Category Archives: Food

Looking into my crystal Sno-Ball

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As I look into my crystal Sno-Ball, here is what I see.  Within 90 days, a foreign-owned corporation will buy the intellectual property of Hostess, buy the briefly idled buildings and delivery trucks, and hire 18,500 non-union Americans to put the products back on the shelves.  In the mean time, 18,500 Americans who paid their unions to get them fired will become part of the ever-growing number of Americans using food stamps.  When they see Twinkies back on the shelves they will need Obamacare to pay for the injuries they’ll suffer from kicking themselves.

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Follow-up – February 11, 2013

Judge OKs auction of Hostess brands.

Source: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-02-11/business/chi-judge-oks-auction-of-hostess-brands-20130211_1_hostess-brands-perella-weinberg-partners-baseline-offer

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Follow-up – January 30, 2013

Apollo Global Management LLC and C. Dean Metropoulos & Co have set a baseline offer of $410 million for Hostess.

Source: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-01-30/news/sns-rt-hostess-twinkies-urgentwnab00qdr-20130130_1_snack-cake-baseline-offer-private-equity-firms

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If you want to say, “I told you so”

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I am inviting anybody in the United States that held a different opinion than mine about our newly re-elected president to say, “I told you so” to me when any of the following happen:

  1. The national debt ceases to grow for 12 months straight
  2. Our credit rating goes back to AAA
  3. We completely leave Afghanistan
  4. A budget is passed
  5. The president sets foot in Israel
  6. Real unemployment stays at or below 6% for three consecutive months
  7. DOMA is repealed and benefits like Social Security and military spousal privileges are extended to all legally married people
  8. The academic rating in science and math of U.S. students gets back into the top ten in the world
  9. The president fulfills his 2009 promise to shut down Guantanamo Bay
  10. The number of appearances the president makes on talk shows in a year is less than the number of press conferences he holds in the same year
  11. There isn’t a single presidential appointee at the USDA that has not or does not benefit from Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s)

You know where to reach me.

A kosher Elvis sandwich

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Elvis Presley was known for many things including a peanut butter, bacon, and banana sandwich. I just made a kosher version of it. Take two slices of challah, a healthy schmear of peanut butter, three strips of bacon, cut off the tip of the banana, and feel guilty for eating it.

What they didn’t teach you in Hebrew School

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If you are Jewish, you’ll understand this post.  I don’t know who the author is but my nice Jewish mother sent it to me.

1. The High Holidays have absolutely nothing to do with marijuana.

2. Where there’s smoke, there may be salmon.

3. No meal is complete without leftovers.

4. According to Jewish dietary law, pork and shellfish may be eaten only in Chinese restaurants.

5. A shmata is a dress that your husband’s ex is wearing.

6. You need ten men for a minyan, but only four in polyester pants and white shoes for pinochle.

7. One mitzvah can change the world; two will just make you tired.

8. After the destruction of the Second temple , God created Nordstrom’s.

9. Anything worth saying is worth repeating a thousand times.

10. Never take a front row seat at a Bris.

11. Next year in Jerusalem . The year after that, how about a nice cruise?

12. Never leave a restaurant empty handed.

13. Spring ahead; fall back – winters in Boca.

14. WASPs leave and never say good-bye; Jews say good-bye and never leave.

15. Always whisper the names of diseases.

16. If it tastes good, it’s probably not kosher.

17. The important Jewish holidays are the ones on which alternate side of the street parking is suspended

18. Without Jewish mothers, who would need therapy?

19. If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it. But if you can afford it, make sure to tell everybody what you paid.

20. Laugh now, but one day you’ll be driving a Lexus and eating dinner at 4:00 PM in Florida .

Mr. Obama’s impact on Frankenfood

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Frankenfood, a/k/a GMO’s, a/k/a Genetically Modified (I prefer “Mutated”) Organisms, is food and food support products that has been genetically modified for various purposes, all of which end up in profitability for companies that produce GMO’s.  They hold within them the potential for all sorts of diseases to include cancer.  Mr. Obama has had a profound effect on GMO production.  His policies and appointees have significantly PROMOTED its production.  As a man who paints himself as a champion of the people and enemy of selfish businesses that profit at the expense of the 99%, he is actually more like Janus, the two-faced god of the Roman pantheon.  With one face he looks at the citizenry and tells them he is the agent of change and their representative against the evil empire.  With the other face, he smiles at Monsanto, DuPont, and other purveyors of Frankenfood and tells them he is committed to helping them in their mission.

Before you discount what I’m saying as right-wing rhetoric, consider the fact that I am not a Republican nor do I lock step with most conservatives.  Also consider the fact that the quotation you are about to read is from the Organic Consumers Association (organicconsumers.org).  The OCA promotes many things that are considered liberal and Democrat issues such as Fair Trade, global warming reduction, world peace, “Mother Earth,” etc.  What I really like about the OCA is it is brave enough to name names, regardless of party.  I truly believe that it believes in its causes solely on the merit of the fact they believe they are right, not because Barack Obama, Chris Matthews, or some liberal pundit told them to.  We need more organizations that are committed to right because it is right and not because it sounds right or is anti-right.

Getting sick from experimental food is not a partisan issue.  Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Socialists, Communists, Anarchists, the unaffiliated, and the unconcerned are equally at risk from this stuff.  Here is what the OCA wrote:

President Obama knows that agribusiness cannot be trusted with the regulatory powers of government. On the campaign trail in 2007, he promised: We’ll tell ConAgra that it’s not the Department of Agribusiness. It’s the Department of Agriculture. We’re going to put the people’s interests ahead of the special interests.

Tom Vilsack

But, starting with his choice for USDA Secretary, the pro-biotech former governor of Iowa, Tom Vilsack, President Obama has let Monsanto, Dupont and the other pesticide and genetic engineering companies know they’ll have plenty of friends and supporters within his administration.

President Obama has taken his team of food and farming leaders directly from the biotech companies and their lobbying, research, and philanthropic arms:

Michael TaylorMichael Taylor

[Michael Taylor is the] former Monsanto Vice President, is now the FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods.

Roger BeachyRoger Beachy

[Roger Beachy is the] former director of the Monsanto-funded Danforth Plant Science Center, is now the director of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Islam SiddiquiIslam Siddiqui

[Islam Siddiqui is the] Vice President of the Monsanto and Dupont-funded pesticide-promoting lobbying group, CropLife, is now the Agriculture Negotiator for the US Trade Representative.

Rajiv ShahRajiv Shah

[Rajiv Shah is the] former agricultural-development director for the pro-biotech Gates Foundation (a frequent Monsanto partner), served as Obama’s USDA Under Secretary for Research Education and Economics and Chief Scientist and is now head of USAID.

Elena KaganElena Kagan

[Elena Kagan] who, as President Obama’s Solicitor General, took Monsanto’s side against organic farmers in the Roundup Ready alfalfa case, is now on the Supreme Court.

Ramona Romero who is corporate counsel to DuPont, has been nominated by President Obama to serve as General Counsel for the USDA.

Source: http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/index.cfm

Notes:

1) One of the leading purveyors of Frankenfood is E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, a company that made $38 billion in 2011. Known simply as DuPont, it is headquartered in Delaware, the home state of Vice-President Joe Biden.

2) All of these people work or have worked for huge businesses and their incomes probably put them all in the top 1% of income earners.

The Great Wall of Chocolate

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P.F. Chang’s has the greatest contrasting items on any menu I’ve ever seen. On one hand are the über-healthy Lettuce Wraps and on the other hand is the insidiously evil Great Wall of Chocolate. I just checked the nutritional information on the Great Wall. It’s insane:

It weighs 560 grams (a pound and one quarter)
1,440 calories (the recommended diet for a male is 2,000 calories for an entire day)
204g of carbs (about a half of one pound)
68g of fat (equal to about 5 teaspoons of Crisco)
1,400 milligrams of sodium (equal to about 5/8 of a teaspoon of salt)

I read an article about this monster from 2009 and the measurements were about 20% higher across the board. I suspect that Chang’s has not chosen to use healthier ingredients. Instead, I’m guessing it just cut the portion from 672 grams (24 ounces) to a much more svelte 560 grams (20 ounces).

I was pondering upon what occasions I would indulge myself with such a thing. The first is if I found out that I had inoperable stage four cancer and the second is if I committed a crime worthy of the death penalty and I was offered a last meal. Other than those, I’ve yet to love myself or loathe myself so much as to make such a big, gooey, tasty, chocolatety mistake (crap, I’m drooling).