!marty finestone's activitybook » food

history of the salad

Marty Finestone — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:25:34 +0000

Today’s history lesson is about salads and salad dressing.

10 statutes made out of butter

Marty Finestone — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 12:20:58 +0000

Disturbing and fattening at the same time: 10 statutes made out of butter.

via Kiplog’s Food Blog.

learn your whole grains

Marty Finestone — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:18:14 +0000

Chow.com has a great overview of whole grains, what they are, how to cook them and more. They call it “Whole Grains 101“.

eat local? food miles may not be the best sustainability indicator

Marty Finestone — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:33:57 +0000

This article from Reason posits that eating local may sometimes produce more carbon emissions that shipping food from other countries. Here is an excerpt as some food for thought:

Local food production does not always produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions. For example, the 2005 DEFRA study found that British tomato growers emit 2.4 metric tons of carbon dioxide for each ton of tomatoes grown compared to 0.6 tons of carbon dioxide for each ton of Spanish tomatoes. The difference is British tomatoes are produced in heated greenhouses. Another study found that cold storage of British apples produced more carbon dioxide than shipping New Zealand apples by sea to London. In addition, U.K. dairy farmers use twice as much energy to produce a metric ton of milk solids than do New Zealand farmers. Other researchers have determined that Kenyan cut rose growers emit 6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per 12,000 roses compared to the 35 tons of carbon dioxide emitted by their Dutch competitors. Kenyan roses grow in sunny fields whereas Dutch roses grow in heated greenhouses.

via Arts & Letters Daily

now it’s bad, white truffle prices collapse

Marty Finestone — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 01:01:08 +0000

A true sign of these tricky economic times, Bloomberg reports on the collapse of the white truffle market.

know your cheeses

Marty Finestone — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:34:39 +0000

Chow has put together this handy backgrounder on the various types of cheeses that are out there.

what’s like to be a nake sushi model

Marty Finestone — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 12:27:50 +0000

Here is an interesting diversionary read, Melanie Berliet writes in Vanity Fair about the experience of being a naked sushi model.

I managed to climb aboard, but not without flashing her and nearly taking a spill that could have killed me. I envisioned the paramedics arriving to collect me, perplexed by my get-up. The newspaper headline: “Wannabe Sushi Model Dies in the Raw.” I shook off these morbid thoughts and focused on getting into position. There was a long rectangular foam pad under the red table cloth, and I had to array myself on it without disturbing the place settings around me. Once I’d done so, I wiggled and shimmied, desperately seeking a quasi-comfortable position.

spiked frozen coffee shots

Marty Finestone — Tue, 20 May 2008 02:13:49 +0000

Here is a perfect example of a “why didn’t I think of that.” Coffee and liqueur ice cubes. Get the recipe here.

gordon ramsay to be opening up in canada

Marty Finestone — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:38:11 +0000

Gordon Ramsay will be opening a restaurant in either Vancouver or Toronto.

cooking with coolio

Marty Finestone — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:10:08 +0000

Remember Coolio? He’s the MC behind mega hits ‘Fantastic Voyage’ and ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’. Then he kind of disappeared. Well, Coolio is kind of back with an web-based cooking show, aptly called Cooking With Coolio.

I have not watched an episode yet and not sure that I will. I don’t have anything against Coolio, but this Slate review is not so encouraging.

Some of you will find the program offensive, pointing to the air of inner-city minstrelsy that attends to the proceedings and the objectified women lingering around them. The production gives you a feel for what it might be like were Flavor Flav to host This Old House. For instance, Coolio taps out his spices from small plastic baggies as if he had bought them not at Whole Foods but in his dealer’s Escalade. Next, a pair of women from Coolio’s stable of “sauce girls” are always at his side, and the sauce girls—possibly taken in from a home for the mute—are not to be confused with actual sauciers. What the sauce girls do, mostly, is stand around in heels, sometimes wearing aprons, sometimes wearing a bit less than aprons. They were permitted to fondle some baguettes in an episode featuring “ghettalian garlic bread.” That’s the one where the star and his sous-chef pretended to abduct a college boy off the street. “We’re gonna find a hungry, broke-ass, malnutritioned, Top Ramen-eatin’ muthafucka, and we’re gonna teach him how to cook a healthy, inexpensive meal,” promised Coolio, intent, as always, on putting the M.F. back into MFK Fisher.

10 cheap things for your kitchen

Marty Finestone — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:53:34 +0000

Check out Chow.com’s list of 10 things to cheaply outfit your kitchen:

When you think about outfitting your kitchen with professional tools, you might imagine a commercial-grade oven that spits out half a million BTUs or a $2,000 set of knives hand-forged by alpine elves. Ask chefs, and they’ll probably tell you that many of the tools they can’t do without are small and can be picked up for under $10 apiece.

martha stewart bought emeril

Marty Finestone — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:50:25 +0000

Last week Martha Stewart’s company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. has purchased the rights to Emeril Lagase’s cookbooks, television programs and kitchen products for $50 million in cash and stock. That seems like a hefty sum considering Emeril no longer has a show on the Food Network.