Look for The Bare Necessities - Event

Special dressing: Mr. Baloo (turn player on)

This is not a Spanish Recipe. In fact, I couldn't find anything Spanish with these 3 ingredients, that's one of the reasons why I love The Monthly Joust at The Leftover Queen! I could think of many recipes containing Lemon and Seafood, but couldn't imagine having coconut in the same dish. Val from More than a Burnt Toast chose these three ingredients for this month's Joust because she won the last Event with a delicious Baby Ribs dish. Take your time to visit both blogs if you still don't know Val or Jenn... You won't regret it!!! They are great bloggers, great people♥ and excellent cooks!

I made a search in the internet and found one recipe I liked which I could adapt to my own way of cooking. It had no tittle and that's why I want to call it The Bare Necessities: Coconut, Seafood and Lemon; simple food you could find in the jungle where Baloo and Mowgli lived... just grab the ingredients, follow the recipe and take it easy as Baloo preaches!

I had some problems with the coconuts (two of them were rotten inside) and had to throw them away. The month was getting to an end and I didn't have my recipe posted for the Royal Joust... I was luckier with the next two cocos and the recipe turn out to be delicious! Thanks Val for choosing such exotic ingredients!

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Problem

I have a problem with the picture below.
I actually made it bigger, but if i paste t into a post, it's too big for the blog and you only can see half of it.
Does anybody know how to make the post section start more left?
So that it is wider?

Thank you for your help
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Fall 2008

Spring didn't even start, and all designers already present their 2008 fall collections.
I looked tru a few of them today and Anna Sui's collection caught my eye.
Her collection is kind of very dark, you can notice a lot black, but the clothes are liven up by bright colors.
The theme seems to be very indian, we can see a lot of ponchos with beads attached and a lot of leather used for boots and headbands.
If you want to be in style, you should deffinately look out for some crazy colored tights for fall.
Typical for Anna Sui's fall 08 collection, there are no tight tops and no pants, so you should go for loose colorful tops with animal or indian prints, tight velvet skirts and some bright colored leather boots!

Some Other Place, Somewhere, Some Other Time

Special dressing: Alan Parsons: Some other time. (turn player on) This song brings me back such great memories!!!

Easter Holidays have been wonderful because the family came to visit us at the seaside, we had endless lunches and dinners, talking, eating and drinking good wine. We had long beach walks with the dogs whom were delighted to chase the seagulls and... we were freezing cold!!! The weather has just turned mad, the sun was gone for some days and the temperatures dropped.

One of the visits I enjoyed the most was my husbands oldest daughter and granddaughter. They have been living in Chile (South America) for the last year and now they plan to stay in Spain for 2 years... Yujuuuuuuuuu!!!! You know I love babies and I just adore this kid♥. She is sooo warm and sweet and behaved as if she had never been away, she would go all day long sending kisses to everybody, just too sweet♥.

One of the things they brought from Chile was Locos, in English, Abalone. They made all the trip from Santiago to Madrid and then to Barcelona in a special package to keep them fresh and they arrived in perfect conditions!!! Abalone in Chile is called loco, maybe because to tenderize it you have to pound it unmercifully, the way mental patients once were treated. It lives in a thick shell, adhered to rocks, usually in cold waters.

My husbands' daughter cooked them the way she was told and we enjoyed them a lot: She prepared a big pot with boiling water and throwed the locos one by one inside the pot and paying special attention because the water shouldn't stop boiling. Had them there for 2 hours and after that time let them cool down in the same water. Once they are cold it's time to eat them. I made a good strong allioli with 3 garlic cloves and I must say they were delicious!!!

Their meat is thick and so tasty and flavourful, so rich and strong... I never tasted anything similar :D Thank you for a seafood Chile's treasure!!! If there's anyone from Chile reading this post and wants to comment on this special seafood, please do! Other recipes are welcome!

First Post!

What does "natural" really mean?

The term "natural" on labels for food products within USDA's jurisdiction has been controversial for many years. Here is CSPI's May 2007 summary (.pdf) of efforts to change the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service's (FSIS) definition of the term “natural” on fresh poultry labels:

Currently, approximately thirty percent of all fresh chicken sold to consumers in the U.S. has been pumped-up (either through injection or vacuum tumbling) with a significant percentage of water, sodium, binding agents like carrageenan (a seaweed extract), and other additives. Yet under current FSIS policy, this pumped-up chicken is being labeled as 100% Natural.

The issue has won recent major media attention, including blog coverage in January, a Washington Post article last fall, and CBS evening news coverage in November.

In part, the issue is in the media because chicken businesses that really do use the term "natural" in a somewhat more restrictive sense have put money into public relations and lobbying, to press USDA for closer oversight. (Sigh. Is this really what progress requires?)

The Truthful Labeling Coalition (see image below), a coalition of some public interest folks and parts of the poultry industry, has been pressing hard on the salt water injections, and also on questions about whether some competitors' poultry is incorrectly labeled "raised without antibiotics." From the fact sheet they sent by email this week:

Under federal law, the USDA is required to ensure that food labels are neither false nor misleading.

Consumers certainly don’t expect poultry labeled “Raised Without Antibiotics” to have been fed or treated with any type of medicine classified as an antibiotic.

In the past year, the USDA has unfortunately made a series of inconsistent and contradictory decisions on fresh poultry labels relating to the use of ionophores – a substance added to chicken feed to help fight disease that both the USDA and FDA consider to be an antibiotic. For example, some poultry companies who use ionophores in chicken feed have mistakenly received approval from USDA for labels bearing the “Raised Without Antibiotics” claim.

The coalition says it doesn't oppose ionophores per se, but it just wants them labeled correctly as antibiotics. The ionophores themselves can be "good or bad," the coalition says.

Industry divisions over food labeling rules are common, and this type of public information campaign in cooperation with public interest groups happens occasionally. But there are risks from the perspective of participating poultry producers, even if they really do produce chickens that are somewhat closer to natural. Within the public's short attention span, it is difficult to tar one's opponents without having some of the feathers stick to one's own skin, so to speak.

Killing the Hunger - Event

Scene 1: Knives are getting sharpened, day is getting to its end... a table is set with all necessary tools... lights are on! A soft music starts somewhere.

Scene 2: Veggies and fruits are shaking, their end is near... Mss. Tomatoe is even sweating... Metal knives slowly move down, the light reflects in their shinny bodies and all of a sudden... a crime is committed!!!

Scene 3: Lady Onion appears completely minced inside a bowl, Mss. Tomatoe (2) gets a clean cut and faints (seeds and peel are left away) and ends up in the same bowl cut in small pieces. Sir yolk egg gets whisked together with 1 table spoon of Mrs. Lemon juice and thrown into the bowl. Sra. Sal gets her space in the bowl too. They get all mixed and placed in the fridge.

Scene 4: After one hour, Mr. Avocado (2) thinks he might escape but he sees a quick lighting and he passes away. His seed and peel are discarded and his meat is flattened with a fork and added to the fresh bowl.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Veggies and fruits are too good and too healthy to have a long life! Let's eat them!!!


This is my entry for this month's Click Event at Jugalbandi, the theme was METAL... first thing that came to my mind was a shinny knife... was Jack the Ripper one of my ancestors?

If you are you craving for excellent food pictures, then go and see the pictures gallery at Jugalbandi's!!!

This recipe has been adapted from of Isabel Allende's Guacamole recipe which was published in her book Afrodita. I think it's her first non-noveled book; Afrodita was the goddess of Love and beauty in the Greek Mythology and the book is full of afrodisiac recipes from around the world. Concerning the guacamole sauce I made a minor change: I didn't add 1 tea spoon of Worcestershire sauce.

The recipe is original from Mexico but I guess that nowadays everybody knows about Guacamole and enjoys such delicious sauce.

Conversations

There are so many conversations to follow! Here are a handful of blogs where I follow the community comments with interest.

Among major popular internet blogs, I like the well-informed conversation at boing boing, where the occasionally skeptical comments provide just the right balance to complement Cory Doctorow's reporting on technology, intellectual property, and privacy issues. Among economics blogs, the audience at marginal revolution clearly appreciates Tyler Cowen's plainspoken yet erudite reading summaries, even while correcting him on occasional howlers such as blaming China for his pessimism about global warming while claiming that "the U.S. has done better on carbon emissions than most of the Kyoto signatories" (the comments judge that claim about the U.S. to be plausible only in the legalistic sense of a small reduction by selected measures from 2002 levels, but not as a broad summary of progress for the nation with the single largest contribution to global warming, both in aggregate and on a per capita basis).

On food policy, I learn much from the comments at ethicurean and what to eat.

I always follow the links from the many fascinating comments here at U.S. Food Policy, which are a key motivation for continuing to keep this blog into its fourth year (!). I have essentially never had to delete a comment for objectionable content (perhaps once), and only occasionally delete comments for spam if they seem cut and paste. Please contact me by email if I ever make an error in this judgment. I never ever delete a comment on grounds of disagreeing with it. I am glad that the Blogger platform retains the title of the deleted comments, so you can see the deletions are rare.

Among U.S. Food Policy comments, you may not know about continuing conversations on older posts. For example, here are the views of Fuddruckers customers about their difficulty in acquiring nutrition facts information from the chain. The customers come here as their forum on this issue, because -- for reasons that are not entirely clear to me -- this 2005 post is the top Google search for "Fuddruckers nutrition." That is only true because Fuddruckers itself has no nutrition facts page in the Google rankings. This is a mass-market issue, in contrast with more esoteric topics also covered here, so this single search brings in a large readership. You have to wonder why Fuddruckers, which knows the nutrition facts for its products, would prefer this grief to simply sharing the facts with its customers.

Recent comments here led me to other interesting blogs. After she encouraged us all to garden more, I read Whirlwind Woman this morning with admiration. Courage, Whirlwind Woman! I think I started reading Janet at foodperson and bix at fanatic cook after seeing their comments here. Bix's paraphrase of NPR coverage about the impact of daylight savings on cows will make you smile.

At some point, I hope we can take on some type of community writing or information gathering project. Shall we pick a comparatively obscure U.S. food policy cause to follow together? Or choose a question that would benefit from a little decentralized digging that a single journalist couldn't feasibly undertake? Let's think about this.

LA MONA DE PASQUA

LENT IS OVER! And we foodies celebrate it!!! Each country, each region has its own particular way and here in Catalonia and Valencia, every Monday of Easter, goodfathers give to their godsons this special chocolate compositions. Cake shops show all kind of Monas (that's how they are called) and after a good lunch families eat them! Every single piece is eateable, except the little dolls and chicks!

Originally, the tradition started as a symbol of the beggining of spring and abundance. The first Monas were made of a spongy cake with chocolate, egg and llonganissa (like a dry chorizo but not as red and spicy). The word Mona comes from the Arab word Munna which means "food you get to your mouth". The first Monas looked more like this:

But nowadays in Catalonia you can see all kind of funny compositions. However, Valencia keeps the old design which always shows one egg.

Traditionally, the Godfather would give the Mona to the godson after the Sunday Mass and then on Monday the whole family and friends would eat it at home, preceded by some grilled rabbit or paella and lots of wine.

Hereunder you will see some pictures I took in Barcelona in different cake shops... and these ones are not the most spectacular!

This shop has even made flipflops out of chocolate and sweets!


Betty Boop was created in 1930 and is still on fashion!!!

Mickey, Minnie and Donald Duck are a classic too!

Asterix, Obelix and Cleopatra on a delious boat!

Enjoy the Mona's Day!!!

Common sense about children's media

Should the government sharply regulate marketing to children? Or should parents fend for themselves as they seek to transmit their values to their kids?

Your answer may depend in part on how much power you believe parents really have to assess media and put their priorities into practice. Advocates for a strong public policy response tend to believe the media and advertisers are too powerful and ubiquitous for parents to overcome. On the other hand, dogged parents have found for years that the media powers can be beaten. One approach is to avoid commercial television entirely, and to limit even children's videos to rare occasions. This approach may be easier, more fun, and, if you start young, less controversial with the children than you might think (at least through age 7, it seems). However, I can see clearly it is not for everybody.

As an intermediate approach, I have been reading with interest about efforts to give parents stronger tools for assessing children's media and exerting influence over the kids' media consumption. Because we don't have cable, I don't really understand technologies like TiVo, but I gather parents are gaining somewhat more ability to limit advertisements and to regulate channel choices.

On the media assessment side, I see the commonsense media site offers movie and book reviews with a nice clean layout and active community input from adults and kids. For food policy interest, I enjoyed the site's resources on obesity, commercialism, and other topics.

I gather that conservative parents have long had resources for media information that reflect their views on sex, drugs, and foul language. In contrast, the commonsense media reviews have a broader focus on social behavior and commercialism as well as violence, sex, and information about drug use. Even the coverage of the latter topics treats discussion of them as issues of child readiness and parental judgments about age appropriateness, not as taboos for everybody.

[A digression on the origins of this post. I came across the commonsense media site this evening while looking for a review of the The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, by Kate DiCamillo, which my kids and I were reading on vacation. Edward Tulane is a china toy rabbit, aware but unable to move or speak as he journeys from each owner to the next increasingly tragic owner. In tonight's reading, the beautiful story took a particularly poignant turn, and I felt obliged to read the rest of the novel myself before taking it up again with the kids tomorrow evening. I wondered what other parents thought. The commonsense media review correctly gave the book a top score of five stars and suggested 7+ years for an appropriate children's age. But, I was surprised that the review didn't mention the novel's Christian themes. I found the novel theologically more mature than C.S. Lewis' Narnia allegory, in which the Christ-like Lion fixes everything so that the child heroes become warrior monarchs. Edward Tulane is more true to the sadness in the original religious story (it turns out to be ironic that we were reading this on Easter). With a further web search, Edward Tulane's allegorical elements seem to be a matter of some discussion on other sites. For better or worse, with no mention of these elements, the commonsense media review seems quite vigorously secular!]

State House rally March 24 on school nutrition in Massachusetts

From the Massachusetts Public Health Association (MPHA) this week, an announcement about a rally at the State House on March 24:

With your help, MPHA is delivering hundreds of postcards to Beacon Hill, publishing letters in newspapers across the state, and generating new support for healthy school nutrition. But we must keep the momentum going!

Join us today and on March 24 in sending a message to our legislators: Children should learn healthy eating habits in school. Rising rates of diabetes, asthma, and other health problems associated with being obese and overweight demand nothing less.

The School Nutrition Bill establishes healthy standards for snacks and beverages sold in Massachusetts schools. The bill is in the House Ways and Means Committee, having already been approved by the Public Health and Health Care Financing Committees.

Take action to advance the bill to a vote by the House of Representatives!

* Email your state representative.

* Submit a letter to the editor.

* Endorse the bill.

* Join us at a State House rally! On Monday, March 24, Representative Peter Koutoujian, MPHA, and supporters from across the Commonwealth will holding a rally for the School Nutrition Bill. The rally will be from 9:00 to 11:00 am at Nurses Hall in the State House.

Thank you for your ongoing support and involvement.

Eric Weltman
Deputy Director, Advocacy and Policy
Massachusetts Public Health Association

Riñones al Jerez - Jerez Kidneys

Would you dare to try some Riñones al Jerez? I'm sure not everybody will crave for some kidneys for lunch or dinner... but... there's always a but, this is such a delicious dish! However, is very important to buy fresh Veal or Lamb kidneys. The younger and fresher the animal is the better.

Also, this kind of meat needs a deep cleaning; we all know what is the function of the kidneys, so when washing and cleaning them you might feel a funny smell at first. But if you follow all the instructions you will discover a new flavour and texture.

You can have them as a tapa with good slices of bread or as a main dish, that is up to you! This was my entry for Emiline's Pub Crawl, but I couldn't make it on time. Anyway, if you are a sweets addict and can't live without a cake in your fridge then go to Visions of Sugar Plum and have fun!!!

Ingredients for 4 servings: 500 grs. of veal or lamb kidneys, a small red onion, 2 green onions, 2 garlic cloves, 2 flour tea spoons, 1 small cup of water, 1 small cup of Jerez wine, 1/2 tea spoon of sweet red ground pepper, a bit of black pepper, salt, extra virgin olive oil, parsley and 1 small chile.

I'll try to upload a power point in short.

Cut the kidneys in slices and place in a recipient with 1 glass of water and a bunch of salt and 2 dl of vinegar. Leave it for 15 minutes.
Strain and place in a pot over the steamer. Add water to the pot and make it boil, let the kidneys sweat for 10 minutes aprox.

Strain again and have them under the cold pouring tap water. Let them there while you prepare a dressing with a mortar: Place the salt first to avoid having jumping garlics all over the place, slice the garlics and the parsley and smash until you get a compact mass.

Get some olive oil in a saucepan, add the sliced onion and green onion. When it gets transparent, add the kidneys and stir for a minute. Add the red and black pepper, the chile and the flour, keep on stirring at medium heat. When it gets thick, add the water and the mortar mass. Stir and let it cook for 8 minutes.

Stir, turn heat off and pour the Jerez on top just before serving the kidneys.

And if you try it and find to like it, there's more recipes with... liver, tongue, feet... he, he, he, as many as you can imagine.
Salud!

ALIMENTARIA - International participation - Human-vultures and other species

This last Friday I visited Alimentaria at Gran Via's site. The fair is sooooo big that it has been divided into two huge Areas: Monday I visited the Plaza España fair and Friday I went to Gran Via. It's a new business space in Barcelona... some months ago you couldn't get in there, it was getting build and there was a big traffic mess, but now it's beautifully set: huge avenues and green areas and high buildings are giving shape to one of the future most important Barcelona's business places.

It was a pity I went there on Friday because everybody was either tired and wanted to go back home quickly or they just made a great business and didn't need to stay in the fair until the last minute. The fair was supposed to end by 15:00 and by 13:00 nearly everybody was packaging and getting things ready for their departures.

This time I was able to meet a rare specimen that was all over the place... the Human-vulture!!! I was astonished to see how this kind of people would go around all the fair's stands begging and filling their huge bags with food, they didn't seem to get enough with just one piece... they wanted all!!! See all these women at the Cyprus stand! I just couldn't see the products... couldn't get nearer... I was afraid one of their talons would hurt me ;-)

The poor guys couldn't go faster, placed their products on the table and a second after they were inside a human-vulture bag!!! 2 Minutes and the stand was empty!


Sorry, Ivy! Couldn't get the chance to see any of your country products!!!

I was a bit luckier when visiting the North America's stands, of course the organic and ecologic food had an important space there, but I got stucked in the legume's space... an amazing spread of coloured legumes showed and a nice big belly middle aged man asked me to have a taste to their garbanzos and beans. They tasted great! I would have a problem to differenciate American's from Spanish products...



This experience has been a great help to understand some of the words and legumes some of you use in your recipes. First time I heard an American call garbanzo a chickpea, I thought he/she might have some Spanish influences, but here I saw that in the States are simply called same way we do!

See first picture on the left? See those black lentils? They are Beluga Caviar lentils, isn't that a great name for a legume? And the red chief lentils, don't they have a beautiful colour?

Looked behind my back and didn't see any human-vultures near, so I continued my visit ;-)

The Greek stand was also getting ready to leave the fair but I could get a glimpse to some of their typical products: their famous yogourth, some biscuits (done with ouzo! a word that I continuously listen in some of my greek foodiefriends blogs) and olive oil.



The Chinesse stands were all empty, Belgian, Italian and Mexican looked half empty too!!! Oh my good! Maybe the specimens should be called Velociraptors instead!!! Do you recognize any of these butts? Oooohhhh I should get out of here soon!!!

Some of them have mutated already and get wheeled carts...

The Mexicans are taking the last Tequila shots to get some extra courage... but the end is near, Velociraptors are now all over and they are just not having enough with the food in the stands they are starting to smell humans' fear...


Aawwwwgghh I see the entrance doors... I'm so near, but I'm listening to these weird steps behind me.... OMG will I be able to write about Spanish Oils, Wines, Organic food, Cooks demos?... I'm getting there... but these steps are getting nearer... I'm fainting, didn't have a bite for long now...

Are prices rising faster for fruits and vegetables than for other foods?

Everybody is concerned about food prices lately.

Some worry about food price inflation. Others worry about a looming recession, bringing deflation.

In nutrition circles, one focus of concern is that prices might be rising faster for fruits and vegetables than for other food categories, contributing to less healthy diets.

A fascinating report this week from Fred Kuchler and Hayden Stewart at USDA's Economic Research Service includes this chart for major Consumer Price Index (CPI) categories over the past 27 years. It shows more rapid price inflation for fresh fruits and vegetables than for cakes and cookies.

Regarding this figure, Kuchler and Stewart write:

The line plots clearly show that, compared with all other goods purchased, Americans are paying relatively more for fresh fruits and vegetables now than they did 27 years ago.

But here things begin to get a bit more complicated. Kuchler and Stewart don't really believe the top line in the figure above represents price inflation for fruits and vegetables very well. They argue that this trend overstates the real level of price inflation by failing to correctly account for quality changes.

To evaluate this concern, I think it is important to emphasize that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) does not make the error of simply ignoring quality changes. BLS understands very well that the price of traditional fresh carrots in 1981 cannot be compared to the price of bagged mini carrots in 2001. Instead, BLS carefully looks at price changes for fixed products from one period to the next. For example, BLS looks at how the price of traditional fresh carrots changed from 1981 to 1982 and how the price of bagged mini carrots changed from 2001 to 2002. The agency links together such price changes from one year to the next to get a sense of price trends over the years. The price changes represent consumer spending patterns in a particular time period, so traditional carrots were given comparatively more weight in estimating price changes in the early 1980s and bagged mini carrots were given comparatively more weight in estimating price changes in the 2000s.

Nevertheless, Kuchler and Stewart believe the BLS approach may miss some of the consumer benefit that arises when a traditional product is replaced by a new product that is closely similar -- such as when old fashioned carrots are replaced by bagged mini carrots. For this reason, the authors prefer to look at price changes for particular selected foods. They believe the trends for these foods show little evidence of more rapid price inflation for fruits and vegetables.

Still, even the analysis of specific foods contains some examples of real price increases. Here is the price trend for broccoli:


I doubt that quality improvements in broccoli are responsible for all of this price trend.

The bottom line: The main BLS price indices show particularly rapid price inflation for fruits and vegetables. Though the BLS method is imperfect, it is difficult to find a better summary of price changes over time for a representative sample of foods.

San Francisco approves restaurant nutrition labeling

An email correspondent writes:

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the city’s Board of Supervisors has approved unanimously a new regulation requiring chain restaurants to post nutrition information on their menu boards. According to the story, “Diners in San Francisco will start seeing the labels in about six months. The law requires nutrition information - including calories, fat, carbohydrates and sodium - to be posted on menus or, for restaurants that do not have menus, on prominently displayed posters. Restaurants with menu boards would be required to list the calories per item on the board; other nutrition information could be listed on the posters.”

The move is aimed at addressing the obesity epidemic, though the Chronicle notes that studies are inconclusive, with some research showing that if people really want to eat calorie-laden burgers and fries, all the signs in the world are unlikely to dissuade them.

The regulations are similar to those passed in New York City.

Here is in an earlier post about restaurant nutrition labeling policy in California.

ALIMENTARIA - Intercarn and Restaurama

Imagine you are an ant and you slowly raise your head and look up and see the huge jungle...
Imagine you are a nun or a priest and you suddenly open your eyes inside the Notre Dame Cathedral...
Imagine you are a young tourist and you are in the middle of Manhattan surrounded by skyscrapers...
And now imagine you are a foodie and you land in Alimentaria 08!

My back still aches! I spent 5 hours walking through the stands and corridors, watching, smelling, photographing, listening and tasting all kinds of food: from the sweetest treats and ice creams and chocolates to the tastiest Iberian Acorn hams, funny pizzas and snacks!


Ham violins ready to be "played"!!!

Finally a pizza that you can eat while you walk! Coneinn


Or maybe you are in the mood for a traditional dish but don't know how to cook it? Try with Just Married!


Are you just married? Have you ever fried an egg? Do you know the difference between boil and simmer? Here you have a typical Catalan dish ready for you to eat: Black Rice, just follow simple instructions and enjoy! Just Married


Isn't Salt important in foodies life? In old times, salt used to be an important and valuable exchange possession. Casanovas Healthy Gastronomy cares for good cuisine and shows us different ways of treating the best of the salts from Delta del Ebro, a Natural Reserve.


Time for a break: coffees, sweets, cakes, salty snacks, beautiful coffee cups... but the genius of the chocolate, the most admirable cacao sculptor is Oriol Balaguer. He is not only a plastic and design artist but also a palate master!!! Couldn't get a good picture because his creations were inside a glass showcase and the reflection of the light spoiled the picture, but please chocolate addicts, go and see his webpage... He is a Chocolate Magician!!! He used to work with Ferran Adrià in El Bulli, in charge of the famous restarant's desserts and now he owns his own company. Hereunder one of his last creations: Planetarium.

This is only a small taste... but there will be some more in my next post. I also attended to a conference given by Ferran Adrià and his second Chef at Bulli's. It's a priviledge to be near him. He has given Catalan cuissine a world wide 1st place!!!

I WON THE CLICK CONCEPT AWARD!!!

I Woooooooooonnnnnnnnnn the Click Concept Award!!!!!! Thank you to all the bloggers that voted and the judges and specially to Bee and Jai, the owners of one of the most beautiful designed blogs I've seen: Jugalbandi!!! :D Thank you guys! I love my new badge, I will proudly show it!!!

For those of you who like photography and food, head immediately to Jugalbandi and take a good look to the Click Contest, it's great fun and a wonderful place to enjoy other bloggers' creativity!

February's theme was FLOUR and my entry picture was some flour on my dauther's hand being blown away: Light as flour


Special dressing: Queen (turn player on)

This picture was part of Artichokes doughnuts pictures serial. Follow the link to see the rest. Thank god my husband tied a string to my feet because... I'm flying high!!!! Feel like a balloon :D

Second try at home-made maple syrup

The second try this week worked better. We borrowed an old Coleman camp stove, bought a digital cooking thermometer, let the boiling run for a longer day on multiple burners, and strained the syrup. With these four improvements, we got about five nice jars of amber syrup, enough for one jar each for two neighbor families who contributed sap from their trees, two jars for relatives, and one for ourselves.

On the environmental economics, maple syrup from a large operation in Quebec surely uses fewer resources than the same amount of maple syrup from our backyard.

But food is about community. You wouldn't believe the enthusiasm of the neighbor kids who brought over sap from their trees. Many more kids came by just to look. Even the grownups got caught up in the operation.

The New York Times had a nice article on the maple sugaring scene.

See an earlier post for a description of the first try. We will give this one more go today, with the goals of increasing the quantity still one more notch and letting the boiling temperature reach about a half degree higher for slightly thicker syrup.

Farm Bill nearing a conclusion?

The FarmPolicy blog today has a roundup of news reports that the Farm Bill may be nearing a conclusion. House and Senate conferees must iron out differences between bills that passed the two houses of Congress in late summer and fall 2007. They must also contend with a veto threat from the administration if the compromise bill includes taxes or other new revenue.

The House and Senate bills both rejected widespread calls for substantial reform of the main row crop subsidies. Under either bill, even very rich farmers will be able to receive in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in subsidies, despite the current year's high farm profits and soaring commodity prices in the midst of the ethanol boom.

The Mulch blog at the Environmental Working Group today links to a press release from Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who is still trying to get the Senate to pass a $250,000 limit on farm payments. The proposal would save taxpayers $641 million over five years. I was momentarily confused by this press release, because my foggy memory was having trouble recalling whether the Grassley proposal had passed or failed in the Senate last fall. Funny that I should be unclear on that point -- 56 of the 100 Senators had voted for Grassley's proposal, but it still failed to pass under obscure Senate rules.

Here is the interactive map from the Environmental Working Group of newspaper editorials from around the country that called for farm policy reform in the Farm Bill. Sigh.


Update: edited slightly 3/18 to correct the name of the Environmental Working Group.

Boston Public Health Commission to hold March 13 hearing on trans fat

The Boston Public Health Commission is considering a requirement that restaurants stop using artificial trans fats, such as hydrogenated vegetable oils, because of scientific evidence that they increase risk of heart disease. There would be exceptions for very small quantities of artificial trans fat and for trans fat in packaged foods such as potato chips. Boston's action follows similar bans in New York City and Boston's neighbor Brookline, MA.

In January, the commission gave preliminary approval to a ban on trans fats, but some of the real decisions are still coming up. A public comment period is almost over, so write quickly if you'd like to express your views on trans fats. There will be a public hearing on Thursday, March 13, 2008, from 3 to 4pm, in the Hayes Conference Room, 1010 Massachusetts Avenue. For more information, see the brochure from the Boston Public Health Commission (.pdf).

The Boston Globe in January summarized the scientific case for the commission's proposal:

Scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health conducted much of the landmark research into trans fat, establishing the link between the substance and cardiovascular disease in people. Primate studies have also shown that consuming trans fat can elevate the risk of a condition that is a precursor to diabetes and also pack fat around the belly, where it is believed to be more dangerous than elsewhere. Studies estimate that having as few as 40 calories of trans fat a day can boost the risk of a heart attack by 23 percent. A fast-food meal of chicken nuggets and French fries, if prepared with artificial trans fat, can easily contain more than 100 calories of the substance.

A ban on a particular ingredient is seldom an economist's preferred policy lever, and many progressive food policy advocates prefer to focus on real foods and foodways rather than single ingredients. Still, in the case of trans fat, a ban might be simpler and more efficient than other policy options. In contrast with salt or caloric sweeteners, there is no major economic constituency lined up in favor of trans fats, and no large economic cost to a ban.

The Boston action is just part of what is going on nationally to address trans fats. For example, the Center for Science in the Public Interest has recently been taking on Burger King, the only one of the major three burger chains without plans to move away from hydrogenated vegetable oil.

Alimentaria 2008 - Events - Artichokes

First of all, I want to appologize because I'm being late to all your blogs! Sorry, I've had a very busy week. I'll try to get in the track again. But it won't be next week because I'm going to assist to ALIMENTARIA 2008.

This is like the BIG International Event on Food/gastronomy/drinks/heavyduty Spanish products and so. It takes place on a year basis in Barcelona. Fira de Barcelona is hosting the Event with a spread of 130.000 m2, 155.000 expected visits and over 5000 companies. Click on the icon and get more info if you wish.

There will be different areas for each concept: for example the space for Meat (where Iberian Acorn ham will be the star for sure!). A space for Olives and olive oil, a space for drinks and wines, for lactics... a total of 15 theme based areas.

There will also be seminars on different country market trends, food, gastronomy, mediterranean diet and more. There will be a contest on the International best "seconds" chefs. New products that still are not in the market will be shown there for the first time. There will be a space called Innoval where we will see the Future's shop/market place.... Tones of new information!!!!

I'm really excited about it, my parents will be "babysitting" all week long so that I can go there every day during the next week. I will keep you informed about all the things I'll see, taste and smell, so pleaseeeeee be patient with me and I'll be your senses in Alimentaria 2008. Promise to be back with delicious new posts!!!

Secondly - EVENTS : My friend Val from More than a burnt toast has WON the LeftoverQueen's Joust!!!!! She presented a beautiful y apetitoso dish with the 3 ingredients of the month: citrus, pork and pink or white pepper Citrus-spice-rubbed baby back ribs..... and she will get the famous APRON that the Queen generously gives as a prize to the winner!!!!! Congratulations Val!!!! :D

Go and take a look at her recipe, she deserves the prize. This is how the ribs looked, now go to her place for the recipe!

And the third item today are ARTICHOKES. I saw this great recipe on artichokes at Pixie's blog: You say tomatoe I say tomatoe, and since I love artichokes couldn't resist the temptation and got her recipe and cooked them. They were sooooooo good!!! Here you have the picture I took before we devored them... Mmmmmmmm. I followed the recipe but instead of adding the tomatoe and rest of veggies to the water, I let the water evaporate and when their bottoms started to stuck to the pot, I turned the heat off. Please go to Pixie's blog for great recipes. Her family roots are Maltesse and she has performed some maltesse recipes too!!! Thanks Pixie :D