The Size of My Fist...

... and crisp and tasty as ever. The Honey Crisp apples that is.

They've had them now at McGinnis Sisters for a few weeks.

They are from PA, significantly cheaper than any apple variety at the Giant Local Grocery Chain, and taste fantastic. And, to boot, they are ridiculously large. Seriously, they are as big as my fist, often bigger.

And that's saying something, 'cause I've got fairly sizable hands (scroll down)! [And you know what they say about guys with big hands? Clumsy in the kitchen.]

But even Honey Crisps that are inferior to these in size and cost are still typically the bestest apples ever.

Our Lovely Factory Farms @ Work

This time it's factory dairy farming, part of the NY Times' excellent series on water pollution. An example of the impact of dirty water?

In Morrison, more than 100 wells were polluted by agricultural runoff within a few months, according to local officials. As parasites and bacteria seeped into drinking water, residents suffered from chronic diarrhea, stomach illnesses and severe ear infections.

“Sometimes it smells like a barn coming out of the faucet,” said Lisa Barnard, who lives a few towns over, and just 15 miles from the city of Green Bay.

Tests of her water showed it contained E. coli, coliform bacteria and other contaminants found in manure. Last year, her 5-year-old son developed ear infections that eventually required an operation. Her doctor told her they were most likely caused by bathing in polluted water, she said.

Runoff from these farms is very poorly regulated, the Times' Charles Duhigg explains. And they seem to skirt around the regs that do exist. And then there's this:

And regulations passed during the administration of President George W. Bush allow many of those farms to self-certify that they will not pollute, and thereby largely escape regulation.

Wow. There's some tough regulation. Self certification. Seems a bit like asking a murderer to remain in his house for a prison sentence, as long as he self certifies that, honest, he won't leave the house or kill anybody ever, ever again.

Despite what many, including many family farmers, think, regulation in and of itself is not bad. Excessive regulation is bad, as is the practice of purposefully not enforcing regulation.

The biggest problem, in agriculture, though, is probably that big ag pretty much writes the regs. As a result, they get the veneer of being a "heavily regulated industry," when in reality the regs are chock full of loopholes large enough to accommodate the space shuttle, but loopholes that really only benefit the big guys.

It's a terrible system. One most legislators seem perfectly willing to maintain.

Cooking Stuff

There is some policy-related news that I've been meaning to get to (perhaps tomorrow), but in the meantime, some actual preparation and consumption of food items.

I can't remember the last time I made anything with chicken breasts -- my preference being, of course, the dark meat -- but this sounds really good, and although it's a tad labor intensive, it would probably make a really good, and healthy, Sunday meal.

And I'm not sure if lobsters are still really cheap (relatively speaking, that is), but this lobster tale (pun intended) got me thinking back to the most recent New Year's Eve, and a decadent meal that I would highly recommend trying to emulate.

We picked up some lobsters from Penn Avenue Fish Company and intended to use it as part of a pasta dish using some fresh pasta we got from Penn Mac in a saffron cream sauce. For the latter, I did some searching on the Intertubes, found one that seemed to meet our needs (tablespoon or two of shallots sauteed in a little olive oil, add half-cup of white wine and reduce in half for about 5-10 minutes, cup or so of heavy cream, pinch or two of saffron, salt, pepper, stir over medium low heat for a bit, finish at the very end with some chopped herbs, parsley or tarragon. I forget the exact details, to be honest - try the aforementioned and you might be surprised.).

Having never done anything with lobster in our kitchen, I followed the instructions in the first hyperlink above:

''The best way to kill them, according to animal welfare agencies, is to put them in the freezer first for 15 minutes,'' he said. ''It slows their metabolism.''

After that, Mr. [Trevor] Corson suggested, put the lobster on its back and slice lengthwise through its soft underbelly.

From that point, you put them in the boiling water.

We had purchased two lobsters. I put them in the freezer for the prescribe time. I removed them. Unfortunately, for the lengthwise slicing of the first lobster, I used our chef's knife with the rounded tip, which precluded me from getting a good first incision into the large crustacean, thus defeated the entire purpose -- that is, humanity -- of this approach, as the poor thing wriggled its antennae and claws as if it were indeed feeling the pain. It was not enjoyable.

For the second lobster, having learned a hard lesson, I used a more traditional chef's knife, and the lengthwise cutting went very quickly and smoothly. No wriggling this time.

We boiled the lobsters and when they were done, my wife extracted as much meat as possible while I made the cream sauce and got the water for the pasta boiling. When the pasta water was ready, folded the lobster meat (most, not all, because there was a lot!) into the sauce, cooked the pasta, combined it all in large bowl and it was fantastic. We enjoyed it tremendously with a lot of red wine before watching the Big Night. A perfect desert to our meal.

A day or two later, we made lobster rolls with the unused lobster meat. As good as they might be on a pier in Nantucket? Probably not, but man were they tasty.

More Bits Scraping

I typically don't like to follow a "Scraping" post - known in blogging venacular as a "digest" - with another "Scraping" post. But I'm all about breaking the rules these days.

To begin with...

This is the thing that is no good about having a young child involved in soccer: Games are always on Saturday, which interferes with our semi-occasional ritual of trips to the Strip District.

And now I have yet another very good reason to make it to the Strip: Peace, Love, and Little Donuts. According to the PG's China Millman, these little donuts are quite good.

And, it's official: I have a mad addiction to Extra Cheddar Flavor Blast goldfish. The snack crackers, that is.

I also have an addiction to beer. Among my favorite, most styles from Dogfish Head. Which reminds me, I need to pick up a 6 of the Punkin' Ale before it's gone.

In any case, the crazy guys at Dogfish have a new brew in the works. It involves purple corn... and human saliva. It's called chicha. The NY Times was there to watch it made. And thanks to the wonders of the Intertubes, you can too.



Speaking of the Times, Michael Pollan, per his usual, has a thought-provoking piece on how health-care reform is inextricably linked to food policy reform.

The moment these new rules take effect, health insurance companies will promptly discover they have a powerful interest in reducing rates of obesity and chronic diseases linked to diet. A patient with Type 2 diabetes incurs additional health care costs of more than $6,600 a year; over a lifetime, that can come to more than $400,000. Insurers will quickly figure out that every case of Type 2 diabetes they can prevent adds $400,000 to their bottom line. Suddenly, every can of soda or Happy Meal or chicken nugget on a school lunch menu will look like a threat to future profits.

When health insurers can no longer evade much of the cost of treating the collateral damage of the American diet, the movement to reform the food system — everything from farm policy to food marketing and school lunches — will acquire a powerful and wealthy ally, something it hasn’t really ever had before.

While it has its logic, I'm not sure I'm buying it. First, it assumes that, at the least, some weak form of reform will pass whereby pre-existing conditions are a thing of the past and there have to be standard rates. No one is saying those have to be affordable rates. Without some type of competition to bring down rates, would it be any surprise if rates for insurance just got higher, and priced out a lot of people (even if some form of subsidies are made available)?

And I don't see the insurers taking on Big Ag and the like. They would just find an easier way to keep their profits high. That's how they roll.

Scrapin' Up the Bits... Good Weed Style

A beneficial weed? It's called kudzu...

The study found that a kudzu root extract had beneficial effects lab rats used as a model for research on the metabolic syndrome. After two months of taking the extract, the rats had lower cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, and insulin levels that a control group not given the extract. Kudzu root "may provide a dietary supplement that significantly decreases the risk and severity of stroke and cardiovascular disease in at-risk individuals," the article notes.

A double take from the PG. First, a great profile on a small farm in Carrick.

She talks about why each plant is placed in the garden: Nasturtiums nestle among squash, providing an edible flower for her customers, bringing in beneficial insects and providing ground cover. For similar reasons, Brussels sprouts share space with radicchio; thai, cinnamon and lemon basil are neighbors to tomatoes.

Radicchio? That's what I'm talkin' 'bout!

And next from the PG is this nerve-wracking little bit: Pennsylvania's Secretary of Agriculture, Dennis Wolff, is resigning, effective early next month. You remember Dennis Wolff, don't you, of milk-labeling fame?

The trend these days is to provide more information on food labels: "no trans fat" "free-range" "no preservatives." Mr. Wolff concluded in this case, however, that by stating what was not in the milk, these dairies were misleading consumers into believing their products were safer or healthier, something he dubbed "absence labeling."

But Mr. Wolff provided no evidence to support these claims. No public hearings were held or scientifically valid surveys conducted to assess consumers' feelings about the labels. A Food Labeling Advisory Committee reportedly held a single meeting to discuss the matter, but who was on that committee, or what they discussed, has not been revealed.

We try to limit our use of plastic bags for our kids lunches, relying very heavily on little Tupper Ware or Glad containers for fruit, applesauce, pretzels, etc. And when we do use plastic bags, we do our best to reuse them. Looks like these Lunch Skins will make things a whole lot easier...


And, finally, Kevin Sousa -- the talented chef who is getting all sorts of praise for those fancy tacos at Yo Rita on Pittsburgh's South Side -- has had it up to his taste buds with food bloggers.

The more "foodie" blogs i read the more frustrated i get. These simple sons (and daughters) of bitches and their self righteous "reviews" of restaurants that are nothing more than yet another form of hipsterism that is spreading like shoulder pads all over my fair city. These jagoffs just want to be noticed...and have their meals comped in exchange for a good "review" as if the skinny leather tie and vest with no shirt weren't enough to make people say "hey, did you notice that dipshit with the w.a.s.p. painter's cap?"

I'm not sure if I qualify as a foodie or if my blog is considered a foodie blog. I'd like to think that my tens of adoring readers come to good 'ol Lusty Bit for more than just my adaptations of others recipes! I'd like to think that LBoN is a little bit... deeper ... than that. Heck, I'm writing about weeds and milk labels and all kinds of mixed up, crazy stuff, no?

And I've never gotten comped a freakin' thing, that's for sure. Guess you need more than tens of readers for that to happen. That said, I did eat recently -- finally -- at Yo Rita. And here is my review:

Yo Rita has good food. Yo Rita also has good drinks. Our mussels ceviche was, hmmm, all right. It had this foam on top of it that didn't really do much for the dish. The mussels seemed to be very fresh. But, overall, I was a little disappointed. IM(unpaid)O, they needed a little heat or just more depth of flavor. Perhaps the idea was to let the mussels' flavor shine through. But I tend to think that mussels do best when they are paired with bold flavors, e.g., white wine with garlic and herbs, curry and coconut milk.

My watermelon margarita was good, as was my wife's pineapple margarita. Could have slugged down a few of those in the time it took to put that foam on our mussels. My classic margarita was better. It was exactly what a margarita should be, you get the tequila, but you also get the tang of the lime and a little sweet from the liqueur.

We had four tacos. The chorizo was excellent, and, man, that chorizo was truly kickin' the heat. The duck taco, also very good. The braised pork, enjoyable, but, to be honest, the pork, which was shredded, was a tad dry. My favorite: the black-eyed pea. The peas combined with some exceptionally creamy goat cheese was a perfect combination.

I'll definitely try to make it back to Yo Rita. And hopefully nobody will confuse me for a foodie.

Pesto, Potatoes, Green Beans

An Italian classic: spaghetti with pesto, green beans, and thinly sliced potatoes.

Whenever we have this dish, I always think of one of my all-time favorite movies, The Big Night. A woman has ordered risotto...

Woman: I just don't see anything that looks like a shrimp or a scallop, but I get a side order of spaghetti with this, right?

Secondo: Well, no.

Husband: I thought all main courses come with spaghetti.

Secondo: Well, some, yes. But you see, risotto is rice, so it is a starch and it doesn't go, really, with pasta.

Woman: But I don't...

Husband: Honey, honey, order a side of spaghetti, that's all. And I'll eat your meatballs.

Woman: Yeah, he'll have the meatballs.

Secondo: Well, the spaghetti comes without meatballs.

Woman: There are no meatballs with the spaghetti?

Secondo: No. Sometimes spaghetti likes to be alone.

Secondo goes to the kitchen

Primo: Why?

Secondo: She likes starch. I don't know. Come on.

Primo: How can she want... maybe I should make mashed potatoes for on the other side.

Secondo: Primo, look, don't, okay, because they are the first customer to come in two hours.

Primo: No. She's a criminal. I want to talk to her.

You would think that the potatoes would just lead to starch overload in this dish. But they don't. They add a nice layer of texture, and when you get a bite with pasta, green bean, and potato, there's really not much better.

And the great thing about this dish was that the basil came from our garden (which, after some much needed maintenance, has recovered somewhat), the potatoes from Farmers @ Firehouse, and the green beans from the farm.

One can dream

Seriously, this is the most awesome thing I have ever seen.

Some Music

I only listened to the new album once and I kept hoping for some more upbeat tunes. Nevertheless, Neko can belt it.

Scrapin' Up the Bits... "Mad Men" style

The third season of Mad Men returns to AMC this Sunday. Admittedly, season 2 was not as good as season 1, and season 3 almost never happened, so hopefully there was no rush to crank out less- than-stellar material. This show has gotten raves for its quality of course, its influence on fashion, and, now, its devotion to getting its cocktails right...

Liquor is not only an integral part of many plotlines (last season, it played a pivotal role in a car crash, a divorce, a rape and two career implosions), but often a telling sign of character. When it comes to choosing a character’s poison, Ms. Perello said, many people have input, starting with the show’s creator, Matthew Weiner: “Matt will say, ‘I want them to have a brown liquor.’ And I’ll go, ‘Let’s do a nonblended Scotch, because this is a person who would appreciate that.’ ”

The cocktail historian David Wondrich, 48, thinks an old-fashioned is a conservative choice for the young Draper, but considers his preference for Canadian Club “exactly right. We’d had years of destruction of the American whiskey industry up until then. So the Canadian stuff was viewed as being pretty good.”

Another month, another recall of hundreds of thousands of pounds of beef. I'm a little late to writing about this, but it certainly did not get the coverage previous recalls have. Guess people are just so used to it by now...

I'm more than happy to put in my fair share of time for delicious food, but several hours of serious prep time and two days in total just is beyond my limits, even for something as delicious sounding (and looking) as Sicilian style square pizza.

Finally, and happily, there is a chance that beer might once again be brewed in the hallowed tanks of the Penn Brewery. Tom Pastorius apparently did not like what was being done to the business, and the beer, he worked so hard to make a success.

Tom Pastorius, who founded the brewery in 1986 and sold most of it to Birchmere Capital in 2003, is working with a group of investors who have negotiated to buy back Birchmere's stock. They've applied for a $300,000 Urban Redevelopment Authority loan for working capital as part of a plan to fix up and return brewing to the building.

The obesity rescue berry?

Maybe you've heard of miraculin. I haven't. It's this little berry, resembles a cranberry apparently. You chew it up, get all of the pulp and seeds out, swirl around in your mouth, and dispense. Now put a lemon in your mouth. It will taste sweet. Miraculin makes anything acidic taste sweet. It's used for "flavor tripping parties" in the Big Apple and elsewhere.

Mr. Aliquo greeted new arrivals and took their $15 entrance fees. In return, he handed each one a single berry from his jacket pocket. ... He ushered his guests to a table piled with citrus wedges, cheeses, Brussels sprouts, mustard, vinegars, pickles, dark beers, strawberries and cheap tequila, which Mr. Aliquo promised would now taste like top-shelf Patrón.

But could it be used to combat obesity? Hmmm....

But with miraculin, would anyone be able to tell the difference between tofu pudding and creme brulee? Since it's nearly impossible to change someone's taste, perhaps what's needed to get Americans to eat better is literally to change their perception of taste.

Could miraculin really do that? Perhaps?

At the very least, some folks see a business opportunity.

Some companies have been attempting to create flavor-modulating compounds that mimic what miraculin does naturally. Two of those are Senomyx and RedPoint Bio, which are also developing bitterness blockers and exploring the pathways that translate to salty.

Both have partnered with or are in talks with food companies who are trying to reduce calories in their products by adding taste enhancers instead of sugars or sweeteners.

If these products reach a wider market, more and more patients might be eating foods with the same taste but just a fraction of the calories -- and they likely won't be able to tell the difference.

As this blog post points out, perhaps it could lead people to eat lower-calorie foods, but would it fill them up, or just lead to them still taking in as many calories as before by consuming more?

Paint me intrigued, but extremely skeptical.

The Angry Robin Cometh

We have an Angry Robin in our backyard.

I don't know why it is angry. But it expresses its anger by dive bombing those who go near the garden. Well, everybody except my 7-year-old son. When he goes out to the garden, the Angry Robin remains esconced in our unruly apple tree, spouting disgruntled chirps. My theory is that it's the two missing front teeth. Heck, I'm scared of that mouth these days...

The Angry Robin may be the female robin that has reared at least two batches of babies in a nest under our deck this summer. Perhaps she is exacting revenge for all of the times we made her evacuate the nest by daring to walk past the nest down to said garden.

Conversley, it could be her mate. Maybe it's a new beau who is trying to show up the other male robins in the vicinity. "This is how you treat humans, you losers. Grow a pair!"


Not sure why our garden is even very attractive to the Angry Robin. It has tanked big time. The zucchini plant is already tapped out. The few cucumbers we got were scrawny and curled. The lettuces did all right until the rains came. As did the tomato plants, which have also succumbed to the nibbling of bunnies -- amazingly, our first ever problems with animals. The jalapenos are doing well. And I'm hoping the poblanos and red chiles recover. And the Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes.

I think our garden problem is multi-fold. We planted too much in too little space. We failed to keep the tomato plants under control. And, of course, the copious amounts of rain.

In any case, if there is another run in with the Angry Robin, it will no longer be met with girly screams and scampers back up the deck stairs. From this point forward, it will be met with awe-inducing force. A suburbia WMD, if you will.

This secret weapon?

The garden hose. On the "shower" setting, of course. I promised my daughter I wouldn't really hurt it.

Grass-finished beef here! Get your grass-finished beef!

China Millman, the Post-Gazette's resident restaurant critic (I'm not sure what the heck to call that "Munch" guy), dishes on some options for local grass-finished beef. Grass-fed, I presume, should be reserved for cow's that truly do eat nothing but grass their entire lives. Grass-finished are those that aren't sent to CAFOs to be "finished" for the last part of their lives on grain-based feed (and to get all hopped up on antibiotics and growth hormones -- partaaaay at the CAFO!).

In addition to helping consumers find local options for grass-fed/finished beef, there is something else I found particularly welcome about this article: the reserved way she describes the potential health benefits of grass-fed/finished beef.

Preliminary research suggests that grass-finished beef may be more healthful than grain-finished beef. It's leaner and lower in calories. It also contains higher levels of Omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin E and conjugated linoleic acid, which health professionals believe may have cancer-fighting properties.

Terms/phrases like "preliminary" research and "may be more healthful" are important. Although you will often see proponents of grass-fed/finished beef (of which I consider myself one) tout its health benefits, as far as I know, there have been no studies that have directly compared health outcomes between people who consume primarily corn-fed beef (which probably represents 99% of the meat-eating population, in the U.S. at least) and grass-fed/finished beef (nor are there likely to be any, for a number of reasons). Those overstatements always bother me and I don't think they help the "cause" any.

Second, I find it curious that Ms. Millman didn't explicity state where she stands on the taste issue. Although she cites others' feelings, she doesn't offer her own preference. She's a food critic, after all. I would have liked to have seen something in that regard, even if, for the purposes of this article, she was playing the role of straight-news journalist.

My own opinion is that grass-fed beef can be better than grain-fed. The problem, if you want to call it that, is that the taste actually does vary from farm to farm. I have had some grass-fed beef that was fantastic, and some that was quite disappointing.

If it's something you're into, I would recommend finding a grass-fed/finished producer whose product you enjoy and getting as much of it as possible. And telling everybody you know about it. Demand begets popularity, and popularity begets a bigger marketplace for these products. Although it's not something that can happen overnight. It definitely takes time. But hopefully it will start to happen.

A taxing situation

Sooooo... you've got this fairly disturbing report showing that obesity-related health care costs run about $147 billion annually.

"These results reveal that obesity continues to impose an economic burden on both public and private payers," writes Dr. Eric Finkelstein, director of the Public Health Economics Program at the North Carolina-based RTI International, which produced the national study.

"The connection between rising obesity rates and rising medical spending is undeniable."

Part of the solution to the obesity problem, it's been argued, is to slap a tax on junk food. Make it more expensive to eat bag after bag of potato chips and drink 24 oz. Mountain Dews, and you produce an easy incentive to alter people's behaviors. On its face, it seems like a no-brainer (h/t Serious Eats):

About one-third of Americans are obese, up from 15% in 1980. Fat people are more prone to heart disease, diabetes, bone disorders and cancer. An obese person’s annual medical costs are more than $700 greater than those of a comparable thin person. The total medical costs of obesity surpass $200 billion a year in America, which is higher than the bill for smoking.

Of course, the folks who make some of these products don't like this idea one darn bit. Perhaps you've seen the ads from Americans Against Food Taxes? You know, the one which argues that, during these tough economic times, those meanies in Congress should not be adding to the cost of "the simple pleasures that we all enjoy, like juice drinks and soda" by slapping a big 'ol fat tax (no pun intended) on them.

[On a side note, does anybody actually believe that "Americans Against Food Taxes" is actually a grassroots organization, and not an astroturf campaign funded by the American Beverage Association?]

As others have pointed out, I think it would be difficult to define just what should and should not be taxed. What about the juice drinks we buy, made by the folks at Honest Tea (which is partially owned by Coke, I know, I know), that are organic, have just a little (real) sugar and only have 40 calories? I would hardly say that qualifies as a fattening food.

But generally I think it's a good idea. The revenue could be used to pay for health care reform and, as has been shown with cigarettes, may actually help ween people off of the stuff. At the same time, it's a regressive tax, because it would hit lower-income people (who are at increased risk for becoming obese) harder, since they often live in neighborhoods that lack grocery stores and decent restaurants and, as a result, buy more food items at convenience stores and fast-food restaurants (which are in abundance in many low-income areas) meaning their diets are replete with the fattening foods that would become more expensive.

To be workable, in my view, taxing junk food has to be coupled with a serious effort to make healthier foods more affordable, by taking away those billions in corn subsidies and using them instead to help more farmers return to growing a diverse array of crops, and to promote a more regionalized food system, so those said farmers can't more easily get their products to willing customers.

In the end, I doubt either will occur. But stranger things have happened.

Fritto Misto

One of the first shots from my new camera with its "food" setting -- obviously there are way too many food bloggers out there!

We typically follow the Mario Batali recipe from Simple Italian Food for this recipe: a batter composed of flour, salt, baking soda, water, and olive oil. Dip the veg in the batter and fry. We used canola oil, maintained at about 350 degrees.

For this go-round, we had green beans, cauliflower, and zucchini, topped with some fried sage leaves. On the side, some cheese (from grass-fed cows) that friends of ours picked up at a farm in upstate New York. Remarkably fantastic combination of flavors, particularly when washed down with a grenache.

The frying knocks down the health quotient a bit, but man is this a fantastic way to enjoy summer vegetables.

Young Farmers

A great piece today in USA Today about an influx of new, young farmers. It's an interesting read and makes me think there is hope yet for a more regional, sustainable system of agriculture in the United States. I liked this quote in particular, from a 27-year-old farmer in upstate New York:

"The America that I want to live in will support people who are willing to work their asses off, who want to do good things for their community. We're patriots of place. Here I am, I'm planting my trees."

This influx of young farmers is needed. As the writer, Elizabeth Weise, explains, the average age of an American farmer is 57.

Not so interesting, and actually rather infuriating (to the point that I want to personally damage a wall with my head, or at least a fist), are some of the thoughts posted in the "comments" section that follows the article. Usually it's easy enough to laugh off such comments:

"We are moving backwards into a peasant existence where you need to grow your own food to survive. This is progress?"

OR

"I wonder how long it will be before the enviromentalists zero in on these common peole like they have the bigger farmers and put them out of buisness?"

OR, my favorite

This article makes me laugh. Urban liberals / progressives constantly berate and belittle any "gun lovin' redneck" any chance they get, yet it is those exact red-state / red-county rural types who live minimalist, organic lives by hunting and farming their own food. Liberals will read about such a lifestyle in $5 glossy magazines but it is that "good 'ole hillbilly" who is actually living the life.

... but in this case I can't even chuckle. These are people who are mired so deeply in their ideology, misconceptions, and grossly distorted view of reality that they can find fault in young adults who are brave enough -- 'cause I'm sure as hell not -- to jump into one of the most difficult trades that exists based on an honest belief that what they are doing will make things better.

These are not people who are trying to get rich, they aren't trying to fleece anybody, and they are willing to work their "asses off" -- at the great risk of failure and economic ruin -- because that belief is so strong. And these commenters read something like this and respond with misinformed cliches about "urban liberals" or those crazy environmentalists who just hate everything and want to do something bad, although what has never been adequately explained.

Then again, these are probably the same people who still believe there are WMDs in Iraq.

Beer Bistro Dinner at Pines Tavern

The Pines Tavern is a neat little place not far from our house. We eat dinner there on occasion, but not necessarily frequently.

Generally speaking, the food produced by the kitchen is high quality. The only problem I have with The Pines -- and why we probably don't eat there more often, despite its close proximity to the Fillippelli household -- is that the food tends to be very heavy. This is particularly true at lunch, where sandwiches, which are typically chock full of great ingredients, are just weighed down by too many of those ingredients.

On the plus side, it has a spectacular back patio. When you're sitting out there, you deservedly feel like your somewhere in the French countryside. not just around the bend from a run-down 7-11 and a slightly less rundown pizza joint.

Where the patio succeeds, the interior leaves something to be desired. The dining rooms are in desperate need of being updated. They are designed more for, well, a geriatric-leaning clientele. The bar area is cozy, great for a cold fall or winter day, but not ideal once the weather warms up.

Back on the plus side, and this is a big plus, the Pines grows a lot of its own produce throughout the spring, summer, and fall in gardens just across the street from the restaurant. It also sources lamb and, I believe, other meat from local farms. So the folks who run this place make a valiant effort to follow the local route, which is why I try not to forget about it.

One regular event that has caught my attention are these enticing-sounding "Beer Bistro" dinners held every month. The dinner is three courses, and features beers from a single brewery, a different one with each course. This month's dinner is being held this week, featuring beers from Pennsylvania-based Victory Brewing. The menu, particularly the ribs and grilled peaches for desert, is calling out my name.

It runs this Wednesday through Friday: $39 if you're getting the beers, $32 without. That's a good deal!

Too Many Drugs, Too Much Safety

I don't know if this has legs, but I'm amazed that it was even introduced in the first place:

The Obama administration announced Monday that it would seek to ban many routine uses of antibiotics in farm animals in hopes of reducing the spread of dangerous bacteria in humans. In written testimony to the House Rules Committee, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs, said feeding antibiotics to healthy chickens, pigs and cattle — done to encourage rapid growth — should cease.

The reason: giving antibiotics to healthy animals so that they grow faster can promote antibiotic resistance. As Dr. Kellog Schwab, director of Johns Hopkins' Center for Water and Health explains it:

"This development of drug resistance scares the hell out of me. If we continue on and we lose the ability to fight these microorganisms, a robust, healthy individual has a chance of dying, where before we would be able to prevent that death." Schwab says that if he tried, he could not build a better incubator of resistant pathogens than a factory farm. He, Silbergeld, and others assert that the level of danger has yet to be widely acknowledged. Says Schwab, "It's not appreciated until it's your mother, or your son, or you trying to fight off an infection that will not go away because the last mechanism to fight it has been usurped by someone putting it into a pig or a chicken."

Next, although the article is somewhat hard to follow if you're not familiar with the broader topic of food safety, it still paints a scary picture:

Dick Peixoto planted hedges of fennel and flowering cilantro around his organic vegetable fields in the Pajaro Valley near Watsonville to harbor beneficial insects, an alternative to pesticides.

He has since ripped out such plants in the name of food safety, because his big customers demand sterile buffers around his crops. No vegetation. No water. No wildlife of any kind.

"I was driving by a field where a squirrel fed off the end of the field, and so 30 feet in we had to destroy the crop," he said. "On one field where a deer walked through, didn't eat anything, just walked through and you could see the tracks, we had to take out 30 feet on each side of the tracks and annihilate the crop."

Basically, you have food safety measures being taken, much of it done in a proprietary fashion, to address problems being created by factory farming operations, not many of the little guys who actually do things like, you know, plant other plants to protect their products from bugs, instead of bombarding it with pesticides. And many of these safety practices are, according to this article, being proposed for use on national level.

Watcha Been Doin'?

I don't know. Watching the Tour De France, I guess...

What can I say. I've had ideas, thoughts, urges, inspirations. But nothing's been enough to get me to post anything new. Was a cooking fiend this weekend.

Just tonight made this Batali chicken dish, via Gwyneth Paltrow (via my friend/colleague Brittany) that was really quite delicious. On the side some potatoes, parboiled, tossed with olive oil, crushed fennel seed, sweet paprika, a little cumin, salt, and pepper, and finished on the grill (in a grill pan). A very nice partner for the chicken. Next time, more salt, more fennel, more paprika, cooked over higher heat to make the potatoes crispier (although I wonder if that might dry them out?).

Last night made some fish tacos, on excellent flour tortillas from Reyna's in the Strip, using the blend of fish for the fish tacos at Penn Avenue Fish Company. I purchased said fish from... Penn Avenue Fish Company. Topped with, among other things, purple cabbage from Blackberry Meadows Farm, purchased at Farmers @ Firehouse.

Friday it was finally time to cook the scallops we picked up on the way out of the Outer Banks a few weeks ago. Seared, on top of a pea puree (peas, courtesy of the farm, a little butter, a little more half-half, mint, basil, salt, pepper, a little lemon).

Speaking of tacos, Yo Rita, on the South Side, may be the place to go. Until January 2009, I believe, it was called Iguana Grill. Its food, and apparently whole way of running the operation, has been remade by Kevin Sousa, who from my reading, is as close to a "celebrity chef" as there is in Pittsburgh. Sousa is apparently doing side gigs while he waits to open up his own place, Salt of the Earth. That's the name of his blog, which is fun reading. The tacos sound like my kinda deal. I will go there soon. I hope.

I've also been working on a food-related short story -- a send-up, of sorts, of myself. I hope to publish it on this blog in several parts. I hope it's good. But who knows. I write about cancer research most of the time, and have maybe completed one or two fiction stories in all of my writing years. So it may stink.

There are numerous interesting things happening on the food policy front. I've been unable to keep up with them, except for the fact that the prez appointed a former Monsanto lobbyist to be a key advisor on food safety at the FDA. Not change I can believe in. Although some respected people don't think it's necessarily going to be a disaster. For the best policy updates, I highly recommend The Ethicurean and La Vida Locavore (note to self, that's two additions to blog roll. Get on it!)

Oh, and I got a new digital camera, one that has a setting just for food. Because there are like a million food blogs out there. Mine, no doubt, is the best. Just that nobody knows it yet...

Greens of the Beet

Had some beets from the farm. The beets have long stems and large, chard-like greens.

Kathy from the farm said they are excellent to eat. I have seen them in the foodie mags. I must try them.

I chose to braise them. They were tender and delicious. Here is how I cooked them.

Braised Beet Greens

• 1 large bunch of beet greens
• 2 large cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
• Extra virgin olive oil, good pour
• Butter, 1 tbs
• 3/4 - 1 cup chicken stock
• Salt and pepper
• Lemon wedge

Clean the beet greens (I removed the stems all the way up to the beginning of the leaf, but not sure if this is necessary) very well in cold water and dry (salad spinner works well).

In a large pan, heat olive oil and butter over medium heat. When the butter is melted, add the garlic and saute for a minute or so. Then add the beet greens and toss well for a minute or two. Add the chicken stock and cover the pan. Cook for 10 minutes until well wilted.

Remove the cover and continue cooking until most of the liquid is gone, about 10 more minutes. Remove from heat, add salt and pepper, squeeze the lemon over top, toss and serve.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Scrapin' Up the Bits... CSA Style

Ahhhh. That sigh of relief is because CSA season has begun. Picking up some vegetables that had been in the ground just 24 hours or so before is such a welcome change from buying them in the grocery store. There is an extreme difference in freshness and flavor.

For our first pickup of the year - courtesy of Harvest Valley Farms in Valencia -- I chose:

• Beets, of which I have never been a fan, but I'm going to give them a second chance, hopefully this weekend
• Onions
• Spinach
• Spring mix
• Asparagus
• Eggs (from another local farm, free-range bad boys with bright orange yolks)
• Bumbleberry jelly
• Carrots (little 'uns, perfect for roasting, perhaps with the beets!)

The spinach (sauteed, side dish) and onions were used yesterday in a Greek-style shrimp dish, which was excellent.

For those who missed a CSA sign up and are still interested, the folks who put on the local Farm to Table conference every year have launched one. Can't vouch for it, but might be worth a shot.

For those who are concerned about where their food might be coming from, Food & Water Watch has launched the "Global Grocer."

Bonnie at the always excellent Ethicurean has an excellent summary of two recent papers that sound like must reads... and which I actually hope to read this weekend. The papers, as she explains, are the product of a researcher, Don Lotter. In it, Dr. Lotter...

makes a persuasive case that the transgenic seed industry is built on fundamentally flawed science, and that companies like Monsanto have used their vast market power to reshape university research, manipulate public opinion, and coerce regulatory agencies into reckless acceptance of risky technologies. And that scientists have looked the other way while they did so.

I wish I were more informed about the genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, that are masquerading as fruits and veg on grocery store shelves.

But one thing I do know is that they have not been adequately tested. At their most basic, these are food products that have been produced from seeds that had foreign genes inserted into them. Any time you start messing with nature in this way, you'd think that you might want to have some sort of data in actual humans that demonstrates the introduction of said genes -- via consumption of these foods -- into the population at large might not have some, well, unintended consequences. These papers, according to Bonnie, get at this issue and much more.

Based on our own experience as parents with young kids who won't eat anything, I guess this was fairly obvious.

The popular belief that healthy eating starts at home and that parents’ dietary choices help children establish their nutritional beliefs and behaviors may need rethinking, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. An examination of dietary intakes and patterns among U.S. families found that the resemblance between children’s and their parents’ eating habits is weak.

I mean, we literally are awash in fruit and veg in our household, and our dinnertime meals are full of variety, to say the least. Our kids eat the fruit, a good amount, and they both have their moments (my 4-year-old daughter, for instance, loves pesto and various Italian cheeses, and my soon-to-be 7-year-old sun scarfed down shrimp and pork dumplings at Lulu's Noodles and grilled squid in romesco sauce at Dinette) but vegetables have been hard to come by, despite the example mom and dad set. Meanwhile, at a Memorial Day picnic, I watched this 5-year-old kid pounding through carrots and raw cauliflower. Apparently this was not something he had to be coerced into. It just happened.

Then again, I barely ate any vegetables until I was in my 20s, and I turned out mostly all right.

Sadly, it's not even that. We just don't like being short-order cooks at dinner time!

And, finally, a serendipitous find on the Hopkins Web site that I must now add to my reading pile, "Farmacology," about how factory farming is leading to widespread antibiotic resistance. A teaser:

Kellogg Schwab, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Water and Health, refers to a typical pig farm manure lagoon that he sampled. "There were 10 million E. coli per liter [of sampled waste]. Ten million. And you have a hundred million liters in some of those pits. So you can have trillions of bacteria present, of which 89 percent are resistant to drugs. That's a massive amount that in a rain event can contaminate the environment."

Two Words at a Time

Save money.

Go to

Eleven... soon.

Highly recommend

ordering the

Tasting Menu,

with wine(s).

Mmm Mmmm!

Chocolate and Spice, Pork Tenderloin... Nice!

As recounted to me by a very wise man...

So I saw this recipe in the most recent issue of Food & Wine, the grilling issue, and I says to myself, "That sounds pretty darn tasty."

The interesting thing about the recipe, see, was the rub: cocoa powder, ancho chile, and brown sugar. I says to myself, "Cocoa and ancho and brown sugar... That sounds pretty darn tasty."

But this recipe, see, it called for pork chops. And, you know, I just wasn't in the mood for no pork chops. So I says to myself, "You know what might work even better? Pork tenderloin! That could be pretty darn tasty."


But, you know, this recipe, see, there was something else that bugged me about it. This rub, it was dry, because those chops were supposed to go on the grill, I guess. But I was doin' tenderloin, now, and the weather outside, see, it wasn't so good. Cold, rainin', and, you know, I don't like to cook in no rain. Messes with the grill temperature... and my hair!

So I says to myself, "Why not add a little olive oil and salt to the rub, make it more like a paste, you know? Might be good. Then you could throw it in a really hot pan with a little more olive oil, brown it all over, throw in the the oven for, I don't know, like 10 minutes or somethin'. That would work. And I bet you that would be pretty darn tasty."

There's something else, though. See, I'm all into sauces these days. You know, a sauce, it makes everything better. So I says to myself, "Go get a little bit of white wine -- some stuff I been drinkin' called Cupcake, a Frenchy kinda name, a sauvignon blanc or something like that -- and keep it handy."

And when those tenderloins were done, I rested 'em for a few minutes, you know, 'cause they had just done some serious work in the oven. And then I poured in a little of that wine, gettin' all those little chocolatey spicey bits from the pan, watching the wine get brown and thick on the hot stove top. That sauce, it looked pretty darn tasty.

And then I stuck the tip of my forefinger in, you know, like those fellas and ladies on the TV do it, and put it in my mouth. And, by gosh, it was tasty.

But, then, see, I says to myself, "That sauce, it needs just one more thing. Something else, you know, to give her a little what they call silkiness." And there it was. Butter. Just a little, see, dropped right into the sauce, watched it melt away in there. And that really did the trick.

Cut that tenderloin up, on a plate, drizzled some of that there sauce on it. And let me tell you, man, that pork, it was REALLY, really darn tasty.

I understand that the specifics of this said recipe went something like this.

Cocoa & Chile Pork Tenderloin

Rub

• heaping tablespoon or so of cocoa powder
• tablespoon of ancho chile powder
• heaping tablespoon of brown sugar
• 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil, enough to make it like a paste
• teaspoon or so of salt

Two pork tenderloins

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix the brown sugar, cocoa powder, ancho powder, and salt in a small bowl. Add a little olive oil at a time and stir until you have a fairly thick paste. Smear the paste over both tenderloins until they are completely covered.

Get a large enough, oven-proof pan very hot over medium-high heat. Add a drizzle of olive oil and add the tenderloins. Brown on all sides.

Put into the oven and roast until temperature of tenderloin is 135 degrees, then remove. Put tenderloins on a plate/cutting board to rest. Put the pan on a burner on medium/medium-high, add a half-cup of white wine to the pan and start stirring up the bits from the pan bottom with a wooden spoon. Let it bubble away for about 3 minutes or so, until reduce by about half.

Remove from heat, drop in a small pat of butter and any juices from the tenderloin plate, stir until it's melted, add salt if you think it needs it, slice up the tenderloin into medallions and serve with sauce drizzled generously over each serving.

Scrapin' Up the Bits... San Fran Style

A few things to share today...

To start with, as the (few/none) regular readers of LBoN know and appreciate, I regularly mine the New York Times food section for recipes, food news, etc. And while the Times' Mark Bittman and Melissa Clark tend to offer recipes that are more suited to the average home cook, I've found that the San Francisco Chronicle, which also does a bang-up job covering food-related issues, takes a different route.

The Chronicle's recipes, by and large, are geared toward the hard-core home cooks and foodies, those that don't mind putting in some tough time in the kitchen chopping and blending and transferring ingredients from a saute pan to a plate to a roasting pan to the oven to the stove top. So while I don't have as much time these days for meals that require long prep, given my affinity for chicken thighs, this Spanish-influenced dish totally got my tongue wagging. (Hint, hint... the recipe following this one on the page, "Chicken, Lemongrass, and Potato Curry," ohohohohoh my!).

Speaking of the Times, did you know that Lays potato chips qualify as "local food." Well, I didn't. And, really, they don't. But Lays thinks so, and is beginning to market it as such. As Michael Pollan said of the big food and grocery companies...

“They can turn any critique into a new way to sell food. You’ve got to hand it to them.”

Now that we're talking about local food, this is really, well, nice.

Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato was on one of the top floors of the Grant Building a few months ago when he looked below and noticed the expansive roof of the nearby County Office Building on Forbes Avenue.

"I looked over and the idea came to me: We can use this roof as green space," he recalled yesterday as he unveiled plans to create a plant garden on the roof of the building at 542 Forbes Ave., and a water garden in the courtyard of the county courthouse.

The county, he said, plans to use half of the roof of the County Office Building for a green roof. The 8,400-square-foot area will be covered with waterproof fabric, soil and plants native to Allegheny County.

Speaking of gardens, the Post-Gazette also unveiled this great interactive map of farm markets in the area.

Speaking of the Post-Gazette, while I'm not personally a fan of the garbage-bag headed restaurant reviewer Munch - not sure why you need Munch and a more, I guess, professional reviewer like China Millman - the brown-faced one recently visited a new Vietnamese restaurant in the Strip, Vietnam's Pho.

I know that Tram's in Lawrenceville is supposed to be the area's best Vietnamese restaurant, but, despite Munch thinking that a quail egg was a particularly adventurous ingredient - does he not watch the Evil Food Channel ever? - the review really got me jonesing for some pho, vermicelli-style noodles with grilled meats that have been bathed in lemongrass, and this...

Cari Ga ($7.50), a chicken curry with potato and onion served with a small baguette.

The curry was sweet and delicious, similar to a Thai yellow curry but slightly chunkier. But the real revelation was the bread, which sopped up the extra curry sauce so well that Munch's plate was sparkling clean when the friendly waitresses cleared the table.

Hockey game food blogging - This was good!

I love pesto. Love it.

McGinnis Sisters had some fairly big bunches of basil, so picked up two, some arugula, and, with the help of a curly-haired 4-year-old, made an arugula-basil pesto.

Also had some cherry tomatoes, which we had put in a flank steak salad (recipe coming on that one). Being that they're not in season, hadn't really had any tomatoes, and really enjoyed them in the salad. So wanted to use them again. Some sweet, roasted tomatoes sounded good. So, tossed with a little olive oil, balsamic, salt, pepper, into a 450 degree oven for 20 minutes.


Fusilli would be the pasta of choice this evening. Topped with pesto and a spoonful or two of roasted tomatoes. It was a successful pairing. My highest recommendations.

Yes, I know the picture stinks. UPDATE: Picture removed. It was just too ugly. New picture courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

Carbs, Carbs, and More Carbs, Baby!

It's been a while since LBoN's has had a worthy Fast Food Abomination of the Week. But we have a worthy winner this time.

Domino's new Bread Bowl Pastas! That's right, pasta, no doubt plastered with a ton 'o cheese -- such as the 3-cheese pasta -- in a bowl of bread. It's double the carbs for $5! Woohoo!

Other options include allegedly Italian favorites, like the Chicken Alfredo and the Chicken Carbonara, because pasta just isn't pasta without some chicken in it!

Point deductions, however, for the fine print explaining that these delightful past dishes are available in a regular, inedible bowl. How health-conscious of Domino's. Pshaw.

Beautiful Words... and Beautifully (profane) Words

Two good, quick reads.

First, with a tip o' the hat to The Ethicurean, the words of acclaimed chef/sustainable food advocate Dan Barber, at a recent food conference in Brooklyn.

Well, actually, his words had been there a day or so ago, in the form of what appeared to be a mostly complete transcript of his talk. They have been replaced with this:

We hope to publish Dan Barber’s speech pending his review of the transcript.

One always wonders what happened in these situations. Did Mr. Barber get a little pissed off that this transcript was made and blogged about without his knowing? Was there some sort of legal agreement by which this was not supposed to have happened? Hard to speculate, but disappointing that it's no longer there. Hopefully, Mr. Barber will quickly review the transcript and give his okey-dokey.

A sneak peek:

A "sustainable" farmed fish company that feeds lots of chicken parts to its fish vs. a fish farm in Spain that is more like an entire self-sustaining ecosystem, complete with tons of flamingos that fly 150 miles on a regular basis to eat some of the seafood being "farmed" there!

And, for those like me who can never get enough pizza talk, especially when it's replete with expletives, Chris Bianco, proprietor of the famed Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix, lays forth with his f#%$ing philosophy on pizza and life.

A sneak peek:

“Don’t worry about eight hundred degrees, don’t worry about the bullshit of time, don’t worry about tripping out your fuckin’ home kitchen to reproduce something. Those things to me are not organic."

Whether Bianco actually said "tripping" or that was a transcription error and it was supposed to be "tricking," I don't know. Needless to say, they reiterate something I touched on recently: You Ought to Make Pizza at Home.

That Infectious Piggy Thingy

One cannot be a responsible (poorly read) blogger and not comment on the whole Swine... I mean, H1N1 flu outbreak. Nearly 300 schools have been closed in the U.S. There have been a handful of deaths. Millions are in a panic -- whether they should be, I don't know. Seems like a serious situation, but panic can just make things worse.

On some of the food blogs last week, reports surfaced that the outbreak may have started at an industrial pig farm in Mexico half-owned by Smithfield, famed antagonist of the famous Rolling Stone article a few years ago about stinky, filthy, disease-causing industrial pig farms in North Carolina.

The blog reports focused on articles in Mexican newspapers from towns near the pig CAFO (confined animal feeding operation) that were pinning the blame for the outbreak, or at the very least some illnesses, on the CAFO, but without providing any real evidence to support it. Nevertheless, those blog reports sparked a flurry of activity on other food and politics blogs, all pointedly faulting this CAFO for the current Swine... H1N1 flu outbreak.

It's easy to believe that this could be the case. In fact, Dr. Michael Greger from the U.S. Humane Society makes a very a good case that a pig CAFO is the likely origin of this particular flu.

Factory farming and long-distance live animal transport apparently led to the emergence of the ancestors of the current swine flu threat.

This analysis, first released by Columbia University’s Center for Computation Biology, has now been reportedly confirmed by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital and virologist Ruben Donis, chief of the molecular virology and vaccines branch at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Robert Webster, the director of the U.S. Collaborating Center of the World Health Organization, and considered the "godfather of flu research,"[1] is reported as saying "The triple reassortant in pigs [first discovered in the U.S. in 1998] seems to be the precursor."

This is a must-read column, well-supported by reputable references, often from the top peer-reviewed science journals, for anybody who wants to learn just one very good reason for why CAFOs are bad, bad, bad.

That said, it really does nobody any good to spread the idea -- minus any good evidence -- that this particular CAFO in Mexico was reponsible for this particular outbreak. Heck, as the Columbia Journalism Review reported...

...so far, authorities have yet to find an infected pig in Mexico, let alone at the Granjas Carroll farm. None of the pig farm’s workers appears to be sick, either.

On Grist, where the CAFO-Swi... H1N1 flu connection was first made, Merritt Clifton does a good job of explaining why, even with the best of intentions, its best not to go beyond what the available evidence supports.

Until the medical evidence is in, we just don’t know. And focusing prematurely on the presumed factory-farm connection could prove a dangerous distraction from identifying and responding to the actual source of a potential pandemic.

You've Seen the Commercials...

And this is why you should not take supplements that promise they'll make you slim and trim.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers to immediately stop using Hydroxycut products by Iovate Health Sciences Inc., of Oakville, Ontario and distributed by Iovate Health Sciences USA Inc. of Blasdell, N.Y. Some Hydroxycut products are associated with a number of serious liver injuries. Iovate has agreed to recall Hydroxycut products from the market.

The FDA has received 23 reports of serious health problems ranging from jaundice and elevated liver enzymes, an indicator of potential liver injury, to liver damage requiring liver transplant. One death due to liver failure has been reported to the FDA. Other health problems reported include seizures; cardiovascular disorders; and rhabdomyolysis, a type of muscle damage that can lead to other serious health problems such as kidney failure.

Nutritional supplements -- and I use the term "nutritional" with great disdain -- are minimally regulated and make claims that are simply unsubstantiated. Whether it's weight loss, muscle mass, male "enhancement," or happy mood pills, with most, it not all, of these things, it's too good to be true because it's too good to be true, plain and simple.

"You Ought to Make Pizza at Home"

So sayeth Sam Sifton in this past Sunday's New York Times Magazine. He is correct. You should.

Michael Ruhlman agrees. Where Sam Sifton says you need a pizza peel and a pizza stone, Ruhlman says you can do it in a baking sheet or even on the bottom of an inverted cast iron pan.

I have seen others still recommend cooking them on a grill on a piece of unglazed quarry tile. I have meant to try this.

Our regular pizza lineup includes:

- Margherita
- carmelized onions, fresh mozz, arugula, prosciutto
- House special, aka, red sauce, Moroccan olives, grated parmesan (see picture)

Most recently we made what will now be added to the regular line up:

- Grilled radicchio and onion with fontina and toasted walnuts (an adaptation of a Dinette pie)

The recipe in Sifton's column called for a mix of bread flour and all-purpose flour, and to put it in the mixer for a short period of time. My wife, the pizza dough maven in our household, uses only double zero flour, which I believe is an all-purpose flour, and does not use a mixer. If she does, I have been blissfully ignorant of this activity.

Speaking of grilling pizzas, taking a cue from Mark Bittman, several times my wife has made a few extra doughs on pizza night and we freeze it. At some later point, I:

- defrost the dough
- roll out the dough
- get the grill very hot
- brush the dough with olive oil
- top the dough with plenty of salt and pepper and some chopped rosemary
- put the dough on the grill

About 4-5 minutes later, we have a wonderfully crisp and chewy flatbread to eat with a salad or meatballs.

The point being: You Ought to Make Pizza at Home.

On a grill or in an oven. On a pizza stone or a quarry tile.

Use the Google or go to Food & Wine or Epicurious and find a recipe.

It is likely to taste better than any pizza you order.

It is likely to be much healthier than any pizza you order.

And, particularly with some red wine, it is fun to make and drink.

"Patchwork" Might be Kind

One thing that kept sticking in my craw -- if, as a soccer-loving, arugula-eating, martini-drinking (Bluecoat, please, on the rocks, 3 olives, if you don't mind) western Pennsylvanian, I can say that, which I probably cannot and should not -- after reading the LTE from the Penn State Ag professor in response to my PG op-ed last year about beef safety, was the insinuation that I was being alarmist and overstating the issue.

While it's not focused on beef per se, this article from the New York Times about food safety in general seems to support my general contention that the food safety net in this country is desperately lacking.

Congress and the Obama administration have said that more inspections and new food production rules are needed to prevent food-related diseases, but far less attention has been paid to fixing the fractured system by which officials detect and stop ongoing outbreaks. Right now, uncovering which foods have been contaminated is left to a patchwork of more than 3,000 federal, state and local health departments that are, for the most part, poorly financed, poorly trained and disconnected, officials said.

Minnesota, unlike many other states, the Times' Gardiner Harris reports, has a top-notch surveillance system for investigating food safety-related illnesses. And the rest of the country is very fortunate that's the case.

In these and other cases, epidemiologists from Minnesota pinpointed the causes of food scares while officials in other states were barely aware that their residents were getting sick. From 1990 to 2006, Minnesota health officials uncovered 548 food-related illness outbreaks, while those in Kentucky found 18, according to an analysis of health records.

Which brings me back to this line from the aforementioned LTE:

The incidence of E. coli-related illnesses has remained at a very low level according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Don't get me wrong. I have great respect for the CDC. I think they do a great job. But when, as the Times article details, you've got such an uneven, patchwork approach to food safety, combined with what I think anecdotal evidence would suggest is a significant amount of underreporting of food-related illnesses, there are serious limitations on what you can take from CDC data in this area.

I guess I could be accused of being alarmist. That will be until more than just a few people die from things like Salmonella-laced peanuts.

Local Mustard: Mmm, mmm good

Several times over the past few days I have spent 10 minutes or so dipping chunks of pretzel into Miller's Mustard.

Now, it's nothing like your traditional mustard, whether that be Gulden's, French's, Dijon, Hebrew National deli mustard, or what have you.

That said, it's quite good. Spicy, tangy, with just enough traditional mustard taste to rightfully call itself a mustard.

And it's made in Gibsonia. You can find it at Save on Beer in Cranberry and McGinnis Sisters in Seven Fields.

Hard to make homemade pasta...

... if you can't get the dough right!

Tried twice, failed twice. Followed the Mario Batali recipe, illustrated nicely here.

Used 4 eggs the first time, didn't come close to getting something resembling a nice rounded ball of dough.

Second time, with 5 eggs, was on the verge of something I could take for a maiden voyage on my pasta maker, but then all it went to heck.

I'll try again, soon.

The most evil company in the world

Wal-Mart? Close. Well, not really. I mean, don't get me wrong. I really don't like Wal-Mart and think it's generally a very sleazy company. But the good ol' Walton family enterprise is nothing compared to Monsanto.

And I'm not even talking about that old milk-labeling thing (shameless self promotion alert). And I'm not even talking about the thing where they hire people to go around harassing family farmers in middle America, falsely accusing them of using their genetically modified seeds without paying for them, with nothing more as their motive than putting out of business all farms that don't use Monsanto's genetically modified seeds.

I'm talking about the 1,500 dead farmers in India. They all committed suicide. You'd think that, even with all of the other messed things going on in the world, that might make a blip on the big broadcast and cable networks.

The agricultural state of Chattisgarh was hit by falling water levels.

"The water level has gone down below 250 feet here. It used to be at 40 feet a few years ago," Shatrughan Sahu, a villager in one of the districts, told Down To Earth magazine

"Most of the farmers here are indebted and only God can save the ones who do not have a bore well."

Mr Sahu lives in a district that recorded 206 farmer suicides last year. Police records for the district add that many deaths occur due to debt and economic distress.

Ah, but see, if you just read this, or some of the other articles about all of these dead farmers, you'd think it was just about water -- which in and of itself is a huge issue in many developing countries, if not the biggest one -- and dirt-poor farmers. But it's also about that really motherf@#$ing evil company, don't ya' know...

Shankara, respected farmer, loving husband and father, had taken his own life. Less than 24 hours earlier, facing the loss of his land due to debt, he drank a cupful of chemical insecticide.

Unable to pay back the equivalent of two years' earnings, he was in despair. He could see no way out. ...

Shankara, like millions of other Indian farmers, had been promised previously unheard of harvests and income if he switched from farming with traditional seeds to planting GM seeds instead.

Beguiled by the promise of future riches, he borrowed money in order to buy the GM seeds. But when the harvests failed, he was left with spiralling debts - and no income.

So Shankara became one of an estimated 125,000 farmers to take their own life as a result of the ruthless drive to use India as a testing ground for genetically modified crops.

Read the whole story. Really, it's disgusting beyond belief. You'll learn that these farmers were, in the end, nearly forced to use the genetically modified seeds instead of traditional seeds. That the GM seeds require twice as much water. And that while they've been genetically modified to resist certain pests, the few crops they produced were devastated by others. And that the 1,500 farmers are just a pebble in a barren cropfield of 125,000 dead in what has been dubbed India's "suicide belt."

Two other important things to note here. One I hope to look into further. One needs no further investigation, and that is this: genetically modified crops don't have superior yields to traditional crop varieties. Shocking, I know.

[Union of Concerned Scientists'] Doug Gurian-Sherman searched the scientific literature for side-by-side comparisons of conventional and genetically engineered lines of corn and soybeans. He found that in almost all cases, genetically engineered crops did not produce larger harvests. The one exception was insect-resistant Bt corn, which produced higher yields only when neighboring plots of conventional corn suffered infestations of a worm called the European corn borer. Crop yields have increased significantly over the past decade, he says, but almost all of that increase was due to traditional plant breeding or other agricultural practices.

Pssst. Don't tell many of the ag researchers at our state's premier land grant university, Penn State. They love them their bioengineered food stuffs.

There's also this little nugget that, on its face, sounds all well and good:

In London after the G-20 summit yesterday, President Barack Obama called for Congress to double U.S. agricultural aid to developing countries in 2010 to $1 billion. ...

Some U.S. senators are already moving in this direction. This week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a bill called S. 384 that would increase the authorized funding levels for U.S. foreign aid to $750 million in 2010, reaching $2.5 billion in 2014. Authorizations for university partnerships and international agricultural research centers would also rise.

It's that last little bit that makes my little tinfoil ears get all buzzy.

So then I go to the bill itself, S. 384. And right at the very top, what do we see?

Section 103A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151a-1) is amended in the first sentence--

(1) by striking `, and (3) make' and inserting `, (3) make'; and

(2) by striking the period at the end and inserting `, and (4) include research on biotechnological advances appropriate to local ecological conditions, including genetically modified technology.'.

Monsanto didn't double it's federal lobbying outlay from 2007 to 2008 (from ~$4 million to ~$8 million) for nothing, ya' know.