Review: Fire Cider Herbal Tonic

Fire Cider is a sort of traditional herbal folk remedy. If you listen to herbal medicine enthusiasts, you'll come away thinking that a daily dose of the stuff will turn you into superman.  A quick Google search will reveal a bunch of recipes for whipping up a batch or two...or, if you live close to the hill towns of Western Massachusetts, you can get it from Shire City Herbals in Pittsfield.  The bottle pictured at right is from Shire City. I bought it at The Big E from a pleasant young man who had set up shop on a rainy Thursday night right outside the Massachusetts Building at the fair.

He was offering small samples of Fire Cider in little plastic cups. I sniffed at it tentatively and it seemed safe enough, so I tossed it back like a boss.

It was an experience.

You see, Fire Cider is based on organic apple cider vinegar, in which various aromatic and allegedly medicinal herbs have been steeped. Like horseradish, garlic, and hot peppers.  Shire City also adds honey, which helps take the sharpest edges off of the vinegar.

Anyway, that little shot kicked me in the face, but at the same time I kind of liked it. I have an affinity for strong flavors, but I also could recognize that this stuff has potential for kitchen use as well (more on that later.) I bought two bottles.

As a medicine or a tonic or a panacea, I'm undecided. I'll be honest, I don't put a whole lot of belief in many herbal remedies. It's not that I don't think any of them work - I know that a lot of them do - it's just that I'm really leery of the almost fanatical enthusiasm that true devotees often display, especially on line. It reminds me of Frank Zappa's Cosmik Debris

The mystery man got nervous
And he fidget around a bit
He reached in the pocket of his mystery robe
And he whipped out a shaving kit
Now I thought it was a razor
And a can of foaming goo
But he told me right then when the top popped open
There was nothin’ his box won’t do
With the oil of aphrodite,
and the dust of the grand wazoo
He said you might not believe this, little fella
But it’ll cure your asthma too

I will say one thing about the possible medicinal properties of Fire Cider: I had a nasty sore throat and took a shot of the stuff, and it totally kicked that sore throat's ass, like a good folk remedy should - just like the common lemon-and-honey home remedy I'm sure everybody's heard about.

But not surprisingly, I'm more impressed with the culinary uses I've found for Fire Cider.

It makes a great basis for a barbecue mop. Very tasty, especially with the horseradish and ginger in there.

A jigger of Fire Cider in a vinaigrette salad dressing really kicks it up a couple of notches.

It's really good in cole slaw dressing - just a splash really wakes it up.

I've only started experimenting with Fire Cider, and I expect I'm going to find a bunch of other ways to use it. I doubt I'm going to toss back a shot of it every day as a preventative tonic, but you never know. I'm open-minded enough about it that when flu season starts up in earnest, I might just start tossing down a daily dose.

Link:

Shire City Herbals' website is www.firecider.com

My New Tenant Is A Mud Dauber Wasp

Lynnafred went out the back door this afternoon to let the dogs out and got bumped in the forehead by a mud dauber wasp which was building her nest on the lintel above the back door to the mud room off the kitchen.

Although Lynnafred was startled, she wasn't stung. The wasp corrected course and went out the exterior door on whatever waspy business she had, while Lynnafred sat on the back steps and supervised the dogs.

She called me at work to ask if we had any wasp spray, but we don't, so I just advised her to keep clear of the nest if she could and I'd take care of it when I got home.

I did some research about mud dauber wasps in the meantime, though, and now I'm not sure I'm going to do any killin'.

Mud daubers are fairly docile - at least as docile as European honeybees - and they do not become aggressive in defense of their nests. They might clumsily fly into a human if one happens to cross their flight path, but they very rarely sting, preferring to back up and change their course to fly off in another direction.

They are voracious insect predators, and they especially love to capture spiders, which they stuff into their nests as a living food bank for their eggs.

After a quick family discussion over dinner, we decided to live and let live with the wasp, at least for the time being. You see, the nest is in the mud room. Not actually in the house, but still on the wrong side of a door for reliable outdoor access. I'm not sure our new tenant will be totally okay with being trapped in the mud room a lot of the time.

On the other hand, if we close the exterior door while the wasp is out hunting, it will have no problem seeking somewhere else to live. Mud daubers, if denied access to their nest, don't get pissed off and stabby about it. They just go somewhere else and start over again.

Sniff Test: MAN CANDLES by Yankee Candles

Two days ago, the news broke that Yankee Candles had begun marketing a line of candles to men, imaginatively called "Man Candles."

Lynnafred and I were heading up to Greenfield, and Yankee Candle's home store in Deerfield MA happens to be right off of I-91 on our way, so we decided to stop in and see what these Man Candles were all about.

Yankee Candles in Deerfield is a "destination store," as well as a popular stopping point for vacationers traveling north to Vermont, so it's usually packed. We were lucky on this early Friday morning to find few customers.

Not many customers. Tons of candles, though.

The place is a maze of showrooms. We wandered around for a while before finally giving up and asking a very friendly sales associate for help.  On the way to the store, Lynnafred and I were joking about the Man Candles, calling them "Mandels." So of course, when I inquired about them, I asked the sales associate where we could find the "Mandels...uh, sorry, I mean the Man Candles." She took it in stride, though, and just laughed and pointed the way.

We would never have found it without her help. Yankee Candles has about a billion square feet of retail space here, with multiple duplicate displays scattered here and there grouped by theme. But the Man Candle display is this small, 4-foot by 4-foot cluster in one of the side rooms. It really was rather underwhelming. Since just about every other scent in the store was represented by sixteen thousand candles each and the Man Candles were lucky to show a couple dozen in the frontages, we guessed that Yankee is gingerly dipping their toe into the testosterone pool here.

The sales associate (whom I am going to call "Helen" from now on to protect her identity) offered us whiffs of each of the candles, along with some surprisingly frank personal assessments of each one, before leaving us to our own devices.  Here's what we thought of the new Man Candles:

Man Town

Yankee Candles' Catalog Says: Escape to the man cave with this masculine blend of spices, woods, and musk.

Helen Says: "It reminds me of the cologne a stationery salesman would wear."

Our Impression:  Lynnafred and I took a snort of the fragrance, looked at each other, and said - both at the same time - "It smells just like Axe!"  before breaking out in laughter. I don't know what we expected, though I imagine a place called "Man Town" would smell more like old pizza boxes, sweat socks, stale beer, and crotch.

Riding Mower

Yankee Candles' Catalog Says: Hot sun. Cool breeze. And the intensely summery scent of freshly cut grass.

Helen Says: "This is one of my favorites."

Our Impression: Very grassy aroma, but more like a freshly cut field than a suburban lawn. The smell I experience from freshly cut grass has fruity, almost watermelon-like notes to it.

Wandering the store, we found another fragrance YK calls "Green Grass" with the description, "Nothing says summer like the familiar heady scent of a freshly cut lawn." The only difference between Riding Mower and Green Grass, besides the name and arguably more masculine label design on the Man Candle, was a touch of perfuminess in Green Grass.

First Down

Yankee Candles' Catalog Says: Game on! This combination of orange, patchouli, vetiver, and leather is as exciting as game day.

Helen Says: "It smells like leather and sweat."

Our Impression: Leather, yes, but not just any leather. First Down really does evoke the smell of a well-used, well-oiled football. Unfortunately, the rest of the fragrances combine to smell like an electrical fire.

Also, patchouli's association with hippies totally disqualifies it as a men's fragrance.

 2 x 4

Yankee Candles' Catalog Says: The warm, unmistakable scent of freshly planed wood and sawdust evokes a sense of confidence and quality.

Helen Says: "This one really needs tweaking. It doesn't smell like sawdust at all."

Our Impression:  2 x 4s are usually pine or spruce, and so the sawdust that results from framing a shed or building a workbench generally smells woody, a bit resinous, and a little like freshly grated nutmeg. The smell of genuine sawdust and shavings is one of my favorite things. And Helen is right - these candles don't even come close. There is a strong woodiness to the scent, but it's an "old barn" smell, not "freshly planed wood."

If I were going to buy any of these candles, it would probably be "Riding Mower." It has the most authentic of the aromas. Even at that, I don't think I like it enough to spend thirty bucks on it. I'll just go outside and cut the lawn.

If You Can't Drink Milk Without Discomfort...

...You might be "lack toast and tolerant."  Really.

I Want Me Some Crapes. Or Maybe A Tortia.

What is it about Twitter that makes people so eager to display 140 characters of illiteracy?  Here are a few more examples of hilariously misspelled food items:

I had no idea that so many people called jalapeno peppers "Japalenos:"

And Crapes (aka "crepes") seem to be pretty popular for breakfast among Twitizens:

I guess I can almost forgive misspelling "bruschetta" as "brushetta":

But really, people.  Spelling "tortilla" as "tortia?"  Seriously?

Wait - What The Hell Is "Flaming Young?"

Misspellings are interesting, especially when an unusual misspelling seems to become the default way people mangle a word or phrase. Twitter is a great place to collect hilarious misspellings - not only because its fast pace helps phrases and memes spread quickly, but also because there are a lot of people using Twitter who quite frankly can't spell worth shit.

Check out a few of my favorites:

Grill Cheese (Grilled Cheese):

Flaming Young (Filet Mignon):

Cup of Chino (Cappuccino):

General Toes Chicken (General Tso's Chicken):

Or, if you prefer, General Toast Chicken:

Maybe you're not in the mood for Chinese. You might prefer Mexican...how about a Casadia (Quesadilla):

And of course, there's the old favorite that no one seems to be able to spell without looking it up, Horderves (hors d'oeuvres):

Amazing Tupperware

Tupperware changed my life by giving my leftovers a safe, airtight place to breed in the back of the refrigerator.

Charmin Confuses Me

You know, when I was a kid, my mother never inspected my ass when I was done taking a dump. I'm pretty sure that none of my friends' mothers ever did it to them, either.

Years later, as parents ourselves, it never even occurred to us to do a butt inspection after our child's every bowel movement. In fact, I bet that anyone who so much as suggested it (let alone confessed to doing it) would have been mercilessly mocked.

And that's what I find so baffling about these Charmin ads emphasizing how spotless and toilet-paper free a kid's browneye region will be if only you choose Charmin for your bumwad. At whom are they aiming these commercials? Is there actually a demographic out there consisting of parents who not only insist on flawlessly-polished rumps, but force their children to submit to an inspection to prove it? And if there is, could it possibly be so large that they found it necessary to market directly to them?

Also:  Yeah, Charmin, we get it.  Bears shit in the woods.  Ha ha ha, you're killin' us with your edgy humor. Give it a break.

PEE Jays?

Every year, Maryanne and I order a box of oranges from one of the local high schools during their annual fund raiser. This year, the fruit came from a fundraising place in New Jersey instead of directly from Florida:

That's a legit company, and the oranges are okay, and I'm sure the rest of the stuff they sell is okay too. But I still have to wonder what kind of horrible childhood someone has to have to get the nickname "Pee Jay" instead of, say, the more neutral "PJ."  Also I laugh, because I'm an immature bastard.

Why, Hello There!

Have you ever had a migraine headache?  They can be pretty nasty - they might knock you out of service for a whole day...or two...or sometimes, for some people, a week.

My head has been in almost constant pain for about two months now. 

Last month was the worst. I couldn't look at a monitor for more than a couple of minutes at a time. I couldn't talk on the phone. And worst of all, I couldn't concentrate on anything. I spent a huge amount of time on my back, hiding from the light, with a heating pad wrapped around my head. And the pain isn't just inside my head, it's in my scalp and face too. 

My doctor and my neurologist are both working to figure out what is going on. I've had CT scans, MRIs, and ongoing bloodwork to see if we can track down what is causing this. So far, we've ruled out the really scary shit like tumors, embolisms, or arterial blockage, and now we're testing for less-scary shit like Lyme disease and such.

So between that and Lynnafred being out of commission, posts to the blog have been more or less on hiatus. She's feeling somewhat better, though, and my own pain is starting to get to the point where I can get some work done again, so you can look forward to a bunch of posts in the coming days. We both have a big backlog of stuff to review and a couple recipes to share, and I'm really eager to get back online again. I think if I take advantage of the periods where the pain is manageable I can get some stuff posted and/or scheduled, and give you guys some new stuff to read.

Finally, I'd like to thank all of you who sent emails of concern during the hiatus. I'm going to try to answer all of you in the next day or so.  I deeply appreciate your messages, and the get well wishes you guys wrote in the comments to Lynnafred's post.  And I'm sorry that I couldn't get past the pain or work up the concentration to reply to them before now.

All of you are awesome.  Thanks!

We're not dead yet.

But we might as well be, for all intents and purposes. Awhile back, I mentioned that Dave was feeling sick and wasn't really in the blogging spirit. He's still not feeling well, which is half the reason that there's no updates to be had. The other half is, obviously, me. I've just gotten over a horrible bout of flu and general feel-shittery, and am just starting to get back into the normal swing of things, not to mention normal eating habits. So, now, I'll be taking the helm again and posting the things that Dave dictates, as well as whatever odd food that I can find. (Fun fact: I have bacon jerky to write about, so stay tuned.)

We're Back! (Mostly)

The power outage has been a pretty busy time for us. Not to worry, we have power back, and now that we're more or less settled back into normalcy, posts can start to be expected again. But Dave's been feeling a little under the weather and hasn't really had his mind on blogging, so until he's feeling better, you can expect to see a lot more posts from me than usual. I'll try to stay fairly constant with posts. Besides, there's a lot that needs talking about. So I hope you'll bear with me until Dave starts to get his blogging face back.

Shunga Mugs at Dong's

 

You never know what you'll find at A. Dong Supermarket in West Hartford.  Like these Shunga mugs.

Best Fireworks Label Ever

I don't want to piss on your parade, but don't you think you could have come up with a better name for these fireworks?

Helping Victims of the Springfield MA Tornado

You may have heard of the tornadoes which hit my area earlier this week.  The towns of West Springfield, Springfield, East Longmeadow, and Monson all experienced some damage, with many buildings - homes, schools, and businesses, damaged or destroyed.  While the damage doesn't come close to the extent of what happened in Joplin, MO, there are several neighborhoods here which were obliterated.

Although my own hometown of Enfield CT, a few miles to the south, was untouched by the storms, my family has been personally affected, and that is the reason for this post.

One of Lynnafred's classmates at Holyoke Community College, a young lady named Fabiola Guerrero, has been left homeless and personally devastated by the storm.  Her mother Angelica, 39, was killed when their West Springfield house was destroyed by the tornado which chewed through their neighborhood.  Mrs. Guerrero put Fabiola's younger sister in the bathtub - the safest place in the house - and then shielded her with her own body.  The sister was severely injured when the house collapsed around them but survived.  Mrs. Guerrero did not.

Fabiola's father was also in the house when it came down.  He too survived, and along with his young daughter is now hospitalized.  Fabiola arrived home after the storm to find virtually nothing left of her old life.

Holyoke Community College has taken the initiative to extend a helping hand to Fabiola and her family.  This is an excerpt from an email that Lynnafred received from Liz Golen, HCC's Interim Student Activities Coordinator:

Student Activities will be a drop location for donations for Fabiola and her family from now until next Friday 6/10. Gift cards, new toiletries, new clothing (sizes TBD, we are awaiting an email with details), portable bedding, etc. This family does not have a place to store any household donations, toys, or books, so nothing of that nature please.

IF ANYONE HEARS OF OTHER STUDENTS WHO NEED OUR HELP, PLEASE LET US KNOW. WE WILL DO OUR BEST. ...

If you are compelled to personally help - to touch the lives of one family left in anguish by the storm - you may do so by contributing gift cards.  Lynnafred and I will collect any contributions you care to send and she will bring them to HCC by the deadline of 10 June 2011.  Please use the Contact Me link at the top of the page to send me an email and I'll let you know the mailing address for sending cards (or, if you're local to the Enfield CT area maybe we can meet and save some postage.)

If you prefer to contribute to the affected communities at large, without concentrating on a single person in need, please make a contribution to the American Red Cross Pioneer Valley Chapter at 506 Cottage St., Springfield, MA 01104.

Another New Blog For Your Perusal

Fans of Lynnafred will be interested to know that she has started a new blogging project called Lynnafred's Fashion Disasters. She and her coauthors are scouring thrift stores and rummage sales for heinous, cool, or interesting items and exploring how they can (or sometimes can't) be coordinated, altered, or otherwise "rescued" from disaster.

Check it out!

USDA Announces New Pork Cooking Guidelines

The USDA has finally updated their guidelines for cooking pork, announcing that an internal temperature of 145 degrees F is quite sufficient for cooking pork.

It's well known that Trichinella is killed at 137 degrees F; I and many others have been saying for years that it is unnecessary to cook the living hell out of pork.  Old cookbooks often advised people to cook pork to a temperature of 180 F, which makes it inedibly dry.

For me the issue with doneness of pork is a matter of texture.  When I make a pork roast, I generally cook it to an internal temp of about 155 F or so.  I find pork that is too rare to be uncomfortably "slimy" in mouthfeel.  (That particular quality disgusts me; it's why I hate gumbo and many types of sashimi.)

So, Huzzah! to the FDA for this sensible new guideline!

Sample This New Blog

It's called Eat And Feel Great and it's written by Chef Kit.  The blog is just a few months old, but Chef Kit has published some great recipes and cooking info, and I have a feeling Eat And Feel Great is going to continue to develop into a great resource.  Give it a peek and see what you think (click here or follow the link from my blogroll on the right hand side of the screen.)

USDA Inspection Marks: Find Out Where Your Food Was Made

The more you know about food labels and how to read them, the more you can make informed decisions about the products you buy. With that in mind, I'd like to show you an easy way you can discover where many of the canned, frozen, and otherwise processed foods you buy were manufactured.  This is especially useful in the case of generic foods, many of which are packed for private labels by large, well-known national brands.

All processed foods containing meat for sale in interstate commerce are required to pass inspection by the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). Companies producing the foods are assigned "Establishment Numbers"  which appears on the label along with the inspection mark. The type of mark varies depending upon the type of meat in the product:

The first inspection mark - for raw beef, pork, lamb, and goat - was once commonly stamped on the fat side of the meat in purple ink, and if you're an old guy like me, you might remember having seen those marks or their remnants on the side of your steak or pork chop.  Back in the days when meat was sold by the side and shipped whole to the butcher for cutting, those purple marks were very familiar to consumers. Nowadays, with meat pre-cut into primals and cryovac'd before shipping, the purple marks are rarer and the inspection marks often appear printed on the outside of the plastic wrap.

The second and third marks are commonly found on the labels and outer boxes of canned and frozen foods which contain meat and poultry. They are generally a standard size - about half an inch in diameter - and placed in an easy-to-find location on the label.

Remember how I mentioned that every processor has been assigned "Establishment Numbers?" Those numbers are the key to finding out which company processed the product, and at which plant it was done. The FSIS maintains directories in PDF and XLS format at this website. There are two files, one organized by establishment name, and the other by establishment number. I find the one sorted by number to be the most useful, since it's the number that appears on the mark. All you need to do is click on the link, bring up the file with Adobe Acrobat reader, and search by the number to find the name and address of the processor.  And  if you have a smartphone, it's even better: you can use your phone's browser to download the file of your choice and then use a PDF reader app to look up the establishment right there in the store.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

Here's the inspection mark on a can of Rose Pork Brains in Milk Gravy. The inspection mark says that this product was processed at Establishment 1889. Checking the FSIS directory, we find that Establishment 1889 is Bost Distributing Co. Inc, 2209 Boone Trail Rd., Sanford NC 27330, and that they own five labels, one of which is Foell Packing Company (the actual company listed on the Rose Pork Brains label.)  The directory also lists the primary phone number of the company. It doesn't take much imagination to realize how useful this kind of information can be to the consumer.

Sometimes, a product will have an inspection mark without an establishment number printed inside it, like this one from a can of Chef Boyardee Meat Ravioli. This is most common on stuff processed by huge companies (such as ConAgra, in this case) which have many processing plants across the country.

When you find an inspection mark like this, look at the ends of the can or box for the production codes, which will be either printed there or stamped into the packaging.  That's where you'll find the establishment number - in this case, Est. 794.  This can of Chef was processed by ConAgra at their plant located at 30 Marr Street in Milton, Pennsylvania.

Okay, so now I've shown you how to use the inspection marks to find out a bunch of information about where the stuff in your pantry and freezer is coming from. And that brings me to a hugely practical application of this info: Finding out who is really behind the store brands and generics that you might want to buy to save a few bucks on your grocery bill. You may remember this post from November 2010 reviewing ALDI's Kirkwood Brand frozen fried chicken.  I thought it tasted just like ConAgra's Banquet frozen fried chicken - and it turned out that it really was just like Banquet.  ConAgra processes Kirkwood chicken for ALDI at establishment P-7131 in Batesville Arkansas. The biggest difference between the two brands of chicken? The price, of course - Kirkwood sells for up to $2.00 a box less than Banquet.

Links and other useful information:

Click here to go directly to the download page for the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service's Meat, Poultry and Egg Product Inspection Directory. The directories are downloadable from that page. The USDA periodically updates the directory, so if you choose to download it to your smartphone for mobile use, you may want to sign up for email notification of new files using the link provided there.

Click here for the home page of the USDA FSIS. There are tons of links there, with information available on food safety education, product recalls, Q&A board, and more.

The Most Awesome Diner in Western Massachusetts

Charles Diner on Union Street in West Springfield, MA. The signboard out in front says, "NOW SHOWING 3 STOOGES ALL DAY."  Click on the photo for a full-sized view.