I just met a really cool gluten free foodie girl in the store!

   

What is fun is that she is a local Pacific Northwest fellow blogger and You know we need to support each other!

I am all about getting in new gluten free products that taste good, so I am very excited!

America's Burgers go fusion and take on the spices of the world

Burgers Go Global on Restaurant Menus

The world's flavors converge on a hamburger bun.
Scott Hume -- Restaurants ; Institutions, January 20, 2010


"Flavors like teriyaki have become so common that they're almost seen as American," says Russ Bendel, president-CEO of The Habit Burger Grill chain in Southern California of the chain's pineapple-topped Teriyaki Burger.

Ray Kroc knew Americans' desire for burgers would endure, but the founder of McDonald's never would have imagined that the iconic all-American food could take on the global guises it often wears now. Burgers' renewed popularity has necessitated that chefs unleash their imaginations and develop ever more ways to combine meat and a bun. Often that means bringing the world's flavors to bear.

"The beauty of burgers is that they're fun. Fun to eat, fun to develop," says Frank Scibelli, who plans to add a Vietnamese-style banh mi pork burger to the menu at his two Big Daddy's Burger Bar locations in Charlotte, N.C. "I had a great banh mi sandwich in San Francisco, so I thought that would be a really great flavor profile to play around with," he says of the inspiration. "Southerners love pork, so they may not know what banh mi is [pork topped with pickled carrots, cucumber, cilantro and mayo], but I think they'll try it."

That's already the case at the three BLT Burger locations, where an Asian Banh Mi Burger is a menu staple. Chef-owner Laurent Tourondel's version tops a ground pork and shrimp patty with pickled daikon radish and carrot, herb salad, cucumber and sriracha mayonnaise.

Big Daddy's menu now has a ground turkey and Brie Frenchie burger (suggested by a French-born staff member) and an Italian-style Mama Ricotta's Burger (house-made mozzarella and pesto) that carries the name of Scibelli's Italian restaurant in Charlotte. They sell well, as has a Greek gyros-style burger that Big Daddy's cycles on as a special.

I find that this Verstegen Kruiden mix Shoarma makes a great burger seasoning. A more traditional way of using the spice is to make a Turkish inspired shoarma.  Slice a pound of chicken (or other meat) thinly and toss with 1/4 of the contents on the spice tub.  Cook and place on pita bread on a bed of thinly sliced letture or cabbage.  You can add sliced onions and tomatoes if you choose to do so.  The important thing to have with it is KUHNE TZATZIKI CUCUMBER SAUCE 250ML for a delicious shoarma at home!

Ritter Sport Whole Roasted Peanut Bars from Germany

New at Marina Market German Ritter Sport (Erdnuss) Peanut Bars.  This Ritter Peanut bar is so full of whole roasted peanuts you get some in every bite!  The crunchy peanuts paired with the creamy cocoa laden Ritter Milk chocolate is a fantastic addition to the Ritter Sport line of Chocolates.

 Ingredients: peanuts, sugar, cocoa butter,

cocoa mass, cream powder, skimmed milk powder, sweet whey powder, lactose, butterfat, emulsifier: lecithine (soy), aroma, vanilla.

Ritter Sport Caramel Nut bar is filled with chopped roast hazelnut pieces in 34% butter-caramel cream. The caramel filling also has tiny crispy rice flakes all of this is covered in Ritter Sport famous milk chocolate.

Another hard to find Ritter Sport is the (Pfefferminz) Peppermint filled bar. The secret to this refreshing peppermint filling is the peppermint oil and the proper amount of sweetness.  This is NOT a junior mint!  The bars is covered with bittersweet chocolate that provides the perfect contrast between the two flavors.

Ingredients: sugar, cocoa mass (cocoa 2.5%), vegetable fet, cocoa butter, glucose syrup, sorbit, emulsifier: soy lecithin, peppermint oil, aroma, vanillin.

Kraft announces it will buy Cadbury for $19.6 billion in hostile takeover bid for the British confectioner.

I don't understand how hostile takeovers are legal.  (Smacks head!)  Oh yeah, it's because Coroporations are PEOPLE.  How could I forget.  Just don't get in the woman's line behind AIG at the Seahawks game, and don't cut or they will backslap you *and* sue you for discrimination.

I am so sick of Corporate BS.  What really makes me sick is that some of us (activists) have been predicting that this would happen

United Kingdom-based Cadbury, the world's second biggest confectionery company with huge operations in India, on Tuesday agreed to being taken over by Kraft Foods after agreeing to an improved offer from the US food giant.

The improved takeover offer is worth $19.6 billion.

Earlier, Cadbury had consistently rejected the takeover bid made by America's Kraft Foods Inc. However, Kraft, was hopeful that the share-and-cash offer for Cadbury would go through, and it has.

Kraft, the American food giant, said in a statement on Tuesday that Cadbury's board had unanimously endorsed the offer worth 840 pence per share. The revised offer is for 500 pence cash and 0.1874 new Kraft shares for each Cadbury share.

And let all be clear Kraft is Phillip Morris.

Miep Gies dies at 100, Anne Frank hero and Nazi Resistor

Miep Gies, the last surviving member of the group who helped protect Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis, has died in the Netherlands aged 100.

She and other employees of Anne Frank's father Otto supplied food to the family as they hid in a secret annex above the business premises in Amsterdam.
Anne's diary of their life in hiding, which ended in betrayal, is one of the most famous records of the Holocaust.
It was rescued by Mrs Gies, who kept it safe until after the war.
Miep Gies died in a nursing home after suffering a fall just before Christmas.
Speaking last year as she celebrated her 100th birthday, Mrs Gies played down her role, saying others had done far more to protect Jews in the Netherlands.

She and her fellow employees kept Anne and the seven others supplied for two years, from 1942 to 1944.
  Independent Obit  BBC Obit

Being of both Dutch and Jewish decent, I am very reflective this week about how we as individuals live our lives.  R.I.P dear lady.

Unusual spice parings for 2010

Interesting.. This goes along with the list of Indian Spices I blogged about awhile back... So Indian fusion-I LOVE it!  Although I think Fennel and Licorice should be in here...

From Candy and Snacks Today
Published Tuesday January 12, 2010


2010 Flavors Forecast By McCormick

Sparks, MD — Bitter, warm and earthy are the key flavor notes expected to dominate developments in food products this year, according to the tenth annual McCormick & Co., Inc. Flavor Forecast.



Flavor experts at McCormick partnered with top chefs, food bloggers and other culinary professionals to classify the strong flavor combinations they state the American palate is ready to embrace.



According to the company, the top 10 flavor pairings determined to lead in 2010 are:



•Roasted ginger and rhubarb

•Thai basil and watermelon

•Caraway and bitter greens

•Bay leaves and preserved lemon

•Almond and ale

•Turmeric and vine-ripened tomatoes

•Pumpkin pie spice and coconut milk

•Roasted cumin and chickpeas

•Creole mustard and shellfish

•Chives and fish sauce.

Chris at Candy Critic posted this first

Hands down the best Pickled Herring is Poulsbo Pickled Herring

Poulsbo Pickled Herring from New Day Fisheries, is our favorite pickled herring!   The fish is firm and the pieces are just the right size and thickness- about 2"x1" thick. The onions are crisp and we love it for lunch in these parts!  In blind herring tastings around the country, the reported winner has (so far) always been Poulsbo Pickled Herring.  If you want to try to make your own pickled herring we have salt herring fillets and headless milkers from Holland.

KASTEEL ROUGE

Sweet smell of cherries? Let's just start out with that I am not a fan of fruit beers, but after having a bottle of Cherry Adam from the Wood, I will try anything now!

Dark reddish brown with almost no head. Kind of a sparkling feel with a medium slightly oily texture. Sweet as can be, but I can still enjoy the underlying Belgian flavor. On first taste, kind of yucky..but it is growing on me. Even a little bitterness on the finish. Hmmm...more complex than I thought it was going to be. As I drink it, my opinion is changing for the better. Tasted from the bottle @ 51.7 deg F.

Cadbury Chocolate After Eight Mint Chip Cake Bites

Cadbury Chocolate After Eight Mint Chip Cake Bites.   These small bite sized chocolate cakes are topped with creamy frosting loaded with little bits of green (hard candy) mint chips.  These nuggets of goodness were then dipped in Cadbury Chocolate the end result-they taste like Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies!

Geisha Finnish milk chocolate with Hazelnuts make fantastic cookies!

I love Fazer chocolates and licorice from Finland.  I was delighted to learn that Solange, who is also a Foodbuzz publisher posted a cookie recipe using Fazer Geisha Chocolates.  Geisha is a milk chocolate with ground hazelnuts and little bits of chunkier hazelnut wrapped in milk chocolate.  I am quite impressed with her blog as she is only 16!  It is another example of how the Internet is making the world a smaller place.  The recipe link goes to her blog.

Geisha Chocolate Cookie recipe
Buy the Finnish Geisha chocolate here

 

Here is the cookie!

German European Rye Bread, sliced rye bread is perfect for open faced sandwiches

Buy Dutch and German sliced Rye Bread here


Rye bread is a healthy and low-fat product. Because it is naturally high in iron and fiber content, this rye bread fits a healthy life style. The Frisian Rye Bread is especially interesting as it is made up entirely of broken rye kernels with no yeast added. It is baked from 8-24 hours at 110 Celsius. Wow! The non-baker in me really won't try this at home. If you look at it closely you can see that it is a mass of grains. This bread has little cohesion and will fall apart easily so watch your bread toppings!



Because the whole grains are used the starch and the protein are still in the grain so a protein structure cannot be formed with other grains. Baking is so much more complicated than cooking

You can fix components of a meal if something goes awry but not in baking.

In most other rye bread a bit of wheat flour is added, this gives the bread a better gluten network. Regular rye is baked for 2-4 hours at 200-220 Celsius the added yeast apparently allows for air bubbles and a faster cooking time.



Muesli bread has filberts and grains (a real muesli mix) in addition to the rye bread. I like this because it's milder.

In Germany saithe fish is put on buttered rye as a snack. It is really really good! In Scandinavia, pickled herring, egg, and creamed caviar in 'toothpaste' style tubes are all common rye bread toppings.


Bavarian Whole Grain Gluten Free Bread is made from whole rice, mountain spring water, whole corn, miller, sweet lupin flour, salt, guarseed meal (thickener) and yeast. No chemical additives.


Bavarian also makes organic rye breads or ecological as they say in Europe.

An interesting rye bread fact: after the rye bread is baked and sliced and packaged it is pasteurized with steam for 15 minutes at 80 Celsius.

Rye is for breakfast too!
An Ontbijtkoek is a Dutch spiced breakfast cake. Rye is its most important ingredient, coloring the cake a lightish brown. It is often spiced with cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg, and is occasionally served on a slice of bread. Mostly however, this "breakfast cake" is used in the morning with a little butter on top of a slice.

RNC head Michael Steele's racist remarks "Honest Injun"

This remark really steams me!  I guess I shouldn't be surprised since on November 17th, 2009 the Supreme Court to refused to read the brief (my sister wrote) Harjo v. Pro Football.  Why is it that every other ethnic group in the US is treated with respect?  And to then claim he said "honest engine"  - he thinks people are stupid, have you ever heard anyone say 'honest engine'???

Michael Steele is a racist Original Link Turtle Talk

Media matters link
Home About Indigenous Law Program Resources Matthew L.M. Fletcher Wenona T. Singel Kate E. Fort Ninth Circuit Panel Issues New Opinion in Upper Skagit v. Washington New Yorker Profile on Justice Sotomayor January 6, 2010...12:14 pm

Kildee Press Release on Michael Steele’s “Honest Injun” Comment

For Immediate Release… Contact: Peter Karafotas

January 5, 2010 (202) 225-3611

Congressman Kildee Responds to RNC Chairman Michael Steele’s Racist Comment about Native Americans

Washington, D.C.—Congressman Dale E. Kildee (D-MI), Democratic Co-Chair of the Congressional Native American Caucus, released the following statement today in response to RNC Chairman’s Michael Steele’s use of a racist and derogatory saying about Native Americans to describe the Republican Party’s platform on Fox News. Steele said, “Our platform is one of the best political documents that’s been written in the last 25 years, honest Injun on that.”

“I am outraged and disgusted that the head of the National Republican Party would make such a derogatory and offensive statement about Native Americans on national television. In an effort to cover up Michael Steele’s racist comment, Fox News altered the transcript online to read ‘honest engine’ instead of ‘honest Injun.’ For those of us who have been fighting to reverse decades of mistreatment of Native Americans, we all know what Mr. Steele said and what he meant. His insensitive comment undermines and threatens to reverse the progress we have made to correct those wrongs. A cursory look through a dictionary or even some knowledge of Native American history would show Mr. Steele that the term is a racial slur for Native Americans. I strongly urge Mr. Steele to publicly apologize to the Native American community immediately for his derogatory comment.”