Catastrophe

No more Mother's Cookies?!

Check the link -- that includes Circus Animal Cookies. You know, the kind that were pink or white and covered with little round jimmies? A sad, sad day indeed.

Trouble Brewing

If you've been keeping any kind of tabs on the brewing world you know that hop prices have skyrocketed -- not to mention grain prices -- and consequently brewers everywhere are spiking the price of a pint. This is particularly true of the All-American super-hoppy beers, which obviously call for even more hops (money) per batch. However, this Wall Street Journal article on "The Future of Beer" points out that beer sales are nonetheless on the rise. This might, in part, be due to the appeal of a pricey pilsner or pale ale in our current downtrodden economy: "Craft beer is still one of cheaper luxury items people can buy". Good beer is a splurge, but an affordable luxury even in the midst of our crisis. So go on, shell out the extra few dollars and support craft brewers -- and enjoy doing it.

Check out this WSJ video on the hop shortage, and the brewers who are still coming out on top:

Chauvinism or Chivalry?

A friend passed on this New York Times article on gender roles in fine dining atmospheres. Author Frank Bruni notes, "Although the goal in many public places and in much of public life is to treat men and women equally, most upscale restaurants haven’t reached that point. Then again they haven’t really tried all that hard. They’ve learned that ignoring gender is risky, and often foolish, because men and women approach and respond to restaurants in different ways, looking for different things." What are your thoughts on this? Ladies, do you expect to be served first? If you were serving a group of people, who would you expect to order the wine? Does observing gender roles in a dining room enforce an unnecessary binary, or does it simply cater to the different needs already in place?

What do you want when you dine out -- and why do you want that?

Patriotic Hipsters

I couldn't pass up posting the link to Slate's post on "The Next Great American Beer," mainly for the section that discusses PBR's aspiration to become the "President of Beers," which is coupled with a lovely discussion of Pabst's marketing tactics (successfully reeling in hordes of hipsters).  There are also a few interesting notes on the concept of domestic beer.  

I'll stick with my Lagunitas and my Stone for now, thanks.  Go ahead and call me a snob, but at least I'm a snob with intact taste buds.

By(e-bye) Trans Fat?

Last Friday, July 25, esteemed Governor Arnold Swarznegger passed a bill that prohibited California restaurants from using trans fats.  New York City, Seattle, parts of Maryland, and even my dear Philadelphia (former most-obese city in the country) have banned trans fats, but California is the first state to include restaurants under this sort of law.  

I remember NYC and Philly considering legislation like this, and people practically rioted.  Most notably, anyone and everyone who appreciated baked goods and the dear bakeries that peddle such delicacies protested the certain elimination of many beloved pastry products.  According to the article linked above, trans fats occur most commonly when vegetable oil is treated with hydrogen to prolong shelf life, particularly in baked and fried goods.  

Any thoughts on this?  Should the government have a say in what sorts of foods hit the shelves?  Is this legislation too narrow?  Do you think trans fats should be eliminated altogether?  

Definitely one for the side bar

I just discovered Cake Wrecks.  You, too, need to discover cake wrecks.  If you need a teaser, check out this video:

June Link Update

I stole a couple links from Kdubz at Living On The Vedge: First, Veg PA, an awesome guide to vegetarian eats in Pennsylvania. I wish I would have tapped this when I still lived there! And on that note, I was delighted (and surprised) to find Burrito Eater, a guide to San Francisco's ubiquitous tacquerias. I've already been to one gem on 18th and Valencia, and there are many more tortilla-wrapped conquests to be made.

The beloved Tastespotting tacked a legal notice to their web page and hightailed it out of cyperspace, so my new homepage is Food Gawker, "Where food is gawked." Go gawk, it's fun.

And, I fell in love with Rosa Jackson's Edible Adventures: Paris, Nice, and Beyond. She writes well, she cooks well, and she's galavanting around one of my favorite travel destinations. I'm part admiring and part jealous.

More Bay Area links to come, once I do things like find an apartment and get a job. Woot.

One More Reason To Drink (Red) Wine

From the New York Times:

New Hints Seen That Red Wine May Slow Aging

Thanks, Nancy

Do It -- It's Free

Click here to upload a photo (or not, you can just use one of the cards they’ve designed if you’d rather) and send virtual toasts to every mom you know (you can send several at a time). For each toast sent, Clos du Bois will donate $1 to WomenHeart.

Sidebar Updates

I've been doing a little spring cleaning with my layout. Since I'm moving to San Francisco in (eep!) eleven days to start a Masters in Traditional Chinese Medicine, I've weeded through my Philly links and removed a few of the restaurants. I did, however, add The Great Cheese Quest, which is a wonderful cheese blog by a Philly-based cheese aficionado, as well as McDuff's Food and Wine Trail, a highly informative site created by David McDuff of Moore Brothers wine importers. I had the opportunity to work a natural wines class with David, and the synopsis is still lingering as an unfinished draft, to be published someday relatively soon! I also added Phoodie Info since it's one of the top online foodie communities in Philadelphia.

I've bumped Philly down a spot, and added categories for Toronto and Down Under, since I seem to have affinities for bloggers in both parts of the world, and both geographical locations hold a special place in my heart. My best friend from high school is an Orange County native who just immigrated to Toronto, and I added a link to her craft blog, Nimoy! Creations. She does her fair share of awesome food posts, so one of these days I'm hoping to wrangle her into being a guest contributor for By Product. I lived in New Zealand for six months while I was studying massage therapy, and it's so exciting for me to find wonderful food blogs from down under, including Lucy's beautiful chronicle, Nourish Me.

I also added a category for "Eating Responsibly", which for me both entails sites that emphasize ethical eating as well as sites that discourage disordered eating. These include The Story of Stuff, which focuses on a 20 minute video that each and every one of you ought to go watch right this instant, and The F-Word, which is one of the best sites on disordered eating and cultural dysfunction that I have ever read (longer post on this coming up).

Moving down, I added Tom Cizauskas's awesome vegetarian-beer-blog, Yours for Good Fermentables, and the artisan cheese wonderland, Cheese by Hand. I also added the ever-popular Delicious Days and the dormant yet fabulous Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails (what a great idea!).

Finally, on the vegan front, I added Boston-based VeganYumYum, whose blog is always beautiful and whose recipes are always tasty, as well as Southern wonder Vegangelical, whose recipe for vegan pulled pork was nothing short of life-altering (another future post I've only begun to draft).

So there you have it! My next post will probably outline our itinerary (driving cross-country) and culinary aspirations for the trip and move. Have a great weekend everyone.

Links GALORE

I feel like I have finally made a real entrance into the food-blogging world, and as with all fun new things in my life it's turning into an obsession. In a good way? Here are some of the best food blogs I've run across, and am duly linking on the side bar -- I'm even adding a wine and beer section (come on, who didn't see that coming?)

_Still Life With, a great resource for anyone interested in food photography (looking or taking).

_Taste Spotting: My dear Allison always sends me the greatest links. I'm a sucker for pretty food photos, which is basically the entire layout of this site. It's also a great way to surf the network of food bloggers and share your own delights.

_Chocolate Shavings, artistically presented by Jenn, a Parisian studying at the French Culinary Institute in Montreal, and her boyfriend Oliver (I don't know how I mixed that up the first time around!).

_Cook Almost Anything At Least Once, an adventurous and pretty blog from down under.

_Eat NZ, a great portrayal of Kiwi cuisine via Chef Paul. Way to represent.

_Swirling Notions, on food and wine, and then a little more on wine.

_The Second Glass, "Your magazine for the new era of wine drinking." It's new-ish but doing great so far -- check out the front-page article on biodynamic wines.

_Musings Over a Pint, a pretty great blog on craft beer and a bit of foodie indulgence.

_Bigger Than Your Head, a fantastic overview of the wine world.

_Beer Blog with Roger Protz, a great way to stay up-to-date on the goings-on of the beer world.

_A Good Beer Blog. Need I say more?

Wine and Cheese Links

* Crushpad is a San Francisco winery where "you are the wine maker." Crushpad provides grapes from West Coast vineyards, an industry-acclaimed wine making team and a state-of-the-art winery focused on making wine in small lots. It sounds pretty great to me.

* Winemonger has an awesome "ULTIMATE CHEESE AND WINE PAIRING GUIDE." I find it quite thorough and informative -- check it out!

* One of my favorite parts of Fork and Bottle is their collection of wine maps and other great online resources. There's a LOT of information here -- I've just begun investigating.

Sidebar Updates

*Metropolitan Bakery, a Philadelphia bakery where my roommate happens to work/pilfer-goods. Don't get me wrong -- I certainly don't want her to stop bringing home armfuls of pastries, breads, spreads, dressings, salads, and cheese. Metropolitan has two locations, one in yuppie Rittenhouse Square and another in food central Reading Terminal Market. Their spiel: "Most of the products sold in our stores are made by small producers like ourselves who are trying to preserve artisinal techniques and traditions in such areas as farming and cheesemaking." They also own Farmicia, an Old City restaurant with an emphasis on local, organic, and artisinal producers. Definitely a couple notable links!

*I added some fellow foodie blog links, namely Diet, Dessert, and Dogs (a "95%" vegan with similar gastronomic inclinations); Every Woman Has an Eating Disorder (a great site grappling with the pressures and challenges women face regarding body image and eating); and the ever-popular 101 Cookbooks (is there anyone in the foodie world who HASN'T run across Heidi Swanson's beautiful, articulate, interesting blog of culinary adventures? And yes, like most good things in the world, she's based in SF).

*The Ethicurean, about "tasty things that are also sustainable, organic, local, and/or ethical — SOLE food, for short." It's a pretty compatible philosophy, methinks.

*And, finally, Local Harvest, with links to organic farms and farmer's markets across the country.

"Nirvana starts in the kitchen"

A friend recently sent me a link to the trailer for "How to Cook Your Life". I saw Buddhists, the Golden Gate bridge, people stealing fruit from neighbors' trees, and a lot of cooking -- this friend knows me well. From the Apple site:

Move over “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance!” Filmmaker Doris Dorrie turns her attention to Buddhism and that age-old saying, “you are what you eat.” In HOW TO COOK YOUR LIFE Dorrie enlists the help of the charismatic Zen Master Edward Espe Brown to explain the guiding principles of Zen Buddhism as they apply to the preparation of food and life itself.

View the full trailer here (and go see the film!)

More sidebar updates!

* I was desperately searching for a good recipe for braised artichokes when I stumbled across In Praise of Sardines, the food blog of an SF-based chef. He happens to be opening a restaurant in Noe Valley this summer, and I happen to be looking for a restaurant job in Noe Valley starting this summer. Interesting...

* A friend of a friend discovered Maggie Mudd, an SF-based purveyor of lactose-free frozen desserts. Swoon.

* While I'm explaining links I really think The Old Foodie deserves some attention. I quote,

From Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, The Old Foodie gives you 400 words each weekday on a topic related to the day, plus a historic recipe, and sometimes a menu. And how much fun is that!

(A lot of fun! Especially for the history buffs in our midst...)

* Finally, I added "Brewed in America" and "Modern Marvels: Distilleries" to my list of foodie films. Both are products of the beloved History Channel, and do an excellent job tracing the evolution of beer and distilled beverages, respectively. Possibly hard to find, but highly recommended.

Sidebar Updates

It recently occurred to me that I ought to discuss my sundry additions and renovations to the sidebar. Right now this is a fivefold topic:

1) Thanks to my recent obsession with goodreads, I made a "favorite food books" shelf and added the correlating widget at the top of my links. You can scroll over the books to see my review (disclaimer: I haven't read/finished all of them), and click on them to get more information. I'll try to write reviews for all of them over the next couple weeks.

2) Related to that, I recently finished Laura Esquival's Like Water for Chocolate. What a delightful book! And I fittingly read it on the brink of Three Kings' Day -- it chronicles the life of Tita, a young Mexican girl who essentially grows up in the kitchen. Each chapter begins with a recipe, which leads into the narrative following developments in Tita's life. I loved the many ways Esquivel found to extend various food metaphors and similes, and her writing is compelling and poignant throughout. I especially loved the idea that food transmits the energy and emotion of the cook to the people who consume the feast, an enthralling thought that resonates with many of my experiences. Definitely a recommendation for anyone passionate about food.

3) I added a few links under the "Food in SF" heading since I'm starting to make concrete plans for the big move, and related to that have been discovering a few of the foodie joys in the Bay Area. The "slow foods" movement pretty much started here, with Alice Walkers and co./Chez Panisse. So there are a couple links to slow foods events and info in SF. Also, two of the best-known vegan/vegetarian restaurants in the city, which have both been highly recommended by reputable sources. I'll post again when I actually try them out myself!

4) I also joined and linked the Foodie Blogroll, a (self-explanatory) collection of food blog links. Scroll through and check some out if you have time, there's a lot of really good cooking and eating going on out there. I think it's great that people are taking steps to unite the various foodies colonizing the internet as of late. And it's nice to be a part of it all :)

5) Finally, over the past couple weeks I've added links to the waiterrant, 101cookbooks, and Cheesy and Queasy blogs -- all highly entertaining and enjoyable.

Bachelor Cooking

I'm sharing this somewhat relevant and quite humorous video for your non-Food-TV enjoyment. I wanted to post the first episode I saw, but the steak au poivre was a little too unvegan. I think you'll see why this video is particularly germane to my lactose-intolerance theme, although I'll take this opportunity to note that real extra-sharp cheddar is 100% lactose-free. The aging process eliminates the lactose sugars, and real cheddar is aged at least six months, hence, no lactose.

You can find more episodes here.

Beer, Beer, Beer

Knowing that at least a few fellow beer geeks peruse my un-vegan findings, I wanted to offer this link about BEER. I was searching for info on the American Eats segment on Beer, and the subsequent Modern Marvels episode on distilleries, when I came across these lovely beer-centric videos. Sadly, the Family Guy links don't work, but do check out my personal favorite: Beer Drinking Pig



I felt a twinge of guilt at straying from my not-quite-vegan theme, then I remembered that beer is actually the perfect example of a not-quite-vegan product! As a PSA, let me here note that most beers (and wines) are fined with egg whites or fish guts to reduce or remove the hazy quality and produce a clear, appetizing product. You can find unfined beer and wine, but the appearance and sediment are a detraction for many drinkers. Unwilling to give up my favorite beverages, I'll turn a blind eye towards the non-vegan fining products. Prost!