Coffee Klatch

Looking for some good coffee that’s not too expensive? I would recommend Paramount Coffee to you. They used to be just a supplier of restaurants, etc., but now they’ve got a retail store online. Shipping’s pretty cheap and the coffees are GOOD! I recommend trying the Diner’s Choice, the German Blend, or the Kona Blend. Prices for 12-oz. bags are mostly between $5.89 and $6.49, which is cheaper than most that you’d buy in the stores (unless you buy the CANS of coffee–shudder!).

Current music: Swing 39, by Django Reinhardt

This just in: eating cheese can alter your dreams! More specifically, different kinds of cheeses can lead to different kinds of dreams. The British Cheese Board performed the study that led to these findings. You can read about it and listen to the radio story on NPR’s website.

Current music: Aphelion, by Amethystium

This is an example of a product that converted from a fictional comestible to a real-life candy, just like Wonka’s Everlasting Gobstoppers and other candies.

The Jelly Belly company is producing the official “Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans” from the Harry Potter stories. They now have TWENTY different flavors! The two newest flavors are Bacon and Rotten Egg! Mmmm…

The full list of flavors is as follows:

• Bacon
• Black Pepper
• Blueberry
• Booger
• Cherry
• Cinnamon
• Dirt
• Earthworm
• Earwax
• Grape Jelly
• Grass
• Green Apple
• Lemon Drop
• Marshmallow
• Popcorn
• Rotten Egg
• Sardine
• Soap
• Spaghetti
• Spinach
• Tutti-Frutti
• Vomit

Check out all the different way to buy Bertie Bott’s Beans at the Jelly Belly website. Your Harry-Potter-based candy adventure has just begun!!

For lunch today I had one of those microwave meals that blatantly advertises it’s healthiness in the product name: Zap’ems!

Anyway, I pulled up one corner of the cardboard top, per the instructions, so the steam could be released while heating the Vegetable Stir Fry contained therein. When it was done and I pulled off the top, I made an interesting observation. The rice was on one side of the cardboard tray and the sauce was on the other side. Not only that, but the yellow/orange vegetables (carrots, red peppers) were nestled over in the rice, while the green vegetables (peapods, broccoli, celery) were cleverly housed on the side with the sauce.

COINCIDENCE?? Prejudice?

Needless to say, I did stir them all and consumed them with relish (not the sweet pickle kind, either). I daresay they all look pretty similar NOW!
Current music: Cocktails at Eight, by Lisa Hilton

No, I’m actually not talking about B-movies this time. I’m talking about actual cheese! Did you know that there are different kinds of cheese types? I don’t mean white vs. yellow or hard vs. spreadable or cheddar vs swiss vs blue-veined; this is beyond those kinds of distinguishing characteristics. I’m getting right to the heart of Cheesedom itself, describing the differences between ESSENCES of cheese. Read on and you’ll quickly get what I mean.

Natural Cheese: Simply, cheese that is not pasteurized to arrest chemical interaction. The milk from which the cheese is made may or may not be pasteurized itself, but this has no bearing on the designation as “natural.” It’s just that pasteurizing helps stop the bacteria that cause fermentation (ripening).

Pasteurized Process Cheese: A blend of fresh and aged natural cheese which have been shredded, mixed, and heated (pasteurized) with the addition of an emulsifier, after which no further ripening occurs. Most of these are based on natural cheddar. Example: American Cheese

Pasteurized Process Cheese Food: A variation of the previous type of cheese. It differs from process cheese in that nonfat dry milk (or whey solids) and water have been added, thus reducing the percentage of actual cheese in the finished product. Examples: Most single-wrap slices

Pasteurized Process Cheese Spread: A variation that has a higher moisture content and lower milkfat content than process cheese food. A stabilizer is added to prevent separation of ingredients. Examples: Cheese Whiz, Easy Cheese, Velveeta

Imitation Pasteurized Process Cheese Products: Not even cheese any more. Don’t go here!
It’s a sad thing (at least to most turophiles) that more process cheese is eaten in the United States than real cheese. Many Americans’ taste buds are only familiar with process cheese, which is what they consider to be “real” cheese.

(Information taken from the book Completely Cheese, by Anita May Pearl.)

Current music: Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, by Tomita

Today was Student Appreciation Day here in the library. So was yesterday, come to think of it. Not a whole lot different from other days except that we all brought in food that the student workers could partake of throughout the day. Some people brought in basic stuff like 2-liters or chips, while others made favorite recipes. Here are a couple of my favorites.

The most popular thing seemed to be the Buffalo Chicken Dip that Laina brought. It’s like Buffalo Wings in a cheese dip format. Mmmm…. I think she made it with a couple blocks of cream cheese and a couple cups of shredded cheese (of your favorite variety), shredded chicken, a cup or so of hot sauce, and a cup of ranch or bleu cheese dressing. For convenience today it was in a crock pot, but she typically prefers to bake it in a 13×9 pan, casserole style. Then you spread the chicken in the pan, pour the melted cheeses and dressing and hot sauce (mixed) over it all, and bake, I think. I’m probably a little off but you get the basic idea. I wonder if it work with Velveeta instead of the other cheeses. She did say that if you like you can buy actual Buffalo Wing Sauce in a jar and use that.

Of course I have to mention my Hot German Potato Salad. It’s not hard either, and seems to be made for crock pots, so it’s perfect for a day like this. I tend to fudge a little on amounts, but I’ll try to be as accurate as I can here. Boil 6 medium potatoes, let cool slightly and dice (I like to leave the skins on). Fry up half a pound of bacon or so and crumble it over the diced potatoes, which can already be in the crock pot. Don’t crumble it too fine; it’s nice to have some chunks in there. With the bacon grease from the last pan you fried, saute one small chopped onion. As always with onions, chop the onion as finely as your guests need. I like it medium fine for this, but if some don’t like onions, you can mince it and they probably won’t complain. When the onion is just started to brown, add 2 teaspoons of sugar, 1 tablespoon of flour, 1.5 teaspoons of salt, and 1/8 teaspoon of pepper. Then add 3 tablespoons of vinegar. Recipes vary on what kind–many say red wine vinegar, but I’ve found that a mix of apple cider vinegar and white vinegar works just fine. Stir this all together and keep stirring until it’s bubbling and starting to thicken a little. Pour it over the potatoes and bacon and gently stir it all together. It keeps well in a crock pot and reheats well. Don’t let it get too hot for too long or it’ll dry out. That’s my worst problem with this recipe, so feel free to add a little extra vinegar or water to the recipe. You can even add water to the crock pot as long as you stir it well.

There was one dessert that was really good (more than one, but this one stands out with me). It was kind of a flat cherry pie thing. I never got the recipe, but it went something like this. Make a typical sugar-cookie-style crust like you might use for a fruit pizza. It was like making a standard sugar cookie but rolling it out onto a pizza pan. On top of the crust, spread cream cheese, then a can of cherry pie filling. I THINK the white stuff was cream cheese, anyway. It could have been mixed with sugar or whipped cream or sour cream or something. It looked a bit too soft and spreadable to just be normal cream cheese. Anyway, that’s it.

Thanks to our students for their diligent work and for spawning a fun-food day like this.

Current music: The Blues Brothers Soundtrack

The Federal Government issued twelve new food pyramids today. They are customized to individuals based on your age, gender, and how much exercise you get daily. On their new website, you can enter this information and get the food pyramid that is right for you.

On their site, there’s an animated tour of the new pyramid, dietary guidelines, and even a “MyPyramid Tracker” for you to assess your current diet quality and physical activity status.

See http://www.mypyramid.gov/ for official information on the food pyramid, details, tips, and resources for choosing a healthy lifestyle.

Got a craving for something sweet? Still hungry even though you just had a snack, but the next meal is hours away? Trying to cut down on snacking? I’ve got just the thing for you.

Peppermint. In particular, York Peppermint Patties or any generic form or lesser brand name thereof. Any size will do. It seems there’s something about peppermint (especially when combined with a little chocolate) that leaves your palette satisfied, and the taste of almost any other food “just doesn’t really seem that appealing right now.” Try it! Next time you’ve got the munchies, just have a peppermint patty. See if I’m not right!
Current music: Inner Peace, by Steve Halpern

Today is National Coffee Cake Day.

(It’s also World Health Day, Metric Day, No Housework Day, Ham Radio Day, Caramel Popcorn Day, and the birthdays of composer Domenico Dragonetti in 1763, William Wordsworth in 1770, Percy Faith in 1908, Billie Holiday in 1915, Ravi Shankar in 1920, James Garner in 1928, Jackie Chan in 1954, and Russell Crowe in 1964, but my focus is on the REAL holiday for today!)

My mom used to make coffee cakes quite often, but especially for Christmas and Easter, where we’d have several. Anyway, the best one I remember ever having was a Sour Cream Coffee Cake that was so good and moist and rich that you didn’t really even need to put butter on it. And when you got it warm… mmmmmmm….

Any other special coffee cake memories out there?

Current music: Offenbach Overtures

Today a couple of my coworkers took me out for lunch to a Japanese restaurant called Sakura. They do sushi (they’ve won awards for best sushi in Indianapolis) but they also do NON-sushi, for which two of the three of us were glad. I had Tempura and Fish Teriyaki. Now, I’ve pretty much only had teriyaki with chicken and beef (and maybe pork), but I’M HOOKED! Fish Teriyaki is Da Bomb! I loved it! I even tried some of the Chicken Teriyaki from my coworker (who raved about this as the best chicken teriyaki she’s ever had, and that’s why she goes back there about once a month), and it was good and all, but the Fish Teriyaki was the perfect combination of flavors! Mmmm-mmmm! Makes me wonder what kind of fish it actually was.

The other coworker, the one who got the sushi and likes that kind of thing (more power to him, I say), was relatively new to using chopsticks. Along with our lunches, we were also given soup and a salad that had a ginger dressing on it. It was kinda weird–I’d never eaten a salad with chopsticks before! Anyway, at one point, right after I’d asked what kind of dressing it was, his chopsticks did the infamous “flick,” where they slide off each other, like snapping your fingers, and the food goes flying. It was great! But even better was his comment after that happened. While rubbing his eyes and face to remove the salad dressing that had sprayed there, he said:

Touch - Windham Hill 25 Years of Guitar