Not to be one to spread rumors, but The Faster Times has an interesting look at who's providing some of the products under the Trader Joe's brand. Lots of high quality suppliers on the list, and despite rumors of the dubious quality of Poland Springs bottled water, it's my personal favorite.
To my knowledge, none of these are confirmed by Trader Joe's at this time.
I actually agree with most of these, though a few are a bit unfair. Just because a chef does have fish that needs to get sold, it's not necessarily bad, he's just trying to move through his inventory. Prime rib becomes beef sandwiches, becomes beef vegetable soup, etc. Dovetailing your menu is a good thing...
If you tip on your ticket price after you've used your two for one coupon, and not on the full price, you're a weasel, plain and simple.
(Photo: In & Out's Double Double, which I miss horribly.)
I got an email from my old friend Chuck, and I'm still not sure if he was tormenting me, or trying to be supportive. The link he passed along was to a Serious Eats post that recently took on the challenge of recreating my favorite burger in the world, In & Out's Double Double.
I've eaten a multitude of these over the years, and while I really enjoy Steak & Shake's burgers, a Double Double with grilled onions just hits all the right notes for me. Looks like they did a great job with the attempt, and I hope the greasy glory that ultimately resulted was worth the effort!
I stumbled across a very Jetson-like contraption today at Inhabitat, which looks like a cool site, via a link from Hot Air. While geeky, cool, futuristic, and cutting edge, I'm not sure sure I'd ever want to eat anything out of version 1:
Cornucopias' printing process begins with an array of food canisters filled with the "cook's" foods of choice. After a meal selection has been made using the device's multi-touch translucent screen, users are able to see their meal being assembled while simultaneously manipulating real-time parameters, such as calories or carbohydrate content. Each ingredient is then piped into a mixer and then very precisely extruded, allowing for very exact and elaborate combinations of food.
I really do applaud the effort, the technology could lead to lots of cool things down the road, but I think I'll wait for version 15, or so.
What does 19 slices of bacon and an egg get you? A 1/3 pound pure bacon burger, of course, Click over to see the picture of the finished patty, which looks pretty darn good, and a video of him eating it.
Way to take one for the team, Geekdad! Science marches on.
Domino's has a new ad campaign that pulls the curtain aside on food styling, along with a customer photo contest:
"How many times have you wondered why the products you buy don't look as good in person as they do in TV ads?" said Russell Weiner, Domino's Pizza chief marketing officer. "That's because most of the time companies use artificial techniques to make their products look better than they do when served to you in person."
Domino's said the real food photos are part of its "transparency" campaign with customers, which kicked off last year with the introduction of an overhauled pizza in response to negative comments from its guests.
Their recent revamping of their product line is pretty good, though I still prefer my own...
Via John B in Chicago, this is a summer camp I wouldn't mind attending:
Camp Bacon was to be a one-day Davos of cured and/or smoked pork. Many luminaries of the bacon world, plus new, rising stars, would be here: Allan Benton, the humble Tennessean whose pork bellies have made chefs swoon from New York to Napa; Herb Eckhouse, whose La Quercia pancetta and prosciutto from Iowa stand up to the best from Italy; and Nick Spencer, a Brit based in Chicago who began making back bacon this spring. Bacon poetry readings and a performance by 73-year-old R&B artist Andre Williams, who wrote a song called "Bacon Fat" in 1956, would help define the meat's cultural impact.
(Image credit: U.S. Marine Corps / Lance Cpl. Justin J. Shemanski)
JB in Chicago sent along the FOXNews link:
Military experts in India have developed the new crowd control grenade packed with ground seeds from the (bhut jolokia) chili -- which is officially recognized as the hottest on the planet by Guinness World Records.
When deployed the grenade showers the targets with a dust so spicy that in trials subjects were blinded for hours and left with breathing problems. Lead scientist R.B. Srivastava, from India's Defense Research and Development Organisation, said: "The chilli grenade is a non-toxic weapon and when used would force a terrorist to come out of his hideout.
"The effect is so pungent that it would literally choke them."
Nasty, but effective, I'll bet.
Hadn't heard of this one:
According to various sources, pine nut mouth is the result of a sensitivity to imported pine nuts, which are actually the seeds found in cones of pine trees. While it's not life-threatening, it can be, in Hennesey's words, "brutal" for the seven to 10 days sufferers experience it. Last year, 53 people reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that they suffered some form of "pine nut mouth." In France, some 800 cases have been reported to the USDA's counterpart since 2001.But except for a few blog mentions on foodie Web sites and a short 2001 study available on the Internet, very little is known about "pine nut mouth."
They're importing pine nuts from everywhere now, so maybe some varieties might have this issue, or they just might have been rancid. I'm willing to be more selective in what I buy, but I'm not making pesto without them!
Walmart Bests Whole Foods in Blind Taste Tests
"WE SUPPORT LOCAL FARMERS," read a sign at an Austin Walmart. I didn't see any farm names listed in the produce section, but I did find plastic tubs of organic baby spinach and "spring mix" greens with modern labeling that looked like it could be at Whole Foods. My list was simple to the point of stark, for a fair fight. Some ingredients seemed identical to what I'd find at Whole Foods. Organic, free-range brown eggs. Promised Land all-natural, hormone-free milk. A bottle of Watkins Madagascar vanilla for panna cotta. I couldn't find much in the way of the seasonal fruit the restaurant had told me the chef would serve with dessert. But I did find, to my surprise, a huge bin of pomegranates, so I bought those, and some Bosc pears. The sticking points were fresh goat cheese, which flummoxed the nice sales people (we found some Alouette brand, hidden), and chicken breasts. I could find organic meat, but no breasts without "up to 12 percent natural chicken broth" added--an attempt to inject flavor and add weight. I wasn't happy with the suppliers, either: Tyson predominated. I bought Pilgrims Pride, but was suspicious. The bill was $126.02.
At the flagship Whole Foods, in downtown Austin, the produce was much more varied, though the spinach and spring mix looked less vibrant. The chicken was properly dry, a fresh ivory color--and more than twice as expensive as Walmart's. My total bill was $175.04; $20 of the extra $50 was for the meat.
I haven't seen anything like this in our area yet, but I'm hopeful. I sure miss Sprouts, but I'm able to find reasonable good produce at Meijer, though their meat department is not great.
