Mass Market Milk Mission
This may be the first time I’m admitting that perhaps I am impossibly fussy about certain things. Espresso and cappuccino are two of those things. Manhattans might be a third. But I remember a while back when the Starbucks corporate office made a systemwide pledge that if you were unhappy with your drink, they would remake it until you were satisfied.
That left me asking the question, “What if they can’t?” Because honestly, they couldn’t.
Milk, on the other hand, isn’t something that I am impossibly fussy about. I buy organic for Little Miss Fussy because I’m nonplussed about antibiotics in addition to growth hormones and pesticides. But there are some of you out there, and you know who you are, who demand things from milk that go far beyond the organic standards.
Yes, I could buy my milk from small-scale local dairies that feed their cows entirely on grass and bottle their milk unpasteurized (or even gently pasteurized) in glass bottles. Actually I don’t know that I could, but I assume it’s possible. I don’t know because I’m actually not that fastidious about everything.
All the same, you wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find milk for Little Miss Fussy.
Teach Your Children Well
Few food memories are as powerful as childhood food memories. As a direct result of my father’s influence on me as a young boy, I now count myself among the few remaining fans of Cel-Ray. My mother’s meatloaf set a very high standard that no others were able to beat, although a couple did come close. And then there are the stories about the cheese.
Then of course there is the forbidden fruit. My mother rarely let me have hotdogs. I have a distinct memory of walking down the street, seeing a kid my age enjoying this everyday delicacy, and my mom explaining that they were a choking hazard. It took me years to get comfortable eating pork chops after being drilled about the impurity of pigs, even though miraculously bacon and sausage had always been fine.
When you are eating with kids, regardless of whether they are yours or not, you’ve got an opportunity to open their eyes to truly great things.
Here are a few things I have tested out on Young Master Fussy.
Wine Capsules
Recently local DJ cum Blogger Ashallann found a ginormous wineglass. I’m rather intrigued by the prospect of swirling a normal size pour of wine into such a monstrous chalice, but for now I have to be content watching her pour an entire bottle of wine into one glass, with plenty of room to spare.
Anyhow, this isn’t about that. Watching the video, I saw something that got my attention. And it involves the wine capsule. That’s the fancy name for the piece of foil that is wrapped around the cork and neck of the bottle.
If you like to see it for yourself, the critical spot is 59 seconds into the clip.
I’m not entirely sure how Ashallann got the capsule to look like that, but it’s clear that she chose neither to cut it open nor to remove it entirely. Someone once planted some crazy seed in my head about those foil capsules, and now besides simply cutting it off, there is a second step I do every time.
But first, how do you remove your capsule?
A Bottle or Two in the Wilderness
Later today I’m going deep into the woods, to some rustic cabin near a stream. There is no Internet connection or cell phone reception, so as of yet I have no idea what I am going to do about Sunday’s post. If you don’t hear from me by Monday, alert the authorities.
Honestly, I’m not much of a nature lover. It’s just so dirty and full of bugs.
But I do enjoy hanging out with nothing to do, shooting the breeze, and having a few drinks with my friends. The question is, what does one bring to drink on a camping trip in the woods, with no refrigeration and a limited, declining stockpile of ice. Let’s not forget that it’s summer.
I’m pretty happy with what I came up with. Later today is the field test.
All the Small Things
My bet is that I’m alone on most of this.
Let me start by saying I’m not a dainty man. I am just over six feet tall and after this D.C. trip I am weighing in north of 180 pounds. It’s hard to find shoes in my size. Extra large baseball caps look a bit too small on my jumbo noggin.
All the same, I like small things. Not preciously small. I enjoy a good amuse bouche, but I wouldn’t want a full meal of those tiny portions because they just keep me wanting more.
Which actually is their point.
What I’m trying to say is that the sizes of certain culinary delights were created for a reason. Over time too many of these things have gotten bigger and bigger. In some cases this is caused by the same drivers that have pushed restaurant entrée portions to the point of providing enough fat and calories for a family of four. In other cases the causes are different.
Regardless of the cause, here is my top ten list of thing that are too big, and just to show you I’m not completely unreasonable, three things that have gotten too small.
Ask the Profussor – A Complimentary Critic
Before jumping into my periodic marathon of catching up on reader questions, there was something on the internets Monday that I’m guessing slid by most people. It almost slid by me.
Steve Barnes wrote the following in response to a comment on his blog:
The Capital Region food and restaurant world would be better if there were more people who cared as passionately and blogged as articulately as Daniel B. does; it’s better already because he’s a dedicated part of the conversation.
I truly and deeply appreciate the sentiment. It is reassuring to hear that what I do here is considered to be helpful by one of the pillars of the Albany food community. But when I stopped and thought about it further, not even I would want to live in a world where there were more people who cared as passionately about food as me. I mean, can you imagine?
All kidding aside, thank you Steve. Now onto the questions.
Now I’m Starting to Get Angry
I’m a passionate man. I’ve been disgusted, delighted and disappointed. I’ve loved, liked, and loathed. But I can’t recall a time on the FLB when I’ve actually gotten angry. Personal attacks don’t get under my skin. Rude service rolls off my back. Really, I consider myself rather unflappable.
So what could possibly start to stir my bile?
Welch’s grape juice.
And it is not because of the news that there was more lead in their juice than permitted in the State of California without a warning label. The environment is a dirty dirty place. Some produce has trace amounts of lead, some has more. It seems at least in part we owe this to the persistence of the element, and its inclusion in pesticides and fuel for many years in the 20th century.
So what is a responsible large company to do when this is brought to their attention?
Here is what I would expect from a responsible company concerned with the wellbeing of the children who consume their products. I would expect them to express concern about the findings and launch an immediate action plan to get third-party verification. I would expect them to reaffirm their belief that their juice complies with California’s Proposition 65. Finally I would expect them to list specific and immediate actions they plan to take on the off chance third-party results confirm the Environmental Law Foundation’s allegations.
I haven’t seen them do any of this. And I was curious about what was going on at Welch’s HQ in regards to this situation. Thanks to the miracle of social media networks, I was able to post a question to their Facebook page and get a response.
It’s the response that kills me.
Absolute Disasters
Not all cooking projects go as planned. But even when things don’t work out, sometimes a dish can be salvaged. Other times you stumble into the happy accident of making something delicious. Raf had one of these in his repertoire. It was a failed fritata that turned into a lovely pasta and egg dish.
But sometimes it just goes dreadfully and horribly wrong. And in those instances, everything that you do to try to fix the situation seems somehow to make matters worse and worse.
Yesterday was one of those days. But truth be told, one of my earliest experiments with following a recipe was probably even a worse disaster. It’s hard to say. They both failed in their own unique ways. Anyhow, just because it’s Monday, I’ll tell you both stories.
Clouded Judgment
I really do think that Anonymous and I could work this whole thing out over drinks. And I will respond to the latest comment, but for right now it is time to move on.
Speaking of drinks, you may have noticed that I’ve been a bit obsessed lately. The last two cocktail posts have been about absinthe. And someone suggested that if I had a thing for green herbal spirits, then perhaps I would like Chartreuse.
Well, I love Chartreuse. And there is a bottle of the stuff in my small but proud liquor cabinet.
But absinthe’s greenness and its herbaciousness are only part of the appeal. The truth is that I love to louche. And nobody else really gets it. My sister was out in Albany for a visit, and I sat down with her and showed her the beautiful swirling tendrils in the bottom of the glass of absinthe. I did a similar thing with ADS when I was visiting him in D.C. and demonstrated the primal beauty of the undulating fog bank that pulsed and grew with every drop of cold water.
Nothing.
So obviously, my next question was, can I louche Chartreuse? And are there other spirits that can do this? Because even though Chartreuse isn’t inexpensive, it’s still cheaper than absinthe.
FUSSYlittleBLOG 