Starbucks is making a big hoopla about their new instant coffee called VIA which they rolled out nationwide recently. They claim it is an instant coffee that tastes like freshly brewed. They use a proprietary process they are calling a microgrind, and by looking at, making the stuff, and tasting it I'm thinking there's some dehydrated and/or freeze-dried coffee in there too.
Nevertheless, it's VIA VIA VIA everywhere you look inside your local Starbucks right now
Splat by ant.photos
We've all likely been there. At the BBQ, camping, or maybe on a boat. There sits the bottle of wine... and no one brought a corkscrew. The thoughts that go through people's heads. The tools they use. We humans are very creative creatures, especially when there is booze involved (think Legend of Zelda-themed party ice luge).
There's the Wikihow on how to open a wine bottle without a corkscrew. They illustrate a technique using a screw, a screwdriver, and a pair of pliers (pulling it out, caveman-style) or a hammer (using a first-class lever which is much more civilized).
They outline the old pocket knife method, the wire coat hanger, the
Somewhere between McNuggets and a McRib
On his blog, Weather Sealed, Stephen von Worley asked the question, "just how far away can you get from our world of generic convenience?" More specifically, he sought to answer the question - How far could one possibly get from a McDonald's...
He compiled the locations of all 13,000+ McDonald's locations in the contiguous 48 - and then mapped them. What you see below is a speck of light emanating from each: the grid forming tight clusters around metropolitian areas and outlines pf the major freeways like a geographically correct Lite-Brite.
Stephen then proceeded to work out the math to determine where in the United States is the farthest place from any McDonald's
People can argue ad nauseam about the origin of Spaghetti (Etruscan or Chinese) or Pizza (Italian or Greek) but when it comes down to dishes, some are so basic (flour, egg, and water in a tube shape/flat bread with sauce) it is inevitable that people had been making similar foods pre-historically.
A short while back I briefly entertained the idea of making a vegetarian section on Papawow. Although I am huge advocate for eating less meat in general (mostly for environmental reasons) sometimes meat-related things come along that are so gluttonous that they should be praised the world over. In San Francisco's Ferry Building, enter Boccalone's Meat Cone.
Kids have ice cream cones. Squirrels have pine cones. Boccalone has Meat Cones.
The concept is simple enough...
Jon Stewart gives Condé Nast some advise. Combine all four magazines that they are cancelling: Elegant Bride, Modern Bride, Cookie (a parenting magazine) and Gourmet into into one super mag.
Jon Stewart's Pregnant Gourmet Bride
In the first issue they would feature a tremendous morning sickness cure involving haricot vert, cornichon, and truffle oil...
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Pregnant Gourmet Bride Magazine | ||||
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I had seen the blind tasting done on the TV show Top Chef a handful of times but what made me actually want to sit down, get blindfolded, and do it was an article in the April 2009 issue of Saveur, titled "Dream Job." It was written by Bryan Miller a restaurant critic for the New York Times from 1984 to 1993.
Miller said that he would place dried herbs on his tongue a few times a month to try and identify them. Like culinary push-ups, now I was intrigued by the blind tasting. His Kryptonite? Dried turmeric, Miller states "To this day, I wouldn't know the spice if you rolled my pillow in it."
We set up our own Top Chef-Style Taste Test. With three people, we each tasted the other's picks, not tasting our own. One of us would set up their tray and administer to the test to one while the third was in another room.
I went first.
Western Spaghetti was voted by Time Magazine as the #2 Viral Film of the Year for 2008. The company who made it is called PES and they have done some some more well known commercials for products like Scrabble, Sprint, Coinstar, and Bacardi.
Enjoy.
Every good kitchen has a bunch of gadgets. They keep well in drawers, some used rarely, some never. Earlier we examined "The Big Drawer," those tools that stir, scoop, shred, and otherwise make a meal happen. Here we examine "The Small Drawer," those gadgets that we could live without, but they really really come in handy.
They measure, they shred, they peel. Like I said, we could cook without them, but we'd rather not. Here is our list of gadgets which you will find in "The Small Drawer":
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From the Foodbuzz website:
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Everyone has at least one drawer for all their kitchen gadgets (even if you don't cook). Because most of these gadgets are unitaskers, they spend the majority of their lives dusty and lonely, but if they play their cards right they get to join in the party during Thanksgiving (I'm looking at you, turkey baster).
There are a small handful of crucial and irreplaceable gadgets; however, that are, and should be omnipresent in every functional kitchen. Here is a closer look at our collection
We recently took a river rafting trip down the Truckee River in Northern California near Lake Tahoe. Calling this particular section a Class 1 Rapid would be a bit of an exaggeration, and "hair-raising" is not a description that comes up often. Typical gear includes sun screen, a well stocked cooler, a hat, squirt guns, sunglasses, and a dog.
Packing a cooler, by the way, is a finely tuned art...
What were they thinking when they names these places?
I received this joke email from my dad, the original author is unknown and so are the brilliant photographers. I take no credit for this but I found it hilarious and worthy of posting.
I have actually been to Crabby Dick's in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware and I can attest that the food there was pretty horrible. It was the middle of the winter, the servers were a bunch of grumpy Slovenians, and needless to say no one wanted to be there, including myself.
I know of a strip mall in Honolulu that has a Korean joint and a Chinese joint right next to each other, I don't have any pictures to prove it but their names are So Gong Dong and Fook Yuen respectively.
Without further adieu, here we go. Feel free to add your own snarky remarks in the comments section.
Thirsty? How about juice? Or some Gatorade? Water? No thanks, don't be silly, only Vitamin Water for me. Or wait! I know what I'm craving! Mmm, how about some Age Defying Skin Balance Water? That's right, Borba!
According to the website:
"BORBA Age Defying Skin Balance Water contains a revolutionary cultivated bio-vitamin complex...
My wife was craving some KFC the other day (it's not Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore) and I didn't feel like cooking... well that, I was exhausted from work and I could walk there too were all factors that helped her cause. We got some combos with the requisite Mashed Potatoes 'N Gravy (which I call wallpaper paste), Cole Slaw (which I shamefully enjoy), and their biscuits (which have gone dreadfully downhill since my youth.)
What caught my eye was the packet titled "Colonel's Buttery Spread" which beyond its title bore only the following two tidbits of information: "Keep Refrigerated" and "Artificially Flavored." What is this magical spread? Was it outsourced to the Keebler Elves and made churning Yeti milk with a unicorn's horn?
I went online to take a peek at the KFC Nutrition Guide...
photo by Loren Tama
I’ve eaten Cobb salads for dinner, breakfast, and lunch, sometimes successively and usually in that order. I love the crunch, the tanginess, and the complements achieved by the right balance of acidic tomatoes, sweet and smoky bacon, and fragrant blue cheese. A properly-seasoned chicken breast can make the difference between a lame Cobb and a gourmet delight.
I’ve been known to praise restaurants that use a traditional Cobb dressing, complete with blue cheese, garlic, Worcestershire, and vinegar. At the same time, I’ve often lambasted a Cobb served with something as pedestrian as thousand island dressing: pounding my fist on the table, I lecture my fellow diners, reciting my familiar phrase “it’s not a Cobb without Cobb dressing!” As much as I’d like to say that the dressing makes the Cobb, however, the reality is that...
Ah, the Loco Moco. Take white rice, plop a fried hamburger patty on top (usually well-done), pour brown gravy over everything, and then top it all with a fried egg. What hungry beast designed this dish?
According to the Wiki, "James Kelly, a University of Hawaii-Hilo professor writes that the loco moco dish was created in 1949 by the Inouye family, who owned the Lincoln Grill in Hilo, Hawaii in 1949. A group of boys from the Lincoln Wreckers...
Caffeine has become so commonplace in our society that I'm starting to think it has become unavoidable. I'm a big-time coffee aficionado (RYO Coffee, Latte Art, (STARBUCKS)RED Whole Bean Coffee) but methinks sometimes marketing "gurus" take it a little too far.
Recently, I counted 14 different flavors of Monster Energy Drink at a Fry's electronic store in a cooler by the registers. Do any of them taste good? Unlikely. Maybe that's why they have to keep cranking out new ones, to keep the public guessing.
Here are some of the latest snacks that have been, shall I say tainted with caffeine:
Butterfinger Buzz...
... I've been away on business and haven't had any time to write.
OK OK, so Top Chef Masters ended last night and there's a lot of talk about "what should have" and "what could have." The finale was exciting and more importantly, it was mouth-watering. Hubert Keller and his Michelin star were delightful, Michael Chiarello and his panache were amazing - but personally, I think Rick Bayless was the most deserving, and will appreciate his title of Top Chef Master the most.
Rick was the most humble contestant, and I think he elevated the Mexican cuisine to a level that it isn't well known for, haute. If I were to go without Mexican food for too long, I may have to draw and quarter myself. Most recently...
