Category: Food

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Flow, Turkey, Flow

I have family coming up for Turkey Day, so I need to get my act together. Everybody seems to like a good flowchart, so it seemed a natural to create a Turkey Dinner chart for this week’s blog and publish it a few days early. By Wednesday morning, I’ll be deeply involved in planning the tryst between turkey, stuffing, and butter. (Hmmm, should that really be menage?…)

Turkey cooking flowchart
Turkey specific flowchart, by kajmeister.

Clearly, everyone has their own T-day traditions, whether it’s deep-frying the turkey (dangerous but popular) or serving crab (very San Francisco) or canned cranberries (really?). I have aimed to map out the standard meal with the basics: a stuffed turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, yams, and cranberries. Our household variation is to brine the turkey–which has its supporters and detractors I know–and to saute green beans and mushrooms, rather than to bake them in a soup. Plus deviled eggs because it’s not T-giving without deviled eggs. By the way, if you don’t waste spend loads of time watching cooking shows like I do, you should know that “sous chef” is my short hand for all the prep work that you do which doesn’t involve heating or freezing the food–chopping, measuring, mixing, etc.

The simplest chart would have only a few steps, and I show it above to use as a building block for what is to come because if I showed you the full, unadultered version at this point, your head would explode.  Bear with me. Continue reading “Flow, Turkey, Flow”

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Sweet Sabotage

WWII chocolate bomb
Prototype of a Nazi chocolate bomb bomb, photo by Lawrence Fish at artnet.news.com

Industrial Espionage: Cookie packages shoved, hidden, to the back part of the shelf or hidden on the top by rival cookie suppliers. Supermarket owners bribed not to stock a competitor’s cola. A clone product created with a deliberate shoddy taste and marketing strategy in order to sink a successful new market entry. Chocolate bars spiked with bits of pork so that Muslim customers believe they can’t eat it. People attacked with chocolate…I mean what is the world coming to, if we can’t enjoy our sweeties in peace?!?

Cookie wars

I typically would not write two food columns in a row, but I saw a Facebook post* this week that resonated with me so much, I could not resist. Besides, what better to follow a vegetable post with than one on dessert?

Hydrox FTC complaint against Oreo's
Hydrox has filed an FTC complaint against the maker’s of Oreo’s, according to the Jewish Telegraph Agency

You can read the details at JTA above, but, in essence, Hydrox is claiming that Oreo cookie suppliers are moving Hydrox around on the supermarket shelves in order to obscure their packages. Customers have sent in dozens of pictures of random products hung in front of the boxes to cover the labels, packages pushed to the back of the shelf and another Oreo product put in front (even though the label says Hydrox), and other dastardly deeds. Continue reading “Sweet Sabotage”

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Eat Your Vegetables!

One of my most vivid childhood memories is of being told I had to finish dinner before we could go to the state fair. On my plate were sliced orange disks which my mother said were carrots but, in fact, were sweet potatoes. I detested the mushy things and knew they were not carrots. I sat there for Hourrrrrssss, with tears streaming down my face, unable to handle the discrimination and oppression of the sweet potatoes. The unfairness! No merry-go-rounds for me! My mother was lying! The adults were in league to ruin my life! The trauma! The unfairness!

Child hates eating carrots
Carrots are NOT sweet potatoes! Photo from Parents magazine

I’m kind of sad now that I never asked my long-dead mother whether this story actually happened, and why, in particular, she would lie and tell me that sweet potatoes were carrots. It seems kind of unlikely now. Also, ironically enough, I now love sweet potatoes and will eat them without marshmallows, butter, or any flavoring at all. (They’re really good stuffed with chili and jalapenos.) Continue reading “Eat Your Vegetables!”