Archives for May 2008
Robin Meade at Meatfest, and In This Dress
Easy-on-the-eyes CNN Morning Express host Robin Meade–a one-time Miss Ohio contestant–has a weekly podcast of sorts.
It’s really just some handheld video, or at most a vodcast. Whatever. This week Robin Travels to one of about 500 events that labels itself Meatfest 2008.
If there weren’t lots of video of grilled meats, Robin Meade, and a bagpiper, it would be like one of those unwatchable Jeannie Moos segments on CNN. But meat and Meade equals watchable.
Actually, the dress Meade’s wearing beginning at about the 5:15 mark (pictured), and the accompanying come-hither look, even with no Meatfest and no bagpiper, would make the whole bit eminently worthwhile.
So, um, yeah. Meatfest 2008.
Subscribe to or download the video here.
French Drinks Museum Puts Beautiful, Old Mixology Online
Wikipedia labels him “the eccentric drinks magnate.” Paul Ricard, who launched what became the Pernod Ricard empire, also founded the Exposition Universelle des Vins et Spiritueux, which bills itself as “a permanent encyclopaedia of the wine and spirits industry.”
Its beautiful and tasty physical collection is housed in Bandol, France, next to Marseille.
You can learn about their current exhibits here. Check out their events here.
They also have a great online section devoted to early 20th-century drink menus in searchable PDF format online. And, even cooler, a small, searchable collection of vintage cocktail books.
The goal of this project is to bring EUVS founder Paul Ricard’s wish to create a “permanent encyclopaedia” of the beverage industry into the 21st century by making these materials digitally available to a broad international audience.
It’s pretty fantastic. Poke through the cocktail books here.
The Exposition Universelle des Vins et Spiritueux will be celebrating its 50th anniversary this year on July 9 at their HQ in Ile de Bendor, Bandol, France. If you want to send me to cover the event for your newspaper/magazine–it does coincide nicely with the nearby Battle of Baylen–please get in touch.
Thanks to my buddy Dave for the tip.
Oprah Dieting, This Time in ‘Vegan Cleanse’
Oprah Winfrey loves to try different diets. Remember her Optifast phase? The exercise phase?
It seems to me that she is always dieting because she a) always loses weight and then gains it back and b) craves attention.
Recently, some moron author suggested Oprah take up “a 21-day cleanse as a way to jump-start an inner makeover,” according to Oprah’s website. Did Oprah bite, so to speak? “Oprah has decided to give it a try!”
Follow her inevitable progress at her blog, which mysteriously screeched to a halt on Wednesday, here. It’s still unclear if she’ll blog about her inevitable post-progress weight gain, too.
[Via People.]
Starbucks Splash Sticks Make Splash
I still have yet to see one, even though they went national last month, but Starbucks has rolled out a line of free, reusable, anti-splash swizzle sticks–”quietly,” most note–called Starbucks Splash Sticks. From the Boston Herald:
“I could have used one of those this morning getting into the car,” said Stephanie Vollebregt, 24, an au pair in Melrose. “Luckily it dripped down my hand, not onto my pants, but who hasn’t had that happen? This means less laundry for me, I guess.”
Fellow Melrose au pair Kristen Hedberg twirled a stick while lauding the invention and design. “It’s green. It’s pretty. And I can use it to stir my drink, too,” she said.
“It’s a coffee accessory,” Vollebregt chimed in. “You accessorize your house, yourself, your car. Why not your coffee?”
Congrats to Starbucks, which has obviously cornered the highly coveted au pair market.
While a YumSugar poll puts them firmly in the loved-by-customers category, others note they’ll cause litter. And professor frenchy, captioning a splash stick snap on Flickr, notes “the coffee still escaped from under the lid and the little ‘breathing holes’ on top.”
Tired of the Same Memorial Day Meal?
Here’s an easy fix. First, make the switch to D’Artagnan’s new duck hot dogs. (Or how about buffalo?)
Second, man (or woman) the grill with a BBQ sword and cardboard mask!
Third, grab the right beer.
How about you? What are you grilling up this weekend? Any tips for your fellow Crispy readers?
This Week in Bacon
This week’s TWIB celebrates Archie McPhee’s Bacon Scented Bacon Print Tuxedo. Yes, that’s right, a bacon-scented tuxedo.
There’s a theory that everything is better with bacon. We believe that theory with all of our heart. To that end, we are introducing our line of bacon formal wear with Uncle Oinker’s Bacon Scented Bacon Print Tuxedo. You can get married in bacon, get confirmed in bacon or go to the Oscars in bacon! Wait until Joan Rivers gets a whiff of you.
Each Tuxedo is tailored from chemically treated latex print fabric in one of four different sizes. Best of all, it smells just like bacon sizzling in the pan. Dry clean only.
That’s nice and all, but it’s too late for prom. (And I’m 36 years old.) I might just go for a pound of Marini’s chocolate-covered bacon instead.
Thanks to Sean and Courtney for the links.
UK Grocer Tells Shoppers to Leave Kids in Car if Buying Booze
England has to be about the most horrid place to live these days.
Tesco is refusing to sell alcohol to parents shopping with their children under rules designed to tackle underage drinking.
The supermarket has told cashiers not to supply alcohol if they suspect an adult is buying the drink for an underage youth.
Staff have been told to “err on the side of caution” when interpreting the policy, leading to cases of parents out shopping with their children being told to put alcohol back on the shelves.
Tesco says it believes parents will support the policy and it would rather apologise where it has misjudged the situation than sell to underage drinkers.
[...]
A Tesco spokesman said: “I can understand the frustrations of the customer but I think that any reasonable parent would understand the problem and support our policy.”
I’m guessing Tesco’s a bit mistaken on this one. As in people are just going to buy their booze–and groceries–elsewhere. More here from the Telegraph.
[Via Slashfood.]
Democrats Fueled by Waste Beer!
Politics is a lot like bad beer, insofar as I don’t have a taste for either. Still, I find this Denver Business Journal report on the beer that’s fueling the 2008 Democratic National Convention to be easy drinking.
The Molson Coors Brewing Co. has been named the official ethanol provider for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, to be held in Denver Aug. 25-28.
[...]
While most ethanol comes from corn, Molson Coors’ ethanol is produced from waste beer. The ethanol used in DNC vehicles will come from Coors Brewing’s brewery in Golden.
Molson Coors also is Presidential-level sponsor of the convention, and will provide beer for Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee convention and pre-convention events, meetings, media briefings and VIP events.
[...]
Waste beer is the beer that’s lost during packaging, or which is considered substandard. Coors is the country’s first major brewer to convert waste beer to ethanol, according to the company, and started that business in 1996.
So “waste beer” isn’t just another name for Coors Light?
I could go on about the environmental angle here, but instead I’ll just note that the 21+ implications of serving beer at the convention will probably help keep Rob Lowe away. Or not.
More here. Details about the undoubtedly funtastic Modern Drunkard convention–it starts the day after the DNC convention and is also in Colorado–here.
Raw Milk a Tasty Treat?
Friend and food blogger Jacob Grier has a great piece in Reason on the waning legality of raw milk.
[Pasteurized] milk resulted in the loss of seasonality and taste. Cooking milk introduces new flavors, some of them unpleasant. And since pasteurization kills bacteria indiscriminately, many raw milk devotees argue that the process robs them of probiotics, bacteria that they say build their immune systems and aid digestion. As McAfee put it to me, “kids are germ magnets.” Exposing them to raw milk, he argues, is good for them. Similarly, the testimonials section on the website of the Campaign for Real Milk, a project of the Weston A. Price Foundation that aims to overturn legal barriers to unpasteurized milk, is full of quotes from people writing that the product has cured them of everything from indigestion to autism. While some of these claims are obviously far-fetched, it’s clear that many raw milk drinkers believe they benefit from introducing a thriving population of bacteria into their bodies.
[...]
When I recently visited dairywoman Kitty Hockman-Nicholas at Hedgebrook Farms in Winchester, Virginia, I saw nothing dangerous or diabolical. Kitty showed me around the farm, introduced her cows by name, and demonstrated her milking process. It would have been illegal for Kitty to sell me raw milk—she provides it for people who buy into “cow shares” and thus technically own the cows from which they get their dairy—but she kindly sent me home with some as a gift.
My trip to the farm provided delightful insight into the origins of one of our most essential foods. I didn’t enjoy any miraculous health effects after drinking it, but the taste was smooth and creamy, with none of the processed aftertaste I now can’t help noticing in store-bought milk. As I sipped my unpasteurized beverage, I reflected on the absurdity of the situation: If Kitty were to offer the same experience to others for a profit, the government could forcibly put her out of business.
Campaign for Raw Milk here. Time on raw milk outlaws here. Raw milk opponent Stephen Barrett on why raw milk doesn’t do a body good here.
‘Pretty’ Cross Dresser Robs BK
A man robbed a New Orleans area Burger King last week while in drag. A local TV crime and safety expert, Howard Robertson, finds the robber quite fetching.
Robertson said the thief is probably a genuine cross-dresser because his necklace matched the dress, his nails appeared to be painted and the wig was well made.
“Most of the time when somebody puts on a wig they’re just trying to hide their identity by putting on something like a Halloween mask, but he’s pretty,” Robertson said.
More here. Video of the robbery here.
Major League Eating Game Debuts Today
Major League Eating: The Game launches today for WiiWare–the new downloadable Wii service. To celebrate, from 12-3p this afternoon the Nintendo World Store in Manhattan is holding simultaneous real and virtual watermelon-eating competitions.
Tim “Eater X” Janus, the newly crowned Sushi eating champion of the world, a man who hides his inner torment behind a mask, will compete against Crazy Legs Conti. Conti, often described as the “Evil Knievel of the Alimentary Canal,” is known for eating his way out of a 96-cubic foot sarcophagus of popcorn at the debut of his own movie, Zen and The Art of Competitive Eating.
This bare knuckled, drag out, in-you-face (literally) six minute exercise in extreme watermelon consumption is near certain to yield a new world record. It will also be the first watermelon eating contest to feature both real and virtual watermelons.
As the screen capture indicates, virtual gamers can indeed lose their lunch.
Game site here. Joystiq has gamer analysis here. Serious Eats has the game trailer here.
Major League Eating (the sport, not the game) site here.
Truck Spills Tons of Oreos on Highway
A couple of weeks ago I blogged about highway food wrecks that spilled spoilt dog food and Gatorade. It’s happened again–this time with a truck full of Oreos.
Several lanes of Interstate Highway 80 were shut down for hours overnight after a truck hauling Oreos crashed into a median, spilling tons of the chocolate cookies across the highway, police said.
[...]
The truck was westbound, hauling about 20,000 pounds of Oreos, when the driver lost control and the rig hit a median before veering into the eastbound lanes. The impact ripped the trailer open, spilling its cargo across the eastbound lanes of the highway, he said.
With the cause of the crash still unclear, I’m sure police are looking into reports of a Ghost of Hydrox sighting in the area. Or Oreo-hating Brits driving on the wrong side of the road.
Via Alan, who suggests we make this whole highway-food-wreck thing a regular feature.
This Week in Bacon
Tayto, Ireland’s favorite crisp, sports a smoky bacon flavored variety.
Within the Tayto range, there is a tasty selection of crisps, snacks, popcorn and nuts to nibble on.
Tayto strives for the highest standards across all its products.
Specialist blending of the finest ingredients and continuous innovation have helped maintain Tayto’s position as Ireland’s favourite crisp.
Buy Tayto Smokey Bacon Crisps.
Book the Tayto monster truck for your next event here. Enter the Tayto Castle here.
Get Paid to Blog About Food
The excellent YumSugar is looking for a bloggy food editor.
We are looking for a fabulous foodie to write and edit our food and entertaining site, YumSugar.com. Do you devour Everyday Food in your ongoing quest for the perfect weeknight recipe? Are you constantly dishing out cooking tips to your friends and throwing impromptu dinner parties? Then we want to talk to you. Prior media, writing, or blogging experience is a must, and food photography skills are a plus.
The downside (unless you live there) is the job requires face time galore in San Francisco.
In Movies: The Day California Wine Grew Up
The Judgment of Paris is coming to film this summer. No, it’s got nothing to do with the heiress or with the city’s notoriously unfriendly residents. It’s all about the wine.
The Paris Wine Tasting of 1976 or the “Judgment of Paris” was a wine competition organized in Paris in 1976 by Steven Spurrier, a British wine merchant, in which French judges did blind tasting of top-quality chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon wines from France and from California. California wines rated best in each category, which caused surprise as France was generally regarded as being the foremost producer of the world’s best wines. Spurrier sold only French wine and believed that the California wines would not win.
The movie, which comes out in the U.S. this August, is titled Bottle Shock. Though Variety digs it, the movie features a mostly underwhelming ensemble cast–which worked for Sideways, that other wine movie, but not for many other films. I’m guessing it won’t work for audiences, especially as there also lurks a competing movie about the same events (and packed with more star power), titled Judgment of Paris. Journalists hate when that happens.
