Food News Roundup, April 1, 2008
Posted on 1 April 2008 under Food In The News, Food on TV | No Comments
Starbucks announced this morning they’ll soon be offering a hot beverage made entirely of ground brown jelly beans. “We figured customers were putting enough sugary crap in their coffees we may as well go all the way”, said Will Beaner, owner of twelve franchises in Colon, Michigan. “Now all we have to do is figure out how to keep all these patrons awake.”
KFC will be changing the way they cook their chicken. Renaming the organization to Kold Frozen Chickparts, restaurant kitchens will be purchasing frozen pre-deep-fried “chicken” pieces from their local grocer and microwaving them before serving. Service will be kept to a minimum time, and the “chicken” will turn out almost as though an overly-busy mom “made” it at home.
Toledo 13abc’s Rebecca Regnier will be presenting a cooking segment during the weekday morning news show from 5 a.m. - 7 a.m. Dubbed “LEGO My Wok” the segment will feature a specialized wok stove made entirely of plastic blocks, from which Rebecca will make dishes from restaurants featured in the station’s “Restaurant Report Card” segment in the evening news, complete with all health violations included.
Luna Pier Cook will open the city’s newest restaurant, the NoseBleed Café. With it’s deep-red decor the restaurant will specialize in dishes such as Black Pudding (aka “Blood Pudding“), Steak Tartare, Haggis, and Bloody Marys. (This is a “Towel optional” restaurant.)
And finally, Jaden Hair of the popular Steamy Kitchen blog has announced her second cookbook project. Calling it “Asian Cuisine Meets American Fast Food”, the book will highlight recipes made with commonly-available ingredients, such as a Spicy White Castle Cheeseburger Shrimp, a Stir-Fried Sweet-and-Sour Big Mac Dim Sum, and a General Tso’s Taco Bell Seven-Layer Firecracker Burrito with Duck Tongue Sauce.
Oh, and Happy April Fool’s Day! 
15 New Species of … Potatoes? And a Recipe for Adam’s Garlic Mashed
Posted on 21 February 2008 under Farmer's Markets, Food In The News, Recipes | 4 Comments
The CBC is reporting that Agriculture Canada has unveiled 15 new experimental potato varieties:
“This year we have 15 varieties to offer that represent a range of end uses from french fry to fresh market, to specialty markets such as very small potatoes, and we have one selection that has purple flesh,” said research scientist Agnes Murphy … The new varieties were created six years ago, but only now have they gone through enough testing by the department to include farmers and processors in the research … Farmers will be able to evaluate the new varieties for two years, after which the highest bidder will be allowed to do further testing, and seek an exclusive licence agreement … “It takes anywhere from 10 to 12 years to get from the very first initial cross to market,” said Murphy.
Driving along farm roads here in the midwest you’ll see countless signs in cornfields about what breed, brand and species of corn is being grown. In many cases, if the field is managed by a co-op or management company, you’ll learn that too. Corn is a big deal, from ethanol to beef feed to, of course, some better southern corn puddings.
It seems other produce just doesn’t get the respect corn does.
Well, thank God that Canada Agriculture has a place like the Potato Research Centre in Fredericton. These are the folks responsible for the new species of potatoes announced yesterday:
Since 1950, the PRC in Fredericton has produced 32 new varieties of potatoes, including the first “made-in-Canada potato” and the world’s second most popular French fry processing potato, the Shepody. A total of 62 varieties have been developed, released and registered for production across Canada by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada potato breeders, including the popular Yukon Gold developed jointly with the University of Guelph and the Ontario Department of Agriculture.
That’s right. These are the folks who gave us the infamous Yukon Gold potato. What, you thought it was a U.S. breed? It’s Yukon Gold, ok? In other words, any new species to come from the Potato Research Center in Fredericton will probably be quite welcome if and when it hits the markets.
Potatoes are a big deal here in southeastern Michigan. Down the road is a huge potato farm, Smith Bros., growers of a specific family-owned breed they’ve named Barbara Ann Potatoes. These are beautiful white potatoes, as big or bigger than Idaho bakers, definitely some of the best potatoes I’ve ever bought. But even the better Barbara Ann Potatoes are small compared to what the man in this pic was growing 50 years ago around these parts. This is Wayne Cousino, father of Chef Tad Cousino of the Frog Leg Inn. Chef Tad figures this photo was taken in about 1947 on the family potato farm here in Monroe County. Normally when you see a potato as big as the ones Poppa Cousino was holding here you’d wonder about the flavor. After all, when root vegetables get too large they seem to lose a certain intensity of flavors. Chef Tad’s told me the potatoes his dad was growing were incredibly good. They didn’t seem to lose flavor at all, even as large as they were.
There are a lot of different ways we like to enjoy potatoes, particularly in the mornings when I make skillet potatoes with chopped onion and green bell peppers. Here’s one of our favorite potato dishes for evening meals …
I have to be honest. This recipe was an accident. We just kept adding things yesterday evening until it tasted right. Once it dawned on us what had happened, we realized this was actually a pretty-darned easy recipe for some mighty-tasty Garlic Mashed Potatoes.
As an aspiring cook 15-year-old Adam wanted to be as involved as possible in his birthday last November. I handed him a 5 lb bag of Russet potatoes and had him scrub them down. These were boiled whole, peel intact. While the potatoes were boiling, I place a whole bulb of garlic on the cutting board and, pressing hard with the heel of my hand, separated it into its cloves. Adam then smashed each clove under the side of a chef’s knife and removed the papery silk. He then minced all the cloves. Pressing on the minced garlic with the side of the blade again, it took a while for him to turn it all into a paste but after a while, it worked.
Once the potatoes were fork-tender, they were drained and returned to the pot. Adam mashed them with a hand masher. I then added one stick of unsalted butter and the garlic paste. Adam used the electric mixer to whip everything together. I added a pint of heavy whipping cream and he mixed that in as well. We then added salt and pepper to taste.
The picture above looks like Butter Pecan Ice Cream, which is the look and texture you’re going for here. Everyone loved them! Each of the ingredients is a package from the grocer so no measuring is required.
The Scobleizer, Tech, and Cooking from Scratch
Posted on 20 February 2008 under Convenience Foods, Food History, Food In The News, Food Philosophy, Slow Food, Software, Tech Blogs | 1 Comment
I’ve been “into” computers since late 1976, learning multiple programming languages since then and, for about the past ten years or so, meeting lots of great tech folks around the internet. I’ve previously mentioned tech blogger Robert Scoble, who’s become rather well-known among geeks and techies for various reasons. I haven’t checked Robert’s blog in about a week or so, so it was interesting this morning to find him mentioned on Slashdot (Serious Eats for techies). It seems last week Robert blogged on obselete technical (and other) skills. This blog entry of his has become so popular another individual has now created a Wiki on the subject.
If you go back to Robert’s original post you’ll see in comment 18 Karim included “cooking food from ’scratch’”. In comment 32 Wreck posted a rebuttal:
Cooking from scratch will never die. It’s actually coming back into fashion in a major way. There are more and more cooking shows as a testament to this. Only this generation eats everything out of a microwave-frendly bag. Cooking is a skill.
Commenter 50, Gerald Buckley, then argues against this:
@Wreck (#32)… actually, cooking from scratch is on the decline. A recent “Progressive Grocer” article noted 2007 was the first year better than 50% of all dining was done “out” … Cooking from scratch is on the decline in the US no matter how badly all the cooking shows want it to the contrary. It’s a great way for the consumer packaged goods manufacturers to get their products in front of you …
This is followed up by other arguments beginning at comment 57. Some excerpts:
The vast majority of the world still cooks from scratch … There is no reason families cannot enjoy cooking together and have family time at the table. The lion’s share of the planet’s people remain focused on the family and meals. Tell a Greek to nuke their food and they’ll look at you like you’re nuts. Same goes for the Chinese. Even the richest Chinese and Japanese still largely prepare steamed rice and veggies/meat/fish on a daily basis … The US has become nothing more than a shell of what it once was … Family means less and less to the average person now … Ever been to Europe, especially France, Greece, Spain, Portugal, where they spend copious amounts of time at the table talking, eating, drinking. That’s the ways it’s supposed to be
Robert gets involved shortly after this. It’s all a very interesting read.
The question then becomes this; Who’s right?
Backing up for a second, let’s go back to Karim’s original suggestion; that “cooking food from ’scratch’” is an obsolete or dying skill.
What do we really mean by “cooking food from ’scratch’”?
Backing up even further, what is meant by “cooking”?
According to the American Heritage dictionary, the word “cook” means:
1. To prepare food for eating by applying heat.
2. To undergo application of heat especially for the purpose of later ingestion.
There are other definitions, for things such as “cooking the books” and “What’s cooking, dude?”, but those definitions certainly don’t work here.
One of the biggest issues to come about recently is the reality that television cooks and chefs don’t always cook from what some feel is ”scratch”. They see a can of mushroom soup, some tomato paste, maybe some store-bought shredded cheese, or even, God forbid, a sauce base, and these viewers instantly believe the folks they’re watching have no business cooking on television whatsoever.
Here’s my answer to those who say some television cooks and, yes, some on-screen chefs, aren’t really cooking:
“So, what wine do you use to cook with? Ummm … what? You don’t press your own grapes?? For shame!!! And what about your butter? No churn in the house, eh? And sour cream? No?? What kind of spice mill you got in there? None?? Sheesh … you’re pathetic … and you do have the mushroom farm in the basement and the milking cows tied to the back porch, right? NO?? And you call yourself a cook?? Ok, lemme ask you a simple question … do you at least make your own macaroni from scratch when the kids want mac ‘n cheese? Excuse me, didn’t catch your answer … what? Quit mumbling … I’m a son of a what?? Your mother … yeah, ok, so you can shut up about [insert TV chef/cook name here] now, can’t you … yeah, I thought so … go back and play in the corner, ya’ wannabe …”
The real problem is that some of those “cooks” are on-camera while all the prep work is done in the back kitchen by an army of sous chefs. While some are actually not only cooks but chefs as well, there can still be a massive difference between what goes on in their own kitchens vs. what they only demonstrate on television.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, our pal Jaden Hair down at Steamy Kitchen presents Asian cooking on WWSB channel 7, the local ABC affiliate in Sarasota, Florida. If you watch some of her videos there you might see various oriental-style wrappers in-use in her recipes. She didn’t make these, even though she probably could have. However, her buying these wrappers at the store and taking them to the station for use on-air does not mean Jaden’s not cooking from scratch.
How many of you, dear readers, make your own BBQ sauce every time you BBQ? Your own mustard for those great hot dogs you grill? And what about those hot dogs? Ever baked your own hot dog bun?
Didn’t think so.
Here’s another question: When you plunk down $20 - $30 or more for a high-end meal, do you really believe for a moment it’s all made from scratch?
If you respond with, “It’d better be!”, then you’re definitely not as up-to-speed as you think.
Did you ever have one of those great Creme Brulées on a cruise ship, with that extra-crunchy torched caramelizing sugar? Maybe you wanted to grab the steward and pass to the chef how cool that was? Well, sorry to tell you but you can use that same sugar at home. Oh, and grab some of that company’s Chocolate Mousse mix as well for that “We-Just-Ate-At-A-Restaurant” feeling.
There are obviously various levels of cooking from what might be called “scratch”. These are decidedly related to culture, where you live, what’s available, what local laws and regulations are, etc. I’ve lamented previously about the fact that there are 130,000 street food vendors in Calcutta, India … but I’m not allowed to cook you up a real Michigan corn dog at the Luna Pier City Wide Yard Sale without jumping through serious hoops with the Monroe County health department.
In India the street food is made from ingredients available for millenia. My corn dogs are made from Viennas in natural casings, dipped in a modified Jiffy corn muffin mix with extra milk and some ground mustard added. Meanwhile, the one year I bucked the system and sold them anyway, there were folks coming back for more who informed me mine were considerably better than those corn dogs from the food trailer by the beach, where the dipping batter was made from corn meal and other individual ingredients.
Was I wrong in how I made mine? Were mine lesser quality? No. And it wasn’t me who made that determination.
It was the customers.
It dosn’t matter if your food is made from whatever it is you consider to be “from scratch”. “From scratch” will never mean what it once did anyway, more than 100 years ago.
What matters is whether or not that food tastes good, has a nice texture, is pleasant to the eyes, mouth, nose …
Now, pardon me while I go make up a PB&J and some chips for lunch. Let’s see, I’ll need peanuts … some grapes … potatoes and a mandolin … some oil for deep frying … where’s that pressure cooker so I can make the jam … darn, I’m out of bread flour … the yeast should be in the fridge door …
CBC Video: North Vancouver City Councillor Asks for Banning of Drive-Thrus
Posted on 31 January 2008 under Food In The News, Politics, Restaurant Chit-Chat, Video | 4 Comments
North Vancouver City Councillor Sam Schechter is attempting to enact a ban on any future drive-thrus within his city. There is currently one drive-thru, at an A&W restaurant. Councillor Schechter claims banning drive-thrus will help reduce global warming and will not have an effect on individuals who are more likely to use a drive-thru because of disabilities. Click on the “Drive Thru Open” image to view the CBC Morning News video. (Runs 4:24; Windows Media Player required to view.)
On CNN.com: ‘NY orders calories posted on chain menus’
Posted on 22 January 2008 under Food In The News, Restaurant Chit-Chat | No Comments
Ah yes, politics in action. Totally misguided stupidity aimed at what people eat, telling restaurant owners how to run their business.
Complete and utter nonsense.
From the article:
The New York City Board of Health voted unanimously Tuesday to require all city chain restaurants to post calorie data on their menus … beginning March 31 they will have to put the numbers on menu boards and menus. The change will affect restaurants with 15 or more outlets — roughly 10 percent of all city restaurants …
Head on over and have a look at the image with that article. Exactly where does the city indend that particular restaurant put the newly-required information on the menuboard in the photo? Multiple sizes of items requires multiple calorie counts. Question: Does the city intend to subsidize the expanded menuboards? Do they have a single clue how much these things cost?
Here’s another question: Is the New York City Board of Health so dense as to believe that their “54 percent of adults [who] are overweight or obese” only eat at “restaurants with 15 or more outlets” nationwide? Why are they placing responsibility for what overweight people eat with only 10 percent of the restaurants in the city?
This is, by far, one of the most God-awful pieces of legislation I’ve ever seen in my life.
Chuck Hunt, spokesman for [The New York Restaurant Association], said the group is “considering options, one of which is the intent to pursue further litigation against the city.”
I wish The New York Restaurant Association the best and finest of luck in using the courts to knock some sense into the New York City Board of Health and the city itself.
Food Falsificationism vs. Real Food
Posted on 4 January 2008 under Food In The News, Ingredients | 5 Comments
Yesterday the CBC posted an article titled, “Something’s fishy: Restaurant customers in Florida being served fake grouper”:
The Florida Department of Business & Professional Regulation, which regulates restaurants, found 139 cases of something other than grouper being sold as the fish between January 2006 through the end of last October … In the Miami area, inspectors walked into a food processing plant and found workers taking 2,722 kilograms of Vietnamese catfish that sells wholesale for about $2.50 per 500 grams and repackaging it as grouper, which goes for about $6 wholesale.
Are you appalled? Disgusted? Confused as to how this could happen?
Well, lemme tell ya’, this is nothing new. It’s an old problem that just seems to be getting worse. Not only that, it’s getting closer to home as well and in all the wrong ways.
I recall first hearing about this issue back in the mid-1970s. If you’re as old as I am you may remember a little novel and a subsequent movie about a shark. The film didn’t include a subplot from the novel detailing a steamy affair between Richard Dreyfuss’ character of marine biologist Matt Hooper, and Ellen Brody, the Chief’s wife, played by Lorraine Gary. Within this subplot in the novel, the two characters are having dinner at a restaurant when Hooper mentions the scallops are actually cod cut with a cookie cutter.
Imitation crab is usually pollock that’s been made into a surimi prior to cooking. While these packages of imitation crab are labeled as such in grocery stores, there’s no such labeling when your kids eat it in that cheese-covered Seafood Delight at a Chinese buffet. Surimi can also be used to make imitation shrimp, along with salmon burgers containing no salmon whatsoever, and even imitation ham and lunchmeats.
City Chicken Legs is a forgivable sin, known to be chunks of pork arranged on a wooden skewer so they look like chicken legs. Mary grew up on the ones from Lee Williams’ House of Meats, which we still enjoy on occasion. Even Chicken-Fried Steak is alright in this area, not having any chicken in it whatsoever, known to be steak that’s fried like, and subsequently looks like, fried chicken.
In the video on this page about making Individual Beef Wellingtons, Chef Tad of the Frog Leg Inn in Erie, Michigan explained for my camera how Jaccards are illegal in France. Apparently other kinds of meat tenderizers may be illegal there as well. As Chef Tad explains in the video, this is because someone could use these items to pass one cut of meat off as a better cut. When he said that, it made me wonder how often that might be happening in kitchens across the country.
Unfortunately, this issue of making one food to look like another has taken a nasty turn. Two cookbooks are out now, Deceptively Delicious and The Sneaky Chef. Both of these books advocate making “kid-friendly” foods that hide nutritious ingredients so your kids will eat them. Slate.com’s Mimi Sheraton explored the wrong messages sent by these authors:
The twin major flaws in this faulty reasoning, are that, first, children get the wrong message that sweets and starches are good for them … ultimately, and more seriously perhaps, lying to children via trickery—even “for their own good”—can feed a lifetime of distrust, as it should. I wonder how these undercover mothers keep their secrets … A second problem raised by this hide-the-veggies duo is the invisibility of vegetables in their own recognizable forms. As a result, children are not afforded the opportunity to get used to the idea of trying and learning about them. Nor will they consider them necessary for good health.
Foods are best when they’re treated with respect, when they’re given the opportunity to really shine. This is part of why my Traditional Chicken Noodle Soup is so popular. (Mary just took the last of that batch to work for her lunch.) Made right, you can taste the individual ingredients in this soup, each one also showing its own texture. There are no secret ingredients … eating this soup, anyone could figure out how it was made.
Shortly after my moving to Luna Pier in 2004, Mary got me hooked on simple roasted potatoes. She would cube some potatoes, coat them in a bit of olive oil, add a few herbs and spices, and oven-roast them in single layers on baking sheets, turning them occasionally, until they were crispy and golden-brown. These roasted potato cubes became the basis for my German-Polish Oven-Roasted Potato Salad, which a certain local ABC reporter can eat by the pound. (I understand he used to take it to the studio in the morning and have it for breakfast!) I haven’t made this for him in a while … maybe it’s about time I did this again …
Last night at the Olive Garden at Monroe and Talmadge in Toledo I had their Steak Gorgonzola Alfredo. If I were to make this, the beef tenderloin would have been grilled medium-rare first, then sliced into the medallions to be placed on top of the pasta alfredo. That they’d sliced the tenderloin and then grilled it to medium-rare turned out to be alright. The beef was still moist and tender. This simple dish was incredibly good, especially for a chain restaurant.
I don’t talk much about my ex-wife’s cooking, but one dish she does extremely well is fried beef livers. She simply dredges the livers in flour and gently fries them in a shallow bit of melted shortening. Even the kids like this dish. It’s tender, moist and very flavorful, unlike beef livers they may have pushed aside somewhere else.
What’s my 10-year-old’s favorite vegetable? Raw broccoli. Do my kids like oysters? Absolutely … ice cold, on the half-shell. Do they know how to shell crab legs? Yup. What about rabbits? They help breed them and sometimes assist in the butchering. What do they like to ask for, for their birthday dinners? Grilled stuffed whole pork loin. Fresh steamed shrimp from The Fish Market? Deep-fried alligator from the Frog Leg Inn? They eat these things like candy. And they really like Bob’s handmade turtle soup from his Chateau Louise here in Luna Pier.
Please … don’t lie to your kids when you make them something. My rule is that they’re to try something once. If they’re iffy about it, maybe they should try it twice. But then they can make their own decision about whether or not they like something. If they don’t like it, that’s fine.
For example, Briahna doesn’t like corn bread. She loves corn otherwise, even pickled baby corn (which she used to eat like the larger cobs, one little row at a time). But she’ll even eat corn dogs with the coating removed.
Sure, that’s fine. Of course, that’s ammo for teasing her. She just glares when a box of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix shows up in her stocking at Christmas …
Treat yourself and your friends and family to real food. Real crab meat. Real vanilla extract. Real beef with no soy fillers. Real ham in an omelet made with real eggs. Real sauerkraut with no vinegar to quicken fermentation, just cabbage and salt.
And real chocolate ice cream, made with real milk.
Your taste buds will thank you.
Article: ‘Half of Farmer Jack stores have no buyers’
Posted on 31 December 2007 under Food In The News, Shopping | No Comments
While not mentioning the closed Farmer Jack location on Telegraph and M-50 in Monroe, Saturday’s article in the Detroit Free Press does mention a few things that might not be well-known:
33 of the 66 stores that were up for sale remain without buyers, and some of the purchased ones aren’t open yet … Kroger, which bought 20 stores, has opened all but one … Hiller’s is busy remodeling the store it bought in Commerce Township … It takes about $10 million to open a store … The potential for a sale, however, depends on whether the buyer thinks he or she will get a good return on the investment … In Toledo, a family business that acquired a Farmer Jack six months ago closed its doors this month. The store was losing more than $100,000 a month, according to a Toledo Blade report.
In Defense of a Better Green Bean Casserole
Posted on 27 December 2007 under Food In The News, Holidays, Projects | 1 Comment
Over at the Toledo Blade, Mary Alice Powell has posted a column titled “Fruitcake Fan Won’t Back Down“. While expounding on the qualities of a good Claxton fruitcake (something I myself enjoy), she also, like, totally disses Grean Bean Casserole. Yeah I know, regardless of what the current TV ads show, pine trees do not like green bean casserole … While I do agree with some of what Ms. Powell wrote on the subject, I did feel it necessary to send her the following:
You wrote, “the green bean casserole, a combination of three canned commercial products, is an embarrassment to American culinary ingenuity and taste.” Ah yes, that could easily be said. But as with fruitcake, some of which is like eating a brick off a one-room schoolhouse, you don’t have to follow what’s generally accepted when making it. While the “classic” dish is, as a result of the TV dinner culture, a “peasant dish”, it’s definitely possible to upgrade the beast ala Ratatouille, i.e. both the movie and its Thomas Keller version of the dish.
For example, clean some fresh green beans and break them in half. Clean and slice a few shallots, and wash and slice some mushrooms. Make a bechamel sauce and add, say, a bit of fresh shredded Meunster and some salt and pepper to taste. Coat the shallots in a corn meal batter and deep fry them till golden brown. At the same time, sauté the beans and mushroom slices in some olive oil with some minced garlic. To serve, the beans and mushrooms go on the plate, topped with the sauce and garnished with the fried shallots.
No, I don’t have a photo. Looks as though I’ll have to make some of this to prove its worth.
A weekend project? Sure seems that way. I wonder what Dorcas Reilly would think?
The Decline of Guinness
Posted on 23 November 2007 under Beer, Food In The News | 3 Comments
The BBC News is reporting this morning that sales of Guinness are down by 30% since 2001 in their home turf of Ireland alone. From the article:
Guinness is, however, continuing to perform well in some markets, particularly Nigeria and America … In the UK and Ireland, a growing taste for lighter, blander, more refreshing drinks and a long term shift to entertaining at home, have taken their toll on Guinness’s sales … (I)t is lager, not Guinness they go for … The preference for “refreshing” drinks is a trend that has seen lager brands grow their market share from just 7% of all beer sales in 1970 to more than 70% today … More recently, it is reflected in the “cider over ice” phenomenon, started by Magners and Bulmers, which has added more than £200m to cider sales … Amongst the wines, it is rose that has been the winner, with sales increasing 188% since 2005.
Even though my first attempt at drinking Guinness found us killing the drink with popcorn, it has since become my beer-of-choice. In fact, I ended up educating the waitresses at the Chateau Louise that the Guinness Draught should be drank from the bottle, not poured into a glass. (Fer cryin’ out loud, it says so right on the bottle itself!) It would be a sad day indeed if such a historical beer would decline right out of existence in favor of “refreshing” drinks.
The $14,500 Dessert Revisited
Posted on 28 September 2007 under Food In The News | 1 Comment
Yesterday the BBC reported The Fortress hotel in Sri Lanka is having to defend its $14,500 dessert (which includes an 80 carat stone to take home) against detractors who say such a thing is offensive, even for a $1,700 per night hotel. From the article:
Aid workers say the idea is offensive when there is so much suffering … “For many people in Sri Lanka it is a struggle of life or death, mostly because of the war but also because of the aftermath of the tsunami of 2004,” one Colombo-based development worker said … “In these circumstances such a publicity stunt is in extremely bad taste.” … “This is not an idea imported by foreigners and imposed on Sri Lankans, nor is it a marketing gimmick” (said Axel Jarosh, general manager of The Fortress hotel in the southern town of Galle.)… “The idea was created by a local design team as suitable for guests staying in one of the country’s most up-market hotels.” … “We felt that there has been so much negative news emerging from Sri Lanka in recent months in relation to the war,” … “and wanted to come up with something that was upbeat and fun.” … Mr Jarosh said that one serving of the dessert had already been made.
I agree with Mr. Jarosh. There are struggles of life and death everywhere, not just Sri Lanka. Driving down I-75 this past Sunday evening after the sauerkraut party I suddenly noticed for the first time the huge number of communities living under the ends of the overpasses there, just to our north. Does this mean we should not have luxuries of any kind? Sorry, but no. You do what you can to help those who are less fortunate, but to not enjoy your blessings just because there are others who cannot makes no sense.
What do you think?
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