Good Food Hunting

I’ve got a bunch of little things that don’t really add up to full posts so I decided to lump them all together.

Cool website:

Cook’s Thesarus – lists 1000s of ingredients and kitchen equipment with pictures, suggested substitutions and links to make your own. I really like that the listings included synonyms and alternate spellings.

And I learned that asafetida, a gum resin used in Indian dishes with a strong onion-garlic flavor, is also known as both devil’s dung and food of the gods. Huh.

Local Produce Advertising

On the way in to work this morning I heard a new radio commercial from Kroger espousing the greatness of local produce. The ad was an “interview” with a local farmer and at the end, the announcer reminded you that lots of local fresh produce was available at your Kroger including yellow squash and zuchinni from the featured farm.  You can read Kroger’s statement on locally sourced produce here. I haven’t paid close attention but I don’t think Kroger is putting up signs to flag the local produce, unlike Meijer. You can read Meijer’s local growers statement here. Bonus points to Meijer for the growing chart that displays the typical season for most locally grown crops. Minus points to Meijer for their claim that they won’t buy local unless it meets or exceeds what they can get elsewhere. I have two issues with this statement:

A. I have seen some ridiculously bad looking produce at Meijer that should not have been bought from anyone; or if it showed up at the store that way, never put on the shelf. Kroger has this issue too but Meijer is the only place where I’ve seen black and white molds growing on the same tomato in a guacamole kit (on the same visit, they had a sign up where bananas normally are to inform customers that they had no bananas due to quality problems and flooding near their sources).

B. Meets or exceeds other produce how? Michigan grown strawberries will never stand up in looks and size to California strawberries. And of course California strawberries are available mostly year-round versus the short 2 month season for local berries. But to pass on offering Michigan strawberries during that short time frame seems unfair to the local growers who producing the best-tasting strawberries, albeit distinctly smaller berries. I know that consumer bias plays a role here so I’m not going to be too hard on Meijer (or Kroger) but they could boost advertising to showcase local produce and maybe change a few minds too (in particular, the mind of a certain boyfriend who turned his nose up at Michigan berries in the Farmer’s Market then came home with a box of “Product of USA” berries from Kroger).

Worcestershire Sauce

After dinner last night, I happened to look at the back of the bottle of Worcestershire Sauce that I used. I’ve never really used it before and didn’t know much about it except that it has anchovies in it. I only know that because a few months ago, my mom sent me on a quest to find vegetarian Worcestershire Sauce (they had it at Foods for Living in Okemos- 2 brands to choose from!). 

The brand we have is Lea & Perrins which might be the only brand.  The label says something about “Since 1835” and its made in England.  Then I looked at the ingredients and what do I see??!?  High Fructose Corn Syrup! I don’t know when that stuff was first created in a lab but I’m pretty sure it was way after 1835.

SO I did a little research today. ANd it turns out that the recipe in England (and Canada) is made with sugar but the US version is made with High Fructose Corn Syrup.  What is that about?

Blog Template and Such

I have been fiddling with my template and I think I’m going to change it to a different theme.  Eventually, I hope to get my own site setup and switch over to WordPress.org; I’ve already reserved my domain: goodfoodhunting.net so its just a matter of getting server space somewhere. 

In the meantime though, its here I’ll be.  As I do the new theme, I’m going to create a blogroll specifically for local blogs and food/cooking sites. So, if you know of any, leave a comment below.  Gratzi! (new theme here now, what do you think? I’m not in love with it yet….