POMx Iced Coffee from PomWonderful

The folks at PomWonderful have done it again - found another delicious and refreshing way to deliver the antioxidant power of pomegranates, this time with POMx iced coffee.

PomWonderful recently sent me a few samples of POMx iced coffee, in the Cafe au Lait and Chocolate flavors. They're delicious and, of course, taste nothing like pomegranate. The Cafe au Lait flavor is smooth and rich-tasting with a sharp dark-roasted coffee kick. It's got just the right amount of sweetening, too - palateable but not syrupy. The Chocolate variety is brilliant - not bitter at all, with a nearly perfect balance of coffee and rich cocoa-like chocolate flavor. Each 10.5-ounce bottle delivers a dose of PomWonderful's patented POMx antioxidant pomegranate extract (along with 175mg of delicious savory caffeine.) I've been glad to have a couple bottles keeping me company the past few days working the midnight shift.

Right now, POMx iced coffee can be found in some northeastern US test markets; you can visit their website and punch in your zip code to see if it's available near you. I can't wait until it's widely available near me because I'm eager to try the vanilla version.

Links:

POMx iced Coffee website (Flash animated, with sound)

Information about the POMx extract, including POMx pills.

PomWonderful's website - Pomegranate juice, POM tea, and more! (Also Flash animated with sound.)

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One for the Dogs: Alpo Chop House Originals

In a bit of a departure today, I'm going to review a dog food: Alpo Chop House Originals. Now, my dog Zim has been raised on Pedigree dry kibble with a dollop of Pedigree canned food mixed in and I rarely buy any other brand. I made an exception this time because of the interesting flavors - filet mignon, New York strip, and ribeye no less - and the fact that displayed prominently on the front of the can is a badge that says "WITH ANGUS BEEF" thereby officially signaling that this whole "Angus beef" thing has totally jumped the shark and needs to die right now.

Believe me, the parts of an Angus-breed cow that wind up in a can of dog food are not going to be significantly better than any other cow chunks. And as far as the fancy flavors go, the ingredient list tells a different story: Water, chicken and beef "by-products," soy, and cornmeal make up most of the composition. Way down the label, they list something called "filet mignon flavor," or "ribeye flavor," and so on. It's hard for me to believe that anything other than the label design is "premium" here. Alpo's website is of little help, by the way. I guess pet food companies aren't required to offer actual ingredient lists for their offerings the way human foods are.

By the way, I did taste the filet mignon variety. It wasn't anything special. It didn't taste all that "filet mignony" to me - more liver-like than anything, with lots of mealy grit mixed in. I couldn't get enthusiastic about it, but Zim got really excited by the smell; seems Alpo knows how to get a dog drooling.

Something in the mix didn't agree with the poor boy, though. The day after I started mixing Alpo with his kibble he started scratching all the time - a kind of ridiculous "stop in the middle of everything you're doing, stand there on three legs with a dumbass expression on your face, and scratch everything you can reach with that fourth leg" kind of scratch that was cramping his usual routine of chasing squirrels, barking at passing cats from the second floor windows, and sleeping on the couch. A couple days after going back to his usual rations, he was his old self again - we donated the leftover cans to the local food bank.

Alas, no more Alpo Chop House Originals for Zim, no matter how much he likes them. While I can't recommend them as a "premium" dog food (Alpo seems to be relying a lot on weasel words and hype to sell this line) I know the pooch really loved the flavor and his seeming allergic reaction to them is probably unique to him; so, if you can find it on sale, you might want to give it a try. I mean, your dog might want to give it a try.
Link:

Alpo's website.

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Vintage Sunday: Moxie

I wouldn't normally feature a current product on Vintage Sunday, but I just have to make an exception for Moxie, the signature soft drink of New England.

Introduced in 1876 - ten years before Coca Cola - Moxie was one of the first mass-produced soft drinks in the US. It's distinctive bitter flavor comes from gentian root extractives, and it is very much an acquired taste (I've heard it described as "medicinal root beer" and "root beer + ass.")

Moxie was wildly popular in the early part of the 20th century, regularly outselling most other soft drinks, including Coke and Pepsi. But the drink's sales began to slip in the 1930's. The company, reacting to broad fluctuations in the sugar market, diverted money into its sugar reserves and away from advertising. It was a mistake from which the company never recovered.

Today, Moxie is found on store shelves mostly in New England. It's most common in Maine, New Hamphire, Vermont, and on Massachusetts' North Shore, but I've occasionally found it in Western Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island as well. Getting it elsewhere is spotty at best. I enjoy it because of its unusual flavor (especially Diet Moxie, in which the gentian flavor is even more strongly pronounced) but I'm the only one in my family who does. As I said, it's an acquired taste.

The bottle at right is an early-1960's Diet Moxie bottle; it's part of a small collection of antique, vintage, and local-company soft-drink bottles kept on display at the Hosmer Mountain Soda Shack in Manchester.

Links:

Moxie is owned by Cornucopia Beverages in New Hampshire. They, in turn, are owned by the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Northern New England, which in turn is owned not by Coke but by Kirin Holdings LTD of Japan (think: Kirin Beer.)

Hosmer Moutain Soda Shack from Steven Wood's Connecticut Museum Quest blog

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Goya Sazon Liquido

If your local supermarket sells Goya's Sazon Liquido, you won't be able to miss it. Packaged in a tall plastic bottle with a long squeeze nozzle, it towers above the other seasoning and hot sauces on the shelf. Because I enjoy a variety of different hot sauces and seasoning blends in my cooking, Sazon Liquido immediately caught my eye - I'd never seen it before, and figured it might be a new product. Also, the "HOT - PICANTE" label sparked my curiosity, so I picked a bottle up.

The ingredients list includes tomatoes, green and red chile peppers, dehydrated jalapeno peppers, salt, MSG, and some spices - pretty standard fare for a seasoning and hot sauce.

Unfortunately, the only flavor element that comes through is salt. A lot of salt. And, despite the label, not a single bit of heat.

I was hoping that it would be like Goya's answer to Salsa Lizano (a not-very-hot but extremely flavorful sauce/seasoning made with spices, peppers, and pureed vegetables) but unfortunately the Goya product can't hold a candle to the richer-flavored Salsa Lizano.

I'm probably missing the point of Sazon Liquido; I thought the vegetables and aromatics in it would make it more versatile, but to me it just tastes like liquid salt, and I just don't have an application for it in my kitchen. I ended up giving the bottle to an Hispanic friend at work. She'd never heard of it either, but told me she'd probably use it instead of salt in stewed dishes like her fricase.
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Seasonings Part Four: Pork Salt

We all have our little kitchen "secrets" - little things we do or seasonings we use that make our dishes unique. My mom's beef stew is a great example of that. I could never get my beef stew to taste as good as my mom's, no matter what I did. So one day, I asked her how she made her stew gravy so damn delicious.

"Stir in a couple of tablespoons of ketchup after you thicken it," she told me. "Nothing improves gravy like a hint of tomato."

She's right. Tomato is indeed a key component of awesome gravy. I nearly always include a tomato or two in with the "aromatics" when I make a non-poultry broth, stew, soup, or pot roast. If I'm in a hurry, though, I'll use canned tomatoes, ketchup, or a dab of tomato paste. If you've never tried it you should.

My own little secret is for pork. I keep a shaker of what my family calls "Pork Salt" by the stove, and use it as kind of a universal pigmeat seasoning. Roast, chops, ribs, whatever - it's a "base seasoning" for me that seems to bring out the best flavors of the meat, even if I'm later going to use the pork for chili verde, in a spaghetti sauce, or with barbecue sauce. I always use some Pork Salt for at least the initial browning.

Pork Salt
Makes about 1¼ cups.

1 cup salt
2 tablespoons Bell's Seasoning*
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 tablespoon powdered sage
1 tablespoon powdered thyme
1 teaspoon ground coriander

Mix all ingredients together in a jar or spice bottle with a shaker lid.

If the different spices and salt separate into layers because of non-uniform grain sizes, you can pulse them in a spice grinder or work them over with a mortar and pestle before putting them into the shaker.

Experiment with the blend to achieve your own favorite taste. Adding a bit of allspice and some powdered habanero pepper gives it a "jerk" taste. Or you could try adding cumin, chipotle powder and some powdered dried ancho peppers to give your seasoning a southwest flavor.

Link:

*Bell's Seasoning is a New England-made poultry seasoning; they've been around since 1867, and as long as I can remember my family's kitchens have had a box of Bell's in the cupboard ready for use. If you can't find it near you, there are links on Bell's website that will let you mail order it (or you can use your own favorite poultry seasoning blend. But I bet Bell's is better. LOL, alliteration.)

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Long Lake Pickled Foods

Earlier this month, I reviewed delicious Bay View Pickled Pork Hocks after finding them (along with some other Bay View brand pickled specialties) at my local Price Chopper.

Well, it so turns out that Long Lake Pickled Foods, the good folks who put up Bay View products, have started their very own pickled food blog. Written in a casual, chatty, and informative way, the blog gives details about Long Lake's products, customer service contacts, trivia and info about their foods and the traditions of pickling, and so on. They even share recipes and techniques if you're looking to try making your own.

The blog has been open for less than a month, so it's still growing and "finding a voice," if you know what I mean. If you're interested in chaucuterie and old-fashioned methods of meat preservation, stop in and look around.

Link: Long Lake Pickled Foods Blog

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McDonald's Angus Burgers Want Your Love

So McDonald's has opened a new website called "Angus Honors." Users can visit there and make up a two-word "headline" that gets placed into a banner display for McD's Angus Third Pounder burgers:


McDonald's calls it a "microsite," and this headline submission app is pretty much all that's there. You click on the "start now" button, enter your date of birth (if it's your first visit) and then get a template where you can enter a word on either side of a burger photo. Before submitting it, you need to fill out a short form with your name, a checkbox agreeing to "terms and conditions" and your email address if you want a link to you from the gallery where your creation will be stored and displayed.

There's no contest or sweepstakes involved and no prizes that I can see. So I thought I'd have a little fun:

I suspect that my submission won't be appearing in the gallery soon.

Remember those terms and conditions I mentioned earlier? Reading them reveals that anything you enter on the Angus Honors microsite become instantly and permanently the property of McDonald's USA for them to use any way they like without ever having to compensate you. Now that's a hell of a deal: you might have a great time coming up with a slogan, but if you hit gold with a phrase that McDonald's uses as a centerpiece of their next ad campaign, the fun you had is your only reward. If only their ad agencies worked so cheaply.







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Cape Cod Potato Chips - New Flavors and Old Favorites

A short time ago, the friendly folks at Cape Cod Potato Chips sent me a box of assorted varieties of chips and popcorns to sample and review. The popcorn was a big hit with my friends and family. It took us a little longer to try all of the potato chip flavors - the package included old favorites as well as tasty new ones - but after sharing the deliciousness for the past couple of weeks, I'm ready to tell you about Cape Cod's flavors.

Classic and 40% Reduced Fat: When I was a kid, just learning how to cook, I heard the story about how potato chips were "invented." You've probably heard it too: George Crum, a chef in Saratoga Springs NY, was fed up with a restaurant patron who kept sending back his fried potatoes complaining they were too thick and soggy. Chef Crum, thoroughly pissed off, sliced the final batch paper-thin and fried them so crispy they couldn't be eaten with a fork. The diner loved them and "Saratoga Chips" were born. That story inspired me to try to make my own potato chips in the kitchen; they were pretty good but took a lot of work for an impatient teenager, so I only cooked my own a few times a year.

I was in my twenties when I first tried Cape Cod's Classic chips - thick cut and kettle cooked, with just the right amount of salt added to enhance the flavor. I think they were the first commercial "kettle" style potato chip I'd ever tried, and they were great. I'm happy to say that their quality has never wavered - every time I've opened a bag of Cape Cod Classic chips, they've been as good as the first bag I ever dug into in the mid-80's.

A couple of years ago, some friends suggested I try the 40% Reduced Fat version of the Classic chips. The Reduced Fat version is truly amazing; Cape Cod has managed to remove almost have the fat from their chip without any reduction at all in flavor, quality, or mouthfeel. Seriously, it is extremely difficult - if not impossible - to tell the difference between the two in a blind tasting. If you love your potato chips but need to cut down on your fat intake, Cape Cod's 40% Reduced Fat chips can help you.

Robust Russet: Russet potatoes, having a higher sugar content than some other varieties, cook up darker and more flavorful than regular chips. Cape Cod's Robust Russet chips are Lynnafred's favorites; she like the full-bodied flavor and strong crunch. I like them because the flavor stands up well and doesn't get "lost" when enjoying chips 'n' dips. If you're a fan of lightly cooked chips, leave these on the shelf. Cape Cod says people either "love them or hate them" and if you cant crunch into a darker chip without thinking "burnt," these just aren't for you.

New Buttermilk Ranch was an instant favorite with everyone who tried it. Not too salty with a delicious, tangy Ranch flavor, this was the first bag we opened (to accompany bacon-cheeseburgers for supper) and that bag never saw the dawn. I loved them with a simple sour cream dip - the chips magically turned it into Ranch dip! - while Lynnafred and my wife Maryanne enjoyed them right out of the bag. They were also pretty damn good added atop deli-sliced turkey in a turkey sandwich (adding both taste and crunch.) Don't give me that look - you know you're going to try it now that I gave you the idea.

Sea Salt and Vinegar: This is one of my all-time favorite potato chip flavors - I love the sharp, acidic taste of vinegar (and that's why I'm such a fan of all kinds of pickles.) Vinegar is a natural enhancement for potatoes, and Cape God gets the balance just right with these chips. There's just enough vinegar to "sharpen the edges" and not so much that the flavor overpowers the spuds. Probably my favorite of the flavored varieties.

Cheddar Jack and Sour Cream: These cheesy chips are one of Lynnafred's favorites. The combination of sour cream and cheddar works well together and give the chips a flavor very much like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.

Sweet Mesquite Barbecue: Normally, I hate barbecue-flavored potato chips, and I can truly say that I would never - ever - have gone out and bought this variety if Cape Cod hadn't sent a bag for review. What a surprise to find out how good these were! Sweet and spicy, with a delicious tomato background, the smoky mesquite flavor is mellow and soft-edged. Smoke flavoring is too often applied with a heavy hand, leaving an "ashtray" flavor, but not with these chips. Maryanne mentioned that they'd be great with grilled burgers, and I agree. Sweet Mesquite Barbecue chips are winners.

Sea Salt and Cracked Black Pepper: There are a lot of flavor notes going on in these chips - sweet, salty, pepper, garlic I think, a hint of buttermilk - and I just don't understand why chip manufacturers can't simply make a chip with salt and black pepper and that's it. I would love a chip like that, but I haven't been able to find one (check the ingredient labels and you'll see.)

Parmesan and Roasted Garlic: From the instant the bag is opened, there is no doubt that mellow roasted garlic is the foremost flavor in this chip, and the parmesan cheese takes a back seat to it. I couldn't believe how polarizing this flavor was when I put them out at a party - people either loved them and went back for seconds by the handful, or they hated them - hated the very smell of them and wouldn't take more than a nibble for the sake of tasting a sample. I thought they were pretty good. They went great with a sliced-pork-roast sandwich.

Jalapeno and Aged Cheddar: I liked these. The cheddar flavor went nicely with the jalapeno heat, which gave a mild-to-medium burn and a long, lingering warm finish. (These chips weren't included with the review package I recieved, so I went out and bought a bag. Glad I did.)

I hope the new flavors are well-received and become as successful as the old favorites. Cape Cod makes great snacks and they're always a top choice when I'm looking for kettle chips.


Links:

Cape Cod Potato Chips website

Direct link to Cape Cod's potato chip page.

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The Greatest Bank in the Connecticut River Valley

If Simsbury Bank had a branch closer to my house, I would move all of my banking to them. Any bank that chooses a steaming bowl of ramen noodles as their logo is A-OK in my book.

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Vintage Sunday: Burns & Allen & SPAM

SPAM. First marketed by Hormel in 1937, it rose to fame thanks to relentless advertising from the very beginning - and being a non-rationed food during World War II certainly didn't hurt. George Burns and Gracie Allen were featured in a lot of 1940's and 1950's SPAM ads.

"SPAM 'n' eggs go great together!"

"So do SPAM 'n' waffles 'n' me!"

Whoa. Say goodnight, Gracie.

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