Is the Serving Size Game Coming to an End?

As anybody who has ever read the side of a box of Corn Flakes knows, you’re about as likely to eat just one serving of cereal as you are to eat breakfast on the moon. According to the New York Times, the FDA is finally considering forcing food makers to get real about the serving sizes listed on food packaging.

While the change would not make junk food any healthier, it might help consumers realize that those potato chips are even worse for them than they may have thought. The current standard serving size for snack chips is one ounce, which works out to about 150 calories. Depending on which brand you’re eating, that 150-calorie serving could be as few as six chips. I doubt many of us have ever opened a bag of Tostitos and stopped after six chips (unless it was those bland baked ones).

I’m not convinced that this labeling change will make much of a dent in America’s obesity epidemic – after all, those who are filling up their shopping carts in the snack food aisle on a regular basis probably aren’t too concerned about serving sizes -- but the move certainly can’t hurt.

Read the entire article here.

Food Entrepreneurs: Académie: Quality Wines for Cooking

I love cooking with wine. It adds such great flavor for dishes and gives me an excuse to drink wine with dinner (but who needs an excuse, really?) Usually when Mr. AT and I are cooking with wine, we just use a bit of what we plan to drink that night. But what about when the recipe calls for something you don't plan to serve or for so much of a bottle that you hate to waste your good wine?

Académie has the answer. Based out of Concordia, CA, they produce wine made specifically with cooking in mind, but unlike the swill that passes for cooking wine, this wine is good enough to drink. An FYI in case you didn't know, cooking wine is usually loaded with salt, making it undrinkable. Why would you ever cook with something not good enough to drink?

According to their website Académie 's mission is to remove the barriers that prevent people from cooking with quality wine. We aim to produce a fun, innovative, cost effective, and conveniently sized brand of wines to your supermarket shelf.

Blend #1: Red Sauces & Meat Dishes, 375ml (Red Wine) - $7.99

This dry red wine blend will add depth and complexity to your red sauce or meat dish. Expect hints of black olive, truffle, ripe cherry and French Oak.

Blend #2: Seafood, Poultry & Pork, 375ml (White Wine) - $7.99
This dry white wine blend will add a citrusy brightness to your white meat or seafood dishes. Expect hints of white pineapple, lemon, and grapefruit.

Blend #3: Beef & Poultry Marinades, 375ml (Red Wine) - $7.99
This dry red wine blend will enhance the savory and spice components of your beef and poultry marinades. Expect hints of strawberry, raspberry, redcurrant, and spice.

Blend #4: Game Bird, Fish & Lamb, 375ml (White Wine) - $7.99
This dry white wine blend will add a refined sweetness and soft fruit character to your white meat and fish dishes. Expect hints of white peach and candied pear. This wine goes great in desserts as well!

You can buy it on their website or if you're in their neck of the woods at select retailers. Their site is also loaded with recipes that use their wines. I'm currently on the lookout for a good, hearty and simply pasta dish I can serve up on my birthday, so the one below caught my eye. I don't think this is what I'll be making but it's nice to see what you can do with their products.

PASTA IMPROV

We've all heard that there's no such thing as a free lunch, but there IS a delicious and easy pasta dish that can be improvised with whatever you happen to have on hand! This example, below, was put together in just 10 minutes -- the time that it takes to boil the pasta -- on a lazy Sunday afternoon. It's a hearty weekend lunch for two that's wonderful served with olives and fresh mozzarella on the side. Add a green salad if you're feeling extra ambitious!

INGREDIENTS:

2 chicken (or other) sausages, sliced into rounds (or the shape of your choice)

5-6 small to medium mushrooms, sliced

1/4 - 1/2 small onion, sliced

4-5 small roma or other flavorful tomatoes, sliced or quartered

A healthy splash of ACADÉMIE Blend #1

3-4 fresh basil leaves, chopped

A small handful of parsley, chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

A hard cheese such as Pecorino to grate over the top

Olive oil to drizzle over the top

Red pepper flakes, optional

Enough pasta for 2 (use whatever is in your cupboard; I had farfalle)

Buy the wine for this recipe by clicking here

DIRECTIONS:

Put on a pot of water to boil for the pasta. After that's on, heat up a sautee pan (cast iron is always a good choice) and put in a pat of butter or a splash of olive oil. Sautee the sausage with mushrooms and onions until browned. Check the pasta water -- if boiling, put your pasta in the pot -- it will need to cook about 7-10 minutes, depending on the pasta. Toss the tomatoes, herbs, salt and pepper, and a big splash of Blend #1 into the sautee pan with your sausage and cook on medium for another minute or two. Turn off the heat and check your pasta. When it's al dente, drain and put into a serving dish, then top with the sausage, mushroom, onion melange. Garnish with a drizzle of olive oil, grated cheese and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes.

TIME:

20 minutes

YIELD:

Serves 2

SOURCE:

ACADÉMIE Kitchen Creations

Restaurant Review: Honey Pig

I've been meaning to try out one of Gwinnett's many Korean BBQ joints for ages, but something always keeps us from making the trek. That finally changed this week when my darling hubby found the best deal on a our new Blu-ray at the Gwinnett Place Fry's. Perfect excuse for dinner at a far flung location, right?

So Honey Pig on Monday night it was. I always envisioned this place being a total hole in the wall Asian joint, a la Buford Highway. Turns out I was way off base. The space is open and industrial in a trendy, could find this in the hippest intown neighborhoods kind of way. It definitely has a stylish interior that would make it appropriate for special occasion dining, like a fun Korean style birthday bash.

Mr. AT and I were pretty clueless about how things work at a Korean BBQ, but our gracious waiter told us to just relax and eat and he'd guide us. We picked the namesake Honey Pig (pork belly) and bulgogi (marinated beef). I had read that some people find Korean food expensive because you in fact need more than 2 meat portions per person, but in our case, this was more than enough food, and in fact we couldn't even finish it all.


Once you've chosen your meat, your work is done. The waiter places some of the raw meat on the grill in front of you as well as bean sprouts and kimchee. You also get a variety of accoutrement - soybean and chili paste, raw garlic, cold kimchee soup, and scallion salad as well as rice cake sheets, daikon sheets, and lettuce leaves for making little Korean tacos. If you're going to try a new cuisine, it's a pretty sweet deal to just have to make one simple choice (the meat) and get everything else just served up with it! The meat grills, and then the rest is up to you. Take things off and make up little wraps when you're ready.

Of course with all that cooking for yourself, you get awfully smelly, so definitely don't go wearing your dry clean only clothes! Much like the trips to Benihana I so loved as a child, this kind of interactive cooking is a lot of fun. I enjoyed my little self-made Korean tacos, but some combinations were better than others. I found the honey pig a little blander than I'd have liked, but add on enough soybean paste, sesame oil and kimchee, and those little piggies were more much more compelling. For me the tender little slices of bulgogi actually the stars of the show as they packed more flavor punch on their own.

Ultimately Honey Pig for me was much more about the experience as a whole, rather than any specific dish knocking my socks off. It's a greasy, smoky, very fun mess and totally the kind of place I'll head back with friends. And for $50 we got more food than we could eat and two glasses of wine (which goes surprisingly well with honey pig and kimchee!), so in my book it was a pretty darn good deal, too!

Pros: Unexpectedly hip decor, helpful staff, fun experience, tasty bulgogi and plentiful food
Cons: You will stink when you leave, very hands on so not for those afraid to get their hands dirty!

Honey Pig
3473 Old Norcross Road
Duluth, GA 30096
(770) 476-9292

Extreme Foods

I came upon this article below today from Lonely Planet in which they list 10 extreme foods, i.e. foods that sound pretty darn disgusting to your average Americans. It got me to thinking, what are the weirdest/grossest things I've ever consumed?

1. A bucket of milky white "beer" in Swaziland - It was a hot day hiking through remote villages in Swaziland. Our guide promised us a cold beer at the end of the hike at a local shebeen (an unlicensed bar common in Southern Africa). I'm not sure what I expected since there was no electricity as far as the eye could see, but somehow I envisioned a friendly clean bar, a sort of African Cheers if you will, serving up cold brews. Turns out the shebeen was a dingy hut in a tiny village, more like a storage shed than any bar you'd imagine. And the beer? It was homemade, served up in a dirty bucket and passed around for everyone to share. It was opaque and smelled vaguely of beer, and I must admit I was turned off that the guy who had a TB-like cough had first dibs. Not wanting to offend, I tried a sip, but that's all I was able to stomach.
2. Rocky Mountain Oysters Soviet Georgia style - Technically I didn't actually eat these, but I'll never forget being a little girl on my first big trip. Our hosts on the Georgia to Georgia exchange (locals, remember that, circa early 90s?) took us out to the countryside outside of Tbilisi, and we sat around a large farmhouse table that would charm me were I to visit today. But at 12, I was dubious of any food that I couldn't immediately identify. Imagine my surprise when they passed around a tray of pig balls. No thanks, not then, not ever. My adventurous nature only extends so far.
3. Pig Head - Soviet Georgia dining strikes again. I told my hostess that I liked pigs. Oddly enough, at 12 I meant I like the animal. They were a personal favorite in some odd precursor to my current pork affinity. She took that to mean she should serve up an actual pig head at dinner. Yikes.
4. Crocodile, springbok, kudu...I love me some wild game. To some odd, but to me these meats without fail taste either like fish, chicken, beef or venison. In this case, it's fish, venison, beef. Kudu was my personal fave, served up oh so yummy at the game reserve in South Africa.
5. Uncooked hot dogs and dog bones- for reasons unknown to me, I used to like to eat raw, cold hot dogs fresh out of the fridge and from what I hear I also ate the odd dog bone. I was a small child, don't ask me!

Any weird foods you've tried?

Extreme cuisine: top 10 ‘exotic’ tastes
From Lonely Planet

January 28. 2010

Witchetty grub: Australia
These chubby grubs have been a vital staple food for indigenous Australians for thousands of years. They grow to be about 7cm long and you can find them across central Australia in the root of the witchetty bush or gum tree, where they gorge on sap before metamorphosing into a moth – assuming you haven’t eaten it first. So what does it taste like? Imagine biting into a small water balloon. The juices spread around your mouth like a swig of red wine, but the flavour is the essence of egg…or is it chicken?

Testicle: Afghanistan
Edible testicles come in all sizes – bull testicles (also called Rocky Mountain oysters) are larger, rooster testicles (’rooster fries’) are smaller. The Chinese like rooster fries in a hot pot, Afghans skewer sheep fries and grill them as kebabs, and there’s a whole festival dedicated to bulls’ balls in Texas. To prepare them, just slice the testicle (your eyes may water in sympathy), peel off the membrane and sautee with lemon and sumac for a soft, spongy result.

Stingray: Iceland
This relative of the shark is equipped with a venomous barbed stinger at the end of its whip-like tail. The meatiest part of the stingray is the fins; Icelanders like their stingray rotten and fermented, while it’s more popular fresh , spicy or barbecued in Malaysia and Singapore. Stingray meat is flaky yet dense and chewy and tastes like a mix of fish and lobster.

Sea cucumber: China
Okay, so it’s not an actual cucumber, it’s a sausage-shaped sea creature that you’ll find in almost every Chinese seafood restaurant. You’ll find the dried versions in markets and Chinese medicine shops. Rehydrate the dried ones in water for 12 hours, then braise it for two hours and serve it with vegetables. The flavour itself is pretty bland and the texture is slimy with a capital S so don’t even bother with the chopsticks.

Scorpion: Thailand
Seems insane to willingly eat something that could send you into a mess of convulsions, but a lot of Asian countries like to look on the bright side, seeing scorpions as a good source of protein rather than a good source of, well, death. In Beijing you can get them on skewers, in Thailand they’re fried or soaked in whisky. So what do they taste like? Well, a little like popcorn, with crispy outsides and light and airy insides as the organs are evaporated by cooking.

Pig face: China
Hole-in-the-wall Chinese barbecue restaurants display their wares of pork and duck in the window, hanging from hooks without disguise or apology. Pig face is just that. Snap off the ear and eat it like a thick, chewy, greasy potato chip. Offer the eyeball to someone special. Eat the tender part of the cheek. Try not to think about if the shoe was on the other hoof…

Guinea pig: Peru
Most people know them as cute, squeaking little cartoon creatures, but in Peru, most homes have a few dozen guinea pigs (called cuy in Spanish) scampering in the backyard until they are barbecue-bound. When roasted they look like rat but taste like rabbit and the younger the cuy, the crispier the skin.

Grasshopper: Mexico
Forget peanuts or popcorn with a cold beer – in Oaxaca, Mexico it’s all about chapulines (grasshoppers). Oaxacan restaurants will throw together tacos or guacamole with grasshopper as the main ingredient. The younger grasshoppers are preferred because of their tender texture and lack of wings. They are boiled, washed and then dry fried with lime, salt and chilli. They’re light and crispy with a grassy, earthy flavour.

Fugu: Japan
A pinhead’s worth of the toxin in fugu (puffer fish) can kill 30 people. The poisonous parts of the fugu need to expertly removed by a licensed fugu chef. Fugu flesh is sliced tissue thin, so thin that the ornate design on the platter shows though when it’s plated, but the taste? Well, it’s virtually flavourless. But at least you’re still alive. It’s a bit of a rollercoaster.

Chicha: Latin America
This fermented drink is traditionally made of corn, cassava or fruit, chewed and moistened by Inca women. The key ingredient must have its starches broken down and converted to sugar. Some chicha utilise human spittle as a catalyst. Others just boil the ingredients then ferment them after cooling. Flavours vary depending on whether it’s fermented or fresh, not to mention the source of the spit, but it’s generally sweet.

Has your stomach turned at the sight of the more ‘exotic’ foods of the world? Let’s hear all about it.

Restaurant Review: Bocado

Lately I've been feeling a bit blase about Atlanta dining. I just haven't gotten excited about much I've eaten. Fortunately that's not the case at all for Bocado on Atlanta's ever-developing westside. Lunchtime at my office often sends me into fits of dismay and indifference. I simply can't get enthused about the very few restaurants in walking distance, and getting in a car seems like a hassle when everyone just eats at their desk any way. (Sidebar, but whatever happened to fun lunches with your office mates? I used to have that at Bain many years ago, and now I haven't seen people leave their desks in years!)

Fortunately, Bocado is just a short drive away, and I've popped over for lunch a couple of times with little sister and Mr. AT. Their menu is short but manages to pack a whollop. It's the rare menu where nearly everything sounds delicious. Last night I returned again, this time for my brother-in-law's birthday dinner. The menu was largely the same for dinner - heavy on hot sandwiches, with the addition of some creative cocktails.

Everything sounds so good, so the last couple of times I went, we chose 2 entrees and split them both. The hamburger is divine - simply prepared with American cheese and housemade pickles. The beef is juicy and full of flavor and small enough that you can feel sated but not stuffed. On previous visits the garlic herbed fries with ranch were equally heavenly, but last night they seemed to lack salt, a pretty major fry necessity. On a previous visit the roasted poblano & pimento cheese sandwich with bacon, fried green tomato and spicy sauce was a messy, decadent success and the grilled ham and cheese is taken from ordinary to sublime with Dijon sauce, caramelized onions and apples. Seriously, yum, yum and yum.

Other than the fries last night, my only other complaint is that the appetizers were a bit skimpy. Our local berkshire prosciutto appetizer was rather stingy with the pork, making it mostly bread and arugla. The crab fritters were a toothsome combination of crab, apple salad, chiles and apple salad but were a bit on the small side for $14. But these complaints are small - you can get away with some missteps when your entrees are so damned delicious and well-priced.

Much like everything in the burgeoning neighborhood, the restaurant's vibe is industrial and hip. Perfect for lunch for all the surrounding design and creative agencies.

I'm thrilled that Bocado has so impressed me thus far. It's finally a new place I can get excited about, and it's a perfect escape from Spoon/Thumb's Up Diner overload.

Pros:
Creative, compelling menu that is as delicious as it sounds
Stylish interior
Reasonable prices

Cons:
Appetizers not as strong as entrees

887 Howell Mill Road
Atlanta, GA 30318
Phone: 404.815.1399

*Photo credit: Heidi Geldhauser, courtesy of Bocado