Flavors 518

Recently, I stumbled onto the White House Food Blog . It is really interesting because it includes a lot of information about recent discussions about school lunches. Also, apparently steak is big in the Obama white house . I also stumbled on the online portion of an exhibit at the National Archives about Uncle Sam's influence on the diets of the American people . I love all the historical photos. Also, cool images like this one: They also have a tumblr about the exhibit . It is all very interesting. All I know is that pizza is my favorite vegetable. Although, my second favorite is french fries.

We have some freelance photographers at my job who come to shoot the art work who come all the way from Northampton, MA. They bring delicious pastries from Bread Euphoria . It is sort of ridiculous how much the Fruit and Nut scone from this place has over the last two years become a big highlight of my month. Today they brought them (as expected), and I was so excited.... except that my favorite scone seemed now to have the flavor of banana in it. I can't be sure, but that is pretty much the only food I hate. I guess you can't really taste bananas baked into things, but this faint suspicion really took away from the excitement of the scone for me. I HATE bananas to an irrational extent. In kindergarten I ate one and threw up immediately, and since then the mere scent of them can make me completely nauseous. The mushy, sticky texture, the way the smell of them takes over a room - who likes these things?? (Lots of people apparently, also they are apparently high in potassium, ...

I thought this article was very interesting. I remember when I was younger in the 1990s when being healthy meant eating processed foods that had the label "fat free" on the package. Of course, because people were thinking these items were fat free they ate larger portions than they would normally eat. Also, often more sugar (or corn syrup) was added to replace the fat. I remember Olestra and Snackwells , neither of which ever seemed that tasty or healthy. I am glad that according to that article people seem to be more focused on eating foods high in vitamins instead of just buying whatever has "fat free" on the label. Another problem when I was growing up seemed to be the label "reduced fat", as these items could still be relatively high in fat as long as they had less than the original version of the product. All around this article has good news, including: "Last year, more than half (55 percent) of grocery shoppers prepared more meals at home tha...

I am going to start by reiterating something Scott has already touched on, that this is an amazing book , and that Thomas Keller is a genius. I am not really that interested in cookbooks which basically tell you how to assemble things. While I will once in a while watch cooking shows, and read Rachel Ray's magazine, I don't really want to be told just to add pine nuts to everything and call it gourmet. "Ad hoc at home" is so valuable because it actually teaches you techniques, and explains why these work (which they totally do). My mom used to make "Chicken a la King". I don't know how, but it was the chicken/peas/carrots/creamy sauce flavor profile served over toast. This to me is the ultimate comfort food, and something I have been on the hunt to reinvent in my own style, made from scratch with all fresh ingredients. I have in the past fallen hard for Cook's Illustrated's chicken pot pie with buttermilk topping, and that is delicious, but onc...

So my coworker walked in today and mention how her doctor was mad at her about her diet. She basically doesn't like seasonings, only likes ground beef and sugar, and eats whole bags of M&Ms and whole cartons of ice cream. I was sort of like "well what about oatmeal?" hates it. "chicken breast?" hates it. "seafood?" no way. I did agree to help her exercise at lunchtime. I watch her dogs for her and she has junk food in her house I didn't even know existed like Oreo sticks that come with a container of frosting to dip it in. In some way being at her house is very exciting to me since we don't have any of that stuff at our house. I usually get very sick to my stomach, and regret it all - Coldstone ice cream cakes, Pecan Pie flavored chocolates, frozen pepperoni pizzas and all the rest of it. I also watch about 12 hours of Bridezillas when I am there, so pretty much every aspect of it is totally unhealthy. So in my dear beloved coworker's h...