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Tuesday, December 29, 2009
The Decade in Food: There’s a salmonella in my spinach
Peanut butter, spinach, tomatoes, jalapeños, pistachios, raw beef and even chocolate bars and cookie dough have been pulled from shelves after people have been sickened or even killed by pathogens.
In 2008, the U.S. Department of Agriculture recalled 143 million pounds of beef — almost a half pound of meat per person in the country — in one of the largest recalls in U.S. history. The FDA even has a Twitter account dedicated to food recalls.
This is the third of a series of five of the top food trends of the past decade. Restaurant critic Mike Sutter blogged his top 5 over on Forklore, and the story will be printed in Wednesday’s paper.
Photo illustration by Smart Choices.
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The Decade in Food: Cupcake mania
Cupcakes are cute, easy and cheap to make and portable, so it’s no surprise that cupcake fever has swept the country in the past 10 years. In an episode of HBO’s “Sex and the City” in 2000, Sarah Jessica Parker’s character eats a retro cupcake outside Magnolia Bakery in New York City, a scene that continues to draw thousands of tourists a year to the Bleecker Street bakery. (In case you missed the scene, here’s a bootleg version on YouTube.)
Just as with the frozen yogurt and doughnuts trends, the cupcake craze was slow to trickle to Austin, but even as we close out the decade, more than a dozen bakeries and cupcake catering companies, including Hey Cupcake and Sugar Mama’s Bakeshop, are still shelling out frosted gems to eager customers.
This is the second of a series of five of the top food trends of the past decade. Restaurant critic Mike Sutter’s blogged his top 5 over on Forklore, and the story will be printed in Wednesday’s paper.
Photos by Ralph Barrera for the Austin American-Statesman, Tim Sharp for the Associated Press.
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Brighten up New Year’s with burnt orange punch
“What’s cool about punch is that you’ve got something already prepared to give guests, which frees you up to be with them instead of mixing drinks,” he says. Not only can you make punch ahead of time, punch can also be cheaper than buying bottles of wine or enough spirits to make a variety of drinks.
Punch, which predates the cocktail, was originally made with rum or brandy mixed with citrus juice, tea or spices and was a communal drink at taverns, Alan says. “Instead of ordering a drink at a bar, you walked in and had whatever they were drinking.”
And forget the overly sweet church potluck punch. Skip the sherbet and its cooling properties, Alan says, and instead use an old Jell-O mold or silicon Bundt pan to freeze a block of ice. A big piece of ice is better than smaller pieces because it will melt more slowly.
Also, starting in February, Alan and Boxcar Bar cocktail consultant Lara Nixon are teaching a 12-week course that will cover topics including cocktail horticulture, history, spirits and even molecular mixology. You can take the whole course ($350, $250 for U.S. Bartenders’ Guild members) or individual classes ($35 per class, $25 for members). Alan says registration for the class begins Jan. 1.
Championship Punch
Alan created this burnt orange punch just in time for New Year’s Eve and a certain national championship football game that will be taking place on Jan. 7.
3 or 4 tangerines, Meyer lemons, oranges or lemons
1/2 cup demerara sugar (or white sugar)
6 oz. strong green tea, warm
24 oz. (about one 750 ml. bottle) Flor de Cañ a 4-year Aged Rum (or other aged rum, such as Mount Gay or the Texas-made Railean )
6 oz. fresh squeezed tangerine juice
6 oz. fresh squeezed Meyer lemon juice
6-8 dashes Angostura bitters
1 oz. St. Elizabeth’s Allspice Dram (available at the Austin Wine Merchant and fine liquor stores)
Over a punch bowl or glass pitcher, remove the zests of several tangerines, Meyer lemons, oranges or lemons. Be careful to remove only the outer zest and not the white pith, which is bitter. Leave the zests in the bowl and add sugar and warm green tea. Stir to dissolve sugar and allow to steep a few minutes.
Add rum, fruit juices, bitters and allspice dram. Strain mixture into a punch bowl. Add a large block of ice, which you can make by freezing water in a Jell-O mold, Bundt pan or half of a paper milk carton. Makes about a dozen 4-oz. servings.
—David Alan, TipsyTexan.com
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The Decade in Food: Queen Rachael takes her throne
Ten years ago, Rachael Ray and Anthony Bourdain were nobodies, struggling like thousands of other wannabe celebrity chefs to carve out a niche with their quirky personalities and cooking know-how, and the Food Network and PBS still had the monopoly on food-related television shows.
As the highest-paid person in food, Ray now sits at the top of an empire that includes a magazine, daytime television show, a number of other Food Network shows and even a pet food line.
Like Ray and her Food Network brethren including hosts Guy Fieri and Sandra Lee, Bourdain will probably never work in a commercial kitchen again, but that’s where “Top Chef” comes in.
In 2006, Bravo mashed together two American obsessions — chefs and reality shows — to create a hit series about the thrilling drama Bourdain so eloquently introduced in his book. The show, entering its seventh season, is launching the careers of a new wave of celebrity chefs and non-chefs, including red hot host Padma Lakshmi.
This is the first of a series of five of the top food trends of the past decade. Restaurant critic Mike Sutter’s blogged his top 5 over on Forklore, and the story will be printed in Wednesday’s paper.
Photos from Online TV and Links, Bravo and Amazon.
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