National Banana Lover’s Day

Happy Banana Lover’s Day! For those of you who love bananas (like my husband and daughter), today is the perfect day to indulge in your fruity treat. For those of you who can’t stand them (like me—every time I eat one I taste the nasty pink meds my mom laced mine with every time I had to take antibiotics as a kid), you could always just squish them between your fingers for fun.

How to Celebrate Banana Lover’s Day:

Dress up like Brian from Family Guy in his banana costume and do the “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” song.

Make a banana tree house by stacking slices on top of one another with toothpicks. Eat when finished.

Have a banana split for breakfast.

Go organic—we’ve noticed that buying organic bananas doesn’t cost much more than nonorganic varieties at all.

Save any “bad” or orver ripe bananas you’ve got and make some delicious banana nut bread. Share it with the neighbors.

Sing the “banana-fanna-fo-fana” name game song everywhere you go. Sing it to your kids, your boss, your mother-in-law, and the person checking you out at the supermarket after you check his or her nametag.

Pack a banana pudding cup in your lunch, or make banana pudding and spread it over some vanilla wafers for a treat.

Continuing with the peanut butter and jelly theme, slide a few banana slices into your child’s sandwich for a nutritional boost.

Try a new banana recipe. Some imaginative creations you might want to cook up include banana yogurt pie, banana a la Creole, and banana relish.

Write an ode to bananas. See how many words you can alter to rhyme with banana.

Blend up a banana for a healthy shake that will doubly serve as a dessert/treat and breakfast. My daughter likes hers with some milk, chocolate (Ovaltine works well), and strawberries, though anything from yogurt to soymilk will work well, too.

Insist that everyone call you “Nanners” for the duration of the day.

Slice up some bananas and add them to everything throughout the day—your cereal or oatmeal, salads, whatever.

Make bananas foster—especially if you’ve never had this traditional New Orleans dessert before.

Try a banana liqueur drink. Some notables include the Chocolate Monkey, Scooby Snack, and June Bug.

Make banana art by scratching the skin of a banana in any pattern you wish and leaving it in the sun. Consider getting the results tattooed on your skin.

Wear yellow everything. See if anyone notices.

Tapi - Why Didn't I Think of That?

Okay, so Tapi might not be the BEST deal ever but thanks to the wonders of marketing - it kind of appeals to me! It is also one of those things that I stop and think "Why am I not the inventor of Tapi" - whomever did must be making a killing!

 

The whole idea for this is so simple ("duh" moment) - but the product itself would likely benefit from a filter - yuppies, the gays, and baby boomers love to filter everything. It is my understanding that these are the people who might still have a little money (more money than common sense, anyway) to spend on a fancy, rubber, drinking fountain maker. I can hear some of your thoughts - "Ew. Tap Water? Gross" - but water is water. I don't care what you read in "Convenient Propaganda Magazine" but even without a filter this is still the same stuff you could purchase by the bottle.

So whats the deal here? Well, you can get the Tapi for $5.95 with free shipping if you take a short, 7 question survey (airmail shipping is $3.00 otherwise). Apparently you may be able to find these locally as well using the Find A Store feature but I am old school and feel that takes all the fun away from waiting patiently for your little rubber drinking fountain to come in the mail.

This little do-dad also works in the same way as some screw on filters where you can use the faucet, as a faucet, when you do not pinch the bottom closed. What else is great about this? Well, it is dishwasher safe - so you can clean it very easily. It uses water-safe rubber that will neither affect the water, nor change the taste of the water. Tapi can fit anywhere there is a straight spout - so you can fountanize any unsuspecting faucet in your home. Oh and this is important for the people who have spawned: this is something kids go crazy over! These simple little ideas are the type of thing that blow them away - and on the plus side you don't have to get grossed out thinking of them putting their dirty mouths (or hands) directly on the faucet.

Now everyone can enjoy that drinking fountain feel at home - without the worry and regret that comes with using a public one. This would make a cute Holiday gift as well! It will say "stop putting your mouth directly on the tap you filthy animal" and everyone will laugh. Check it out!

Good & Fiery

I should start by saying that I am a real wimp when it comes to spicy foods.  I can't take too many Hot Tamale candies before I start thinking "These must really appeal to masochists."  When I go to a Thai restaurant, I order one or two stars.  Just to frame the discussion that follows.

If you are a fan of spicy foods, you may be able to get more enjoyment out of Good & Fiery.  But I kind of doubt it.

This is the latest new thing from the people who brought us Good & Plenty.  I like Good & Plenty a lot.  I even like Good & Fruity, although I liked them better in their original form - candy coated red licorice - than the jelly beans that they are now.  

Good & Fiery is billed on the box as a "Sweet & Spicy Chewy Candy," which is suitably vague.  I was intrigued by the promise of fruit flavors combined with "spicy."  The flavors are listed on the box as Lemon, Orange, Apple, and Cinnamon.  I pictured something like a combination of a Hot Tamale and a Skittle.  Interesting, right?

Wrong.

I was barely able to discern any fruit flavor in these whatsoever.  The only thing I could really discern was burning.  The yellow ones burned and tasted a little bit like Pledge furniture polish.  The orange ones burned and tasted a little bit like baby aspirin.  I was completely unable to distinguish between Apple and Cinnamon, both of which tasted like burning, and both of which are red.  

Are these really all that hot?  Like I said, I'm a wimp with spicy foods.  And it's not like they print the box with the Scoville units.  But I can tell you this: after my first tentative tasting of only three little Good & Fiery candies at once, I felt a flush spread across my face.  When I tasted three little orange ones immediately afterwards, sweat broke out on my forehead.

At one point I unwisely crammed a whole handful into my mouth.  I did this for you, dear readers, for the all-important "How do all the flavors work together?" test.  I can't tell you how the flavors worked together.  All I can tell you is that I ended up literally flapping my hands in the air in distress.

If you were one of those kids in high school who liked sucking on toothpicks dipped in cinnamon oil, then this may be the candy for you.  However, be warned: after the burn fades, what's left is a peculiarly unpleasant, oily, chemical-tasting after-effect.  It's truly horrible, like what you might get after having lunch cooked up in a test tube in a chemical lab.  

Put simply, there's nothing good about these.  If you want hot and sweet, try Hot Tamales.  If you just want that super scorching sizzle, get some red Warheads.  If you want fruity, get a box of Mike & Ike.  There's simply no reason to buy these, even though the box looks really really cool.

The Northwest: It's a Berry Paradise

Berries. They mark the beginning of summer, and the end, and right now in the Northwest, it's berry season. It's berry season from about June through early October, here. Right now, you can still find lucious local strawberries, and the blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, huckleberries, and marion berries are available as well, though some require a bit more effort to find than others.

Strawberries start

appearing in the Northwest in June, and with luck last until almost Labor day. There are several varieties of the domestic berries, and two varieties of native "wild" strawberries, one of them the hardy alpine strawberry with small berries and leaves but intense flavor.

There are three basic types of blackberries grown in the Northwest, especially in Oregon and Washington. There is a native, trailing variety. There is the so-called Evergreen blackberry, R. lacianatus, introduced in the mid-1800s to Oregon from England, where it is a native wild blackberry. It quickly spread throughout the Pacific Northwaest by birds. Then there is the invasive non-native Himalyan Blackberry, actually a German variety known as R. procerus. This is the common blackberry that is ubiquitous along roadsides, or the edges of human habitation, with thick canes, and a habit of taking over anywhere it finds a crevice.

Raspberries unlike blackberries and dewberries, their close relatives, have a hollow core; the berry pulls away from the vine, and leaves a pale plug behind. If it doesn't come away easily, it isn't ripe. Leave that berry on the vine for later, and find one that's truly ripe.

Black raspberries are a North American native, sometimes called blackcaps by growers, they really are a black Raspberry, complete with a hollow core.

Marion berries are a Chehalem blackberry and Olallie blackberry cross, and dubbed the Marion blackberry or Marionberry by their crosser, George F. Waldo in 1956. They're especially successful as a berry crop in Western Oregon, particularly in their namesake, Marion County.

Boysenberries were a cross between a European raspberry (Rubus idaeus), a Common blackberry (Rubus fruticosus), and a Loganberry (Rubus × loganobaccus), made in the early 1900s by a farmer named Boysen. Walter Knott, from Southern California or Knott's Berry Farm fame rescued a few straggling vines from Boysen's deserted farm, and began to cultivate the berries.

Loganberries were the result of the first recorded deliberate attempt to create a blackberry cross. In the 1880s, Judge J.H. Logan in Santa Cruz, California, began to deliberately cross two blackberries. He did not realize that a raspberry cane was growing right next to his two blackberry cultivars. All three canes flowered and fruited, and Judge Logan planted their seeds. The seeds resulted in 50 plants, one of which was similar to the blackberry, but both larger and stronger; this cultivar became known as the Loganberry, a cross between a blackberry and a raspberry. The other plants were what became known as the Mammoth Blackberry. The Loganberry, while a deep red and abundant producer is typically too tart to eat on their own, but fine when used for pies or wine—and a fabulous root-stock, and cross.

Huckleberries are native to North America, and generally belong to one of two varieties, both members of the family Ericaceae, in two separate species, Vaccinium, the red huckleberry found especially in coastal California and parts north, including Washington and Oregon and Gaylussacia, a generally smaller and darker species. Huckleberries, even the red ones, are frequently mistaken for blueberries, though they are easily distinguished. Huckleberries have 10 larger seeds in each berry, while blueberries have many tiny, almost unnoticeable seeds (nobody pits blueberries). Berries, even on the same bush, can range in color from a dark, almost cranberry red, to deep purple, with blue somewhere in the middle. Washington State's Gifford Pinchot National Forest is known for its many huckleberry bushes, and issues permits for picking.

Blueberries have been commercially grown in Washington and Oregon for about fifty years, but in the last ten, they've taken off. Blueberries, long a hit for their amazing flavor, durability, and multitude of uses, are praised for their high levels of antioxidants. They are far more palatable than cranberries, easier to eat, and just about as high in antioxidants.

Massive Egg Recall: It Didn't Have To Happen

Much has been made of the massive egg recall, which last I heard had hit a billion eggs.  A billion eggs recalled!  The thought is simply staggering.  

While we're busy getting sick from contaminated eggs, chickens in the UK are being vaccinated against salmonella to prevent the infection in the first place. 

Eggs from vaccinated chickens bear a red lion stamp (pictured), and command a higher price.  Almost a decade ago, the British government announced that the vaccination program had reduced food poisoning cases by a whopping 50%.

Why isn't this being done in the United States?  I have yet to see a single article about the US egg recall mention that a poultry vaccination exists.  The vaccination was approved for use in the United States by the USDA in 1998.  

Considering most egg-laying chickens live only 18 months before slaughter, that's enough time for eight generations of hens to have been vaccinated.  Salmonella could have been virtually wiped out in our national egg supply by now.  So why hasn't it been?  I did some research, but could find no answer to this question.  

The vaccine is legally available in the US, but apparently no one carries it or uses it.  I checked several catalogs geared towards both backyard and commercial egg production, and couldn't find a company selling doses of the vaccine.

The truth is that we in America have the worst food safety record in the developed world.  Our rate of food-borne illness are tremendously higher than any other industrialized nation.  It's a shame, even worse than our broken health care system.  And the worst part is that somehow, the perpetrators of the illnesses have convinced us that it's all our fault.

In a "blame the victim" move, we are instructed to always cook eggs thoroughly, to rinse raw chicken before preparing it, to wash our vegetables in a decontamination soak before eating them.  Cook your beef!  Wash your hands!  Don't touch!  No rare meats!

It isn't our fault when we get sick.  It's their fault.  The massive corporations which run our contaminated food supply.  Like the ones responsible for this outbreak.  You couple a wretched record of food safety with an impressive nation-wide distribution and sales system, and you've got yourself a big problem.

I have a friend who is all about Freedom and Liberty and Lack of Government Interference.  He believes with his entire heart that the invisible hand of the marketplace can solve all our problems.  Well I tell you what, the invisible hand is what got us into this mess.  

The "invisible hand" theory is that people will not buy eggs from a company that ships bad eggs.  But how do you know which company shipped your eggs in the first place?  This batch of contaminated eggs was sold under dozens of different labels.  

Lack of transparency will always prevent the invisible hand from functioning as it should.  In this case it was government agencies to the rescue, blowing the whistle on salmonella cases across the country and enforcing a recall of the bacteria-laden eggs.

Photo credit of UK egg bearing the salmonella vaccine stamp: Flickr/carmen_seaby

Bad Waiters: to Tip or Not to Tip?

We have all been there. A restaurant outing with friends and family is made disastrous by bad service. I am talking about cold food, snotty servers, waiting what seems like years for a refill... you can set the scene I am sure. What is the right thing to do in this situation? What is the proper etiquette? Is it okay to just stiff that guy slinging out your food and drinks who is obviously having a bad day? Well...

These questions have so many variables and there is not a one-size-fits-all answer. What I can tell you, from my perspective, is that it is never proper to forgo the tip, and here's why: The tip is a contract that is socially bound (regardless of the service). Although some might have you believe that it is an added extra for perfect, above and beyond service - it is not. It is the price you should always factor before deciding on what to get from the menu, and before even going out to eat. Think of it like the extra 9's at the gas pump (i.e. $2.79-99 per gallon), we all know those extra nines add a penny but they are there, aren't they - so is the tip!

The bare minimum for a tip for awful service should still be at least 10% of the entire bill (before or after tax - you decide). "I aint payin' no tip to bad service", you might be thinking to yourself (while sitting in your double-wide) - and that is fine - don't - but also don't go out to eat unless you're positive the service will be stellar because a tip should be paid at a MINIMUM of 10%. In case your wondering - I am not, nor have I ever been, a server.

This leads me to let you know what to do if you have bad service - tell a manager! If you leave and you had a bad experience not tipping just makes you look like a total a-hole and contrary to what you think that doesn't let anyone in charge know that you are not satisfied. When you do not leave a tip for bad service it also effects the others who may have served you quite well - the host, bartender, and busboy - because the tips are "pooled" together.

You know what else telling a manager will accomplish? They can "comp" you for what is certainly more than the 10% tip you might leave off - much more - and they want you to be happy so you'll come back. Great restaurants (and great managers) know that solving your problem now will save the experience and they want you to be happy.So, again - always tip at least 10% (if the service is bad) and let the numbers go up at your own pace from this point the better the service gets.

Do not listen to those who say the tip means: "To Insure Prompt Service" because it doesn't. In fact, by definition, insure something means to pay for something in advance to resolve a problem later - which is not how "tipping" works, as we all know. This little gem may have been concocted by someone who didn't realize they meant "ensure" - which means something that happens as a result (of something else).

In any case - always tip your server, even if it was not all that you had hoped for - it is a part of the whole experience and until the "rules" change and everything is one flat fee - you need to always include this very important part.

Genetically Modified Food

Halloween is right around the corner and as such I figured everyone deserves an early little food scare. I'm not talking about razor blades in the candy, or rat poison in the popcorn balls - I'm talking about genetically modified food - the stuff we eat every single day, without even knowing it.

What is GMO (genetically modified organism) food, exactly? Well as I am not a scientist I can not tell you EXACTLY what it is but I can tell you a little bit I learned about the creation of such food. The food is first taken to a lab where they take it and infect it with viruses or bacteria that have a special DNA sequence they would like to infect the plant with. They then "activate" this DNA to have the spliced properties that were previously selected. The whole things is kind of complicated and creepy.

The scariest part of the whole process is that this type of food is likely something we have already been eating - without even knowing it. Once you unleash something that can reproduce in nature - that is what is does - reproduces. So the fancy organic Whole Foods apple you paid $3 for might have had trace elements of GMO food in it already - so much for paying more to feel healthy. I personally think genetically modified food is scarier than the processed stuff you can get at any dumpy superstore, but the real terror is when you combine them.

Think of it... genetically modified food that has been beaten, blended, preserved, and made shelf stable served up to our friends and family. It has likely already happened and chances are if you have eaten it. It is the food equivalent of Heidi Montag on a plate and I don't know about you but I am personally not down with eating Heidi Montag.

What can we do about frankenfood? Well there is not a lot we can do except petition our government to make it illegal and (much like the destruction of Frankenstein) burn it all to the ground. We have to destroy this type of food and the evil (for profit) companies that created it. That is the only way we can get that warm, safe, feeling back when we eat to our heart's content. Wait, maybe thats a part of my own personal eating disorder - but regardless - we must destroy the Frankenfood - before it destroys us!

Hakarl: The Dish Gordon Ramsay Couldn't Keep Down

Earlier today I was researching information about the Greenland shark for a post about a rash of strange seal deaths.  Everything about that story is strange, including the Greenland shark itself.

For one thing, the Greenland shark is poisonous.  But if you let it rot, the poison breaks down, and you can eat it.  If you are really, really brave.  This traditional dish is called "hakarl," and is not for the faint of heart.

When we think of sharks, most of us think of Discovery Channel Shark Week footage.  Clang!  Slash!  Snap snap!  Thrash!  Rawr!

The Greenland shark is the opposite of that.

Politely described as an "ambush predator," the Greenland shark is a rubbery, sluggish dweller of the coldwater deep.  It is also blind.  Not from birth, no.  This species of shark plays host to a parasitic copepod which eats the shark's eyes.  

The copepod is bioluminescent, which attracts prey.  The Greenland shark basically hangs there in the water until a fish comes near, lured by the shark's eye worms, at which point the Greenland shark snaps at it.

To quote Wikipedia, "The flesh of a Greenland shark is poisonous."  It contains the toxin trimethylamine oxide, which breaks down into trimethylamine.  In addition to being poisonous, this chemical is "responsible for the odor often associated with fouling fish, some infections, and bad breath."  Yum!  

Greenland sharks also contain a high proportion of uric acid (the active ingredient in urine), which gives the flesh a distinctive powerful smell and taste of ammonia.  Are you getting hungry yet?

In order to make the Greenland shark's meat safe to eat (if not palatable), it is fermented using a traditional beachfront burial.  The flesh is buried in a shallow hole on a gravel sand beach, and weighted down with several heavy rocks.  These rocks not only discourage predators, they also press out the "fluids" while the meat is fermenting.

The shark meat is left for between two and three months.  I had a friend who spent several years in a small town in Iceland.  She once mentioned that you always want to stay away from the hakarl beaches.  Every coastal area has its own designated hakarl beaches, where everyone goes to bury their shark meat.  The smell of all that rotting shark meat is… unpleasant.

After it's finished rotting, the meat is dug up and then hung to cure and dry for several months.  Then the crust is cut off, and the gelatinous meat is sliced into cubes, and served with a jaunty toothpick. 

According to one food blogger, "Everyone involved in this process should be on trial in The Hague."

No less an authority than Anthony Bourdain called hakarl "the single worst, most disgusting and terrible tasting thing."   After being challenged to eat it, Gordon Ramsay vomited.  Hakarl also appears at or near the top of any "worst food ever" list worth its snuff.  

Notwithstanding this, hakarl is sold in grocery stores in Iceland, and - one presumes - eaten by people on purpose.

Photo credit: Flickr/moohaha

$35K for Murdoch's Pocket?!

Just got an email from Media Matters concerning the $1 million donation the News Corp, parent company of Fox News, donated to the Republican Governors Association, "to help defeat Democrats this November."

Media Matters reports that while the news of the donation was covered "extensively," by national media outlets, it was barely mentioned on Fox. Media Matters says, "Fox devoted 37 seconds of air time to the story." Media Matters figures -- because, the "Fox viewers have been left in the dark, as to the (Fox) network's direct involvement in the political races this fall," it needs to take action to remedy this. So the folks at Media Matters' solution is to put a commercial (see the video) about the Fox donation on Fox, by buying a national ad, at the cost of $35k, to air next week during The O'Reilly Factor.

My take on this: I have loads of respect for the people at Media Matters, but who ever came up with the idea to pay Fox $35, 000 needs to think again. No one should pay Fox a cent. I suspect that the Fox crowd would take the $35 K and use the paid ad as the starting point for a big joke. Besides, Fox News is marketed to the fringe. The $1 million bucks came from the News Corporation, which owns a vast media empire, most of its units market to a mass audience. If one wants the News Corporation to act more responsibly, a better use for that $35k would be to use it to inform the viewers of Fox TV's American Idol why they should skip the show next season, and why folks shouldn't go to see Fox Films, and shouldn't buy music produced or distributed. by the Fox Corporation. It's time to take the focus off the fringe and to place it on the center of the News Corporation beast and on Rupert Murdoch where it belongs.

America Wakes: Part Thirteen- Home

Chapters

1       2

3       4

5       6

7        8

9        10

11      12

 

Just four months into the making of this film, the funding for our first year of research and photography ran out. Part of that was my fault. I had been a bit too optimistic about how far we could stretch each Euro because I wanted so badly to get this project off the ground. The rest of the extraneous spending came from unexpected costs. Pricey hotel rooms, exorbitant taxi cab fares, unmarked tolls, bribes, taxes, equipment registration. Key lime pie. Even with my tiny crew the idea of taking on the entire former United States in one go seems, well, naive. Reluctantly, we packed up all the footage and equipment we hadn't already mailed back to England and boarded a plane for home.

It would be another seven months before I could secure enough resource for a second trip. In the meantime I busied myself with reviewing the raw content, making notes for the eventual editing process and even recording a bit of the voice work for the final product. It felt so strange to do all that work when there was so much we hadn't seen, so many questions we still needed to answer. I'm not going to go so far as to say we spent four months in North America and hadn't even scratched the surface. To be honest, we got more information than has ever been captured by other journalistic endeavors. It was rather like leaving a meal after only finishing the first course. I was still unsatisfied. I was still hungry.

In retrospect, there was at least one blessing to being called home earlier than expected. In reviewing the interview footage we had gathered on the trip I began to notice what one might call "tics" and inconsistencies. I wasn't so foolish as to believe we would be told the absolute truth wherever we went, but I was surprised at the places in which I noticed the signs of dishonesty. People who seemed to have no reason to lie had told us things that simply weren't true. This was not restricted to the halls of power. Some of the people who seemed the most humble turned out to be the most dubious. Bold as it may seem to say it before proffering the evidence, there are lies in America, great lies that threaten to swallow what I am convinced is the most important political development of the century. That in mind, my mission for this project changed, however slightly. I set out to unearth the true history of the American Transition. After the first trip ended, I resolved to do just that, but also to reveal the way certain individuals attempted to smudge the records of history before they were even written. Along the way we ended up making friends, and enemies, in strange places.

 

 

End of Segment I: America Wakes. Coming soon, Segment II: Lies in America

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