.

I originally served it with a Poblano creme sauce but that was gone. For this, I just reduced some chicken stock with some mustard and fresh rosemary and thyme. Sliced the now-thawed loin and simmered it in the sauce so it could pick up some of the pork and stuffing flavors.

The potatoes were in the freezer too, an American take on Pommes de Terre Boulangere. Sliced potatoes baked in chicken stock, onions and fresh thyme. Topped off with Jack and Cheddar cheese and broiled until brown and bubbly. Kids call them 'Cheesey Potatoes' and I like that name just as well, really!

Man, is Michel (aka King Cone) obsessed with French Belgian Fries! Here's a Belgian website dedicated to the fried potato. The site includes a section dedicated to the "frietkot" or fry shack, little booths that serve only fries.

He also includes the recipe for preparing and cooking a proper fry, which I endorse. The twice cooked method is the ultimate way of insuring a crispy fry that's tender inside. Unfortunately there's no direct link to the recipes section so follow the main link above and click on 'recipes' in the left sidebar.

BTW, a Belgian fry is never served with ketchup or vinegar, only mayonaise. Okay, he kinda loses me there...

Check out the site, this guy is really into it!

Desert Island Foods™.com got a nice mention at Fiery Foods.com yesterday. The site seems to have no permalinks, follow the link and scroll to "New Culinary Website...")

Thanks, Dave!

While I was at Fiery Foods.com, I noticed an article (no permalinks, scroll to "Dietary Agents in Red Chile Pepper...") on the health effects of capsaicin:

The first study, abstract number 2469, looked at the chemotherapeutic potential of capsaicin, the “hot” ingredient in red chile pepper that is often associated with antioxidative and anti-inflammatory activities, and found that it exhibited anticancer activity against pancreatic cancer cells.

The report also mentions brocolli but the Fiery Foods article naturally focuses on the hot stuff.

BTW, the whole Fiery Foods site is a terrific resource for true chili-heads. Bookmark it and check it often! Here's Dave's latest book:

The National Pork Board has announced its goal to increase the fat content in pork products by a few percent in the coming years, due to criticism of now widely-used practices of "enhancing" pork by basically brining the product to add moisture and customers trending towards more natural and organic food choices.

The Reuters article continues:

"Some people think we've gone too far in taking all the fat out," said David Meisinger, assistant vice president of educational services at the National Pork Board.

"When consumers buy pork, they don't want to see any fat in there. But when they eat it, they like the flavor and juiciness that a little bit of fat gives it."

Meisinger emphasized that this new pork will not be the high-fat, high-cholesterol variety that the industry abandoned two decades ago when it began likening itself to chicken with its well-known "Pork: The Other White Meat" ad campaign.

The goal is to keep pork healthy and lean while improving taste and texture by adding more marbling, Meisinger said, referring to the intramuscular fat that makes meat more juicy and tasty.

With more marbling, cuts may go from 99 percent lean to 97 or 98 percent lean, he said.

What a concept. Developing a product that actually tastes good instead of injecting crap with space-age polymers.

I like a fattier cut myself, like a shoulder or the pork butt pictured above, rubbed with Survival Spice™, and cooked low and slow in a smoker, in an oven or a combination of both. Always cook your meat cut fatty side up so as the fat renders during cooking it flows through the meat, adding flavor.

If you're cooking a chop or tenderloin, don't cook it until it's as hard as a brick, either. When in doubt, use a meat thermometer and pull it from the heat at around 145º. Carry-over cooking will take it to 150º. People are a bit overly concerned about trychnosis, which is just about unheard of these days and is killed at 138º anyway.

Denny's has announced a make-over of their menu to be headed by Peter Gibbons, a CIA grad with 25 years experience in the biz, including Burger King's recent menu changes.

I've stumbled into a few Denny's in the wee hours more times than I care to admit, but I never thought I'd see a Grand Slam® Rossini on the menu. How he's going to be able to offer truffles and foix gras along with 2 eggs, bacon, sausage, and 2 tasty pancakes for only $5.95?

A Stop & Shop press release out today details the preparations they're making for the Fourth of July weekend coming soon:

Stop & Shop estimates that 220 tons of charcoal briquettes will be spirited away by barbecue-crazed shoppers for this holiday weekend, as well as 240,000 bamboo barbecue skewers. Not to be overlooked are the 3 million ears of corn about to disappear from the produce section at the supermarket chain. An estimated 125 tons of deli salad will be tamped down into those little containers, 1.8 million pounds of cherries will find their way hopefully unscathed into grocery bags on July 4th weekend. Plus, there will be a huge demand for American cheese: 250 tons of it! Anyone for a cheeseburger?

It also looks like there will be much singing around the campfire on Independence Day weekend. Stop & Shop estimates they will sell 150,000 bags of marshmallows.

Hey, speaking of stocking up, don't forget the Survival Spice™! In addition to being the ultimate dry spice rub for ribs, steaks, chops and chicken it's great mixed in with ground beef for your burgers!

(Photo: Scharffen Berger)

Apparently you should. Recent studies have confirmed that dark chocolate contains epicatechin, a plant flavinoid that reduce the risk of blood clots and prevent cholesterol from clotting in blood vessels.

About half of the flavinoids in dark chocolate are typically destroyed in the manufacturing process but new processes can keep up to 95% of the epicatechin intact, says an article I read at Web MD.com.

A Reuters article describes the effects of dark chocolate on the body:

The researchers examined the effects of flavonoid-rich dark chocolate on blood-vessel function in 17 young, healthy volunteers over a 3-hour period after they consumed 100 grams of a commercially available dark chocolate.

The investigators saw that an artery in the arm dilated significantly more in response to an increase in bloodflow. Chocolate consumption also led to a significant 7-percent decrease in aortic stiffness.

"The predominant mechanism appears to be dilation of small and medium-sized peripheral arteries and arterioles," (Dr.) Vlachopoulos and colleagues suggest.

Where do you sign up for a chocolate-eating study? One bad side to this- chocolate still has a lot of calories, so you're going to give up something else to compensate.

So, after a lot of thought, I've decided to give up vegetables- hey, it's for science!

(Photo:AFP)

PETA is holding it's 'world's sexiest vegetarian' contest across the globe in an effort to promote a meat-free lifestyle, according to an AFP article:

"Celebrities are shunning meat faster than you can say tofu", PETA Asia-Pacific director Jason Baker said in a statement. "After all, what's sexier than someone who's both passionate and compassionate?"

In the lead in the worldwide vote are American Idol winner Carrie Underwood, Canadian pop star Avril Lavigne and actress Gwyneth Paltrow.

Among men, British "Batman Begins" star Christian Bale is ahead of American actor Samuel L. Jackson and Britain's Coldplay leader singer Chris Martin.

Whatever turns you on, I guess...

The new Desert Island Foods™.com site is now live for your drinking, dancing and hopefully shopping pleasure!

Please check it out and let us know what you think.

I'd like to again thank Gary Sanders at iBlue.com for all his hard work on the programming. Nicole and Gabe Bonilla at Bonilla Design provided the visual design for the site and our packaging and marketing artwork.

These people are true professionals and do creative and meticulous work, which is a rare combination of attributes.

For those of you that may have missed the first two, "Food Fight™" is a photo and recipe contest. Submit a picture of a dish you've made along with the recipe. Winners get their entry in the "Food Fight™ Hall of Fame", a Desert Island Foods™ T-Shirt, a tin of Survival Spice™ and a Desert Island Foods™ refrigerator magnet.

See your recipe in lights!!! Be a home chef superstar!!! Kill a little time and have fun doing it!!!

This contest will run through the Fourth of July so keep your cameras handy!

The Rules, once again:

Imagination, execution and "drool factor" are the primary judging criteria. If your dish is lavish, fine, but a hot dog can still kick your ass if it's done well. I'm not saying the judges are going to favor recipes using Desert Island Foods.com™ products, but it could break a tie.

Photos must be transmitted via email with the subject line "Food Fight submission", should be no larger than about 500 pixels in any dimension and no more than 200K in size. If any of this tech stuff makes you dizzy, submit it anyway you can and I'll convert it for you if you win.

Recipes should be easy to understand and in this format:

1) Title
2) Your degree of difficulty from 1 (easy) to 5 (hard)
3) Approximate prep and cooking times
4) Full list of ingredients in U.S. units
5) Numbered easy to follow preparation steps.

If your dish is somewhat elaborate, which is great, wherever practical try to provide time-saving hints if someone wants to make your dish in a hurry.

Good luck! The contest will end July 6th, the Wednesday after the Fourth of July. Let's have some great BBQ pics! Make sure to take nice close-ups of your dish, a few of them last time were taken too far away to have any "drool" factor and that hurt you in the scoring.

The lawyers make me post this:

Legal Notice:

By posting to "Food Fight™", you retain the rights to your pictures and recipes but grant Desert Island Foods™, LLC. and its present and future affiliates or assigns permission to use, publish and reproduce your pictures, recipes and comments in perpetuity.

Get cooking! And remember, have fun with it. Fun counts...

(AP Photo)

Here's a great story from the AP to chew on this morning:

VERONA, Va. - Janet Dob found a better way to boil a bagel, quite by mistake.

Her accidental invention gave rise to a business, entangled her in red tape, left her morose in her pajamas, exposed her to the helping hands and hurdles of government and finally became her life's work.

So it goes for those who create a small business in America.

Perils exist at every turn. Many startups rapidly fail, and only about half survive as long as five years, says the National Federation of Independent Business.

Dob, 52, has yet to get rich, but she's plenty busy, and her business making Bake'mmm bagels is, finally, growing, now posting $750,000 in sales in a year. The business operates in the Blue Ridge Mountain town of Verona — population 3,638.

Truly an inspiring story of entrepreneurial spirit, innovation and perserverance.

Go read the whole thing and get inspired!

...the new Desert Island Foods site. Hopefully I can switch the domains tonight and have it live tomorrow morning. Light blogging for the rest of the day...

(Photo: Reuters)

Whale burgers? Oh, brother:

The 380 yen slice of fried minke whale in a bun went on sale on Thursday at Lucky Pierrot, a restaurant chain in the port city of Hakodate on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido.

"The taste and texture are somewhere between beef and fish," said Lucky Pierrot manager Miku Oh. "People in Hakodate have a long history of eating whale, so customers are looking forward to trying it."

Finally! Something that doesn't taste like chicken.

Update: Speed of Thought, a terrific Tucson blog, has more, including a bit on the political ramifications Chris mentioned.

(Photo:AP)

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!

Okay, I'm exaggerating but a 25 foot tall, 35,000 pound popsicle built by Snapple as a promotional gimmick nearly collapsed as it was being erected in Central Park in NYC Tuesday. From the AP:

Snapple had been trying to promote a new line of frozen treats by setting a record for the world's largest ice pop, but called off the stunt before it was pulled fully upright by a construction crane. Officials said they were worried the thing would collapse in the 80-degree, first-day-of-summer heat.

"We planned for this. ... We just didn't expect for it to happen so fast," said Snapple spokeswoman Lauren Radcliffe. She said the company would offer to pay the city for the cleanup costs.

The giant ice pop was supposed to have been able to withstand the heat for some time, and organizers weren't sure why it didn't. It had been made in Edison, N.J., and hauled to New York by freezer truck in the morning.

"My theory is that it was a combination of the heat ... and it may not have been frozen all the way through," Radcliffe said.

I would think it unlikely that they would try it here in Phoenix...

Dr. Biggles is on fire.

Steak grilled Thai-style (Photo- Linda Spillers, NYT)

Good story in the NY Times about the 39th annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival, a 10-day event starting tomorrow on the National Mall in Washington:

For the first time, the festival will devote an entire program to food culture, celebrating the revolution in cooking and farming that has taken place in the United States over the last 40 years. The tradition and innovation of American cuisine will be explored through the cooking of recent immigrants, as Ms. Daks once was; the sustainable agriculture movement; and the role chefs and cooks play.

"The intersection is where the term food revolution comes from," said Stephen Kidd, a curator of the program. "Things people think of as new have a strong connection to the culture of the past,"

Interesting perspective on how accesible ingredients that were once considered exotic in this country are now, and the continuing assimilation of our culture through food.

Well worth reading the whole thing, I think.

Thanks to John for the link.

Ladies, want to look six years older? Another study indicates slathering yourself with grapefruit may not make you look younger in your eyes, but us Ponce de Leon types love it:

A study of smells shows that the scent of grapefruit on women make them seem about six years younger to men. However, grapefruit fragrance on men does nothing for them.

The study by the Smell and Taste Institute in Chicago was conducted by Institute director Alan Hirsch. Hirsch smeared several middle-aged woman with broccoli, banana, spearmint leaves, and lavender but none of those scents made a difference to the men.

But the scent of grapefruit changed men's perceptions. Hirsch said that when male volunteers were asked to write down how old the woman with grapefruit odor was, the age was considerably less than reality.

This Hirsch guy sounds a bit kinky. That's a study, is it? I guess we've all done a few "studies" in our day...

I read an interesting article from the AP about a Dutch study showing high doses of folic acid may slow the onset of Alzheimer's disease:

In the study, 818 cognitively healthy people ages 50 to 75 swallowed either folic acid or a dummy pill for three years.

On memory tests, the supplement users had scores comparable to people 5.5 years younger, Durga said. On tests of cognitive speed, the folic acid helped users perform as well as people 1.9 years younger.

That's significant brain protection, with a supplement that's already well-known to be safe, said Johns Hopkins University neuroscientist Marilyn Albert, who chairs the Alzheimer's Association's science advisory council.

"I think I would take folic acid, assuming my doctor said it was OK," Albert said. "We know Alzheimer's disease, the pathology, begins many, many years before the symptoms. We ought to be thinking about the health of our brain the same way we think about the health of our heart."

It makes sense, really. It is known already that folic acid is essential for new cell growth. A B-complex vitamin, it occurs naturally in strawberries, leafy greens and oranges but is mostly destroyed in the cooking process. Cereals have been fortified with it for quite a while now, too.

The study also mentions the importance of being active mentally as you age. Well worth reading, especially if the disease runs in your family.

Oh boy, what a can of worms this is. Everybody's got their own way of making red sauce and I'm down with that. My version in a nutshell?

Sauce for pasta- crushed tomatoes, good olive oil, a bit of garlic, torn basil leaves.
Sauce for pizza- crushed tomatoes, good olive oil, a bit of garlic, fresh oregano, crushed red pepper.

That's it. Really. You can embellish it to a particular recipe but if you're just making sauce to can or keep in the fridge for a few weeks, keep it simple and customize it to your particular dish. And don't cook your basic sauce for hours and hours, if you later want to simmer braciola or an al sugo meat sauce until it falls apart, that's a different story entirely...

Great Italian food, and I was lucky to learn Italian cooking from old country Italians in a great restaurant kitchen, is about simple flavors.

I was at a dinner party the other night and a friend was lamenting about how she had paid $29 or something like that to learn how to make a basic spaghetti sauce at a cooking class. What a waste of time, especially as the recipe involved tomatoes and sugar. Sugar! Bleech.

I mentioned that she could buy a comprehensive book that would give her the basic techniques she needed. She asked me to source a book that would give her some basic information and this is what I found.

I have to say that I haven't read the whole thing, but it looks really good. If you're passionate about learning how to make great sauces this book will definitely get you on your way.

(Photo: Reuters)

What good is having your own sandwich if you can't eat it? Sarah Ferguson got a signature sandwich creation courtesy of New York's Stage Deli called the "Duchess of York"- grilled chicken breast topped with melted Muenster cheese and wasabi horseradish mayonnaise.

From Reuters:

"You can have a bit of this sandwich as I have," she told reporters, standing behind the counter at New York's Stage Deli. "Just don't eat the whole thing."

An endorsee of GourMayo and Weight Watchers, the article fails to mention the type of bread it is featured on. What's up with that? Can't these guys write food articles?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Finally! We're in final testing of the new site and will have the "doors" open in the middle of the week so we can get your Fourth of July orders filled.

Our beginning inventory will include Survival Spice™, our all natural dry spice blend, Tibvrtini Extra Virgin Olive Oil, voted one of the 7 best olive oils in the world, and Tibvrtini Aceto di Vino Bianco, a white wine vinegar that hasn't been available outside of Italy until now.

We also will have DIF T-shirts and really cool DIF refrigerator magnets.

This has been a long time in the making, thanks for being so patient!

Talk about running up a tab!

The officials of a Shaanxi province in China have run up such a large tab that the restaurant owner estimates it will take 36 years to pay off:

"The town government can only pay 5,000 yuan a year and they owe 180,000 yuan, so it will take 36 years to pay back -- that's a lifetime," Wei Zhongqin, the owner of the now bankrupt restaurant, was quoted as saying.

What's this guy serving- gold plated duck?

I love England. The people, their long history, the beautiful countryside, and their amazing beer but ya gotta admit, they'll eat anything when they're bored!

Last month I posted about their fondess for rolling down hills to catch a lump of cheese and now this -feasting on stinging nettles.

From the Reuters article:

Competitors must pluck and eat as many leaves as they can from the feathery, stinging plants in the space of one hour. Their achievement is measured in feet and inches -- the combined length of the bare stems they discard.

"You have to adopt the correct technique to stand any chance of winning," said Shane Pym, landlord of the Bottle Inn. www.thebottleinn.co.uk.

"The art is to fold the top of the leaf inwards, get it past the lips, crunch it and then get it down the neck. You can't let your mouth get dry or you will get stung."

Beer drinking is allowed but mouth numbing drugs are not. I guess the brain-numbing will have to do.

Bottle of Wine

Sally was driving home from one of her business trips in Northern Arizona when she saw an elderly Navajo woman walking on the side of the road. As the trip was a long and quiet one, she stopped the car and asked the Navajo woman if she would like a ride.

With a silent nod of thanks, the woman got into the car. Resuming the journey, Sally tried in vain to make a bit of small talk with the Navajo woman. The old woman just sat silently, looking intently at everything she saw, studying every little detail, until she noticed a brown bag on the seat next to Sally.

"What's in the bag?" asked the old woman.

Sally looked down at the brown bag and said, "It's a bottle of wine. I got it for my husband."
The Navajo woman was silent for another moment or two. Then speaking with the quiet wisdom of an elder, she said, "Good trade."

Thanks to Casey for the joke. Have a great weekend!

Okay, enough studies! Here's something to really give a "hoot" about, from a recent Hooter's press release:

One hundred nine Hooters Girls from the famed Hooters Restaurants have won a chance to compete in the 9th Annual Hooters International Swimsuit Pageant, it was announced today by Hooters of America Vice President Mike McNeil. "We congratulate the Hooters 109," said McNeil.

The finalists were selected from the over 15,000 Hooters Girls worldwide who presently work in the chain's 400 restaurants. Hooters Restaurants are well established eateries in 46 states and 16 countries. "Name me one other pageant that can introduce Ms. Zagreb to Ms. Atlanta and have them have the Hooters experience in common," quipped McNeil.

The 2005 Hooters International Swimsuit Pageant will be welcomed back to Miami this year by a sold out live audience. It is seen by thousands of customers who watch the events unfold on television in Hooters restaurants everywhere. Hosted this year by popular TV personality Brooke Burke, the Pageant will be aired live via a closed circuit broadcast from the Jackie Gleason Theater on Tuesday, June 28, 2005, beginning at 7:00 p.m. EST.

A panel that includes NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Chris Rose and Leeann Tweeden of the Best Damn Sports Show and soon to be seen on NASCAR Nation will judge the contestants.

Man, they've really played this for all it's worth, haven't they? First a restaurant chain, then an airline and now a casino to open in Vegas in 2006. You can watch the contest at Hooter's on June 28th.

Hmmm, not sure about this one I saw at Reuters.

Apparently, the message is getting out. Since food manufacturers have responded to public pressure and introduced healthier foods, as well as targeting older snackers with junk food advertising, kids 2 to 12 have indicated their #1 snack food preference is fruit.

Older teens and adults still favor gum and chocolate, according to the article:

"It's surprising to see that the number one category of snacks consumed by children is fresh fruit," Harry Balzer, vice president at NPD Group, said in a statement. "As we age, the importance of fruit drops as convenient snacks take hold."

The report comes as concerns about the roughly 15 percent of U.S. children and adolescents who are overweight or obese have received widespread media attention.

Interesting but I'm a bit skeptical about the size and demographics of the study group. I would be curious what the most popular fruit was. Apple? Banannas?

What's your favorite fruit?

More studies on food safety have come out in the last few days. This one indicates that a compound found in rosemary and also in oregano, basil and sage reduce cancer-forming compounds when added to ground beef before cooking. This from Reuters:

The investigators found that when they added antioxidants extracted from rosemary to ground beef, the hamburgers contained smaller amounts of heterocyclic amines, or HCAs, carcinogenic compounds that form when muscle meats like beef, pork and poultry are cooked at high temperatures.

The antioxidants likely reduce HCAs by blocking the chemical process that creates the cancer-causing compounds, Smith noted.

I don't think anybody is exactly sure what happens in the cooking process but a concensus seems to be forming- avoid flare-ups when grilling and don't eat the charred bits. Of course, when grilling you should be doing this anyway...

Easy and good. Here's how I like to grill salmon fillets. A bit of oil and Survival Spice™ on the top and the bottom gets oil and a generous amount of kosher salt to help crisp it.

Onto a medium-high grill bottom side down until the skin is set up enough to remove. Flip the salmon onto the presentation side a a slight angle (if quadrillage is your bag), remove the skin and keep it on the grill where it will get enough heat to get crispy but not burned. If there is a lot of dark meat on the filet, scrape most of it off with your spatula and season the bottom with more Survival Spice™.

Turn, don't flip the fish 60º when your fish has the first grill marks. Grill a few more minutes until your presentation side looks good. Flip the fillet onto its now-seasoned bottom and cook until done.

I'm begging you, don't overcook your fish! Most people grill fish until it flakes and that's too late. By the time the connective tissue (myocommata, for bonus points) breaks down the actual meat is overdone. You want to pull it off the grill just before it flakes and carry over heat will do the rest.

Cut your crispy salmon skin into strips. I really like salmon skin if it's cooked well, some folks don't. Such is life.

Oh, the asparagus? Oiled and salted, onto the grill. A good squirt of lemon when it comes off. Easy.

Ah, the law of unintended consequences! A new 8 year study has noted a correlation between diet soft drinks and obesity. No surprise there, but a theory suggests the body may crave additional calories after ingesting a substance it perceives to be sweet. Leslie Bonci, sports nutritionist, states in a Fox News article:

"People think they can just fool the body. But maybe the body isn't fooled," she says. "If you are not giving your body those calories you promised it, maybe your body will retaliate by wanting more calories. Some soft drink studies do suggest that diet drinks stimulate appetite."

The article also points out there is no direct link between diet drinks and obesity and there are other issues involved.

Personally, I don't drink diet drinks because I don't like the taste and I have a real aversion to 'space age polymers' in what I eat anyway. To me, these studies leave a lot to be desired and this one reminds me of the debate on whether red wine is good for you. Is it something in red wine (it's pretty well accepted now that there is) or is the fact that you're taking an hour or so to relax that does you the most good? Moderate wine drinkers tend to be higher wage earners that presumably have access to better health care, too, if they take advantage of it. Could that contribute as well? Okay, I digress...

Lots of good stuff in the article, take a minute to check it out if you're so inclined.

the pragmatic chef's™ Traditional New Mexico-style Pork Chile (pictured with corn risotto)

Emily and a few other people have asked for a recipe for the Pork chile I made last weekend so here's a basic rundown.

There are a million variations to this but make it the basic way the first time so you know what the dish is really about, hearty, basic, delicious flavors. I learned about this from a friend of mine from New Mexico. I asked him to teach me how he makes his green posole, but he said he'd have to kill me...

Always keep in mind that everything needs to be proportional to how much meat you end up with, so if your pork cooks down to nothing, don't just blindly chuck the rest of it in by rote.

The recipe is in the extended entry.

Apparently, concept restaurants aren't extinct after all. A dinosaur-themed concept is set to launch next year in Kansas City, created by Steve Schussler, who brought the Rainforest Café into the restaurant jungle originally.

This from an a Motley Fool article:

With cascading waterfalls and robotic critters, the concept doesn't seem too far off the mark from Schussler's original creation. This one takes a prehistoric bent, with ice caves, fossil dig sites and bubbling geysers. The dinosaur-themed dining and shopping concept will debut in Kansas City next year, with seven more locations to follow.

Interesting article on the business side of concept restaurant investing, if that sort of thing interests you.

Photo: Holmen Meat Market

Dr. Biggles, proprietor of the terrific food blog MeatHenge, mentioned lardonaise yesterday and it got me thinking about larding and barding.

A lot of you might not know these terms, so here's my take on it. They both involve adding fat to prevent moisture loss and contribute flavor to a dish. The main difference is that larding involves adding fat to the inside of your dish and barding is outside. Larding can be done by creating pockets stuffed with your fat of choice, bacon, salt pork, etc. or just rolling it up inside to create a roulade.

Barding is wrapping with fat on the exterior. Again it can be strips of bacon, pancetta, ham, or sheets of cowl fat. What's cowl fat? That's another post...

While I'm thinking about keeping meat moist, let's talk about basting. You should never baste with a liquid with less fat than what you're basting or you'll actually dry your dish out, because the hot liquids (your basting liquid and the juices in your turkey, for example) will try to reach equilibrium, which translates to a dry bird.

Sound familiar? Now you know why.

It's Flag Day today and every June 14th, for that matter, which got me thinking about red, white and blue food.

Has it ever been done well in a truly foodie heaven way? As far as entrees, I think the tough color would be blue. It's easier, of course, to plan a menu with seperate red, white and blue courses/dishes but how do you do a single dish without it looking like a train wreck? A lasagna? Could you do a squid ink lasagna noodle and pass it off as blue, layering the same color on top of itself so each piece would be a different color? You could cut strips across all 3 colors when you plated it, sort of like neopolitan ice cream.

A dessert would be easier, maybe a strawberry/blueberry angel food or layered cheese cake, or how about a sorbet or granita?

Let's have some fun with this. Maybe we should have a Red, White and Blue Food Fight for the Fourth of July, along with a regular contest. Any thoughts?

And hang that flag today if you've got one...

I saw this over at EGullet.

Luscious Gournets is launching a sexy cooking school show and is looking for applicants. Dress up in your finest (ergo, sleasiest) club wear and cook gourmet meals with the cameras rolling.

Luscious Gourmets Television Entertainment:

Is an instructional reality gourmet television video / DVD series.
Blends "real-life TV", "how-to makeover TV", "lifestyles of the wealthy TV", "cooking and cinema TV" and "celebrity chef TV".
Selects as venues for the television production only the best designed and most well-equipped kitchens in elite private homes.

Apply here, or just get a frickin' life and don't bother. What exactly is club wear, anyway?

Sheesh.

I love cooking Southwest dishes and man, did this turn out well! Twice cooked pork (simmered in water for 2 hours), then cut up and fried. Defat the cooking liquid, add it to the now crispy pork. Make a corn meal slurry to thicken the stew along with some roasted pureéd New Mexico chiles, garlic and oregano and simmer for a few more hours. A great change from traditional chile with beans, hearty and filling.

The corn risotto is a take-off on the classic rice dish. Sweat a chopped onion in butter, add fresh cut corn, a finely diced jalapeño or serrano and toss. Add some cream and simmer a bit more to reduce the cream. Top with grated cheese (Jack, Fontina or whatever you have around) and pop under the broiler for a few minutes until the cheese is browned and bubbly. If you want to present it like I did, let it cool to room temperature.

To assemble, scoop chile into your bowl, cut a wedge of the risotto and place it in the middle of the bowl and back under the broiler or into a hot oven until it's bubbly again.

Serve with warm tortillas.

To continue the breakfast theme this morning, Ronald McDonald® is getting into the delivery biz. Er, if you're a cop, fire fighter or hospital employee in the Philly area this week, at least. Via Yahoo:

"These breakfast deliveries are just a small gesture of our appreciation for the hard work and long hours our local heroes dedicate to the businesses and people in our communities," said Mike Anton, President of the McDonald's Owner/Operator Association of the Greater Philadelphia Region.

This is part of an advertising campaign to promote Mickey D's "When You're Up, We're Up" campaign but still a nice thing to do.

Hope you had a good weekend! Here's something to read with the morning coffee, but this isn't a good sign for Krispy Kreme. Via Reuters:

The court-appointed monitor of a Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc.(KKD.N: Quote, Profile, Research) franchisee in Canada that has suffered steep losses began selling the operator's doughnut-making equipment, store leases and other assets, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site Friday.

[edit]

Krispy Kreme, based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, owns 40.6 percent of the operation, which once planned to open more than 30 stores but had only a dozen as of April, the newspaper said.

C'mon, Canada, get out there and have a doughnut this morning!! Hmmm, gives idea...

Actually, it was lunch today, but I love quesadillas. Such an easy and delicious way to use up leftovers. Grated Jack and Cheddar cheeses, some salsa, homegrown oregano and you're all set.

Easy to prepare, too. Fire up your grill with a medium fire or pre-heat a 375º oven. (If you use your oven, make sure there's something on the shelf underneath your quesadilla to catch drippings.

If you have a pizza pan or sizzle platter fine, otherwise you what you've got. Start with a little oil on the platter and lay down your first tortilla. Use whatever you want for filling, just make sure it's cooked first, the veggies in mine would have never gotten cooked in time if I hadn't. You really should have some kind of cheese to hold it together if you want to flip it. Don't overfill it! Lay your top tortilla in place and brush some more oil on top.

Slide your prepared quesadilla onto the grill or oven rack. Give it a few minutes, take a peak underneath and rotate 60º if you've gotten your grill marks going. (Proper quadrillage is always worth bonus points in my book.)

Okay, flipping. The easiest way is to put your plate back on top of the quesadilla, slide your spatula (wide is good) underneath and whle pressing down a bit with the platter, smoothly and confidently turn the whole thing over in one movement.

Grill the other side until the whole thing is nice and gooey. Check it by lightly lifting the top tortilla. Slide it back onto the platter and serve with more cheese, sour cream and guacamole.

Oh, and a nice cold Shiner Bock. Life is good...

Thanks for stopping by, I'm proud to be part of the 43rd Carnival of the Recipes. I hope you'll take a few minutes to wander around, check out the "What did you have for dinner last night?" and "Recipes" categories if you're looking for food ideas for the weekend. There's lots of other humorous, entertaining (I think), and occasionally informative stuff in the rest of the site.

update:We run a fun food photo contest called Food Fight. The winner and runner-ups win DIF products and T-shirts. Check back in a week or so for the start of the next Fight. The rules and judging criteria are here. Recent winners are under the "Food Fight" category.

I run a fairly apolitical place around here, I think if you can't keep the politics out of food we're all in trouble!. Please bookmark TPC if you're so inclined...

The new Desert Island Foods™.com will be ready in 2 weeks, in plenty time to ship before your 4th of July BBQs. We offer all natural products with no preseratives, MSG or space-age polymers.

Thanks again for visiting, have a great weekend!

Scott P

the pragmatic chef™

Via Hospitality.net:

Mandalay Bay today announced that BATHHOUSE Spa has been selected as the winner of the first annual Creative Achievement Award for best spa design by Hospitality Design Magazine, the premier architecture and design publication for the hospitality industry. Created by New York-based design firm Richardson Sadeki, BATHHOUSE Spa is located on the second floor of THEhotel at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada.

"BATHHOUSE Spa is one of the most striking and dramatic projects that has ever come across our desks here at Hospitality Design," said Michael Adams, editor-in-chief of the publication. "We rarely highlight spas on the cover of HD, but given its exquisite features, we were compelled to feature BATHHOUSE on the cover of our August 2004 issue.

The picture is of the ladies pool, more pics in the article. Interesting design but a bit stark for me, kinda "nouveau upscale bunker". Very shee-shee, though this old news, judging by the cover date. I wonder what the spa at Steve Wynn's new place looks like?

I'm not sure about a few of these, but hey, it's Friday! Sent in by reader Val, who is also a birthday girl, I'm told. Happy Birthday, Val!

1. Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of cotton.
2. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.
3. The dot over the letter i is called a "tittle."  
4. A raisin dropped   in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up & down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
5. Susan Lucci is the daughter of  Phyllis Diller. 
6. 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.
7. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.
8. The 'spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor, who had red eyes. He was albino.
9. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents, daily.
10. Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.
11. Chocolate affects a  dog's heart and nervous system; a few ounces will kill  a small sized dog.
12. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.
13. Most lipstick contains fish scales.
14. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
15. Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine.
16. Upper and lower case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower' because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the 'upper case' letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, 'lower case' letters.
17. Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time ... hence, multitasking was invented.
18.  Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.
19. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.
20. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan; there was never a recorded Wendy before!
21. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and silver!
22.  Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors. Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa's lips.
23. A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
24. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was a Captain Kirk mask painted white.
25. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
26. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand.
27. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law, which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
28. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.
29. Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.  It's the same with apples! [I doubt this is true with apples-TPC]
30.  Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!
31. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
32. Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.
33. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a space suit damages it.

We're excited to announce that Desert Island Foods™.com will be carrying Tibvrtini's Olio Extra Vergine di Oliva and their Fratelli Pofi Aceto di Vino Bianco, that's Extra Virgin Olive Oil and White Wine Vinegar to the non-paisanos, which includes me.

I tasted these great products at the recent Fancy Foods Show in Chicago.

Tibvrtini products are organically raised on a 40 acre family-owned farm outside of Rome and are only sold through select few gourmet outlets across the country. They're not cheap products by any means, but Tibvrtini is very enthusiastic about our concept of delivering all-natural products without taking ourselves too seriously and we got a great deal we'll be able to pass on to you.

Out of the hundreds of things I tasted at the show, these were at the top of my "I have to carry these" list. The quality and freshness of their products is absolutely astounding, I could have sat there dipping crusty bread, alternating between the oil and the white wine vinegar for hours. Maybe I did, I kind of lost track of time for a while...

Lots more information coming. Are you as excited about this as I am?

(Photo:AP)

Like popcorn? Love popcorn? Capable of eating 12 boxes of popcorn in 10 minutes? Sonya "Black Widow" Thomas proved she can by winning a popcorn eating contest in Hollywood Wednesday. Via Yahoo news:

Thomas, of Alexandria, Va., and Rich LeFevre, of Henderson, Nev., were tied after 12 boxes, but judges ruled Thomas the winner because LeFevre had spilled a few kernels.

For the win, Thomas received an MTV Movie Awards talent gift basket worth an estimated $10,000.

In August, the 105-pound Thomas downed 38 lobsters in 12 minutes to win the World Lobster Eating Contest. She won $500 and a trophy belt for her efforts, consuming 9.76 pounds of lobster meat.

Days before the lobster contest, the speed-eater consumed 8.4 pounds of beans with pork in 2 minutes and 47 seconds. She also holds records for hard-boiled eggs.

How did she get the nickname "Black Widow" anyway? Maybe she challenged a few ex-hubbies to an eating contest...

I also grilled a few ears of corn. This is so easy, I don't know why people make a huge production out of it and it's a great technique because the corn is cooked in the husk, which gives it even more flavor.

Lay the whole ear on a hot fire, husk and all. You can pre-soak but with really fresh corn I don't feel it's necessary, the kernels and the silk should contribute enough moisture to create the steam you need. Keep it turning, removing the husk layer by layer as they burn away. You don't want to do this too early because you'll lose that seal that's keeping the steam in. I keep a plastic bag around for the husks and I just hold the ear with my tongs and pull the husks off by hand. You might want to keep a side towel handy for this if you're not a total masochist like I am...

In around 15 minutes, push on a few kernels. If they feel soft and well, cooked you're about there. Take off the rest of the husk, give the corn a few minutes on the coals to sear off the silk, and enjoy!

Easy and amazing. Zip the rosemary leaves off into a ramekin with a little olive oil while you're seasoning the fish, which was just canola oil and Survival Spice™.

Season the squash with S & P then drizzle with the infused oil. Don't do this too far in advance so your veg doesn't absorb too much oil and get mushy. 10 minutes is plenty. This is all about fresh, clean flavors.

Drizzle the fish with a bit more oil, then lay the ahi best side down on the hottest part of the fire and the squash away from it a bit. If the fish sticks, don't move it! Eventually it will lift away on its own.

After a few minutes, sneak a look at the fish and squash to see if you have grill marks yet. If you do, rotate 60º and give it a few more minutes. Flip and get ready to plate! Ahi should not be overcooked. Feel it with your finger, if it's mushy wait a minute. When it's just starting to set up but still has some give to it, you're good to go!

Okay, while we're on the topic of Jacques and I got a good response to the last "Spicy or Mild" post featuring a male chef, how about Jacques, ladies? Spicy or mild?

I'm no expert on this specific topic myself, but I'd put on something frilly of Jacques was cookin' for me...

As always, a helpful Scoville scale is provided here.

I have quite a few cookbooks, but this companion book to the PBS series is really, really great. I'm a big fan of Jacques anyway, but this book exemplifies simple, amazing cooking far better than I can. Typically, when I browse through a cook book a few recipes catch my eye, but all the recipes in this book are so compelling I want to try all of them. As I get around to trying them, I'll post them for your drooling pleasure.

Of all the books I've referred to so far, this is my favorite.

If you're interested in cooking at all, you really should be watching this show anyway.

Fair disclosure- I get a small commission if you buy this book from Amazon via this link. Is that so bad?

update: The link to the PBS show site is here. Notice that the price of the book on the PBS site is $24.

Interesting article I had missed in the Guardian I found over at EGullet.

Written in time for the Observer Food Monthly's fiftieth edition, they asked British food notables for their lists of "50 things to do before I die" and assembled them into this interesting list, which sadly I barely made it into double digits on. I'd especially like to cross off #11!

How many have you done?

Shrimp with spaghetti in a sauce made from butter/olive oil, lots of garlic, white wine and a bit of chicken stock and parsley, topped with asiago cheese.

I wanted to show you this dish as another variation of the simple pan technique I mentioned here last week.

I had a few emails after I posted that entry asking what the exact amounts of wine and stock were. I can't tell you that, not because it's some big secret but because this is more of a technique than a recipe.

The type of wine and the stock you have on hand are going to vary, depending on what's around. If you have a sweet wine like a Reisling, for example, you might want to not use as much as you would if you had a bottle of Pinot Grigio.

On the other hand, if you have some really good homemade stock you might want to really feature that, conversely if all you have is some canned stock that doesn't have much flavor you might need to use twice as much and then reduce it until it has some taste. Be careful when you do this though, it may become quite salty, you might not need much salt later.

TASTE AS YOU GO!!!! TASTE, TASTE, TASTE!!!!

Didn't mean to shout but I hope you get my point. Using what's on hand is much more interesting to me because I'm not eating the same old thing all the time, plus I'm taking advantage of the best ingredients available and featuring them prominently. Learning to cook this way, really cooking instead of blindly following a recipe will give you better meals and a lot more fun in the kitchen in the long run.

Thanks to Joe for this one:

An elderly man in Florida had owned a large farm for several years.

He had a large pond in the back, fixed up nice; picnic tables, horseshoe courts, and some apple and peach trees.

The pond was properly shaped and fixed up for swimming when it was built.
One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the pond, as he hadn't been there for a while, and look it over.

He grabbed a five gallon bucket to bring back some fruit.  As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee.

As he came closer he saw it was a bunch of young women skinny-dipping in his pond.  He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end.

One of the women shouted to him, "We're not coming out until you leave!"

The old man frowned, "I didn't come down here to watch you ladies swim naked or make you get out of the pond naked."  Holding the bucket up he said, "I'm here to feed the alligator."

This is how those fire fighters should have cooked that chicken! Sent in by Jerry in Los Angeles recently, this is a great time to show these birds off. Wow, this guy can cook! He just slathered them in Survival Spice™ and cooked them on indirect heat until they were falling off the bone tender.

This is such a good technique and I really liked the way he used the skewers to hold them together.

Awesome job, Jerry!

Some blackened chicken and some red faces were found at Fire Station No. 5 in Waterloo, Iowa last Wednesday.

As firefighters rushed out to assist paramedics just before dinner time, they received another call with a familiar address- theirs, according to the WCF Courier:

The group took off for Station No. 5, but while they were en route a neighbor mowing his lawn noticed the smoke and called dispatchers.

Firefighters turned off the stove and rescued what they could of the dinner.

Heh.

Naturally this subject is of great interest to me.

43 states are campaigning to collect sales tax on every internet purchase, according to Channel 9 news in Denver:

"The Internet Tax Freedom Act says that states cannot treat sales on the Internet differently than they treat any other kind of sale--and this system that we've created does exactly that," says Scott Peterson with the Conforming States Committee, which is spearheading the effort.

"It treats every sale exactly the same regardless if it's over the counter, over the catalogue, over the phone or over the Internet," he says.

The states say they've been losing as much as $16 billion annually to the Internet. They say that new software will make collecting the money almost automatic and that they can have a system in place by Oct. 1.

Colorado Governor Bill Owens says he doesn't like the idea and that Colorado won't be part of it.

"We're getting lots of taxes in terms of income taxes and other taxes because of the rise of the Internet, we shouldn't tax sales over the Internet," said Owens.

Personally, I buy a lot of stuff online and I find the lack of sales tax helps to offset shipping costs. I also feel the internet increases competition on the marketplace and helps keep prices to consumers down. Not only will you pay more for your purchases by including sales tax, the additional accounting costs to companies will also have to be passed on as well.

Sure, in the short term states may benefit, but a lot of small internet companies, including mine, will be hurt by this and as jobs are eliminated the states will collect less income taxes from the companies that survive and their ex-employees. I think this is a horribly short-sighted move.

I think we all have an opinion on how efficiently the government spends the money it collects from us already...

Do you think internet sales should be taxed? Why? Will this affect how much you spend online?

I read about this in a cool business ideas.com article that unfortunately didn't link back to its source but I found it interesting:

Scott Matthew knows there's nothing like a hot pizza delivered to your door on a January night.

One such night last year, when an hour seemed too long to wait, he went to bed hungry, but woke up inspired.

"If you bake the pizzas in vans on the way to you, it would be so neat. You could probably get it there in 20 minutes," Matthew said.

He jotted down the idea on a Post-it note and incorporated two weeks later. Now his employees roam this central Wisconsin city of 42,000 in a pair of Super Fast Pizza vans, cooking pizzas in mobile kitchens and delivering them - with the cheese still bubbling when they reach people's doors - in about 15 minutes.

"Most of the time, pizza is cool and soggy when it's delivered, especially in northern climates," said Dave Ostrander, a pizza business consultant whose Big Dave's pizzeria was once ranked among the busiest in the nation. "I think this solves a huge problem."

The company uses Mercedes-Benz Sprinters, high-roofed vehicles used as ambulances in Europe that cost about $32,000. For another $65,000 they were outfitted with coolers, five small pizza ovens and touch-screen monitors connected to an Internet-based ordering system staffed by a call center in Nebraska.

I wonder if it automatically tips the pizza on its side when it's done so the cheese all runs off into a pile?

We're getting closer on the new Desert Island Foods™.com site. The new snazzy pull-down menus are just about done and the secondary pages are being built.

The latest screen shot is below in the extended entry.

What do you think?

From Reuter's:

Customs agents inspecting a shipment of plantains thought some of the green bananas seemed unusually hard and cut them open, finding more than 750 pounds (338 kg) of cocaine stuffed inside what turned out to be phony fruit.

Smugglers molded the plantains out of glass fiber, filled them with cocaine and painted them to look like the real fruit, a large, green member of the banana family popular in the Caribbean and Latin America, the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol said on Thursday.

Well, they're ingenious. Busted, but ingenious...

I hate to dump this on you but I'm flushed with excitement. I mean, this story bowled me over when I read it.

Okay, enough of that. From Yahoo Canada:

Taiwanese restaurateur Eric Wang has given new meaning to the traditional revellers' cry of bottoms up.

His Marton eatery in the southern city of Kaohsiung delivers its food not on conventional plates and dishes, but in miniaturized Western and Asian style toilets, both the flush and non-flush variety.

For anyone missing the point, diners are encouraged to stir up mushy, earth-coloured offerings like curry chicken rice and chocolate ice cream to conjure up - well, the real thing.

Far too many pictures here.

...at the new Desert Island Foods™.com T-shirt. It will be available in S, M, L, XL, and XXL.

This is just a mockup until we get the finished shirts to do a photo shoot with, but it will very close to what you see here.

What do you think?

Food Fight #2 is over. Thanks to everyone who entered, keep sending in those pictures, you could win next time! The second Food Fight was won by Chris from Phoenix, AZ. His updated Chicken Cordon Bleu was simple, imaginative and his description was the most enthusiastic I read this time:

One of the first things I really made well was Chicken Cordon Bleu, and still have a mild addiction to stuffed chicken. I thought about how you go to Arby's and they have this in sandwich form, combined with how I like a good chicken club. I mean, chicken, cheddar and bacon! It's great. So I thought I'd reverse this into stuffed form.

Cheddar and bacon seemed like it may not work quite right, so I opted for prosciutto and a sharp white cheese.

His recipe was also well done, using a standard breading technique of flour, egg and bread crumbs. This technique using Survival Spice makes terrific fried chicken, too. Here's the recipe:

It takes: -2 good sized chicken breasts -4 slices prosciutto -4 small slices of a sharp white cheese (measurements are relevant and not really exact - also depending on how much you really like cheese) -1 cup flour -1 cup bread crumbs -2 tablespoons Survival Spice™ -1 egg

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- In a small warm pan, warm up prosciutto a bit (this may not be needed)
- Butterfly cut chicken open (I like to open it up further so I can cover and create a pinwheel effect)
- Place prosciutto and cheese inside chicken and roll up into a nice little package (set aside)
- In one bowl, add flour and mix in 1 tablespoon of Survival Spice
- In another bowl whisk egg
- In a third bowl, add bread crumbs and 1 tablespoon of Survival Spice
- Take chicken and dredge in flour, then coat with egg, and breadcrumb mix
- Bake at 350 for 20 minutes

Goes great with garlic mashed potatoes...

Me, I love it. How about you?

The rainforests of Brazil are being razed at an alarming rate. Nothing new there, right? Well, apparently there is, according to a recent CBC show I heard about at EGullet.

The latest twist is that they're being deforested to grow soybeans. After years of touting the nutritional (and rightly so) benefits of soybeans, the world is listening. Brazilian farmers are profiting in a major way:

Precisely because of these many health claims, there has been a dramatic rise in soy consumption around the world. And while soy bean producers and traders have been rubbing their hands gleefully, environmentalists are worried about the crop's popularity--especially in Brazil. Because as long as soy remains lucrative, more saws will continue clear bigger swaths of the Amazon rainforest.

Environmental group Greenpeace has been loudly criticizing the Brazilian government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. It says President Lula should be restricting soy plantations to areas that are already cleared.

Don't have a cow yet, though:

The governor is on the record as denying that soy production leads to the rainforest's destruction. In an interview he gave Reuters news service last week, he said he encourages sustainable farming, claiming almost half of the rainforest cut down in his state last year was legal and that 95 percent of the illegal loggers had been fined. He also said it's been 10 years since his own company actively cleared land for soy production.

Interesting stuff, I think.

Arnie Morton, co-founder of the famous Morton's of Chicago steakhouse chain, died May 28th at the age of 83 of Alzheimer's and cancer.

When Morton's opened in 1978, it broke new ground, a public restaurant with the plush, decadent atmosphere of a private club. Arnie could really work a room, though, and when he sold his interest in Morton's in 1989, there were nine restaurants across he country.

A true entrepreneur and innovator, he was also involved with Hugh Hefner in opening the first Playboy Club in 1960.

I've been lucky enough to eat in several Morton's across the country, and they do a great job every time. Truly a great place for a special occasion. Their soufleés are made to order, try the Grand Marnier or chocolate if you go.