Nov 4th: Can't get enough Bacon?
It started with a customer request to make “spreadable bacon,
namely mayonnaise.” the smooth and slightly smoky taste that
would henceforth be known as Baconnaise, The Ultimate
Bacon Flavored Spread.Put it on sandwiches, salads, dips,
fish, chicken, burgers and more. It's even Kosher!
Also available Baconnaise Lite - With 1/2 the fat
and 1/3 fewer calories than regular mayonnaise, Baconnaise Lite
will still give you tons of bacon flavor without the guilt. More
info
Oct 31: Voting on Nov 4th = Free Food
Chick-fil-A’s Dayton-area restaurants offering free chicken
sandwiches to those sporting an “I Voted” sticker on Tuesday,
Nov. 4.
Ben & Jerry’s will give voters free ice cream from 5 p.m.
to 8 p.m. on Election Night, Tuesday, Nov. 4.
Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, located at 2001 E. Dorothy Lane in Kettering
will give one free star-shaped doughnut with red, white and blue sprinkles
to customers wearing an “I
Voted Today” sticker.
Starbucks will be giving away a free "tall" (12-ounce) sized
cup of coffee to anyone with the "I voted" sticker (1/guest).
Oct 27: Creepy Cocktails for Halloween!
Here's some treats of the adult
beverage kind to add a
little spice to your Halloween festivities:
Bloody brain
3/4 ounce peach schnapps
Float of Bailey's Irish Cream
1 dash grenadine
Glassware: highball glass
Pour peach schnapps into a highball glass.
Add Irish Cream to
the center. Top with grenadine and serve.
Black Magic
2 oz. vodka
1 oz. Kahlua
splash of lemon juice
lemon twist
Combine ingredients in a mixing glass
with ice and stir gently. Strain
into a glass over ice. Garnish with a lemon twist.
Vampire -A sweet bloody-red cocktail to tempt those
creatures of the night…
1.5 oz. vodka
1.5 oz. chambord
1.5 oz. cranberry juice
a good splash of lime juice
Combine all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker and give it a good
shake with cracked ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Black Devil
4 parts rum
1 part dry vermouth
black olive
Shake the rum and vermouth with cracked ice. Strain into a chilled
cocktail glass and garnish with a black oliv
Oct 24: Free Ice Cream for Voting!
On 4 November, Americans will take to the polling stations to cast
their vote for either John McCain or Barack Obama,
and Ben & Jerry's
plans to reward them for doing so.
Each voter who proves their eligibility
for a free scoop of ice cream,
either by displaying their "I Voted" sticker,
showing a photo
of themselves at
the polling station, or doing the
"I Voted" dance,
will be rewarded at a participating Ben & Jerry's outlet.
The free scoops are being dished out between 5-8pm on 4 November,
regardless of who you vote for! Click for Ben & Jerry's locations
Oct 16: Starbucks' Surprise Success:
Oatmeal
CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Starbucks seems to have a slam-dunk new product:
oatmeal. Yes, that mush your grandma pushed on you as a child
is shaping up as the company's most successful food launch of all
time. Within just a few weeks -- and despite unseasonably warm
weather in many markets -- oatmeal has become the best-selling
food item throughout Starbucks' entire system, knocking reduced-calorie
coffee cake from the top spot.In a drive-thru culture, it's hard to
believe that consumers would be willing to pay more for a breakfast
that comes with a spoon, several packets and needs to steep for at least
three to five minutes. But for Starbucks, the trick is in convincing
consumers not to go elsewhere for their food fix. "Who wants to
make two stops?" Ms. Gass said. "We're getting existing customers
to buy food."
Oct 9: WowBacon
Finally
eliminating the insane skill required to cook bacon, this microwavable
pitcher hangs bacon strips upright, broiling them to perfection as
greasy fat drips off, making for healthier bacon and much unhealthier "baconade". Broil
a pound of
regular or thick cut bacon in less than 10 minutes!
Mmmmm, microwavable bacon pitcher at WowBacon.com
Oct 7th: Citing the "Feta
Cheese Precedent"
Fadi Abboud, president of the Lebanese Industrialists Association,
says Lebanon is planning an international lawsuit against Israel
for appropriating its national cuisine. Falafel, hummus and tabouleh
were Lebanese long before the the Jewish state was founded, Abboud
claims. He has prepared a memo that cites Europe's "feta
cheese precedent" to support his case. More
info
Oct 3rd: Bright knives, big city. On Top Chef:
New
York, the fifth season of the No. 1 food show on cable,
17 new cheftestants take on
the Big Apple and compete for their shot at culinary stardom.
Cookbook author, actress and host Padma Lakshmi once again returns
to the judges' table, alongside head judge Tom Colicchio, renowned
culinary figure and chef/owner of Craft Restaurants, and judge
Gail Simmons of Food & Wine magazine.
This season introduces new judge Toby Young, food critic and
best-selling author of the book How to Lose Friends and
Alienate
People, which was the basis for an upcoming film. more
info
Sept 27th: Home cooks, want to Be famous?
llustrator Mary Engelbreit, whose colorful confections decorate all
manner of 
domestic products, is soliciting recipes from the public
for a new series of cookbooks to be published by Andrews McMeel.
If your special casserole, or stew, or whatever, is selected,
your name and a "short personal story" about the dish will accompany
the recipe.
Payment involves not money but an autographed copy of the cookbook
and, perhaps even more valuable, vindication of your culinary prowess!
Right now, they're on the hunt for one-pot meals and a category called "Family
Favorites." The deadline for submissions is Oct. 8, and the cookbooks
are slated for Fall 2009. Visit Engelbreit's Web
site for more info.
Sept 18th: A Good Steak Never Goes Out of Style
Get
tiny blue plates with huge slabs of steak on them!
The steaks and plates are hand-sculpted, and securely attached
to the front of the cuff links. The links themselves are shiny
silver base metal, and are 15mm in diameter.
Sculpted by hand from polymer clay, then glazed
for a shiny, protected finish. These steaks will be around
for a whole lot longer than the real thing!
Prefer meat and potatoes? Perhaps steak on a tie bar? A
set of earrings for Octoberfest?
No problem!
To order your food cuffs, click
here
Sept 16th: Proper
Food Handling After Power is Restored
- Previously frozen or refrigerated perishable foods that
have been held at 41° F or more for over 2-4 hours should be
discarded and are not be safe to eat, even if thoroughly cooked.
- Frozen foods that still contain ice crystals or remains
at 41° F or less may be refrozen.
- Mayonnaise, tartar sauce and horseradish that have been
at 50° F or more for over 8 hours should be discarded as they may
not be safe to eat.
- Butter/margarine, hard and processed cheeses, canned
fruits and fresh fruits, fresh mushrooms, herbs and spices, fruit pies,
breads/rolls/cakes/etc., opened jelly/relish/mustard/catsup/taco & barbeque
sauces may all be kept.
- A freezer that is half full of frozen food will only
hold up to 24-hours and a full freezer will hold food up to 48-hours.
Dry ice can be placed in a freezer on boards or heavy paper on top
of packages to keep temperatures below freezing. Allow 2.5 pounds of
dry ice per cubic foot of space. More will be needed in an upright
freezer because dry ice should be placed on each shelf. Dry ice can
cause burns – DON’T HANDLE DRY ICE WITH BARE HANDS.
- If raw food has leaked during thawing, clean and disinfect
the areas the food has touched using a chlorine bleach solution (½-cap
per 1-gallon of water). To absorb any lingering odors, place
an open box or dish of baking soda into the appliance.
These tips courtesy of the Greene County Combined Health District.
For more information call (937) 374-5606.
Sept 10th: Service: Umbrella Today?
Enter your zip and this site'll advise you simply whether to
bring your parasol, plus let you sign up for daily text alerts,
which you can choose to receive at any hour of the day, e.g.,
5am for early risers, or 6pm for people who just want confirmation
that they're totally soaked. Advice you can trust at UmbrellaToday.com
Sept 9th: A
Race of epic Proportins
Drambuie -
The Pursuit's a 100-mile race through the Scottish
Highlands, retracing the steps of Bonnie Prince Charlie -- the
rebel monarch who carried the secret ingredients for Drambuie
liqueur close to his breast as he fled the Duke of Cumberland
(nickname: "Butcher
Cumberland" -- hence the fleeing).
Enter your team of four, and
you'll face a staggering array of challenges, including: archery,
powerboat racing, climbing/descending a 200 ft cliff, white-water
rafting, off-road buggy racing, and canoeing the river Ness --
where the real monster will be your hideously chafed underarms.
Afterwards, contestants get a blowout gala in the legendary burgh
Inverness, home of Macbethian madness, not to mention the world's
premier solo piping competition (suck on that, London's Kensington
Conference Centre).
Only six American teams get the all-expense-paid,
trans-Atlantic trip,
but signing up for your shot's as easy as sipping the only Scottish
liqueur that's as golden smooth as you are. So smooth, whether it were
a rock wall or a rock & roll has-been, you'd be the one doing the
spanking.
Sept 4th: Foods of the World
National
Geographic's new Foods of the World online
marketplace truly reveals a wondrously appetizing universe. It
showcases, and sells, an array of artisan and specialty products
from small purveyors in more than 30 countries:
Click on Switzerland
to find a "Fondue
Cheese Flight" for $30, or an "Asian Spices" collection
for $30 when you choose Asia.
The "Taste of…" assortments
are offered for almost all of the featured destinations, and
seem like especially good values.
Taste of Latin America, for
instance, includes cheeses, sweets and a cooking sauce for $31.
More than a retail space, it also offers
background on the various food cultures through articles from
the magazine's extensive archives and, no surprise, from the
many glorious photographs you'd expect from National Geographic.
August 30th: Starbucks intervention, courtesy of McDonald's
Every once a millennium a monster fast food chain and its sweaty marketing
department comes up with an idea that makes us smile. More often than
not they come with, oh, a Colonel Sanders who raps or a large creepy
irony-drenched Burger King costume. (We're still getting night scares
from the Colonel Sanders thing.)
Anyway, McDonald’s has
just done something very clever and fun and addicting,
and we urge you to check it out, since 3008 is a long
way off. What we're talking about here is unsnobbycoffee.com. Check
it out.
The pure joy of it is best discovered on your own. But the
overall gimmick (if you don't feel like clicking) is this:
You
drag words like "highfalutin" and "trust
fund" and "snooty" into
the empty spaces of a form letter. You fill in the name of
your friend who likes fancy coffee. The letter explains they spend
too much money on coffee with funny names. You print it out. You
are performing, in McDonald's words, "a snobby coffee intervention."
In case you need it spelled out, McDonald's is gearing up to take
a chunk out of Starbucks and this is how they're promoting it. Good
luck, Ronald.
The Internets fun is fun. Futile. But still fun.
Courtesy of Chris Borrelli & The
Stew
August 27th: Cocktails for the party faithful
Bars and restaurants in Denver are making the most of
the Democratic National Convention with politically themed cocktails. Watching
the conventions will be
much easier with these libations:
The Blue 'Bama - A dash of Sprite and
club soda, some blueberries for garnish, It's even served "on
ba-racks."
Right Wing Johnny - a blend of Raspberry
vodka, cranberry juice, Cointreau,
freshly muddled raspberries and
served "uptight."
Rodham Sock 'em - Sto lichnaya vodka, lemonade concentrate, ice, blend
and served frozen in a red wine glass, garnished with a lemon
twist and a rock candy swizzle stick.
August 14th: A mentor in the Kitchen
Ever tried a new recipe only to get stuck halfway through because
of some complicated instruction you don't understand? Or maybe
you made a new cake recipe, but it flopped and you just don't
know why?
In times like these, a call to Mom or Grandma could save the
day. But what if neither of yours is a good cook? (Or she just isn't
available?)
A new mentor
program BakeSpace.com which
bills itself as a social networking site for home cooks, could
be the answer. Accomplished cooks sign up in a category to offer advice.
Just go on the site, find a topic, such as cupcakes, and send a e-mail
to the mentor.
