In My Not So Humble Opinion

Archive for the ‘food’ Category

I’m convinced that The South is responsible for at least 50% of the annual sugar consumption, world wide. I base this on my own experience while vacationing in South Carolina and Georgia several years ago. (They also have the corner on hog fat, but that’s another subject.)

When I was in The South, everything that could be sugared, was. Anything that gets a “skosh” of sugar anywhere else in the US, would get a barrel full there. Case in point: Iced Tea. Great iced tea is brewed with fresh tea, to a clear amber. Great iced tea doesn’t need sugar. Good tea can be enhanced with a small amount.

Southern Sweet Tea recipes recommend using anywhere from 3/4 cup to 1-1/2 cups of sugar per pitcher. Most recipes recommend you make Simple Syrup so you don’t have any grittiness from the sugar. Use even amounts of sugar and water. Bring to a boil and immediately, cover and remove from heat. Let sit for 15-20 minutes, then add to the pitcher of tea.

Where am I going with this? Oh yeah, pralines.

Pralines are a very Southern treat. My daughter went to New Orleans with her boyfriend for the holidays, and returned with a box of Aunt Sally’s Original Creole Pralines. They bill themselves as “New Orleans Most Famous Praline.” Since I’ve never heard of them, I guess they’re famous mainly in New Orleans.

Because I’m game for unusual foods, daughter gave me one to try.

 

The first mistake I made was to read the Nutrition Facts. Candy should not have Nutrition Facts. If you’re concerned about nutrition, you shouldn’t eat candy. I looked anyway. One serving has 180 calories, 8 grams of fat, and 29 grams of Carbs (28 of those from sugar, what a surprise). On the plus side, they provide 2% of my daily requirement of Vitamin A and Calcium.

Ingredients include Sugar, Corn Syrup, and High Fructose Corn Syrup. Oh, and some pecans, evaporated milk, vanilla flavoring, and both margarine and butter.

I broke off a small piece and gave it a try. It was a strongly vanilla-flavored grainy sugar mass that dissolved quickly, leaving a greasy residue on the tongue with a piece of soft pecan. Not really bad, but definitely an acquired taste.

If you’re adventurous, check out Aunt Sally’s. They have all kinds of Louisiana foods that will satisfy any carb craving.

I think I’ll keep the rest of this praline on hand in case I ever have a hypoglycemic attack and need something to raise my blood glucose fast.

A lot of people contacted me about The Great Fruitcake Recycling Project. Most agreed with my position that fruitcake is a dangerous hazard to life, health, and the environment. The ones who disagreed told me in no uncertain terms that I didn’t know what I was talking about, fruitcake is wonderful, and I should stop this nonsense. Some even intimated that the only reason I didn’t like it was because I had never tried a “good” one. I scoffed at them, because clearly those were all prank emails. That was, until I heard from @TheGourmetGirl on Twitter.

@TheGourmetGirl’s real name is Elaine, and she has a website: Gourmet Girl Magazine, which is filled with all kinds of recipes, food reviews, and other wonderful food-related stuff. She asked me if I had ever tried Caribbean Black Cake. Since the answer was “no,” I checked out the recipe on her site. (Scroll down to the bottom of the page.)

Here’s what I found:
The recipe calls for dried fruit like figs, dates, apricots, cherries, and peaches – not those neon mystery bits
It uses an entire bottle of both Frangelico and Amaretto

I told her that I thought it might be the only edible fruitcake I’ve ever encountered. She offered to send me one, and I anxiously accepted her offer.

The package arrived yesterday. Per her advice, I opened it in a well-ventilated room. Very good advice. With the high alcohol content, I was surprised to find it wasn’t confiscated at the post office.

The box, before opening, smelled divine with all kinds of almondy alcohol goodness. I carefully unpackaged it from its bubble wrap, foil and plastic wrap, and the full aroma hit me. This was not my grandmother’s fruitcake.

Husband and I just looked at it for a moment. Then I challenged him to take a bite. Ever the skeptic, he wouldn’t, until I tried it first. I did, and it was wonderful.

My observations:
This is a very moist cake. Probably because it’s absolutely embalmed in alcohol. That’s a good thing.
The fruit is not only edible, it tastes like real fruit.
Each bite is an explosion of goodness in my mouth.
It doesn’t taste like “fruitcake” at all. Calling it fruitcake is an insult.

I decided that this cake would make an excellent breakfast food for New Year’s Day. I was right – you can’t eat this in the morning if you want to get any real work done. I started with a small piece. Then a bigger one. Then another, with whipped cream on top. By now, I’ve eaten more than half of the small cake, and I’m definitely tipsy. The rest will have to wait for tonight. It will be a long wait.

So there you have it. There is a cake, with fruit in it, that is not only edible, but absolutely wonderful. Just don’t call it fruitcake.

DENVER (Dec. 9, 2008) The Great Fruitcake Recycling Project is asking concerned citizens to think about recycling their fruitcakes this holiday season.

Many recyclers tend to think of gift catalogues, greeting cards and non-foil gift wrap when recycling during the holidays. Champagne bottles, popcorn tins and cardboard boxes all show up in recycling bins between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Recycling fruitcakes will take this environmental action one step further.

When recycling your Christmas trees, and wreaths, you may be tempted to add your fruitcake to the wood chipper. Because the half-life of a well-aged fruitcake is at least 50 years, The Great Fruitcake Recycling Project recommends that instead, you join the new fruitcake movement: Regift, Reuse, Recycle.

Regifting of fruitcakes actually started in 1913, when the first fruitcakes were sent via mail order. With nearly every household receiving a fruitcake via mail, in addition to the home-baked ones being circulated, the cycle was started.

Reusing fruitcake can be as simple as repurposing this year’s gift as a doorstop, or using one in a variety of craft projects.

Consumers who are unable to regift or reuse their fruitcakes are encouraged to send them to The Great Fruitcake Recycling Project, where they are busily working on solutions to the problem of Fruitcake Proliferation. For more information, go to www.fruitcakerecycling.com. Their motto: Together, we can make a difference, one fruitcake at a time.

About The Great Fruitcake Recycling Project:
The Great Fruitcake Recycling Project was established in 2005 with the goal of educating the public on both the versatility, and environmental impact of fruitcake. Their website contains fruitcake facts, helpful uses for fruitcake, a forum for the community to share its concerns about fruitcake proliferation, Fruitcake Cards, and Fruitcake games. Its owner and webmaster is clearly a woman with too much time on her hands.

Official Announcement:
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. Molson Coors will fuel DNC vehicles with ethanol from waste beer.

Unless it was backwash, or beer that was left out, open so that it got warm and flat, I’ve never had the term “waste beer” enter my vocabulary. In those instances, it was more like, “What a waste of good beer.”

Convention organizers aim to make the event “the greenest convention possible.” Other sustainable initiatives, in addition to using ethanol, include mitigating carbon emissions and cutting down on waste through recycling to a preference for organic food served at convention events.

While I’m at it, I just want to mention that certain terms have been used so much in preparation for the political farce that is the DNC, I just want to scream. “Green” is the biggest offender, followed closely by “carbon footprint,” “zero-waste,” and “carbon neutral.” The planners have gone absolutely nuts trying to prove that Denver is the greenest city in the US, by requiring all vendors to follow a rediculously strict list of rules that they would never follow under normal circumstances.

The latest example of the extent to which the DNC planners will take this lunacy is the list of requirements for food vendors. A short exerpt:

Fried foods are forbidden at the committee’s 22 or so events, as is liquid served in individual plastic containers. Plates must be reusable, like china, recyclable or compostable. The food should be local, organic or both. (Uh, here in Colorado, with our short growing season, local doesn’t necessarily cut it. And, the organic requirement will send costs through the roof. Will the DNC pay, or will vendors lose, just for the opportunity to participate? Get your money up front, folks.)

And caterers must provide foods in “at least three of the following five colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white,” garnishes not included, according to a Request for Proposals, or RFP, distributed last week.

It’s not about saving the planet. It’s about perception and political posturing. August 29 will not come soon enough.

I love onion rings. Not enough, though, to put up with bad ones. They gotta be good, which means they absolutely must be hot, crisp, with the right amount of crunch and fresh onion goodness.

We went to Rock Bottom Brewery in Loveland for dinner Thursday night. Their onion rings were greasy, soggy, and ice cold. Husband’s meat loaf dinner was mushy and tasteless, too, by the way. So, for an informal review of Rock Bottom Brewery, I’d have to give it one point out of ten. The one point is for the friendly, although somewhat inattentive, waitress. The atmosphere was average – what you’d expect for a large chain. Big, new, crowded, noisy.

But, back to the onion rings. I’ll give you a list of the top three places to get stellar onion rings, and a couple to definitely avoid.

#1 and the absolute best: Runza. There are no Runza Restaurants in the Denver area, so I have to stop by their Loveland restaurant to get my fix. Unfortunately, I am very rarely in Northern Colorado, so I don’t get these very often. If you’re in Lincoln, Nebraska, you may remember Rock & Roll Runza – art deco 50′s interior and wait staff on roller skates. It was a fun destination. Too bad they went corporate.

#2 and a strong contender: Sonic Drive-In. I’ll qualify this, though, with a disclaimer: it definitely depends on which Sonic you go to, and when. You want to go when they are busy, so the onion rings are absolutely fresh when you get them.

#3 Dewey’s All-American Grill. Their rings are plentiful, crunchy, and divine. They’re served all stacked up on a post, which is fun. Bonus: the dipping sauce. Good enough to lick the bowl. Double-bonus: friendly, attentive wait staff, a zillion tv’s tuned to every game you’d want to see, and you don’t have to eat in your car.

The bad: Okay, I’ve already mentioned Rockbottom Brewery. Another forgettable: Denny’s, where the onion rings are worse than the ones I make at home (which, by the way, I dump out of a bag and put in the oven).

The absolute worst onion rings of all time: Burger King. Chopped onions in a soggy batter that soaks up grease without getting crunchy. Ick.