Five-Minute Emergency Ice Cream

It's unseasonably hot here. Instead of the normal 70 or 75 F. maximum, with sporadic rain showers we expect in a Pacific Northwest June, it's been over 80 F. for the last three days. I'm tied to my laptop, figuratively at least, and it's adding more heat, enough that I have a cushion between my laptop and me to avoid burning. This calls for emergency rations; therefore, I offer for your delectation:

Emergency Ice Cream

Ingredients

  • 1 blender or food processor
  • 1 package frozen fruit (8 to 10 ounces)
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2/3 cup heavy cream
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

Procedure

  1. Add the sugar and the vanilla extract to the cream; stir, trying to mix the sugar in thoroughly. It will still be a little grainy.
  2. Place the frozen fruit and the cream mixture in a food processor or blender. Blend until the fruit is pretty much minced and the mixture resembles ice cream.
  3. Eat.

I usually sample the ice cream and put the rest in a sealed container in the freezer; it will be better later. Even an hour or so will help it "set." You can keep it frozen for as much as a week, before the cream will start separating. This really is ersatz ice cream, sort of half way between sorbet and ice cream, but it's easy, quick, and can help you keep writing when you convinced that your skin is melting.

You can mess with this recipe a fair amount. You can cut the sugar a little, but don't eliminate it completely; it affects the texture. You can use honey instead of sugar. If you use honey, mix it with the fruit first, before adding the fruit to the cream. You can use all sorts of fruit; berries work really well. I like to use fresh peaches or about a quart of fresh strawberries or other fresh berries and freeze them overnight, instead of using commercially frozen fruit. Just cut up a couple of peaches, add a little sugar (add ascorbic acid or a little lemon juice to peaches and apricots to keep them from changing color) and put them in a freezer bag over night. If you use commercially frozen fruit, don't forget that you can use fruit like mango chunks, or a mix of berries (stores usually have bags of mixed raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries or strawberries). I've used soft-frozen lemon, lime and orange juice; freeze a half cup or so of the juice until it's a thick slush but not a lump of ice, and add some zest from the peel. Frozen bananna works well too. If you use frozen juice concentrate from a can, do cut the sugar to about a 1/4 cup. Adding a little fresh grated ginger or finely chopped candied ginger is a lovely addition, especially with peaches. Leave the frozen fruit in the freezer until you are ready to blend it in. It doesn't hurt to put the heavy cream in the freezer for a half hour or so before you use it.

Alternatively, you can try making traditional real ice cream, ice cream using a custard base, or sorbet, or even ersatz ice cream made using ZiplocTM bags

National Doughnut Day

It's the first Friday in June, and that means it's National Doughnut Day. It's one of those days that everyone loves to celebrate—especially if the local doughnut shop is handing out free doughnuts, but few people know the story behind the holiday.

National Doughnut Day is a recognition of the women from the Salvation Army who were sent to the front lines of the war, World War I, in Europe. These women, who volunteered for the duty, made hot meals for the troops, including freshly made doughnuts. In 1917 Lt. Colonel Helen Purviance as Ensign Purviance, was sent to France. Considered the first "doughnut girl," she and other Salvation Army officers, made homemade doughnuts, rolling out the dough with a wine bottle, and then frying the doughnuts over an open fire. That first day, they made a mere 150 doughnuts, but once they fine tuned the process and created an assembly line, they were frying up to 9,000 hot, fresh doughnuts for servicemen a day.

According to tradition, the doughnuts were often cooked in hot oil heated inside the steel helmets of American infantrymen. These Salvation army "lassies" were the only non-military women allowed to visit the front lines, and they were enormously important in terms of troop morale. Often the Salvation Army set up mobile tents and huts, moving with the army, and distributing food, especially homemade pies and doughnuts, and hot beverages (as well as emergency first aid, and warm clothing made by women back home).

Both DunkinDoughnuts and Krispy Kreme celebrate National Doughnut Day by giving away free doughnuts (you need to buy a beverage at Dunkin Doughnuts). At many doughnut shops, today's proceeds to to the Salvation Army and other charitable causes.

Sweet Northwest Cherries

The only fresh sweet cherries we ever got in New England were Bing cherries. But the Northwest is very very lucky; cherries grow well in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. The growing season starts around the first week of June, and, depending on the state and the variety of cherry, lasts until late August. Moreover, since cherries are more durable than, say, raspberries, they can be picked at the perfect point of ripeness, and shipped to grocers in about two days. Fortunately, the Northwest is also wealthy in terms of "you pick" farms, and local farmers' markets where local growers bring their just picked cherries to you.

Technically, cherries are members of the Rosaceae, family, genus Prunus, and thus cousins to almonds, apricots, peaches, plums, and bird cherries. The cherries I'll be writing about today are "sweet" cherries, or Prunus avium, which do not require cooking, unlike "sour" cherries, which usually do require cooking, and in America, are mostly grown in Michigan. There are a lot more varieties of cherries available in the Northwest than the Bings I grew up eating. Washington state produces about 40% of the USA's sweet cherries (55% of those are consumed "as is," as fresh fruit) annually. Washington exports about 25% of its cherry crop every year; primarily to Asian markets.

In Washington, the cherry trees start to erupt into bloom in April. Orchard owners place rented beehives in the orchards and hope for successful pollination, and that the buds don't get damaged by a late spring frost. That may mean waking in the pre-dawn and very chilly hours and checking on trees, lighting smudge pots to provide heat near them, and even setting up fans and wind machines to keep the warm air from the smudge pots circulating. Most modern cherries can't self-pollinate, which means any cherry orchard has to have a second variety of cherry mixed in at regular intervals for pollination. Researchers at Washington State University started breeding and hybridizing sweet cherries roughly fifty years ago. The first cherry varieties were Rainier, and Chinook, the work of Harold Fogle. Shortly after, Tom Toyama bred and Ed Proebsting released a number of other varieties, many of which (Chelan, Olympus and Cashmere) still widely grown today, though Chelan is the most commercial of the three, and most likely to be seen at a grocers in the Northwest; growers are deliberately introducing it as an alternative to Bing cherries, because they share many qualities but Chelan ripens earlier. The Rainier is the premier American export cherry to Asian markets.

The first cherries to ripen are usually the Chelans. The Chelan is a very dark red, almost heart-shaped cherry. The Chelan was developed in Prosser, WA, though it also does well in Oregon. Tieton ripens next; it tends to be a strikingly large cherry, closer to the traditional "cherry" red, and a mild but distinctively sweet flavor. A week or so later, the Bing cherry usually ripens; this is the familiar dark mahogany cherry that is grown in the Northwest and shipped all over the world. Bing cherries are the leading commercially grown cherry in the United States. The next cherry to ripen is the Rainier, one of my very favorites. When Rainier's arrive in Southern California markets people call each other up to say "The Rainier's are in." These are a bi-color cherry, predominantly yellow with a bright scarlet blush. The flesh is yellow but very sweet with a slightly different flavor than any other cherry. They are a little delicate, and don't last long; more than any other cherry, these should be purchased and enjoyed as soon as possible; you might not find them a week later. There are other varieties—Lapins, a dark red, and slightly elongated cherry, and two varieties that are very late July and August cherries; Skeena, a very dark almost black red, that's usually described as "dense" but sweet, and Sweethearts, which I'm told are often mistakenly identified as Bing cherries, but more heart-shaped, and slightly firmer. I've yet to try Skeena or Sweethearts.

In Washington, most cherries are grown in the eastern half of the state, in Yakima and Wenatchee. There are a number of farms offering roadside stand sales and "pick your own" cherries. One of the largest cherry farms in Washington's Yakima valley is Barrett's Orchards. Olmstead Orchards offers Internet and phone ordering for cherries delivered to your door. Your best best for fresh cherries is to keep a close eye on your grocer's produce section and local farmer's markets. Buy them when you see them and plan to use the cherries in two or three days at most.

Keeping in mind that sweet cherries are at their best when they are fresh, and that most of the time people simply want to eat them, there are a number of dishes you can make with fresh sweet cherries. One of my very favorite ways to use them is to brandy them, and then give the brandied cherries away as holiday gifts in December. I've found that Rainier's alone don't really work as well as the darker sweet cherry varieties. Chelans and Lapins work quite well. You want to use the freshest cherries you can, and the best quality brandy you can; Christian Brothers Brandy, at the very least. If you wouldn't drink the brandy, you shouldn't use it to cook with. You might try the recipe as is first, but many people add spices to their syrup; cloves, are very popular. I like to split a vanilla bean the long way, scrape the center, chop the bean up, and add all of it to the syrup mixture just before I turn off the heat.

Brandied Cherries

Ingredients

  • 6 pounds fresh sweet cherries
  • 6 glass ping canning jars
  • 1-1/2 cups sugar
  • 1-1/3 cups water
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • 1-1/2 cups brandy

Procedure

  1. Wash, stem and pit cherries.
  2. Sterilize 6 pint jars and lids for a boiling water bath.
  3. Combine the sugar, water and lemon juice in a saucepan.
  4. Boil, stirring gently until the sugar is completely dissolved, then remove from heat.
  5. pour 1/4 cup of the hot syrup over cherries that are tightly packed to about an inch of top of the freshly sterilized hot jars.
  6. Add 1/4 cup or so of the brandy, and more syrup if necessary to each jar so that the cherries are covered.
  7. Gently shake the open jar to release any air bubbles then wipe the jar rim with a clean damp cloth to remove any sticky syrup residue.
  8. Close each jar tightly with the lid.
  9. Process the jars in a boiling water bath for 20 minutes. (Follow the manufacturer's instructions for the proper canning procedure.)

Brandied cherries are lovely over vanilla ice cream, or warm fudgey brownies, or chocolate cake, or used as flambé, or added to a winter mix of dried stewed fruit. The dark red of the cherries looks lovely in the jars, and the brandy-and-syrup mixture is a wonderful flavoring on its own. You need to let the cherries "set" for a while, at least a few weeks, before trying them. They make a lovely holiday present; just stick a ribbon on the lid and you're good to go.

Incredible Summer Sorbets

Sorbet is a cold dessert that does not contain cream, milk, or eggs. Typically, sorbet is made with sugar and a flavoring ingredient that is either liquid, or that can be mixed with sugar and water, then frozen. Sorbet uses fruit, juice, or other liquid but no cream. A fair number of sorbets can be made using herbs and flowers, like rosemary, roses, and lavender if you start by making "simple syrup," a mixture of water and sugar that you heat to a boil to make sure all the sugar dissolves, and the syrup thickens. You'll notice that a great many sorbet recipes begin by having you mix sugar and water (though the proportions vary) while others start with a fruit juice base. You can also combine fruits and tastes; mango and lemon, or lime, a citrus mix of lemon, lime, orange) strawberry and peach. All sorts of things work really well, and it's lots of fun in the summer to have low sugar but naturally sweet sorbet from strawberries, mangos, raspberries, green tea, peaches, coffee, all sorts of fruit juices, including pomengranate, homemade margarita mix . . . The Northwest is so rich with berry fruits that sorbet is a perfect summer dessert. Sorbet tends to be fruit based, but you can make lovely sorbet with coffee, or green tea, or even wine (though the alcohol can make freezing tricky). Sorbet is a super dessert for hot summers, and it's so very quick and easy that you can even prepare several varieties, then serve a sample of each in a dish; the colors and flavors can be chosen to complement or contrast. As a basic model, here's a recipe for lemon sorbet. Feel free to adjust the lemon juice and sugar to suit your taste, and the tartness of the lemons, raising or lowering the sugar by as much as a third of a cup. As a general guide, if you have two cups of liquid, you need at least two thirds of a cup of sugar. The zest also should be adjusted for taste.

Lemon Sorbet (About a pint)

Ingredients

  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 cup fresh lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon lemon zest

Procedure

  1. In a small saucepan, bring the water and sugar to a boil.
  2. When the mixture reaches a boil, and the sugar is completely dissolve, turn off the burner.
  3. Add the lemon juice and the zest to the syrup.
  4. Let the syrup cool. Putting it in the freezer until it is chilled but not frozen can speed this up, otherwise, if you have time, cover the syrup and let it chill in the refrigerator for a few hours or even overnight.
  5. Pour the cooled syrup into the chilled bowl of your ice cream machine.
  6. Freeze the sorbet according to the manufacturer's instructions.
  7. After the sorbet is made, put it into an airtight container in your freezer.
  8. It's better the next day, if you can wait that long.

There are endless variations you can make using this as a basic recipe. You can use orange or lime, or other juices, adjusting the sugar to taste, but keeping in mind you really need at least half a cup for most sorts of fruit, and two thirds of a cup of sugar for most juices.

There are lots of lovely kinds of sorbet. If I had to choose a favorite recipe, mine would be this recipe for Meyer Lemon sorbet from Elise Bauer. I like it even better than her recipe for Mango, Lime, Tequila Sorbet. And I've just notice Elise has a recipe for a champagne sorbet that I'll be trying very very soon.

If you'd like to try something different, here's a sorbet recipe that uses Lilac, Lavender, and Roses for color and flavor. There are many recipes for sorbet based on herbs and flowers. Try combining Pomegranate juice with Tangerine or other citrus to make a lovely tropical sorbet.

Three Strange Foods

Given the right amount of thought, just about anything we people consume can sound strange. But there are some dishes that are just downright weird. Whether it's made out of unusual ingredients or the process of preparation is, um, unorthodox, there's just something odd (and traditionally unappealing) about the following delicacies.

 

The Century Egg

I'll admit, this one wins the award for most off-putting appearance. The name is a bit of an exaggeration, as Century Eggs are usually only a few months in age. But still, that's a couple months past the expiration date for the majority of eggs consumed by people as food. That's not to say Century Eggs are simply left in the open air. Traditionally, the eggs were individually caked in alkaline clay. The clay would not only cut off any air supply that would potentially ruin the egg, but the high alkaline pH actually made it an unpleasant environment for any nasty microbes. These days, Century Eggs are more often made by brining an egg in salt, calcium hydroxide and sodium carbonate, then wrapping the egg tightly in plastic.

Regardless of the method employed, the egg becomes chemically altered by the alkaline agents and lack of air. The whites naturally solidify and change a brown, amber, or even black color. The yolk, unlike a hard-boiled egg, becomes a highly viscous, jelly-like substance that smells strongly of ammonia and provides almost all of the flavor of the dish.

 

Fried Brain Sandwich

Weird foods aren't the exclusive territory of ancient cultures. In the American Midwest, particularly the Ohio Valley region, is home to the cow's brain sandwich. There's nothing fancy about the way brain sandwiches are prepared. The (meat?) is sliced, cleaned, coated in heavy batter and deep fried. I know I just described a significant portion of American fare, so I guess there's nothing overtly unusual about the brain sandwich.

Despite their lack of obvious intellect, cow's brains are fairly large. You'd be hard-pressed to find a bun that can actually hold one. Since the Mad Cow Disease outbreaks of the past decade, it's getting harder to find brain sandwiches. Those that are around tend to be made with pig brains instead. You can usually tell you've got a pig brain because it's smaller.

Most people describe fried brain as having a "creamy" taste. Being organ meat with no actual muscle, I suppose that makes sense.

 

Gefilte Fish

Just to prove that I'm not aiming for bias with this list, I'm going to grab a weird food from my own childhood. Gefilte Fish is the very definition of an acquired taste. For a lot of people, they acquire it in association with family or specifically with the Passover holiday. Gefilte Fish's origin is like so many ethnic foods in the world. It was a recipe developed as a means of making low-quality ingredients somehow palatable. The word "Gefilte" is Yiddish for "filled". Why is it called "filled"?

Gefilte Fish is made by de-boning a fish of lower quality, like pike, mullet or whitefish, skinning it and grinding the meat together with eggs, onion and usually matzoh meal. The ground-together product is then stuffed back into the skin and poached with carrots and onion. The final product is a very soft, small loaf of fine fish meat that is served cold with a healthy dollop of horseradish.

The flavor of Gefilte Fish is fairly unique. It tastes slightly pickled and is surprisingly not very fishy. Being served cold actually does it a great service, as a warm piece of Gefilte Fish would like be too pungent and might just fall apart. It is dense and heavy, though it cuts very easily with a fork. Gefilte Fish is most often served as a small, stand-alone course prior to soup and after salad.

 

I encourage you all to go out there and try some strange food for yourself. No matter how weird or off-putting it seems, it's likely somebody else's favorite thing.

Sex Foods From Korea and Beyond

I lived in Korea for a while, and every time I turned around, someone was whispering in my boyfriend's ear that a certain food was, "Good for stamina." Usually, it was a man who said it, loudly enough for me to hear, but with a wink and a nod to my boyfriend. Mentally, I started preparing a list of foods that were "Good for stamina" and while I never researched them per se, I remained curious about the reasons behind the claims.

  • Boshingtang, or dog soup, is supposedly "good for stamina" in Korea. While I have never tried dog soup myself, I think it is important for westerners to understand that Koreans started eating dog meat only when there was no meat around and needed a source of protein for their malnourished bodies. The thinking behind dog meat as good for sexual "stamina" is believed to be based on the effects of a protein diet on sexual health.
  • Garlic. I'm not really sure if this has a basis in health, or is more likely due to the fact that Garlic is a staple in Kimchi and many Korean dishes. Garlic is primarily known for its benefits to cardiovascular health.
  • Ginseng- Korean ginseng is regarded as a high-quality ginseng by many in the field of natural health. Besides its health properties, Korean ginseng is believed to effect sexual health, perhaps through Saponin, which some believe affects sperm activity and erections.
  • Oysters. Not only Koreans believe in oysters as a kind of "love drug" or aphrodisiac- many in the west purport to believe in its claims as well. The reason for oysters reputation in the sexual department is attributed to the fact that oysters are high in zinc, which in known in some circles as a "sex mineral".


Other foods used for similar purposes outside of Korea include:

  • Bananas. Some say they increase libido because of their rather phallic shape,but others believe that their effectiveness in this area is mainly due to the potassium and B vitamins in bananas which work to promote testosterone production.
  • Salmon. Salmon is also a good source of Vitamin B, and also contains Omega Fatty 3 Acids which are necessary to increase energy and emotional well-being in general.
  • Damiana Shrub. This shrub grows in Mexico and central America and is purported to be good (much like Ginseng) for overall health, particularly emotional health.

 

Oh Nose! Stinking Bishop officially Britain's smelliest cheese

What is it that attracts us to the further reaches of the olfactory spectrum? Why do we chase the ripest of bries, the strongest of cheddars, or the goat cheeses that smell most strongly of the barnyard? Is it part of a search for the new, for the next thing in the line, for something a little bit more than the last thing we tasted? Or is it just that for some of us, our taste buds are only sufficiently stimulated by only the most pungent of flavors?

Please forgive m e this momentary flight of fancy. I don’t have the answers to these questions, which is why they are of interest. On May 27th, the results for Britain’s Smelliest Cheese competition were announced, following a competition held during the Royal Bath and West Show which featured over a thousand different cheeses from around the British Isles. The judging panel was made up of a small group of professional tasters and five children, supposedly chosen for the sensitivity of their noses.

The winner? Well, described as smelling like a sports team’s locker room, the winner was declared to be the appropriately named Stinking Bishop, a cheese from Gloucestershire in the west of Britain. The name comes not from its odor, from the variety of pear that is used to make the pear cider in which the cheese is washed (tangent – the pear is named for a famously drunk and ornery farmer who once shot a kettle when it took too long to boil).

Now, as luck would have it, I have tried this cheese. A few years back, I came across some in a local delicatessen, and, knowing of its reputation, I decided that I was too much of an opportunity to pass up, and I bought a small slice. Now, I have tried a number of cheeses from around the world, and I’d never found any of them to be too much for me. Stinking Bishop, on the other hand, had my number. It smells like a teenage boy’s bedroom. Which has been kept airless and sealed up. For ten years. I did actually gag when I tried to eat it. Whilst it in no way shares a similar taste, or smell, the only other thing that has provoked this reaction in me is the durian fruit. And I managed to eat that, eventually.

One thing it does share with the durian fruit is that the smell lingers like nobody’s business. I made the mistake of first putting the cheese in with my shopping, and then in my fridge. It took a couple of weeks to get the smell out, and, it’s fair to say, I was less than popular with my roommates for more than a few weeks. Still, you have to try it, no?

I’ve not actually had the dubious pleasure to partake of what is officially the world’s smelliest cheese, Le Vieux Boulogne of France; Stinking Bishop is easily the most disgusting thing I’ve ever had in my mouth. What about you, though? Have you ever tried anything that’s so extreme that you just couldn’t keep it down?

Salumi in Seattle

In downtown Seattle, there are two restaurants that routinely have a long line of people waiting to get in. One is Sky City, the restaurant located at the top of the iconic Space Needle and a veritable magnet for tourists. The other is a little meat shop in Pioneer Square called Salumi, a popular fixture for locals who know where to get the best sandwich in town.

Armandino Batali, father of world-famous chef Mario Batali and grandson of Seattle's first Italian grocer, opened Salumi with his wife Marilyn after retiring from a long career at Boeing. He brings his home-grown experience of curing meats to the most stunning, tiny deli in the entire city.

The first thing that struck me when my segment of the line entered the shop itself is just how much Salumi smells like a real Italian home. Not a restaurant, not a store, but a home. The wonderful air inside Salumi brought me back to the days of visiting my maternal grandfather's family in Michigan where there was always something delightful happening in the kitchen. Behind a window just a few feet past the entrance, a variety of salami and other cured meats hang in a beyond-tempting display.

Speaking of tempting, patrons in line at Salumi are regularly treated to samples of the deli's signature salami, whether by a meal-teasing tray brought down the line by one of Salumi's employees or by the generosity of one of the meat-cutters satisfying a patron's curiosity about the alluring Mole salami. That in itself is another draw of Salumi. The staff are warm and friendly in the most genuine way possible. It's not about fake smiles and trained phrases, but a sincere dedication to quality products and customer service as a social art.

For newcomers to Salumi, I highly suggest trying the meat and cheese sample platter. For $15.00, an absolute steal for the quantity and quality of what you get, you can come home with six different types of salami, three different artisan cheeses, a handful of mixed olives and half a small loaf of hearty Italian bread. Along with the classic Salumi salami, my sampler came with Cotto (nutmeg, white pepper, mace and sugar), Dario (dark with nutmeg and mace), Sopressata (spicy and red with garlic), the ever-popular Mole (chocolate, cinnamon, ancho and chipotle), Smoked Paprika (it's right there in the name), and Winter (a variety of peppercorns, garlic and milk solids). Don't ask me to choose a favorite because I can't.

Like a lot of Seattle businesses, Salumi is going Green. They have stopped using plastic and will only provide large, handled bags for large orders or by request.

Salumi also sells its products by wholesale and over the Internet for home customers living outside of Seattle. In addition to their salami, they also have a number of other cured meats depending on the season. They've recently added lamb products to the menu, though they aren't always available. If you're local to Seattle or visiting, I highly recommend stopping by Salumi. It's well worth the wait and the flavor is almost too good to believe. Buon Appetito!

Review: The Chex Mix Candy Bars

Perhaps no category of brand-name foods is the subject of more constant change and experimentation than candy. Whether it's the big players in the sweets section testing a new twist on an old favorite or a bold freshman effort from an outsider, every month has something different to offer. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, but most of the time it's a resounding "meh". General Mills, a company best known for its cavalcade of popular breakfast cereals, has decided to elbow into the candy bar business with one of its old standards, Chex. Or, more accurately, Chex Mix. They've come out with two varieties of the treat in bar form- Chocolate Chunk and the always welcome Turtle.

Chocolate Chunk

Right off the bat I can tell you that the Chocolate Chunk Chex Mix Bar is the more visually appealing of the two. The titular chunks are clearly visible, as are the sticky pretzel sticks and crushed Chex pieces. That last part is a bit disappointing, though. The packaging suggests that whole Chex pieces will be present in the bar, not just the dust of pulverized, bottom-of-the-box remnants. The back of the bar has a thin sheen of dried chocolate syrup that takes away from the overall presentation a bit, but not much. As for the flavor, it leaves a lot to be desired, though it's not exactly bad. The syrupy back is disconcertingly tangy and the whole thing really isn't as overtly chocolaty as it has every natural right to be. All in all, the lesser of the two.

 

Turtle

The Turtle bar, while not as visually appealing, is bar far better in the flavor and texture department. It has the same shiny, sticky back, though it's really more of a caramel so it benefits from this. Best of all, it actually tastes a lot like the Turtle Chex Mix. A little nutty, a hint of chocolate (from chocolate candy pieces) and sweet, sticky caramel. It has the same crushed Chex pieces as the Chocolate Chunk. If you're going to try one of these bars, the Turtle variety is the clear winner by leaps and bounds.

My biggest problem with the Chex Mix Bars is that they aren't crunchy. I mean, isn't that supposed to be the hallmark of Chex cereal? General Mills has based decades of marketing on the idea that the lattices of a Chex piece allow milk to slip through without turning the cereal soggy, or at least as quickly as most cereals get soggy. By crushing up the Chex pieces and slathering the whole thing in a sticky mess, General Mills has done little more than ensured a pre-soggy candy bar. I get the sneaking suspicion that the Chex Mix Bars are just an attempt to salvage broken pieces from the factory line into more product.

Ultimately, I'd recommend all but the most curious parties to skip the Chex Mix Bar. The Chocolate Chunk is substandard in taste compared to just about every other chocolate confection in the candy department and fans of the Turtle flavor should just stick with the original mix. Some things just don't translate well into bar form.

Wasabi Bistro, Seattle's Premiere Sushi Restaurant

Like every major city on the West Coast, Seattle has no shortage of Asian influence in its local flavor. Like burger chains dot the Midwest, teriyaki shops and noodle stands are ubiquitous in the Emerald City. For fans of sushi, this presents something of a problem. There's nothing in the world like good sushi, but nothing quite as terrible as bad sushi. So, how can visitors and locals find their go-to sushi spot in Seattle? Well, they can ask around, or they can just cut out the exploration and head to Wasabi Bistro in Belltown.

At 2311 Second Avenue, the heart of downtown just south of the iconic Space Needle and Seattle Center, Wasabi Bistro is a gem nestled in a colorful neighborhood. It sports lively, modern interiors and a relaxing atmosphere good for a romantic outing, a dinner with friends, or an indulgent work-week lunch.

The key to great sushi is freshness. At Wasabi, the catch of the day comes cool and smooth. In essence, it tastes the way fish ought to taste, whether cooked or not. With a wide variety of classic sushi and more innovative, modern recipes, Wasabi encourages return visits.

The busy lunchtime rush is a great time to grab a table. Wasabi's lunch specials are generous and varied. I enjoyed Lunch B, a sushi plate with tuna, yellowtail, salmon, albacore, shrimp, and a full Seattle Roll. For those unfamiliar with Seattle's namesake sushi, it's a roll with salmon, avocado, cucumber and tobiko. All the lunch specials come with a bowl of miso soup and are very affordable.

For those who enjoy Japanese cuisine but aren't ready to embrace the raw stuff yet, Wasabi has a respectable menu of cooked entrees. There's the requisite pan fried salmon dish, a very affordable King crab udon and an indulgent wagyu flat iron steak.

For a flat rate, sushi-eating patrons can put themselves in the hands of the chef. This guarantees the freshest, most choice selections and is a great way for newcomers to explore the many unique flavors sushi and sashimi have to offer.

Wasabi also has an impressive dessert menu. While it features restaurant classics like chocolate lava cake and creme brulee, there's real intrigue in specialty house plates like the green tea tempura. It's a scoop of green tea ice cream wrapped in cake, then fried in tempura batter. For those who enjoy fusion-style concepts, the green tea tiramisu is a mildly decadent way to end the meal.

Like any good sushi restaurant, Wasabi has an extensive sake menu. For those patrons going for quantity, the house sake comes cheap and hot. More refined palates will enjoy one of the fine imports from farther down the list, or a sake-based cocktail.

Whatever your tastes, Wasabi Bistro is a top-notch fixture in the Seattle dining scene. This summer it is celebrating its ninth year in business with no signs of slowing down. Seattleites will find it free of the dense tourism crowds that work their way into most of the restaurants in Belltown and visitors can relax at an excellent spot with plenty of local comfort. If you've never been to Wasabi Bistro, give it a try, and if you're a regular, please keep going.

Pages