Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink

In a way, this is the book that I hoped Buyology would be. Wansink is a food researcher and has conducted a wealth of studies to explore what causes people to eat more than they should.

What doesn't? From plate size, to fancy menu listings to who we eat with to the speed at which we eat, it seems like everyone and everything is conspiring to make us eat more.

Because there are so many ways that we are influenced, Wansink proposes, for those trying to lose weight, to focus on one or two ways and make gradual changes.

The reason why I compare this book to Buyology is that like that book, Mindless Eating explores how external factors influence our decisions, usually unbeknownst to us. Whereas in Buyology, Lindstrom spends as much time touting how great he and his work are, Wansink actually appears like the researcher he is and lets the research speak for itself. Wansink also has had his results published in journals, lending much more credence to their legitimacy compared to the work Lindstrom has done.

Wansink is a far more entertaining writer than Lindstrom. For being in academia, his writing is very light and easy to read. Almost too much so given the wealth of information he imparts. I'm writing this review several weeks after I read the book and find that I don't remember as much of it as I would hope. Not good to go mindless when dealing with mindless eating.

It may have been, too, that I was frustrated with how cool of a job Wansink has and why, as a kid, you never hear about things like professional food researcher as possible things to grow up and be. Getting to come up with studies to figure out why people eat a lot? That actually sounds like fun to me. I don't actually think my frustration influenced my enjoyment of the book but what do I know?

Make sure you check out his website. It's pretty good and covers a lot of the material in the book.

Paleo Solution

What causes people to make changes in their lives? I think for many people, and for many changes, the changes are made for them. Losing a job or suffering an illness, for example. For the most part I think people are creatures of habit and we don't like a whole lot of change.

I don't honestly know whether I like change or not. It sure feels like I go through a lot of them and I do know I need to be making some. At the end of April, I will be turning the big 4-0. Right now, I weigh about 280 pounds. My lean weight is around 205 which means I'm running around at almost thirty percent body fat. The combination of age and weight isn't exactly healthy.

I've also been stressed out because of finances. Stress, age and weight....not a good combination. I really need to be doing something.

My problem is that the "to do" list is vast. I need new employment or at least need to approach the Amish Mafia about getting in on some of their activities (I kid, I just like the idea of an Amish Mafia). Need to exercise regularly (I exercise quite irregularly which is better than not at all). Need to eat better. Need to write some things. Involved on a high level with some organizations. Holidays coming. Then there's even more stuff that doesn't bear mentioning in this area.

Be that as it may, you have to start somewhere if you're ever going to make headway. I picked up this book because I've been a fan of Robb Wolf's and I believe he knows about which he speaks. If I hadn't been, though, I might have chalked this book up as being something along the lines of a Kevin Trudeau book. Wolf bashes the medical community, and while he has a long list of references in the back, he doesn't footnote his research, something I think is pretty necessary when you're trying to refute "common knowledge".

What common knowledge is Wolf refuting? Well, the gist of the Paleo Solution is that our bodies have not evolved to where much of what we eat is good for it. Wolf believes that we should eat more like our early, early, early, early ancestors; nuts, berries, vegetables, meat. Grains, sugars, dairy? Out. Drinking cow milk and eating grains are relatively new concepts for our body evolutionarily speaking.

Much of what Robb espouses is what is touted for those who suffer from celiac disease. Those who suffer from that cannot break down gluten and it causes all sorts of health problems as a result. It's not a stretch to apply the same principles to a "healthy" person.

I know that when I omit grains from my diet, I feel better. The thing is, they taste pretty darn good. Pizza, cookies, all that good stuff which isn't good for you at all - it's hard to want to drop those things (which is why I weight 280).

My 400th post on this blog was, erroneously, the previous post (Transfixed Ingress was right, round numbers aren't my thing). My intent for this post was supposed to go one way or another. Either I was going to launch into a thirty day Paleo diet and see what happened or I was going to stop this blog altogether and try to knock out some of my to do items. Well, I had a productive day and knocked out some things. I had a decent workout. I did not eat well. I continue to read (and I'm blogging my reviews for work as well so I might as well continue that here). So we'll hold off on a decision and carry on as normal until I deem otherwise.

Catching Fire

As much as my tastes are congruent with Keith Law, they are not aligned with Michael Ruhlman. I went against my initial feeling and read Medium Raw after Ruhlman said he liked it. I did not. Then, I saw this video of Ruhlman and thought I would check out the book of which he spoke, Catching Fire by Richard Wrangham:

Had Something to Say - Cooking from michael ruhlman on Vimeo.

Ruhlman sums up the book really well in this video. But his passion and excitement and the background music make it more exciting than the book actually was. Ruhlman makes his own leap about cooking and society around 2:22 but otherwise, what he says is what Wrangham writes.

The book isn't badly written. Despite being a Harvard anthropologist, the writing is very accessible. It's not like reading a scholarly journal. That being said, I had a hard time getting into it. Anthropology isn't a topic that interests me very much and I maintain a healthy degree of skepticism when we're making conclusions about how people lived thousands and millions of years ago. The remnants of life forms before us only give us some clues and from there, it's all speculation, usually based on some preformed concepts. Wrangham thinks cooking shaped how we evolved as humans. He may be right. He can fit the evidence to make it seem like it is so. And he certainly has the research to back his views. Over a third of the book is endnotes and bibliography. I'm sure there are anthropologists out there, though, that completely disagree with him.

The book certainly is different. My bias against the subject matter prevents the book from getting a star because it is well researched and well written. I just didn't care for it very much.

Talking Candy

I've been thinking about candy for a couple of reasons, one of which I'll share next week and one I'll share now.

For some reason, the small town I live in made the decision years ago that if Halloween fell on a weekend, the night for kids to trick-or-treat would be Friday. As a result, my youngest son went out last night for a candy haul. In a way, this is nice, especially since the weekend is not disrupted. On the other hand, savvy (or conniving, depending on your stance) children and their parents from other parts of the county will commute to our town to get a start on their sugarhoards before their own candy grabbing on the 31st. I can't really complain much since my sons will be going to Delaware to visit my ex and doing the trick-or-treating scene there on Sunday.

So with buying and distributing and eating and thinking about candy, I thought I would come up with my all-time top five candy list. The only criteria here are that they have to be wrapped. I like fine chocolates and handmade stuff and all that. I'm only considering candy you could pick up at a gas station or convenience store.

I also thought about doing ten but 1. I don't feel like putting a huge amount of time in this and 2. when I was thinking about this, I sort of felt like once you got out of the top handful, it was really an issue of mood. I wouldn't always put number 10 behind number nine or even six. So we'll go with five.

5. Kit Kat Dark - A sleeper in the candy world as Hershey has only issued it in limited-editions. The Kit Kat is one of those candy bars that doesn't seem like anything special and you can almost wonder why anyone would choose it over other candies. The dark chocolate, though, turns it into a top five candy bar for me, though.

A local pastor goes through town every Thursday and hands out little candy bars with small sermons related to the candy bar attached to them. He introduced me to the Kit Kat Dark when it was the candy of the week. So by definition it has to be good.

4. Peanut Chews - Originally a product of Goldenberg's and now made by Just Born, this is a regional candy but one I have always enjoyed. For me, the high point of Halloween (arguably my least favorite day of the year) now is that my youngest son hates these things and so I get any that he receives trick-or-treating. They, too, are dark chocolate.

3. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups - Undoubtedly would hold the top spot if not for the fact that I find them addictive and either find myself craving more after eating a pack, or eating more than one pack and making myself sick. This lose-lose situation prevents a higher ranking.

2. Take 5 - An almost perfect package of deliciousness. Pretzel, caramel, peanuts, peanut butter, chocolate. Salty, sweet, crunchy, smooth. It doesn't get any better.

1. Good Stuff - Oh yes it does. At least it once did. A company called Grist Mills made Good Stuff in the early nineties. They sold for a quarter a piece when you could find them which, in North Carolina, was impossible. I even wrote the company trying to find somewhere in the state to find them.

My junior year of college, I traveled with my school's baseball team to spring training as I was the statistician. We went by van down to Florida and we stopped at a gas station in Georgia late at night to fuel up and get some caffeine. I went in and there in all it's neon blue glory was a box of Good Stuff candy bars. I bought the entire box. I only ever found them one other time after that.

Much like the Take 5, it was a mix of things. Caramel, chocolate, chocolate chips, peanut butter, and either or both rice crispies and oats. It was almost like a chocolate covered granola bar but didn't have the thick, chewy consistency you get with them.

Ugh. I'm feeling sick writing about candy so early. More about candy (and other food) in a few days.

Medium Raw

It was never my intent to read this book. I had read Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential and enjoyed that one. That book talks about Bourdain's early days as a cook and the harsh life that it is for the majority of cooks and the other folk in their kitchens. It was interesting and eye-opening and helped launch Bourdain onto the path he now walks; that of glamour travelogue/guest judge/fancy schmancy pants cook. Instead of hanging in the low-end kitchens of his younger days, he now is part of the posh three-star Michelin restaurant kitchens (as an eater, not a cook), festival attending, being on television folks. Well, really it's just one folk, him. Bourdain has crafted a unique place for himself in the food chain (pun intended).

The subtitle of Medium Raw, "A bloody valentine to the world of food and the people who cook" wasn't really appealing either. It seemed as if the book might be a "bite the hand who feeds you" type of approach. I do like Bourdain but I didn't believe that I would get much out of reading this book. I'm not going to be eating at the same restaurants or traveling to the same countries or sharing a table with people he does. He's entertaining to watch and listen to (and, in Kitchen Confidential, to read) but that didn't inspire me to want to read Medium Raw.

Michael Ruhlman did, though. The author of two great books on cooking that I have read, Ratio and Making of a Chef, posted this review on his website. Ruhlman's anticipatory take was similar to mine:

"...I thought great, fine. (Another rehash of travel stories and opinion on foie gras and chefs, detritus sloughed off during too-long plane rides and passing time in airports. Repurposing material because he’d taken a chunk of cash from his publisher and had to deliver something.)"

Ruhlman then goes on to state how wrong he is and how admirable he finds Bourdain's writing skills and the book he produced.

So I read it. And didn't like it. The chapters have a feel of essays and don't move well from one to another. There's no middle ground with Bourdain, either, in his viewpoint of things. He either likes it or hates it. Given the role he plays in the food world, this makes sense. Like so much of our media today, it's not enough to report on something, you have to take a side to keep talking. I hate that. Nothing is ever clear cut and the fact that something can be controversial indicates that there is more than one side. I like to see that side, too. You don't get both sides from Bourdain very often.

I also think it's a shame that someone who writes as well as Bourdain (and shame on Ruhlman, too, in his blog post) that he feels the need to utilize profanities with the incredible frequency that he does. It feels like he overuses profanities in order to remind readers (and maybe himself) that he isn't all high-falutin', that he came up on the other side of the tracks, and that while he may dine with people worth millions, deep down he's still the heavy-drinking, chain-smoking blue-collar guy he once was.

Bourdain does talk about his past a good bit in the book and the final chapter is an update on the people he wrote about in Kitchen Confidential. But in the end, I never feel like there is any point to this book. It does feel like it was about taking a chunk of change from the publisher. Perhaps if you are a die-hard food person and eat at David Chang's restaurants and care about the James Beard awards and the foie gras controversy, then sure, this might be a good book. To the average person, I can't recommend it.

Oneonta eats - Thanks, Roy

I'm in my last week here at Cooperstown/Oneonta and there was only one other place I have eaten that merits mentioning. Based on the recommendation by Roy of Plain Gray Swatch, I had my first Oneonta pizza at Cosmos Pizza. Great pizza, easily the best I've had up here and one that would that be delicious anywhere.

The place is a bit hard to find from Main Street. There is a doorway that sends you down a flight of dingy stairs where you expect to find a 1920's speakeasy. Not surprisingly, there is a bar at the bottom of the stairs but Cosmos is also there. And unlike many pizza joints where you have actual Italians working, the two fellow working there that evening were bespectacled younger guys, definitely Anglo-Saxon in heritage. They make good pizza, though.

Thanks, Roy, for the recommendation and folks, if you're up this way to visit the Hall of Fame or some other reason, I don't think there is any reason to eat in Cooperstown. Use your money a little more wisely and make the twenty minute ride into Oneonta.

Oneonta/Cooperstown eats

My time with the Hall of Fame Library is half over. Unlike other classes of interns, we have not done the whole bonding for meals that our predecessors seemed to accomplish. As a result, there is a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (or peanut butter and Hershey bar sandwiches for one intern), pre-packaged meals, etc.

We seem to avoid eating out due to budgetary reasons but I likes me my food and have hit some places. In the event you're planning a trip to the area, hopefully I can steer you to some good spots. Likewise, if you've been here and can suggest something, please do so.

My food consumption in Cooperstown proper has been limited. I've had two sandwiches from Danny's on Main Street and would happily eat there every day if the budget allowed me to do so. I'm not a bread fan but I love theirs. They also have yummy cookies.

We have donuts supplied to us on Fridays and one of the interns bought me one from Schneider's which tasted like those we get on Fridays. Nothing special. Pricey.

Heading out of town we hit China Wok. Much like any Chinese takeout place across the country but the veggies seem really fresh and the service is really nice if you do choose to eat in (even though it isn't a sit-down place to eat). It is unfortunately near Dreams Park and so is a frequent haunt of the Little League families through the summer.

There are quite a few barbecue and ice cream places out this way. I've not had ice cream and I only ate barbecue at one place. Brooks in Oneonta is supposed to be the premier place. I had their sampler plate which consisted of chicken, beef, pork and ribs. The chicken was fantastic. Sort of smoky and tangy. Moist. The rest of the meat was nothing special. The ribs would have been much better had they been slow-cooked. The meal comes with a salad bar which is very limited. Also had a side of snap peas. The fact that this is considered the best place for Q does not bode well. Especially given that the line to get in was huge. We waited forever until a staff member came out and told us there was room at the counter if we didn't want to wait. I normally won't wait in a line for a restaurant (there's plenty of other options) so I doubt I would go there again. If I get suckered into it, though, I'm going chicken only.

We continue our dining journey by following Route 7 from Brooks into Oneonta. You have Burger King which is my favorite fast food option and the only fast food I've eaten here. Nothing special. It's The King. You know what you're getting.

Beijing House is right there by Burger King. Had the chicken and scallop hibachi. Standard hibachi. Mildly entertaining. Overpriced.

Damaschke Field is the home of the Oneonta Outlaws. They have typical ballpark fare. Seems a little pricey since it is a collegiate summer league and we're looking at minor league prices. But what the heck, right? Nothing like a hot dog at the ballpark.

My second favorite place I've eaten is Athens. It is a Greek restaurant on Main Street in Oneonta. I had the stuffed grape leaves, souvlaki and a piece of baklava. The number of grape leaves they give you is unheard of (I seem to think they gave me eight) for an appetizer and they were really tasty and not all that oily. The souvlaki was outstanding. Moist, great seasoning, good veggies. Would definitely go with it again. The baklava was uninspiring. I've had much better and didn't think it was worth the price. Great sports bar atmosphere if you like European sports. Soccer jerseys everywhere and they were showing rugby scrums on the telly.

Without a doubt the best meal I have had here was at a place that advertises itself as "Oneonta's best kept secret". The Italian Kitchen is certainly not easy to find. It's in the middle of a neighborhood and not anywhere where you would be apt to drive by and stop on an impulse. No other shops around or anything. It is a small restaurant but seems to do a good deal of takeout. Despite having takeout, I didn't see anyone getting pizza and I'm not even sure they offer. The atmosphere is casual but comes across as more like fine dining. The staff dress in black. Italian music in the background. Semi-romantic lighting (a tad on the bright side and the decor is not inspiring in the least. In fact, it's virtually non-existent).

They start you off with a nice loaf of bread (and remember, I hate bread). It comes with a small bowl of olive oil which has blue cheese, roasted red peppers, seeded Kalamata olives and garlic floating in it. Has a little spoon for you to put the stuff on your bread and meanwhile the oil gets a little infusion. Very tasty.

My meal came with a side salad which was outstanding. Mixed greens, not iceberg lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and seeded Kalamata olives. The dressing was supposed to be a red pepper vinagerette or something but it resembled French. I liked it.

For the meal I had lasagna. It was a gigantic serving and could really have provided me with two meals had I been so inclined. Lots of ground meat and cheeses. The sauce was amazing. Very fresh tasting. Outside of my friend Eric's Mom, I've not had better lasagna ever. The prices of the entrees were excellent given the quantity and quality of food. Service was attentive but not overbearing. I whole-heartedly and stomachedly recommend it.

Well, I have eaten at more places than I thought. Thank goodness for Clark Sports Center.

Reading a cookbook

Reading a cookbook from cover to cover usually isn't something that strikes me as something I want to do. Michael Ruhlman's Ratio, however, is different from any other cookbook. It is Ruhlman's explanations on how a large number of things can be made in the kitchen based on following simple ratios (by weight). For example, if you want to make a vinaigrette it's three parts oil to one of vinegar. Simple, huh? If you want to add herbs to it, you can, but the basic ratio is 3:1. Remember that ratio and you don't need to ever look it up in a cookbook.

Ratio is filled with tons of things like that. Unfortunately, most of the recipes aren't all that good for you. Lots of doughs and cakes and pastry recipes. Lots of sauces. But if you moderate yourself, it is pretty fascinating all the neat things that can be done with these simple ratios.

The other caveat to the book is that there are a lot of exceptions to the rules. Ruhlman will start off explaining a ratio and then talk about how ideally, you probably want to tinker with it. So even once you learn the ratio, you might not actually want to use it which is a bit annoying but then again, part of cooking is creativity and you should probably be tinkering with the ratio on your own.

Ultimately, I liked the book a lot and have used it considerably. It was almost worth the cost just to be able to make single serving pancakes. My youngest son is the only one in the household that likes pancakes and it used to be a pain to have to whip up a large bowl of batter for one or two cakes and then refrigerate the rest. No more. Also, Ruhlman is a really good writer and makes the act of mixing things together interesting. I probably learned more about cooking from this book than any other source I can think of.

How I am not like Tom Colicchio

For one, I'm taller.

I like Tom Colicchio. Back when I owned a television, Top Chef was one of the two shows I tried to watch regularly (along with Ultimate Fighter). Interestingly, both shows aired Wednesdays at 10 which would have been quite a dilemma if not for reruns. I'm not sure how many people had that dilemma. I make for a fun demographic.

Returning to Herr Colicchio, he's an entertaining and thoughtful fellow who knows a lot about cooking. The New York Times recently ran a feature on him which I thought I would link here. But since this is also about me, I thought I'd save the New York Times some time and answer their questions before they schedule an interview with me (I'm really thoughtful).

Restaurant pet peeve: Using packaged food. Don't try to pass off boxed mashed potatoes or Jell-O cheesecake as something that you prepared. For that matter, just don't serve it. Either mash some taters or get into another business.

Always with him: An inane and often annoying running numeric and pattern analysis. Tonight for example we're driving home from practices and I say to the boowahs "You know, this is the only time where we have this symmetry in your educations. You have three years of school under your belt and nine to go and your brother has completed nine years and has three more before he graduates". I wasn't thinking about this at all. There was nothing to trigger it. My mind just felt the need to point it out to me.

Food aversions: Mushrooms. Mushrooms. Organs. Mushrooms. Wait, I'm missing one. I remember now. Mushrooms.

Worst thing about his kitchen: Electric oven and a dishwasher that doesn't take its job duties too seriously.

Why rent? I don't for one simple reason. I hate footsteps on my ceiling.

Favorite place in apartment: I'll answer this for the house. The baseball room/library, of course.

Morning routine: Up at 6, get Gaga up. Go downstairs and start the computer. Check e-mail and news until Gaga comes down. Visit with him for the seven seconds it takes him to inhale his breakfast. Make his lunch. Return to the computer until it is time for him to go. Give him a hug and watch him until he's across the street and on the way to the bus stop.

By this time Doodle is probably up. Eat breakfast with him. Make his lunch. Sign his assignment planner. He often commandeers my computer after he brushes his teeth so I will read or play Strat-O-Matic depending on my mood. Walk him to the bus stop and see him off. From there the routine varies daily.

Worst culinary creation: Some fifteen plus years ago I tried to make a recipe out of a Cooking Light magazine for braided blueberry bread. It tanked miserably. I would have had better luck trying to make bread out of the magazine itself and not wasted good ingredients.

Most-used cookbook: Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

Collection: Baseball books. Approaching fourteen hundred. The majority of them useful for research purposes and not goofy fluff.

Music in kitchen: I don't listen to enough music and need to remedy that. Playing some while I cook would be a nice start.

Superstitions: Don't really have any. I always put my right sock, then right shoe, then left sock, then left shoe on but that's a habit and not a superstition.

Fishing gear: I don't fish.

Obsession: Baseball. Books about baseball.

Old-time religion: I was semi-raised Presbyterian. Started exploring various religions and cults in high school and college and found myself liking different aspects of Scientology and Buddhism. My personal belief system leans more towards the latter nowadays but I don't really categorize my belief system in any particular way.

Cooking philosophy: Heck with the boowahs. Fix some vegetables.

Top “Top Chef” memorabilia: Don't have any. If I could have one thing, it would probably be Gail Simmons as a trophy wife.

Worst thing about TV stardom: Without a doubt, the groupies. Especially here in Lancaster County. The Amish are just horrible about it. I'm sorry, was I not clear? The lack of groupies is the worst thing. But that may have more to do with the lack of TV stardom I possess.

Always in fridge: Cottage cheese for myself and milk for the boowahs.

Worst meal he ever had: The worst time with food I ever had was in Kinston, North Carolina. Went there for a ballgame. The Holiday Inn was horrible and tried to pass off the above mentioned Jell-O cheesecake as homemade. The hot dogs at the ballpark were day-glo pink on the inside. Seriously, the color of the hot dog should never occur anywhere outside of the fallout zone of a nuclear blast. The best meal was at a Burger King where we got to talk to the incredibly tall (he was 6'7") witty and cynical Rod McCall in the parking lot while he waited for Pete Rose, Jr. to come out with his food.

Fitness routine: Crossfit, baby!!!!

Evening routine: My evenings are contingent on what I didn't get done during the day and what I feel like I have enough energy to do. Thus, they are unpredictable.

Obsolete item he won’t toss: My alto sax. It's more corrosion than metal and if I ever dared play it, it would sound awful. Plus, I have a wonderful tenor sax and have no need to play the alto. I won't toss it, though.

Best recent gift: My folks hooked me up with some new clothes for my birthday which were much needed.

Favorite cooking tool: As mentioned before, my Kyocera ceramic knife is my favorite thing in my kitchen.

Least useful kitchen gadget: One of the nice things about the divorce and moving out and starting a new home on my own was the ability (and necessity) to keep things simple. I don't have extraneous items. My dish drainer which I use when I hand wash dishes has all these multiple layers I don't know the purpose for. That would have to be my pick.

Best thing about job: I work in a library. One of my two favorite places to be (the other being the ballpark). Although I've only been a librarian for eight months, I haven't had a bad day. I've never walked into a library anywhere and didn't get a thrill out of it. I still get it every day when I go to work. Shame it took me this many years to make a career out of it.

Recipe inspiration: I'll get a hankering for a food and want to do something different with it.

Last meal would be: Fresh raspberries and veal piccata.

Travel ritual: Let someone else drive if at all possible.

Biggest self-indulgence: Peanut butter KandyKakes from Tastykake. I can't even get them anymore because I'll eat a whole box in a day. They would be my dessert for my last meal.

Favorite table decoration: Our table tends to be decorated with whatever hasn't been put away. School papers, empty bottles, folded clean clothes. My favorite decoration is a clear table.

Favorite movie: I can't pick one anymore. It used to be Real Genius because of the semi-biographical nature of the film (Val Kilmer's character Chris Knight was based on me. At least I think so). Wonder Boys is up there. The Sting. The Horse Whisperer. Those would be the big ones, I think.

Household issue he’s fussy about: Everything. When you do it all, you have to be fussy.

Procrastination technique: Blogging instead of working on my homework.

Why Dr. Pepper tastes like crap

In this story about a guy finding a notebook containing a formula for something called "D Peppers Pepsin Bitters" there's this wonderful line:

"It isn't a recipe for a soft drink, says Greg Artkop, a spokesman for the Plano-based Dr Pepper Snapple Group. He said it's likely instead a recipe for a bitter digestive that bears the Dr Pepper name.

He said the recipe certainly bears no resemblance to any Dr Pepper recipes the company knows of. The drink's 23-flavor blend is a closely guarded secret, only known by three Dr Pepper employees, he said."

23 flavors?!?!?! Here's an idea. Take away twenty of them and make something tasty.

And what is it with these soft drink companies and their need to have their secret formulas known by only a few people? Coke advertises that only two guys know that formula. Dr Pepper has three. What does that mean exactly? Do these guys concoct each batch individually? Come on, machines measure it all and make it. You need zero guys to know the formula. And in the case of Dr. Pepper, a good case of amnesia would be good for us all.

Speaking of which....Dr. Pepper guys, if you're reading this after a bout of amnesia, the flavors are pineapple, coconut and rum.

Bacontastic

For my good friend Transfixed Ingress, who obviously needs more bacon in his life, I have set up a parallel version of this website which provides a bacontastic bacon-enhanced experience.

Food revisited

We had to get a birthday gift after an 11 AM soccer game today and decided to stop at Dude with the Food for lunch. I had written about it previously when I stopped for a pulled pork sandwich. Had their smoked beef hoagie today. My oldest had their buffalo wings and my youngest had a hot dog.

The hot dog was grilled which I like but he doesn't. I hate wings but tried one. They were tangy but not spicy. As for the beef, it was flavorful but very fatty. The food was lackluster today. But the service made it so I don't see myself eating there again. They were busy but the wait times were interminable. It took far too long for the food to be prepared.

We ate at one of the two picnic tables they had outside. Both were uneven. An older couple sat together on one side of their table and the table flipped over backward spilling them and their food. We helped them up and it didn't appear any hips or other parts were broken. The folks in the food cart saw them but did not respond in any way, shape or form. Color me silly but if I'm running a place where I'm serving food and I watch two of customers go flying over backward because my picnic table isn't level, I'm over there apologizing and seeing if they are OK and then I'm fixing the table so it doesn't happen again. Neither happened.

Given the average quality of food, the slightly too high prices and the lack of concern both in terms of safety and wait times, I'm not coming back.

I did come back to an old favorite tonight, though. I made myself this again. Man it's a good dish. I've got leftovers for tomorrow, too. Mmmmmm.....

Getting the kiddies to eat

My oldest son is pretty good about food. He likes most things. I think it may have something to do with my then wife and I eating a lot of Mexican when she was pregnant and in his first year of birth. Once he was born, when we would go to Mexican restaurants, the staff would just gush over him. With his size, blue eyes, pleasant demeanor and long eyelashes, it was easy to do. They would take him and carry him around the restaurant, showing him off and taking him back in the kitchen where I presume they fed him chile peppers. I presume this because he enjoys his spicy food.

His brother on the other hand, is of the mold of my parents. Only one spice is any good and that is salt. My youngest is extremely picky and it is a chore to come up with healthy meals that he'll eat.

I do have a staple, though, that works well for the both of them. It is a variation of pasta carbonara. My recipe is real easy but doing it how I do it takes some dishes which requires a little cleanup. It's not too bad, though.

First get some water boiling for noodles. Any noodle is fine. I tend to use whole wheat spaghetti.

Then get some bacon cooking in a frying pan. This is bacon we're talking about so the more the merrier. I think most carbonara recipes call for pancetta but we're cooking for kids here so save the high end meat more when you need to cook for a date or something.

Next get some broccoli cooking. I'll either steam or boil it.

Lastly, make the sauce. Whisk a cup of hard grated cheese (parmesan, romano, etc.) with four eggs.

Once the bacon is done, take out the bacon and drain most of the grease from the pan. Drain the noodles and put them in the frying pan with the reserved grease. Pour the sauce over the noodles. Drain the broccoli if necessary and put the broccoli on top. Add the bacon. Stir it all around. The residual heat from everything (pan, noodles, broccoli) will cook the egg of the sauce giving it this flaky, eggy, cheese that coats everything. Once the sauce is thoroughly cooked, plate and serve.

You have all your food groups. Can substitute other veggies as necessary. Best of all, it's a quick dish and can be thrown together after a practice or something. If you have kiddies, give it a shot.

Dude with the food

I failed to take into consideration during my discussion of my facial perfection that perhaps one of the reasons the ladies aren't knocking down my door is because of a different ratio. The ratio of my big ol' belly to, I don't know, a belly that isn't as big as mine. I have been fat, obese, maybe even morbidly obese at times. Right now I think I'm just overweight.

Here lies the rub. I loves me my food. Look at the tag index. What have I written about most on this blog? Food. Go figure. It outdoes baseball. Great Caesar's Ghost!

If I could get myself to control my lower urges, I'd be a much happier camper, let me tell you.

As it is, I had to run out to do a homework assignment yesterday. My sons are on spring break in Delaware so I had an opportunity to dine out affordably (which Blogger thinks is a misspelled word). I was in the mood for Chinese but the time I was out prevented lunch specials (do you see the problem? There should not be so much logic involved) and I really didn't want to be paying non-lunch prices for take out. On my way out to my assignment, I passed this catering truck that is at this intersection from time to time. They advertise pulled pork and barbecue chicken. As I said, I loves me my food, but I really loves me pulled pork. I decided I'd stop by on my way back and get a Q sandwich.

The caterer is called Dude with the Food and he supposedly is only there on weekend (although I swear I've seen him at other times). Had myself a sandwich and it was right tasty. Very moist. Very spicy which took me by surprise. Five bucks but the amount of meat was about right for that price. I'd eat there again although I think I'll give their beef sandwich a try when I do go.

Bringing the heat

I have a Suzanne Goins cookbook that has a lot of good recipes in it. The only problem is that the recipes either take a lot of time or take some fancy schmancy ingredients. I had it in mind that I was going to fix a recipe using chuck steak. Once I got around to fixing it, though, I found that it both took a lot of time and needed more ingredients than I had on hand.

I looked for something else online and came across a chili recipe that used the chuck steak and some poblanos. I loves me my poblanos but I do tend to forget how spicy they make stuff in which they simmer.

Easy enough recipe. Cut up the meat (about three pounds worth), coat it in about a tablespoon of chili powder and brown the meat in a Dutch oven. Heat an oven to 325. Put two cups of liquid (I used water) in with the meat and stick the whole thing in the oven until the meat is cooked (about an hour and a half). Take the Dutch oven out and put it on a stove burner. Get it simmering and add two chopped poblanos, two cans of diced tomatoes (I used tomatoes with chipotle) and some chopped onion, another two cups of liquid and 1.5 cups of rice. Cook until the rice is done.

It had some kick which was tempered nicely by adding some grated farmer's cheese to it. A different take on chili by using rice instead of beans. Pretty nice dish and a good use of poblanos.

Food and eating in LA

Started my trip off to LA with a bowl of cinnamon Frosted Mini-Wheats at my parents' house at 5:30 AM. Not a time I like to be eating. On the plane I had a blueberry fruit bar.

Had a layover in Chicago and on the recommendation of the flight crew, got a sandwich at Potbellies. For airport food, the price was right. The sandwich, just short of a six inch toasted sub, was five dollars. Considering that an Egg McMuffin from McDonald's was four, this was a definite bargain. I got the Italian which was assorted Italian meats and provolone with some lettuce and tomato. This was real breakfast.

Had wheat and cheese crackers on the flight to LA. Got to the airport and Jason picked me up and we went to Natalee Thai. This was really good. We started with the Natalee Delight which was beef sate, egg rolls, shrimp rolls and fried wontons. It also had a little side cucumber salad of cucumbers, onion and chile peppers in a sugar and vinegar dressing. It was all fantastic. The temperatures were mixed (the wontons were cold, the egg rolls warm and the sate and shrimp rolls hot) but it was all tasty.

Our entrees came and I was a little disappointed as I had ordered the Monsoon Noodles which were supposed to be spicy but were not. About halfway through I'm eating and thinking, "This brown sauce has a really nice flavor. Wait....brown sauce? Jason, what did you order?". Oops. The waitress mixed our plates. His was chicken and noodles in brown sauce with Chinese broccoli. The broccoli was incredibly fresh and tasty. When we switched plates, I found myself missing the broccoli. The Monsoon Noodles were flat noodles with chicken, mint and basil with bell pepper and onion. It was tasty but lacked the high veggie quotient that the other dish (whose name I forget) had.

For dinner, I had a Dodger dog at the game. Long, thin hot dog which was tasty, I'm sure largely because it was consumed at the ballpark.

Sunday involved Jason sleeping late and then we walked up to a British pub called Cat and Fiddle for breakfast/lunch.

Saw the menu and discovered they had Scotch Eggs for appetizers. I had never heard of these things until recently. They are a hard-boiled egg wrapped in sausage, dipped in breadcrumbs and deep-fried. My folks had at a pub a couple months go and I tried to bake some at home using ground beef instead of sausage and it was a total flop. I ordered one to start my meal and it was tasty. Served on a bed of shredded lettuce, the sausage is unlike your typical German-style wurst and has a more solid consistency. It had a nice flavor, primarily rosemary, but I opted to put HP sauce, which I love, on it anyway.

I stuck with the sausage for my entree, getting bangers and mash. This was two sausages of the same kind used in the Scotch Egg, a pile of mashed taters and separate piles of boiled onions, peas and carrots. All the vegetables were fresh and boiled just right although the carrots were served cold. There was some gravy on the side for the taters which was just right in terms of flavor, texture, temperature and lack of greasiness. The onions stayed with me until I could get back to Jason's place and brush. All in all, a fairly decent meal with the sausage being the highlight. It was cooked to perfection and was tasty. And HP sauce....mmmmmm.....

At the ballgame I went with a carnitas burrito which was surprisingly tasty. It seemed to be a mix of 40% pork, 40% beans and 20% rice which made for a satisfying blend. It was spiced well, wrapped perfectly so that it didn't make a mess, and was hot. Really good ballpark meal.

Last day we did sushi for lunch at Sushi Hiroba. Fantastic. I wanted to go with something a little different and ordered a cold appetizer to start, the spicy tuna risotto. I love risotto and thought it was interesting that a sushi place had it and that it was listed as a cold appetizer. It came and it was sushi rice fried into little blocks. On top of each rice block was a generous helping of spicy tuna tartar with a little dollop of spicy mayo. Awesome.

I also ordered a couple of rolls. They somehow lost track of my order and it took a long time for them to get around to finally bringing the rolls. When they did, they forgot the wasabi and pickled ginger and so I had to ask for that. The rolls were both good but they overdid both with teriyaki sauce which was a little disappointing. The rolls were huge compared to everywhere I've had sushi except for Raw in Philadelphia. I had an eel and avocado roll which is my standard roll. I love eel. And avocado. This was good. Very fresh. Again, just too much teriyaki. I also ordered a special roll, the Oh Yes roll. That was tuna, yellowtail, salmon and avocado in a roll that is deep-fried. The deep-frying cooks the fish which sort of defeats the purpose of sushi. It was incredibly tasty, though. I had a piece of Jason's Raw Raw roll which was the anti-Oh Yes. Same contents, raw, wrapped in cucumber. I liked it much better.

Dinner was at the ballpark and for some idiotic reason I ate two burritos. Didn't need to. They were even better than the night before as they were piping hot (probably because I bought it in inning 1 instead of 6).

My last meal in Los Angeles was at Camacho's Cafe at LAX. Had a chorizo and egg burrito. Was piping hot but lacked flavor, especially disappointing compared to the burritos at the ballpark.

All in all I really enjoyed my meals in Los Angeles. Like most everything about that city, the available options overwhelm me and it was nice to have Jason steer me to some good places.

Eating on the road

No, I'm not talking roadkill. By the time this is posted, I will be on my way to the City of Angels to catch the semi-finals and finals of the World Baseball Classic.

I was out in L.A. back in September (first time in my life I was there) and I enjoyed some really good food. My first experiences with In-N-Out and Carl's burgers. Some nice cold udon noodles at a Japanese place. Awesome gelato. Fish tacos. And to top it all off, I ate at Mario Bartoli's restaurant, Osteria Mozza. My next "cooking" post will be about the things I eat while I'm in L.A.

That being said, I'm going to spend every evening I'm there at Dodger Stadium so it might not be as varied and fancy as last time. But I'm sure I'll be able to report on the ballpark food there.

Ballpark food generally isn't too exciting for me. Almost all the time, I like to eat a hot dog at the game. A hot dog just tastes better at a ballpark. The one exception, and it may have changed since I was there seventeen years ago, was Kinston, North Carolina. They had the scariest hot dogs ever. They were a very unnatural, glowing pink and tasted horrible. I shudder to this day.

Otherwise I cannot think of anywhere that really stood out. Well, maybe a hot dog I had at Old Comiskey Park. That was pretty tasty. And I can't think of any non-hot dog food that was good. Nachos at old Arlington Park in Texas were awful, especially since I was in Texas. Everything else is nondescript.

Home brews

I've been unwell for a ridiculous amount of time. I'm not exactly sure what has been the cause of it but I have had a head full of congestion and a sore throat, the latter likely caused by the congestion.

As I may have mentioned before, I'm opposed to pharmaceutical products. Usually I can wait out an illness but this one has dragged on and on. Wanting to feel better I started looking for a remedy and found one for my sore throat in the form of cayenne pepper. Half a teaspoon of cayenne in half a cup of hot water. Gargle. Kills the pain in the throat, reduces the swelling. Amazing.

I figured, too, that I would share my typical breakfast, a nutritious, tasty and well-balanced concoction. My breakfast is a cup of lowfat or nonfat cottage cheese, a half scoop of protein powder, a tablespoon of peanut butter, a cup of fruit (berries when in season and/or affordable or canned peaches otherwise), a third cup of oats. Great blend of protein, fat and carbs. Yummy.

I know I'm off schedule

But here's one of the best food reviews I've ever read. And about potato chips, no less.

Vegan recipe week, the conclusion

I loved Veganomicon. If I had bought it, it would probably be worth it just for learning the trick of boiling tempeh. There are a number of recipes that require some "out there" ingredients for a lot of people. The recipes I tried, though, were absolutely fantastic. For people who think that eating vegan or vegetarian means losing flavor, just give this cookbook a try.

You can even force the recipes on your friends! At the end of the book the authors put three pages of menus for various occasions or styles of food.

The appendix is nice in that they break out the recipes by categories (soy-free, gluten-free, low-fat, under 45 minutes and supermarket friendly) so that you can still find stuff to make even if you live in Bismarck, North Dakota.

I did try one other recipe this week which I botched. It was supposed to be the fresh-type rolls you get in Thai restaurants but for the life of me I could not find rice wrappers. I tried wontons but that just flopped. The filling was a mix of rice noodles, pumpkin seeds and butternut squash. Cooked too many noodles and messed that up also. Made a nice cranberry-chile dipping sauce (once again the blend of fruity/tart, sweet (it uses sugar) and spicy) that went well (and I always love cooking with cranberries).

Next time I put in an order for books I'm getting myself a copy of this awesome cookbook. I highly recommend it for everybody, carnivores and veggielovers alike.

The plan is to return to the regularly scheduled schedule for next week. I'm just about done my editing (so close I'm procrastinating on that last little tough bit) so my schedule should free up a bit.