Tag: food

FOOD TIP: MIMOSA GRILL

You will love the roasted mussels, the stuffed Georgia hushpuppies, and the crispy BLT sliders at Mimosa Grill in Charlotte. North Carolina. (I know. But it’s not inconceivable you will find yourself there one day.) They have entrees, too – here’s the full menu – but why would you bother? As at almost any restaurant, it’s better to have a second appetizer instead.

FOOD TIP: PINEAPPLE

about.com: “Once the fresh pineapple is cut from the plant, it will not ripen any further, so forget about letting it ripen on the counter. Without any starch reserves to convert to sugar, it will simply begin to rot and ferment.” I did not know that.

FOOD TIP: WALDEN FARMS

Have you ever tried Walden Farms “zero calorie” salad dressing? Or mayonnaise? Or ketchup? (“Honey,” Charles moans affectionately from a better place, appalled as ever by my culinary direction.) Only a few of their products are available in most stores, and ordering on-line is anything but cheap (this source claims to be 30% cheaper). And there are other caveats, like . . . zero-calorie, no-fat, no-carbs peanut butter? Are serious? (“Honey!”)

I haven’t tried that one, but I have a few things to say about it anyway:

The first law of Newtonian physics is that nothing edible can have zero calories. (Fig-Newtonian physics, anyway.) Yes, celery may take more energy to chew than it provides – roughly the same problem as with today’s nuclear fusion reactors – but that doesn’t mean it has zero calories.

“Can you connect me with someone who handles consumer questions,” I asked the operator at Walden Farms, expecting to be passed on to public relations.

“Anything under 5 calories per serving is zero,” she shot back. With Finality.

And where someone else might have challenged her, or been confused by her math, I was satisfied. From some prior related experience I knew the FDA allows companies to round down, per serving, in various ways. My 12-ounce jar of chipotle mayonnaise (and my like-sized bottle of ketchup) contains 24 servings, so we may safely assume that’s just under 5 calories per half ounce – “zero,” as the operator explained – or 120 calories for the full jar. Yet it still compares favorably with the 300 calories in 12 ounces of my beloved Heinz ketchup – I put ketchup on everything (“Honey!!!”) – or 2,160 in 12 ounces of Hellman’s real mayonnaise (which, being more vain than suicidal, I have not eaten in 30 years).

To my tongue, the ketchup actually tastes good. The mayonnaise . . . well, it’s probably better than a heart attack. Dipping carrots into the chipotle-flavored variety has actually grown on me. The balsamic salad dressing is pretty good, too.

“He’ll eat anything,” Charles used to explain, apologetically, to guests.

SELL KERX

Guru: “If you’re still holding, you should sell today or put a stop at 4 to make sure to sell if it goes below 4. The last event in their Phase III trial in colorectal cancer will occur in March and data will be out in March or April. I completed an analysis yesterday and finally saw why the Phase II data looked so good: they didn’t stratify for the status of metastases, number and location. Metastatic status is a major prognostic factor in CRC. Meanwhile, I also reaffirmed that Perifosine (their drug) and Capecitabine (the control drug, in both arms of the trial) are inactive in the kind of patients being recruited into this Phase III. In fact, nothing works for these patients – just that if you lined up all the things you think could work and ranked them, Perifosine and Capecitabine would be at the bottom based on published data. I have to admit I have not seen one quite like this, where there was an imbalance at baseline NOT reported in the published Phase II. I’ve seen quite a few cases where when you read the published paper you see immediately the imbalance that produced the result that favored the therapy. This one required a lot more investigation. The stock has been strong the last couple of days because of bullish articles in Seeking Alpha. If it is approved, the stock goes to 8 or 10. But I highly doubt it – in which case, it drops to under 1.”

Short takes:

“Bin Laden is dead and Detroit is alive.” How’s that for a bumper sticker?

As seen at TED: “The future is not what it used to be.”

TED lectures (18 minutes or less) have been viewed 700 million times in the last 5 years. Download free on your iPhone.

Eat less meat (especially red meat): “It’s good for the planet, good for the cows, good for your finances, good for your heart.”

Something unexpected:

I got my picture taken with George W. Bush last week wearing a Barack Obama 2012 tie. (I was wearing it, not he.)

If you lost your camera or photo stick – or found someone else’s:

Here. (They’ve had more than 400 success stories.)

Make your own ice cream sandwiches:

First you choose your cookie (chocolate chip, red velvet, snickerdoodle, oatmeal raisin, or – my choice – “potato chip”) and then you choose your ice cream flavor (I chose caramelized bacon). Oh. My. God. Reviewed here.

World’s sexiest breast-cancer screening app (show your sister or gay brother):

Here.

Tomorrow: Guessing the Weight of an Ox

FOLLOW ME!

Arriving at some venue only to encounter Inspector Clouseau, one of his suspects asks: “How is it that you are here?”

The good Inspector replies, “Because I am following yeu.”

Suspect: “But Inspector, you got here first!”

Clouseau, after a moment’s consideration (and unaccountably missing from these 485 memorable Clouseau lines): “I am following yeu . . . very fast.”

All of which is to say, in more than 140 characters and with considerable trepidation: You can follow me now on twitter @AndrewTobias.

MISLEADING DEFENSE STATS

Some are saying defense spending has been reduced to historic lows, as a percentage of the budget. Yet this from the libertarian Cato Institute shows that, adjusted for inflation, defense outlays are way higher than they were during Vietnam and at the height of the Cold War. It’s time to rein them in (me speaking here) and invest some of that money in strengthening our infrastructure, which – along with the prosperity that a domestic Marshall Plan would bring – is another way to enhance national security.

CATHERINE HAS A THING OR TWO TO SAY

Catherine: “I have to say I too am getting tired of gay people being blamed for the downfall of marriage. I was listening to NPR last night and some candidate was talking about the welfare of children and that it is best that a child has a mother and a father. Well I had a mother and a father and father was alcoholic and a pedophile, so personally I would much rather have had two gay dads or moms. I think I would’ve been much safer. There are so many people that are not safe in their own heterosexual homes . . . The other thing that bothered me was how we use language, or phrases. One person on NPR was talking about the State of Washington raising the minimum wage and how that was a financial burden to small business owners. While I appreciate the plight of the small business owner, why is no one talking about the financial burden on the person making minimum wage? . . . Finally, re your occasional tips for “Cooking Like a Guy” – I finally figured out that I don’t have to mix an entire frozen juice can – I can open the can, spoon out what I need for one glass of juice, put the lid back on and put the can back in the freezer. I like to think I’m brilliant!”

☞ Brilliant for sure.

NOAH’S EARTHWORM PROBLEM

Bible meets biology in under three minutes – here – by Isabella Rossellini.

WHAT IF OBAMA LOSES?

He won’t, thanks to you (see below). But the new Washington Monthly devotes an entire issue to imagining the future if he did – here. Executive summary: If you liked the Bush years, you’ll love a rightwing House, Senate, White House, and Supreme Court. (If we fail to fund the massive effort required to register millions of new voters . . . and re-register millions of existing voters the Republicans are working systematically to disenfranchise . . . we won’t get the turn-out to hold the White House or to hold the Senate.)

HE WON’T

Pick the state you want to help win and see – roughly – what your contribution will pay for. Yes, it’s a little gimmicky; but the effort itself, and the outcome that hangs in the balance, are dead serious. See, for example: Not What You Would Expect Me To Say About Golden Retrievers.)

PEACH FRESCA

Mark Centuori: “I went to two Safeways today to find that peach Fresca, and is it ever very good! And a lovely bouquet as well. It’s been around since 2005?! I need to get out of the Grocery Outlet more.”

Virginia Downs: “Fresca contains brominated vegetable oil, which is patented as a flame retardant and banned in food in Europe and Japan.”

☞ Great with jalapenos and fiery Mexican food. But thanks to Virginia – and a little Googling on the subject – I’ll not go overboard.

Bill Spencer: “According to the diet drink review you linked to, diet Fresca Peach Citrus contains concentrated grapefruit juice. And according to this from the Mayo Clinic, grapefruit juice can cause an interaction with several common medications, possibly with serious consequences. Statins, for example, which many people take for high cholesterol, have a strong interaction. I’m not a medical professional (nor do I play one on TV), but I take medicines on the interaction list, and I do not eat grapefruit. I thought you might want to know.”

☞ Who can live without grapefruit? (Communists, that’s who.) I have to think a diet Fresca contains just a tiny nibble of grapefruit. Still, I eat a lot of grapefruit and will have to check this out.

The second best medical advice of all time, I guess, is simply, “everything in moderation.”

(The best medical advice of all time I read half a century ago in an early edition of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. It seems that a book was put up for auction promising “the secret to good health” and – for obvious reasons – bidders were not allowed to inspect its contents prior to bidding. Well, the bidding got spirited, according to Ripley – you have nothing if you don’t have your health – and the book, if memory serves, ultimately went for 1,000 pounds. For a book! In the Nineteenth Century! I can hardly believe it. And when the winning bidder grabbed his prize and opened it, he found all the pages blank save the first, on which was written, simply: “Keep your feet warm and your head cool and you shall” something or other on the order of “live a long and healthy life.” Words to live by when shopping for socks.)

But first . . .

JOBS

It’s good to see continued progress, albeit modest, on the jobs front. Every 200,000 net new jobs in a month helps.

That progress would have been much stronger if the opposition had allowed us to throw ourselves into the enormous job of modernizing our infrastructure.

In the meantime, though, anyone who actually credits what Governor Romney has been saying about jobs – the ones he claims to have created and the ones he faults President Obama for having failed to create – should read this. Paul Krugman sets the record straight.

If you judge Obama not from the day he took office, before he had done anything – let alone January 1, twenty days before he took office, as Romney’s team initially did – but rather from the point his stimulus program actually took effect, then the story is not at all what Romney hopes to mislead you to believe.

And Romney’s own claims? Well, they’re kind of ludicrous.

He says “we created more jobs in Massachusetts than this president’s created in the entire country.” First, by any sensible analysis, it’s not true (see above). Second, and ironically, those were mostly government jobs. For every one private sector job that was created in Massachusetts, there were 6 government jobs created. Third, under Romney’s leadership, the state ranked 47th out of 50 in job creation, with manufacturing jobs falling by more than double the national average.

He says that, at Bain, he created 100,000 jobs. See Krugman on that. Ouch.

And add to Krugman’s analysis this additional observation: the jobs Governor Romney did help to create were primarily at two retailers and one pizza chain.

Nothing against shopping or pizza; but these are not the industries of tomorrow. Kids do not grow up hoping to be sales clerks and pizza delivery drivers. We will not thrive as a nation by expanding our pizza output and building more stores to sell foreign-made office supplies and sporting goods. And, by the way? It’s likely that, with the rise of Staples, the Sports Authority, and Dominos, loads of people lost jobs at competing stationery and sporting goods shops and pizza parlors.

Which is fine – I have no problem with the rough and tumble of competition. But in choosing our next president, the focus needs to be on macroeconomic policies: Governor Romney’s plan would cut taxes further on the top 1% (like that’s really worked) and shows no enthusiasm for the kind of domestic Marshall Plan needed to modernize our infrastructure and get the economy booming again. That’s the bottom line. His is the wrong vision for the job.

JOBS II

Thanks to Dean Reinemann for forwarding this interesting comment (from Ron Russell in Seattle), buried deep in the responses to recent column by David Pogue about the “tear down” analyses – where someone takes apart an iPhone (say) and tots up the cost of all its components:

Ron Russell: As someone who designs and manufactures specialized instrumentation [I can tell you that the] value added in final assembly is fairly trivial – estimates I’ve seen for an iPhone are $14-17. In our own product (which IS assembled in the US) the tiny price advantage of going to overseas assembly is just not worth it. Even though our products are assembled in the US, NONE of the high value components that go into them (representing most of the value added) are manufactured in the US – but they come from Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Denmark, and Korea – i.e. mostly from high wage countries with full health care and good worker protections, strong unions, and stricter environmental regulations than the US has – AND a strong manufacturing base. Cheap Chinese labor is not why the US has lost this sort of manufacturing. It’s the result of a deliberate lack of investment, a lack of an education system geared towards creating high end manufacturing workforce, the absence of a rational industrial policy, [and] a shortsighted focus on the near term bottom line.

☞ The sort of shortsighted focus that made centi-millionaires of many a smart B-School grad, like Mitt Romney, but that has ultimately been a mixed blessing, at best, to our common weal.

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?

Peach citrus diet Fresca. I know: it surprised me, too.

Tomorrow: Regulation and Jobs

THIS TWO-MINUTE YOUTUBE WILL CHANGE (AND EXTEND) YOUR LIFE

Seriously.

IF IT DOESN’T SMELL BAD, IT’S PROBABLY SAFE TO EAT

Mark Lefler: “Ever return from a trip with the clocks blinking 12:00 and wondered how long the power was off and if the food in the fridge was still safe to eat? A simple, free solution in my video.”

(Cooking Like a Guy™ Executive Summary of Mark’s Good Video: Put a plastic cup of ice cubes in the freezer. If they’ve melted and refrozen as a solid lump, you know the power must have been off a long time. Cooking Like a Guy™ Lower Tech System: What do you think your nose is for?)

COOKING CARROTS LIKE A GUY

Healthy, cheap, horses like them . . . and here’s the thing most people don’t seem to know: You don’t need to scrape (or “pare”) – let alone cook – them. Just rinse and eat. (Salt or whinny if you like.)

FORKS OVER KNIVES

The two-minute clip I led off with is the trailer to this documentary. Seriously: watch it.

CO2 EMISSIONS

Rick Thompson:  “Regarding yesterday’s column, the real elephant (well, actually cow, pig and chicken) in the room is meat.  According to a University of Chicago study, if Americans reduced their meat consumption by only 20 percent it would be as if everyone in the nation switched from a standard sedan to an ultra-efficient hybrid.  Each person who goes vegetarian saves three acres of land, 2,700 pounds of soil from erosion, and saves 95,000 gallons of water every year, year after year.  Every American who switches from a typical U.S. diet to a vegan diet reduces his or her consumption of fossil fuels by over 80 percent, cutting his or her carbon emissions by 3,000 pounds annually.  Truly, we cannot go on meating like this!”

☞  I’m eating nothing but artichokes, tomatoes, and blueberries for the next three months. Seriously, Dude: this is huge. We need to take it more seriously.

ASK LESS

Less Antman:  “I’ve changed web sites, and Ask Less is now in blog form.  I’ve been getting virtually no questions for quite a while, since you’ve driven away all the financial traffic with your political tirades [here, Mr. Antman inserts a wry emoticon], so I figured a blog would be more useful.   I’ll still answer questions sent to askless@simplyrich.com, but just do it on the blog.  I’ve started a do-it-yourself personal finance course and am posting new entries at the rate of about one a week.”

AMRN

Guru tells me he got out at $19.  That doesn’t mean it may not still be bought out at $25 or more.  Just that no one ever went broke selling at $18.50 (last night’s close) a stock they bought at $7.10 ten weeks earlier, so I, too, have sold a good chunk of mine.  Thanks, Guru!