Useful News

Summer means several things to me, sitting where I am:

1. Crab season in the greater Chesapeake Bay watershed


2. U-Pick berries, of the blue-, straw-, black-, and rasp- varieties


3. farmers' markets in the cities


4. cold drinks


5. leisure time to explore new restaurants, cook elaborate meals, revel in Nature, etc.


6. Summer news slump, while most pols & news media professionals go on full or semi-vacation, and we're left with News of the Weird and a foreboding feeling that some Serious Shit is going to hit us come late August or early September.

I hope to broach all these topics in coming posts here at Pink Dragonfruit, the Food Blog That Thinks It Can. Today, let me start with the last one.

• Chinese pork buns filled with cardboard and "caustic soda"


• U.S. trades nuclear technology & fuel for Indian mangoes (somewhat old news, but it's starting to bother me that no one seems to have investigated this)


• Sole entrant in baking contest takes second place


• Confirmed: Whole Foods CEO is a shameless dickhead. Like we didn't already know! I was onto this guy three years ago. In fact, I think I might add some kind of Whole Foods Watch component to Pink Dragonfruit. Keep your eye on the WF tag.

I don't know about you, but I'm quite concerned about this whole China food safety thing. I've lately been trying to avoid processed foods, but it's pretty difficult. I don't want to have to make my own snack food, and there are certain products, like ajvar and Tofutti, that I refuse to cross off my shopping list. So when I googled "China food safety," I was intrigued by this site, which is sponsored by the USDA and US Dept. of Commerce, in addition to the expected PRC agencies. According to domainsearch.com, the site is registered by someone at Tsinghua University in Beijing. I'm not sure what all this portends, but I know I'll be paying extra attention to the news out of China come September 12 & 13

Another Food Blog Is Born

Watch this space for archives of cheese reviews, and future postings on tropical fruit. Eventually, this will be the go-to joint for all anglophone, bipedal ominivores. In the meantime, go look at some pictures of Hylocereus undatus.

Pure Luck Chevre

In Austin, and going local, I found Pure Luck Chevre at the Wheatsville Co-op, and thought: hey, it's time I started investigating cheese again!

This is a very, very fresh goat cheese. After months of the decent but uninspirational cheap stuff at Trader Joe's, I'd forgotten what cheese from goats <200 miles away tasted like. I don't know if this is pasteurized or not, but there's a definite milky taste under the usual goat cheese tartness. I got the herb-encrusted kind, and Pure Luck has elected to add some red pepper flakes, along with the expected greenish melange. Because this is Texas, right? If it's not kickin' you back, you're not doing it right.

I recommend serving this on lightly toasted corn tortillas, with a bit of fresh fruit on the side. I had a baby banana (cute & delicious) and some sapote (creamy & slightly bitter) to round out my breakfast. I think melon & figs would've been a better pairing.

Queso Fresco

Breaking Cheese News

Model Accused of Hiring Hit Man to Kill for Cheese

In my fantasy world, all attempted crimes would be like this.

The item in question is queso fresco. HOW DO YOU CONFUSE QUESO FRESCO WITH COCAINE????

Dairyland at a Crossroads; Cook's Thesaurus

Sorry, I've had little to say lately about anything appropriate to this page. The only thing I can offer as enlightenment is this link:

The Cook's Thesaurus. This online, illustrated encyclopedia is truly great. I've found a few omissions and minor errors, but they passed my basic test of whether a food encyclopedia is worth my time: They've got an entry on Armenian cucumbers. That's it; these folks are legit.

Nutella, or Why I Must Continue Foodblogging

It's when I read things like this, that my heart really sings:

"Eulogized in print, in song, and on screen, Nutella is one of those rare products that have transcended their nature as food to enter the collective consciousness."

There's a book out, "Nutella, Un Mito Italiano," that I've gotta get, if it's ever translated into English.

AssWhole Foods, Part 2

I shoulda known this. I mean, it's a huge national chain, caters to the rich and gullible, is just a little *too* clean, if you know what I mean. So yeah, I opened the 1/05 issue of Vanity Fair, and read this, about Whole Foods CEO John Mackey (p. 93):

The founder of Whole Foods Market may be just the man to heal the divide between red and blue America: a Ronald Reagan-loving, Adam Smith-quoting, Wall Street Journal--op-ed-page-reading libertarian who makes his living selling shiny organic apples and allegedly tasty tofu dogs to NPR listeners in places such as Palo Alto, CA; Portland, OR; Madison, WI--and even New York City, that tough town not known for its friendliness to either conservatism or rice milk. Though he insists suppliers practice sustainable agriculture and allow livestock to "fulfill their animal potential," John Mackey otherwise runs his 163-store chain the way any hard-nosed businessman would, buying up competitors, fighting unions, pushing the company this year to the brink of the Fortune 500. But no one will deny the real key to Whole Foods' success: no more musty-yeasty-old-hippies-in-hand-knit-wool-socks-health-food-store stink. Praise the Lord and pass the Kashi!

Ugh. Just: Ugh. I know none of my consumer choices are ethically pure, hell, *I'm* not ethically pure, I know that. But Mr. Mackey and this encomiastic VF write-up happen to hit several of my sore spots: libertarianism, anti-unionism, knee-jerk anti-hippieism, red-state/blue-state stereotyping. Whole Foods is doing the world no favors. And I'm doing myself even fewer favors by dropping $20-30 a week there. No more! The problem is, my only other neighborhood option is Safeway, which is threatening to fuck over its union workers this Xmas season. Well, at least The Safe *has* unions! And hell, it even has a nice little "natural foods" ghetto in its far southeast corner. As you, dear reader, have already surmised, this is about far, far more than expensive cheese.

Much as I enjoy reading VF, I gotta complain: only *I* am entitled to overuse hyphens like that, dammit! Just: Ugh.

AssWhole Foods

Time for an update. First: I'm in DC. Second: I'm off the nachos. Second sub-A: I'm getting vegan-er by the day. Second sub-B: But as far as this blog goes, I'm back on the cheese. Third: I'm really hungry right now, so I'm gonna make this quick.

I live in an extremely "gentrified" neighborhood, which as far our story is concerned, means that the closest grocery store to me is a Whole Foods. Whole Foods is one of those gourmet, granola-for-rich-people places that evokes snide, Marxist thoughts in me, while I make my purchases alongside the very bourgeoisie and nobility that I am snidely, marxistly thinking about. This in turn produces a poisonous black hole of mixed emotions & muddy ideas from which I only escape burdened with a sackful of EdenFoods products, readymade sushi, and sundry other non-necessities. One section of WF that has not tarnished, jaded, bitten, or scared me in any way, however, is the cheese department.

How, you ask, can I be unharmed by perusing the WF cheese section? After all, it's the most extravagant & outrageously priced section in the whole g.d. store! The truth is, I am released from the afflictions and internal class warfare that lie latent in the WF cheese department by virtue of its one saving grace: the free sample platters. Oh yes.

The WF cheese samples are cut into very generous cubes, piled high, and hygenically enclosed in a clear plastic bell lid, with a little window for picking. They provide free toothpicks. Morning or evening, they never run out. It is a cheese taster's dream--with one exception. They NEVER change the cheeses being sampled. It's the same quintet, every time I go: French gouda, gruyere, goat gouda, Canadian cheddar, parrano. Every time, like stations at a science fair, only with more religious automation, I go: gouda, gruyere, goat gouda, cheddar, parrano. Of course, I destroy my cheese taster's cred by not remembering anything about these cheeses--I can't remember which one has the creamier flavor, which one's crunchier with a nutty taste--just their holy procession: gouda, gruyere, goat gouda, cheddar, parrano. A cube of each, as I make my rounds, trying to decide if I *really* need some turbinado sugar, or artisan bread, or Soy Delicious (the answer, usually, is "yes"). Don't tell any WF managers, but sometimes I take more than one cube. It's hard work being appalled at inflated prices and shelves dripping with yuppie self-righteousness, so I need the calories!

OK, so why don't the cheeses, and they're expensive and extravagant, piss me off, while the rest of the store does? I'll tell you: I'VE NEVER BOUGHT CHEESE THERE!! You see? You see the beauty of it? I've helped myself to what must be approaching a running total of 1/4 lb. or so of free cheese, and I've never bought an ounce! This probably smacks of hypocrisy, theft, and the kind of assholery I claim to despise, and that's probably accurate. Rest assured that the real winner of this game is still WF, not me, since I still spend too much there, and I haven't reconciled my conflicting philosophies in this matter--but leave me the satisfaction, false though it may be, that I'm getting something for nothing. Let me ogle the beautiful cheeses at WF, never to purchase one, somehow placated by the absurd, toothpick-strewn merry-go-round of gouda, gruyere, goat gouda, cheddar, parrano.

Guest review: pickled jalapenos

You may remember this week's guest nacho reviewer from her previous opus on cotija cheese. Friends and family, I introduce to you once again Ms. Mo:

I have been wanting to contribute to the Nacho diary, but haven’t because, truth be told, I never order nachos in restaurants. There are numerous reasons for this. First, I live in Texas, where Tex-Mex rules the plate. It is true that things are big in Texas, and that adage applies heavily to Mexican restaurant servings ‘round these parts. Knowing that a five pound platter of beans, meat, cheese, and sauce are on their way to my belly, I know better than to order an appetizer on top of that, lest I leave the restaurant with a fat tummy and diarrhea an hour later. Second, when an appetizer is in order (i.e. not at fucking Chuy’s, home of the enormous plate of calorie-laden heaven), I opt for that of the deep-fried potato oeuvre. But mostly, it is because nachos, whether procured from a classic Mexican-American lard pit or your neighborhood sports bar, unfailingly feature a large quantity of those slimy, fart-flavored pickled jalapenos.

The jalapeno is a glorious pepper, not to be cheapened and tossed around like a butter pickle on a third-rate burger. Anyone who has access to these gems and who has used them to make homemade salsa knows that a fresh, hotter-than-hell jalapeno creates flavor magic that makes comida Mexicana get up and polka. The mass-produced, canned jalapeno, omnipresent on all things called “Nacho,” frankly reminds me of high school football stadiums. For one dollar, you can feed your face with salty, perhaps stale, tortilla chips (fried in one of the “evil oils” like cottonseed or palm oil), a microwaved dollop of canned “nacho cheese” (insert racist joke here) and a latex-gloved handful of those green booger-hued monsters, dripping with their own foul brine. All served gloriously in one of those paper “boats.” Oh, we’ve all seen this artery-busting monstrosity. It smells like the driver’s seat cushion of your fat uncle’s Buick, and yet you accept this as nachos! Disgusting!

Another great nacho violation is the flagrant price-gouging surrounding guacamole. Most places tack on an extra two or three bucks for the stuff, which may or may not come from real avocados. Most likely, it is frozen “Cal-Avo” green avocado whip, which is thin and filled with unholy preservatives and salt. Any moron with a DSL connection can do a Google search on “wholesale avocado prices” and know that the few tablespoons of green goo add up to nothing but a vehicle for greed and profiteering. Guacamole is not alloy wheels or an automatic sunroof: it should not be a pricey option for the nacho consumer! Guacamole should come standard and not be used as a pawn to eke a few extra bucks from your wallet.

So until sw can find me a plate of nachos made with the freshest chips, the most flavorful real jalapenos, and heaping spoonfuls of real, chunky guacamole, I am afraid I will have to play Waldorf and/or Statler to the very idea of nacho consumption. I feel that nachos can be done better at home, with a bag of Tostitos Gold, some real ingredients, and the absence of tacky faux-Latin knickknacks and/or beer-swilling sports fans looking for pussy. Just sayin’.

Editorial disclaimer: The above opinions regarding jalapenos do not reflect the beliefs of the creator of this website. I'm with her on the guacamole price-gouging, however.

How Not to Celebrate Bloomsday: Big Time Brewery, Deluxe Nachos

June 16, 2004: The hundredth anniversary of the day Mr. Leopold Bloom fictionally walked around Dublin, thinking about his unfaithful wife, occasionally crossing paths with young Stephen Dedalus, all the while carrying a bar of lemon soap in his pocket. Every year since god-knows-when, James Joyce aficionados have enthusiastically celebrated this day with re-enactments, public readings of Ulysses, or just trips to the bar for pints of Guinness. For the big 100, my father and I thought we ought to at least do that last one, since we both had to work, and we really aren’t quite nerdy enough for dressing up as Leo and Molly, or Buck Mulligan and Mrs. Grogan, so Dad suggested we meet up at the Big Time Brewery at 5pm, the hour of the Cyclops episode. Unfortunately, he hadn’t done his homework, and it turns out the Big Time, far from being an Irish-style pub, is in fact an independent microbrewery, exclusively serving its own ales, porters, and lagers. We had the option of going uphill a block, to Finn MacCool’s, the local “Irish” pub (note the quote marks), but we simply could not face trying to read Ulysses amongst rowdy frat boys and other genera of doofuses. So we made do with our ersatz Harp’s and our ersatz Guinness, and since there were no kidneys or mutton joints or plums, and the whole Bloomsday celebration was ruined anyway, we ordered nachos.

I can endorse the Big Time’s beers, if you’re visiting Seattle and want to sample the local brews, as many tourists are wont to do. The porter is nice and malty without being too sweet, the ale properly dry and hoppy. But, friends, do not order nachos here. First: the chips were stale and too salty. Second: the cheese, that suspicious colby/jack blend one finds cheap at supermarkets, was insufficiently melted, and rather rubbery. Third: way too many jalapenos. Fourth and finally: the salsa was of a particular type that I have only encountered here in Seattle. I cannot identify it for certain, but it had the overly cilantro-y, stewed tomato-y, hippie-grub reek akin to the San Juan or Essential Foods brands that infect the local health food co-ops. It is the sort of salsa one might find in a Deadhead mess hall caravan, alongside whole wheat seitan pita pockets and hemp-carob spelt bars. It is so far removed from Mexican culinary discourse as to be frankly insulting, even to this Northern, pasty gringa reviewer.

If you find yourself in the University District of Seattle, WA, and are in need of a hot, tasty plate of nachos, do yourself a favor and pass by the Big Time. Wander, instead, toward the HUB, or just keep moving.

This review is dedicated to Monique, who has the cultural experience and vocabulary to have done a better job than I have in describing just how awful these nachos were.