Broccoli with horseradish lime butter

It seems to me that we are not eating enough vegetables around here. And besides, look at the beautiful angle of the sunshine through the window in this photograph. Remember sunshine, and open windows, and warm weather? They will all come again. Meanwhile, have some broccoli.  





Brassica oleracea italica is the good vegetable's Latin name; The Oxford Companion to Food tells us that although the average shopper can easily tell the difference between broccoli and cauliflower, botanists cannot, as the situation is -- botanically -- "very complex." We'll take their word for it.

 "Broccoli with lime butter" sounds elegant, but this recipe is so heavy on the horseradish that I thought it better to be more honest with the title. It comes from the interesting Of Tide & Thyme, by the Junior League of Annapolis, Maryland (9th printing, 2003).

Broccoli with (horseradish) lime butter 

Chop two heads of broccoli into florets, and drop the florets into a large pot of boiling salted water. Boil uncovered for no more than 5 minutes. Drain.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, melt and combine:

• 1 stick butter
• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 Tbsp horseradish (I used prepared creamy)

Spoon the sauce over the cooked broccoli. It is piquant, but good for the strong-minded. Or for those who don't care for the taste of actual Brassica?



And what wine to pair with this? Mercy, none, I think. Surely there is is no such animal.

Ramos Pinto porto tawny

Murky russet brown
sharp acidity with alcohol heat
cake and raisins 

Port is such a comfort on any cold, gray, snowy weekend, especially one during which you have discovered that perhaps the purchase of a small, two-seater, rear-wheel drive convertible in a wintry climate was not the smartest move in the world. Forest green, so pretty. But this purchase was made two years ago, almost to the day, and I vow there was a blizzard that week, too. How comes it that the little car -- we call it "my Pre-cious" in imitation of the horrid Gollum, slavering over his Ring -- could not make it through the snow this time, but did so at all other times?

Perhaps we had more snow. No matter. The wine is delicious. Eventually, the snow will melt, the phones will be back in operation, my Precious will function, and we'll all be thinking not so much of port but of spring brunches and summertime "patio sippers." Till then, it's off to the electronics store -- in the Precious, the village has done an admirable job plowing the streets -- to buy more minutes for my cell phone, which has been doing double duty as a land line all weekend and now beeps frantically at me to warn me of vanishing time. So true. 

Ramos Pinto porto tawny, retail, about $15

My newest cocktail -- the Whisky (or Scotch) Sour

You will remember that we have been tentatively dipping our toe into the world of -- the sea of -- cocktails, chiefly under the guidance of our master, Charles Schumann of American Bar, with assistance from the doughty and delightful 1960s-era promotional booklet, the Calvert Party Encyclopedia. So far we have learned to make the Stubby Collins, the Bee's Knees, the Highland Fling, the Gin Rickey, of course the classic dry martini, and the Gunga Din. If you know cocktails, you will see my taste runs mightily to citrus and gin. Among all the lemons, oranges and limes, however, I did recently pause to make a real Bloody Mary as well, using actual ingredients such as tomato juice and Worcestershire sauce, rather than a bottle of some "Wing Bing" or "Kick Ass" mix (not that there's anything wrong with that). Only, alas. I did not bother sharing the experience, because it turns out I do not like the Bloody Mary. 

Do let's then investigate another classic cocktail, the Whisky or Scotch (or Jack or Wild Turkey) Sour. More citrus, no gin. This one has the added fillip of reminding me of the scene in the classic movie The Seven Year Itch, when Manhattan "summer bachelor" Mr. Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell), indignantly tells his secretary -- upon her offering to fetch him coffee and a jelly doughnut -- that he was perfectly capable of fixing his own breakfast at home that morning, even though his wife is away enjoying Maine's cool breezes. "As a matter of fact I had a peanut butter sandwich and two whisky sours," he huffs.

To make one of these, whether for breakfast or not, both our master Schumann and the Calvert people of some fifty years ago agree, basically, on the ingredients. So does the excellent online source, Liquor.com. We combine, with ice cubes in a shaker: 

• the juice of half a lemon (or 3/4 ounces lemon juice, or half a jigger)
• 1/2 tsp sugar (or 3/4 ounce -- half a jigger -- simple syrup, which is equal parts sugar and water, pre-dissolved)
• 1 jigger (1 and 1/2 ounces) Scotch or whisky -- Liquor.com specifies Bourbon

The lemon and the jigger

We shake everything vigorously for about 10 seconds, and then -- then Mr. Schumann and the Calverts and I part company with Liquor.com as to the manner of serving up the Sour. The modern website advises us to strain the drink into a "rocks" glass filled with yet more ice. Mr. Schumann and the Calverts counter no, strain it into a "sour" glass, and leave it plain. I agree. This is a small, tasty drink, and I see no point in diluting it further. I doubt whether Mr. Richard Sherman, either, would have diluted it any more. The illustration of the sour glass helpfully accompanying the recipe in American Bar shows what looks like a diminutive wine glass. I've served it forth in a martini glass, which vessel doesn't leave room for ice either. Look, in the photograph below, how small your portion is. The set of measuring spoons in the background is meant to show scale. Anyway why need the thing be kept any colder? You will toss it off in no time, and then you must get up and cook dinner.

 Luckily, everyone does agree that we garnish our treat with a fresh cherry. Cherries, though, are only in season for a short time. Is the Whisky Sour thus a seasonal drink, to be enjoyed chiefly in May and June, just possibly all summer if cherry supplies are good? The Seven Year Itch is a summertime movie.

But dear me, surely not. We mustn't be too purist about it all. A few grapes or a bite of kiwi will also do. And by the way, do visit Miss Charming's Silver Screen Cocktails, representing only a fraction of what seems to be the Miss Charming industry, for more fun at the show. There are people who study this, and boy is she one.

Image from eBay

Marshall Field's (Walnut Room restaurant) meatloaf

Of course you may do whatever you like, but I imagine that, some one of these January weekends, you will like to start the New Year off with a nice, simple comfort-food dinner. A meatloaf from the old Marshall Field's department store's Walnut Room restaurant will serve beautifully. Please excuse the lack of pictures -- that is, pictures of the food. Small, inexpensive digital cameras don't bring out the best in the look of meats.

Marshall Field's Walnut Room meatloaf    

• 4 ounces garlic croutons, crushed (lacking garlic croutons, I don't see why you could not simply add a clove of diced fresh garlic to the diced onions you will sauté, below, and use any croutons or a piece of good dried bread in lieu thereof)
• 1 cup beef broth
• olive oil for sautéeing onions
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 2 eggs
• 2 and 1/2 Tbsp prepared pesto
• 2 and 1/2 Tbsp pine nuts, toasted
• 1 and 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 2 pounds ground beef or pork or combination
• 1 and 1/2 cups julienned spinach

To begin, soak the croutons in the beef broth in a small bowl. Then, heat the olive oil in a saucepan and add the onions (and possibly garlic), cooking until soft, about 7 to 8 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Add the pesto, pine nuts, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper. Mix well, then add the soaked croutons and broth, onions, meats, and spinach. "Mix with your hands until just combined."

Pat the mixture into a 4 x 9 loaf pan, and place this on a baking sheet. Bake for one hour and 15 minutes, until cooked through, and let sit 10 minutes before serving. The cookbook includes instructions for a Red Pepper Gravy, which is simply a cup and a half of leftover gravy or brown sauce, simmered with 2 Tablespoons roasted red peppers (jarred, I presume, though the recipe strangely does not specify).

The meatloaf is completely delicious and should make happy converts even of those of us who have always looked askance at what might seem an ordinary, week-night staple. I think you will want a nice big peppery shiraz to go with, or perhaps a glass of something tart, dry, and Italian, to flatter all that pesto and the pine nuts. Your choice.

Perfectly agreeable

2009 Beringer Founders' Estate cabernet sauvignon

A perfectly agreeable red wine for everyday, one of the workhorses of the industry, retailing for about $10. If we want to be extremely frantic about it, we may detect a certain something missing from this bottle of perfectly reliable, perfectly affordable uniformity -- a sort of "meh" in the middle. But if we wanted a $25-and-up experience, we should have opened our wallets a little more.

2007 Alceño monastrell-syrah blend, Jumilla D.O. 

A second perfectly pleasant red, this one from Spain (Jumilla, a region in the southeast of the country, is the Denominacion de Origen). Is it ridiculous to call a wine "grape-y"? For this one tastes of fresh red grapes, and seems to make no claims to taste of anything grander. Or am I being ridiculous? -- for see here, it seems to retail for a respectable $15 or so.

At First Glass turns four -- and bakes those classic lemon bars

Now we might think lemon bars are too ordinary to be worthy of discussion. Who has not learned to make them in a long-ago junior high school home ec. class? Who has not enjoyed them at dozens of Fourth of July picnics and PTA bake sales ever afterward? Here we are, on At First Glass's fourth anniversary, mucking about with (appropriately enough, to be sure) preschool-level treats while grander blogs are fishing ("crabbing") for their own Dungeness crabs, making green lentil soup with curried brown butter, or serving up orange-clove chocolate chip pancakes with coffee-clove syrup.

Yet I submit them, for a variety of reasons. They are simplicity itself. They are a delight to prepare, requiring the use of only one mixing bowl, which can do double duty for the preparation of both crust and filling. There is no need to fuss with softening or creaming butter, nor with greasing a baking pan. Made with fresh squeezed lemon juice, they are the most scrumptious morsels imaginable -- as with so many delicious things, it is their great buttery richness which satisfies you and prevents you from devouring the entire plateful.

And why else? Once upon a time, I made these for some evening PTA function. They lay, all anonymous and humble and ready for any hand to choose among them. People milled about in the blaringly lit, crowded gymnasium, mothers, fathers, grandparents, children. Preschoolers. I happened to be standing chatting with someone, when I saw a woman pick a lemon bar, take a bite of it, pause, and then throw it in the closest garbage can.  

Witnessing that, I could only guess that this poor soul had never tasted good, properly made lemon bars before. Are they available in a box mix? Probably. Was that all she knew? Perhaps. It must have been the intense, unaccustomed flavor that put her off -- or perhaps she didn't like lemon and didn't realize until too late what these were. But how could anyone not know? Had she missed that day in Mrs. Pemberton's home ec. class? Is her name legion? All the more reason for me to do my small part today in getting the word out, to dear poor souls everywhere, about this great, commonplace, origins-lost-in-the-mists-of-culinary-prehistory cookie bar.

Lemon bars

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Have ready two 8 x 8 x 2 baking pans, ungreased.

Mix together in a large bowl:
2 and 2/3 cups flour 
1/2 cup sugar

Work in with your fingers until the mixture is moist and crumbly:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter


Divide the dough in half simply by taking it up in fistfuls and putting it alternately in the two pans. Pat the dough down and bake each pan 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from oven.

While the dough is baking, mix in the same mixing bowl
4 eggs
1 and 1/2 cups sugar
4 Tablespoons flour
6 Tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice 

Pour the filling over the partially baked crusts. Return to the oven and finish baking for 18 to 20 minutes, until the bars shrink away from the sides of the pan and the edges toast just a little. Let them cool before sprinkling with powdered sugar.



Postscript: do we dare mess with such beauty? Years ago, as Chicago Baking Examiner, I shoehorned this recipe into Examiner.com's random "Vodka month" theme by suggesting a vodka icing to replace the dusting of powdered sugar the bars usually receive. A plain sweet icing starts with 3 Tablespoons of hot water in a bowl, to which about 2 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar is added; you beat the mixture until it reaches a good consistency for spreading or drizzling. Any liquid may be substituted for the hot water, depending on the flavors in the baked treat you plan to glaze. And so, -- vodka with lemon? Or gin ....

Pierre Delize Blanc de blancs vin mousseux, NV

Pure, plain fresh apples
dry
bubbly ("vin mousseux") -- for a $5 closeout tipple, delightful

The fine print is almost as mysterious as that on any Italian label:  "Elaboré par V.cl. à F21200," it says, "423 France -- brut -- bottled by Veuve Ambal F21200 -- Montagny-les-Beaune." We'll try to decipher it.

Once we see the word Beaune we know we are in Burgundy, home of pinot noir and chardonnay. In spotting Veuve Ambal, we at least recognize a company name -- the nice English words "bottled by" are a huge help -- resembling those of other French producers, including for instance that very great Champagne house, Veuve Clicquot (veuve means widow). Our Pierre Delize is a vin mousseux ("frothy") because though it may froth and sparkle, its origins lie outside Champagne; therefore it may not call itself by that magic word. Blanc de blancs, white from white, tells us that it was made entirely from white grapes

Having deciphered a few basics we may go on to gloat that, with this sale-bin treasure, we inadvertently delve into a whole world of French sparkling wines, or perhaps we could say un-Champagnes. There are three styles made all over the country. The bubbliest are mousseux -- Champagne is itself a mousseux -- the next bubbliest are crémant, having about half the pressure in the bottle as mousseux, and the least bubbly, pétillant, frizzante, or "crackling." Since sparkling wines are made everywhere, these category descriptors can be a part of Appellation Controlée designations which we usually associate with a place. For example, crémant is part of the official AC designations Crémant d'Alsace, Crémant de Bourgogne, and Crémant de Loire. Note that our Pierre Delize is not a Crémant de Bourgogne, even though it is from Beaune, because its fizz level classifies it mousseux instead.

Anyway it is most tasty. Do check the sale bins. If you don't finish the bottle before it goes flat, remember your French culinary history, as taught by Madeleine Kamman in The New Making of a Cook: use it up in soup. "It is believed," she says, "that onion soup was created by the French king Louis XV from a bottle of flat Champagne and a few onions on an occasion when he came back famished from a joyous night in eighteenth-century Paris." Delightful.

2008 Joseph Phelps Insignia, after the wait

Everyone got a little pour -- let's see, that makes fourteen people, or was it fifteen? -- and the wine flowed black-purple into our glasses. It was like eating a bottle full of fruit, but fruit strong enough, as my grandmother used to say about some coffee, "to stand up and walk down your throat." Dry-shod, I might add.

And then after the little crackers and the cheeses and the spinach bites and the pickle-and-beef rollups and the pasta Bolognese and the bruschetta and the cookies and the cakes and pies and the wines and the ancillary birthday champagne, we all tottered out into the cold under the twinkling stars (my, Orion is a big constellation) and drove home. Giving thanks.

"It was a pre-Christian force which drove them all into agreement upon the twenty-fifth of December. Just as they wisely took the Christmas tree from the Roman Saturnalia, so they took the date of their festival from the universal pre-Christian festival of the winter solstice, Yule, when mankind celebrated the triumph of the sun over the powers of darkness, when the night begins to decrease and the day to increase, when the year turns, and hope is born again because the worst is over. No more suitably symbolic moment could have been chosen for a festival of faith, goodwill, and joy.

"And the appositeness of the moment is just as perfect in this era of light and central heating, as it was in the era of Virgil, who, by the way, described a Christmas tree. We shall say this year, with exactly the same accents of relief and hope as our pagan ancestors used, and as the woaded savage used: 'The days will begin to lengthen now!' " -- Arnold Bennett, The Feast of St. Friend (1911)

2008 Joseph Phelps Insignia -- or, waiting

Since the wine retails for something like $200, we are waiting to bring it to the Christmas party. Meanwhile, waiting reminds us of stories of Christmas Waits.

It seems that, in nineteenth century England and before, carolers went about in the depths of the night of Christmas Eve and sang songs outside people's windows to celebrate the joy of the approaching day. The word waits makes sense, deriving as it does from old English words meaning to be awake or keep guard. Washington Irving, American tourist in the English countryside circa 1819, thought the custom picturesque and delightful. Jerome K. Jerome, whose story is quoted below, was less impressed.   

The Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow by Jerome K. Jerome (1899)

"Christmas Waits annoy me, and I yearn to throw open the window and fling coal at them--as once from the window of a high flat in Chelsea I did. I doubted their being genuine Waits. I was inclined to the opinion they were young men seeking excuse for making a noise. One of them appeared to know a hymn with a chorus, another played the concertina, while a third accompanied with a step dance. Instinctively I felt no respect for them; they disturbed me in my work, and the desire grew upon me to injure them. It occurred to me it would be good sport if I turned out the light, softly opened the window, and threw coal at them. It would be impossible for them to tell from which window in the block the coal came, and thus subsequent unpleasantness would be avoided. They were a compact little group, and with average luck I was bound to hit one of them.

"I adopted the plan. I could not see them very clearly. I aimed rather at the noise; and I had thrown about twenty choice lumps without effect, and was feeling somewhat discouraged, when a yell, followed by language singularly unappropriate to the season, told me that Providence had aided my arm. The music ceased suddenly, and the party dispersed, apparently in high glee - which struck me as curious.

"One man I noticed remained behind. He stood under the lamp-post, and shook his fist at the block generally.

"'Who threw that lump of coal?' he demanded in stentorian tones.

"To my horror, it was the voice of the man at Eighty-eight, an Irish gentleman, a journalist like myself. I saw it all, as the unfortunate hero always exclaims, too late, in the play. He - number Eighty-eight - also disturbed by the noise, had evidently gone out to expostulate with the rioters. Of course my lump of coal had hit him - him the innocent, the peaceful (up till then), the virtuous. That is the justice Fate deals out to us mortals here below. There were ten to fourteen young men in that crowd, each one of whom fully deserved that lump of coal; he, the one guiltless, got it - seemingly, so far as the dim light from the gas lamp enabled me to judge, full in the eye.

"As the block remained silent in answer to his demand, he crossed the road and mounted the stairs. On each landing he stopped and shouted-

"'Who threw that lump of coal? I want the man who threw that lump of coal. Out you come.'

"Now a good man in my place would have waited till number Eighty-eight arrived on his landing, and then, throwing open the door would have said with manly candour-

"'I threw that lump of coal. I was-,' He would not have got further, because at that point, I feel confident, number Eighty-eight would have punched his head. There would have been an unseemly fracas on the staircase, to the annoyance of all the other tenants and later, there would have issued a summons and a cross-summons. Angry passions would have been roused, bitter feeling engendered which might have lasted for years.

"I do not pretend to be a good man. I doubt if the pretence would be of any use were I to try: I am not a sufficiently good actor. I said to myself, as I took off my boots in the study, preparatory to retiring to my bedroom - "Number Eighty-eight is evidently not in a frame of mind to listen to my story. It will be better to let him shout himself cool; after which he will return to his own flat, bathe his eye, and obtain some refreshing sleep. In the morning, when we shall probably meet as usual on our way to Fleet Street, I will refer to the incident casually, and sympathize with him. I will suggest to him the truth - that in all probability some fellow-tenant, irritated also by the noise, had aimed coal at the Waits, hitting him instead by a regrettable but pure accident. With tact I may even be able to make him see the humour of the incident. Later on, in March or April, choosing my moment with judgment, I will, perhaps, confess that I was that fellow-tenant, and over a friendly brandy-and-soda we will laugh the whole trouble away."

"As a matter of fact, that is what happened. Said number Eighty-eight - he was a big man, as good a fellow at heart as ever lived, but impulsive - 'Damned lucky for you, old man, you did not tell me at the time.'

"'I felt,' I replied, 'instinctively that it was a case for delay.'"

*******************

And we will discuss the Insignia later.

From my house to yours on Christmas -- marguerites

These "marguerites," little pecan and brown sugar muffins, are a family recipe that I have never seen elsewhere. At least, not yet. Sometimes it takes a bit of digging before you realize that your old family recipe actually came from an old family Betty Crocker cookbook. Remember the episode of Friends in which Phoebe insists that the Nestle company stole her grandmother's chocolate chip cookie recipe and put it on the back of the chips bag?

I do have an old Encyclopedic Cookbook from Chicago's Culinary Arts Institute which has a recipe for Marguerites, but the confection offered there is a strange one. A sugar syrup is poured over beaten egg whites, then vanilla, nuts, and butter are added, and then this meringue is dropped by spoonfuls onto soda crackers and they are all baked until the meringue browns. Thanks, I'd rather not.

My family's real marguerites are simple to make, since they do not require any fussing with butter, creamed, cold, or otherwise, and they bake quickly. You will need miniature muffin tins -- almost the first thing I bought when I was first married -- and miniature paper muffin cups, unless you don't mind greasing the tins.

Marguerites
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Mix in a bowl:

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1/4 tsp. baking powder

Add 2 eggs, and mix the batter thoroughly. Fill each muffin tin with a spoonful of batter. Bake 15 to 17 minutes.

Frost with a basic frosting of 3 Tablespoons hot water (or other flavoring) blended with 2 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar until smooth. Makes 22 to 24 muffins.

A small collection of Christmas reds

Is it only three days away? You might try --

Vini Ciccariello, an ultra-cheap but decent Italian merlot that will serve admirably for a large party full of people who are not there to swirl and sniff. It retails for about $4 to $5. We have met its brother pinot grigio before, and liked it, too.

 
2009 Temptation, whose label packs more punch than the wine. (Certainly a shoo-in for our Gallery.) This Sonoma County zinfandel might strike you as a rather wimpy compared to the lush, high alcohol fruit pies most zinfandels are. But pour it as another nice, anonymous red to wash down the Christmas Eve finger foods, and you will like it fine. Retail, about $15.        .

1999 Château Simard -- at last, a real Bordeaux. Deserving of real tasting note haiku:

complex fragrance  --
smoke, cedar, meat
silky 
mashed berries and apple skins
leaner, denser, drier than ... 

May I shamelessly pilfer from Château Simard's publicity materials? "Château Simard is located near the ancient and beautiful town of Saint-Emilion, home to the Right Bank's most prestigious estates. ... A quintessential Saint-Emilion producer, Château Simard's vineyard is surrounded by the region's first growth vineyards. ... Château Simard produces only one wine. It is classically elegant, with a refined style that results not only from the excellent location,  but also from the traditional winemaking methods employed at the château and the number of years the wine is aged in the cellars." 70% merlot, 30% cabernet franc. Retail, about $20. 

2002 Kenwood Artist Series cabernet sauvignon -- this one may not necessarily be sitting waiting for you on your local liquor store's shelves, but Kenwood makes a good, more modest line of wines, too, retailing for about $12. Our Artist's Series cabernet, if you can find it --

plum skins 
pencil box 
olives 
still a young, purple mulberry color
satiny tannins 
fresh --fruity -- elegant --  full

-- will sell for about $60.

Sugar

What with Christmas only a week away, it seems appropriate to revive this entry into the "Baking 101" catalog that I began to compile during my brief stint as Examiner.com's Chicago Baking Examiner. Here we learn a little about sugar, even consulting children's books for basic information. Consider: what ingredient do we suddenly eat more of, during the holiday baking season, than sugar? Perhaps something outranks it, maybe butter, but we would still be dismayed to learn how much our consumption of the white sweet stuff skyrockets come December. The stock kids at the store haul out pallet after pallet of it, four pound bags stacked high, sometimes tracking a thin sugar trail across the floor if there's been an unnoticed spill. Hard to believe there was a time when our ancestors did not know sugar -- nor chocolate, coffee, or tea, nor very much good wine -- and made their Christmas cakes and cookies festive instead with the subtleties of honey, almonds, saffron, and rose water, and their meals festive with homemade beer of who knows what quality.

So, sugar. Examiner.com liked everyone's posts to be short and "news-y."



White, refined sugar was not known in Europe until after Crusaders brought it back from the middle East around the year 1100. Even then, sugar was used primarily as a medicine. Physicians mixed it with other drugs to disguise their taste. Sugar in cooking and baking was a luxury reserved for the rich until about the 1700s. What finally made sugar more available to all classes was simply the massive production levels achieved, in the sugar islands of the Caribbean and in South America, through the use of slave labor.

All plants contain some natural sugar, which usually is concentrated in the plant's fruit. Even a lemon has 1% sugar. Sugar cane -- technically a grass -- has more sugar in it than any other plant except sugar beets. Its sugars are found in the juices inside the mature cane. To eventually get solid white sugar crystals out of the plant, the canes have to be chopped and pressed, and the sticky juices repeatedly mixed with water, boiled, evaporated, and whirled in a centrifuge. Each time this is done, the liquids whirled away become another batch of molasses, and the solids left become a whiter, more refined sugar.

Raw sugar, pictured here, is sugar that been through a centrifuge and had some molasses whirled away, but has not had all that molasses coating washed off all the crystals. White sugars (granulated, cubes, superfine, or powdered) have been redissolved and reprocessed not only to remove the molasses but to eliminate the impurities within the crystals which also contribute to sugar's naturally brown color. The commercially available "brown" sugars, light or dark, are refined white sugars which have had molasses added back to them.

Fun trivia about sugar:

• Sugar crystals were first extracted from cane in India, about 500 B.C.
• The word candy comes from an Arabic version of the Sanskrit word "khandakah," meaning sugar.
• Sugar used to be processed into conical shaped loaves. This is why the giant granite peak overlooking Rio de Janeiro in Brazil is called Pao de Acucar, Sugar Loaf.
• London's famed Tate Gallery was built by Sir Henry Tate, who made a fortune in the 19th century sugar business. He patented a machine which cut up sugar loaves into small, easily handled cubes.

For more info: See Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking (1984); Sugars by Rhoda Nottridge (1993); Sugar From Farm to Market by Winifred Hammond (1967); Let's Learn about Sugar by Maud and Miska Petersham (1969).

Olive Garden, Obamacare waivers, sodium footprints -- and three months of falling sales

... or, in which I dabble in the news.

Every so often I venture off to a funny if snarky blog called Michelle Obama's Mirror, which gives the world a beguiling peek at life in the White House -- or just as often, life on some exotic "vacay" -- from the point of view of, well, the First Lady's mirror. And a hardworking, observant, sometimes defensive, frequently exhausted piece of furniture it is. It accompanies "the Wons" on every foreign trip and attends all of "Big Guy's" state dinners, it knows what's growing in "Lady M's" organic garden and what fabulously new or virtuously recycled frock she wore to this fundraiser or that. 

And every so often the Mirror, MOTUS as it fondly dubs itself, reports hard news. Since last week's update (December 8th) involves food, I take the liberty of sharing it.

MOTUS tells us that for the last three months, Olive Garden restaurant has posted sales losses. Those for the month of November alone amount to "a whopping 5.7%." Olive Garden's parent company, Darden, reports no similar downturns for its other chains (Red Lobster, Longhorn Steakhouse, etc.), so MOTUS echoes the original questions broached on the CNN report that was its first source. Why should Olive Garden slump from September of 2011 onward?

Image from Michelle Obama's Mirror

The Mirror "reaches into our way-back machine," finds more sources, and tells a story. In September, Michelle Obama announced the restaurant's participation in her "Partnership for a Healthier America initiative." Partner Darden agreed to remove milkshakes and French fries from Olive Garden's children's menu, replacing them with fruit smoothies and grapes, and to cut sodium and fat from the menu in general by 10 percent. This was called "reducing sodium and calorie footprints." This is also called "never mind what the customers want," as MOTUS points out.

MOTUS leaves us to figure out the timeline,* but points out as well that Darden is one of the many businesses that got a waiver from Obamacare. So it gets to ignore, temporarily, the ruinously expensive provisions of the law, and to maintain its employees' health care coverage until all waivers expire and the accounting department there, like accounting departments elsewhere, finds it cheaper to pay Obamacare's fines than to go on absurdly insuring waitresses and cooks and people.

In Illinois we call this general approach to life "Pay to Play," and we marvel as one state governor after another goes to jail for indulging in variations on the theme. What is curious about the Olive Garden story, though, is its last part, what we might call Pay to Eat. It seems Olive Garden's customers are not doing that quite so much. Not since September. Coincidence? Outraged public? Or puzzled customers simply going elsewhere for milkshakes and French fries, and wondering what's with all the grapes? As MOTUS humbly allows, "I report, you deride."

Image from Michelle Obama's Mirror

*Sources:

"Olive Garden rolls out more healthful kids' menu," Restaurant News, July 7, 2011

 "Obama's Lunch Buddy's Company Given Obamacare Waiver," The Weekly Standard, July 12, 2011

"First Lady Michelle Obama Praises Darden Restaurants' Plans to Reduce Calorie, Sodium Footprint," Darden press release, September 15, 2011

CNN transcripts of Erin Burnett's "Outfront," broadcast December 6th, 2011

"Pardon me, waiter, there's a fly in my soup," Michelle Obama's Mirror, December 8th, 2011.