nosh nook #136 - monday, september 21, 2009

cooking teacher whips up kids' interest in food (link)
09.21.09 - sf chronicle - by edward guthmann

last month, the nosh nook took a look at a ny times article about the creative cooks culinary center, a program here in brooklyn that teaches kids about food & cooking & whatnot. as i mentioned, kids are absolutely horrible at keeping a balanced diet. if left to their own devices, those little twirps would end up on the paul rudnick diet. luckily, there are peeps out there who have enough patience to teach twirps about how to eat healthy & luckily, those peeps aren't confined to some hippie commune in the berkshires. they've got tons of liberal hippies out on the west coast too!

there's one such hippie at the thousand oaks elementary school out in berkeley, ca, where michael bauce "teaches basic cooking and nutrition to 438 students." as the chronicle reports, twenty years ago, bauce's wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, so they began eating macrobiotically & she lived for another ten years partly thanks to the diet. during that time, they also started a "macrobiotic meal-delivery service out of (their) home." shortly after she passed, the woman who started the thousand oaks food education program reached out to him & the rest is history. he's been teaching kids how to make "three sisters stew" and "sautéed broccoli & cauliflower" ever since.

it appears that bauce runs a tight ship in his classes. with each class, once he's told "them about the harvest of the month," they wash their hands, put on aprons, mix the food, wash their cutting boards, set the table & sit down quietly. "everyone has to be quiet. no one eats until we say the magic words, 'bon appetit, let's eat.'" it doesn't say so in the article, but i can only assume that if you're a rambunctious eight-year old who can't sit there quietly, you don't get any tomato salsa. you'll probably have to take off the apron too. he also has a rule called the "three bite rule," where "if someone doesn't like the sound of something, they have to try three bites." this is similar to the "no thank you helping," a concept developed by my mom's mom & in my case, pretty much exclusively applied to butternut squash. anyway, it's a tight ship...a tight, hippie ship. say that ten times fast.

nosh nook #135 - friday, september 18, 2009

a yummy forecast (link)
09.18.09 - the ny times - by daniel m. gold

holy crap. did you hear what the weather's supposed to be like this weekend? the summer's not even officially over yet, but the forecast is calling for cloudy with a chance of meatballs. meatballs! i knew that global warming & el nino were on a rampage, but can you believe that crap? since i'm pretty sure that he predicted that this time was nigh, i feel like it's high time that i check out that al gore movie & see what the deal is. i've heard of it raining cats & dogs, but nothing like this...scary.

speaking of movies that predicted this weather anomaly, the folks at sony pictures released cloudy with a chance of meatballs today. coincidence? i think not. the times' daniel m gold checked out the the animated flick, which is based on the beloved 1978 children's book. the story follows flint lockwood, an inventor who lives in a town called chewandswallow. one day, he invents a machine that "converts water into menu items." it helps him score with a babe, but like with most stories involving inventions, things get crazy when "the technology runs amok, and a perfect storm of the four food groups threatens his town and beyond."  

overall, gold seems to like the film, but notes that in a world dominated by films like up!, it's tough to compete. still, for phil lord & christopher miller (the creators of the film), it's a good first animated film. they may not save the world with their film adaptation, but "if the filmmakers opt to make only light statements about junk food, obesity and solid waste, they at least leave the audience sated on a single serving of inspired lunacy." puntastic, mr gold. puntastic.

nosh nook #134 - thursday, september 17, 2009

junk-food ban in hospitals puts snack cart before horse (link)
09.16.09 - the vancouver sun - by gerry bellett

true to its pacific northwest character, vancouver's a pretty progressive city. they've always been a leader in drug policy, whether it's their distinction as the first city to offer a safe injection center for heroin users or the police force's willingness to turn a blind eye toward marijuana. they love mass transit & there are no major freeways in their downtown area. the vancouver public library is a friggin work of art. their last mayor, sam sullivan, has been quadriplegic since age nineteen. it seems like a cool place. i should visit some time...check it out & stuff.

their progressive attitude extends to the world of junk food as well. as the vancouver sun's gerry bellett reports, last year george abbott (who was health minister at the time) raised a big stink about the fact that there was junk food in the vancouver general hospital's vending machines. eventually, the vancouver general hospital was declared a "junk food-free zone." abbott's since moved on to become the minister of aboriginal relations and reconciliation, but the policy's remained in effect.

here's the kicker though: "apparently nobody told the women of the hospital auxiliary." they run the gift shop & snack carts & have continued to offer "a couple of unhealthy things." luckily, the sun uncovered the injustice & told somebody at vancouver coastal health (who runs the hospital). in turn, they're "going to have to talk to the auxiliary about the changing food environment in hospitals." that's right! give those ladies a stern talking to about their "couple of unhealthy things." rules is rules, ladies. stop trying to game the system. congrats, vancouver sun. you sure blew the lid on that racket. investigative journalism yeah!

nosh nook #133 - wednesday, september 16, 2009

beloved new york diner begins move south (link)
09.15.09 - cnn - by chris kokenes

i'm a big fan of the diner food. give me a buttery grilled cheese with tomato, some greasy hash browns & an endless cup of joe & everything's all good in the hood. i'll let a gristled, crotchety, slightly aloof diner waitress with a thick accent take my order before i'd let a witty, struggling actor (like you'll find at many of nyc's restaurants) take my order any day of the week. if i'm in your establishment, i'm either drunk or hungover or lazy, so personally, i prefer less charm & more gruff with my diner.

as cnn reports, as of this monday, the cheyenne diner, a former nyc diner that used to be around 9th ave & 34th & is named after a city in wyoming is finally on its way to alabama. the former owner decided to close down the diner so he could build condos, so after 68 years in business, it shuttered its doors last april. thanks to the efforts of joel owens, an alabama businessman, the structure that housed the cheyenne diner will soon be reopening 860 miles south in birmingham, alabama, where it will become the first free-standing diner in the state. southbound!

actually, its survival is due to the efforts of michael perlman, " a 26-year old patron saint of sorts for unwanted diners." dude's so excited about diners that he goes around trying to save old timey diners that are being closed down. actually, we should thank joel owens. perlman arranged the whole thing, but owens fronted the money so they could haul the cheyenne all the way down to what i've dubbed the "civil rights belt." of course, that's only because i've just taken off my pants & belts are on my mind, but i'm sure that if the cheyenne diner's that important, it has the potential to host the first sit-in at a free-standing diner in alabama. did i mention that we have a black president now & he likes burgers?...something to keep in mind.

nosh nook #132 - tuesday, september 15, 2009

hostess cupcakes celebrate 90 years as america's favorite cupcake (link)
09.14.09 - reuters

let's get one thing straight: hostess cupcakes rule. from their distinctive, slightly-unnatural cream filling to that swirl on the top, they're basically the pinnacle of mass-produced cupcakes. that's a scientific fact. they're so special that i've come up with a perfected method for eating them. i start with one solid bite that takes out about of third of the cupcake, giving me a good taste of the cake, cream & icing while still leaving me with a good amount of cream filling. from there, i chew off everything on both sides of the swirly icing, leaving me with the maximum amount of swirliness & cream filling for that last bite. it's become such an ingrained habit that i can't eat them any other way. so yeah, i like them quite a bit.

in case you forgot to mark your calendar, yesterday, hostess issued a press release reminding us that it's time to celebrate the cupcake's 90th birthday. in its lifetime, the hostess cupcake has both become "the best selling snack cake in history" & the one that's accumulated the most fun facts! did you know that the identity of the hostess cupcake's inventor is a mystery? they don't even know who invented it. what u.s. city consumes the most hostess cupcakes? memphis, followed by st. louis, cincy, vegas & louisville. on a completely unrelated note, memphis, vegas & louisville are #11, #4 & #10 on men's fitness' 2009 list of the fattest cities. did you know they have a mascot named "captain cupcake?" it's true. dude has a periscope & epaulets & everything. i remember the commercials from my childhood. at one point, he & twinkie were the jordan & pippen of hostess.

hostess cupcakes may be 90 years old, but they're totally tech savvy, with a twitter account & a facebook page. my grandfather turns 90 in less than a month & although he rules, as far as i know, he doesn't have either of those. of course, he's not run by a billion dollar corporation either. with hostess, i actually follow their twitter account & although it's fairly boring, if you want to be as cool as me, you should probably do the same. now if they could just manage to bring their web page into the 21st century, then they'd be totally hip.