Where is the chocolate?

Yesterday I wanted to make one of my favourite desserts ever: toasted bread, olive oil, salt and chocolate on top. I went to the store I was expecting to find a huge variety of chocolates, but to my surprise there were only 3 kinds of chocolate bars!

• Lindt 70% 
• Hersheys
• Symphony bar

Should I complain? 

No, they had 1 variety of dark chocolate and 1 variety of milk chocolate and a thing they can no longer call chocolate but that it resembles the taste aka Hershey. So there was enough to make everybody happy. No reason to complain.

Loosing the essence

What made me sad was to see that the rest of the products that occupied a space of around 3mx2m where products with chocolate in them like goji berries coated with dark chocolate, chocolate bars, chocolate cups, chocolate balls, rice in chocolate and other chocolate variations, but as far as pure chocolate they only had 3 that took probably 1% of the shelf space.


It made me sad because I thought that we are forgetting the essence of things and because probably nobody buys chocolate bars anymore, we prefer the products that make the mix for us and sell us the total experience instead of letting us combine the chocolate with other things and letting us imagine/play with one of the most delicious things that exist.

Here's the recipie for Bread with chocolate and Olive oil, :-D

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On how Asia reminds me of my childhood - Stone tables and sun drying food

Sun drying food: My grandfather used to have a garden and he would take the beans out of their husk (is that the right word) and dry them on the sun. Here they do that with all kinds of things:

Chillies getting some the sun in Thailand

Stone tables: are we still building them? The plate on top of the table has rice on it. When you cook a lot of rice there is always some that stuck in the bottom of the pan, they take that rice and dry it out in the sun. 

Luang Prabang, Laos

Reusing and poorly paved roads
Everything is under construction and full of flowers

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¡Come mejor gracias a tu Food Shopper profesional!

¿Te gusta saber lo que comes?

¿No tienes tiempo de ir a todas las tiendas que te gustaría? 

¿Terminas en el Mercadona odiándote por estar ahí?

Ya tienes la solución: Food Shopper profesional

 

La realidad: no sabemos lo que comemos

La realidad es esta, no tenemos tiempo para ir a comprar los productos que nos gusta comer y que deberíamos consumir. Terminamos en tiendas comprando productos que no sabemos que contienen ni de donde salen.
Deja que un profesional compre para ti según tus preferencias, con tus valores y tu presupuesto.

Recupera tu tiempo libre

Si ya haces el esfuerzo de ir a comprar al mercado y en tiendas de calidad, con el Food Shopper podrás recuperar el sábado por la mañana (o algunos afortunados el viernes por la tarde). Tendrás más tiempo libre.
¿Por qué no contratar los servicios de una persona que te traiga a casa los productos que te gustan de las tiendas que tienen los estándares de calidad que te mereces?

Ingerir productos de calidad y ayudar al pequeño comercio

Alguien puede decir "Comprar en los colmados de calidad y productos eco es mucho más caro que ir al super". Sí, y qué? No crees que es más importante comer sin antibióticos y otras mierdas en la carne que consumes que tener el nuevo teléfono móbil? El food shopper te ayudará a priorizar y a definir tus preferencias e intereses según tu presupuesto.

Servicio al alcance de todos

Este servicio está empezando y es asequible para todos. Solamente pagas un pequeño porcentaje según el volumen de tus compras.
El asesoramiento inicial y la ayuda para definir tus prioridades es su compromiso sin coste añadido.

Tu aliado profesional

El creador e impulsor de esta idea tan necesaria es Alfredo, un amigo y profesional de la comida. Alfredo es un gran conocedor de la realidad alimentaria del país. Él tiene todas las herramientas para identificar los productos que deberíamos estar consumiendo y saber si el precio que nos proponen es el adecuado o no. Me encanta que haya empezado esta iniciativa porqué puede ayudar a muchísima gente a comer y a vivir mejor.
Os animo a llamarle para quedar con él xarxaprop@gmail.com 93 0017 006 o 662 37 29 70.

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Pigs feet, grasshoppers,...

Image from Lao voices

It is always fun to think about all the strange things we eat, here's a list of mine:

• Pigs feet, I love them, specialy the ones they used to make in Fontfaja
• Rotten cheese from France
• Botifarra de perol: sausage made with all the organs you can think of
• Robert ate pigs heart the other day...
• And the last new thing in my repertoir: a yummy delicious grasshopper! We were buying springrolls and the lady in the next stall was sellilng all kinds of fried bugs, she gave me a grasshopper to try and I didn't hesitate! After I had the grasshopper she wanted me to try some king of worm but it looked to disgusting. The grasshopper was actually very good and tasted really clean, something I could snack on!

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Glass noodles salad (Yum Woon Sen) / Amanida de fideus transparents

Perfect summer salad! This is the salad that people here eat when they want to lose weight because the noodles are made of soy and have almost no calories. It is delicious!


Ingredients for 1 person/ Ingredients per a una persona

• 1-3 chilies - chopped, the small ones /Els catalanets podem fer sense
• 1/4 onion - sliced long way /ceba d'amanida tallades llargues
• 1/4 tomato - sliced long way /tomàquets tallats llargs
• 1 cup of boiled minced chicken, seafood or tofu
• spring onions, coriander - chopped / una tasseta de carn picada o tofu o gambetes
• Glass noodles - they are made of soy sprouts, you can find them in all the asian stores. /fideus transparents que venen als supers asiàtics. Estàn fets de soja i gairebé no tenen calories.

Seasoning/Amanit

• 1 tsp sugar /cullereta de sucre
• 2 tsp fish sauce / culleretes de salsa de peix (la podeu comprar al super asiàtic) com a Fish Sauce
• 1 tbsp lime / cullerada sopera de llima

Preparation:
Boil the glass noodles for a few minutes, then inmediately soak in cold water.
Mix all the ingredients and all the seasoning together. Easy!
 
Posar els fideus en aigua bullint durant un parell de minuts i inmediatament posar-los en aigua freda.
Barrejar tots els ingredients i a menjar!

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Do they have something in common?

Sunday at Gunung Pedang by Robert Rogge

Eventhough the 3 cultures don't do a lot of things together, they have many thing in common:

• They love to smile
• They take care of their business
• They treat foreigners very well
• They love thé tarik
• They eat all the time and they eat a lot
• They all love to spend a hot Sunday in the waterfalls, who doesn't?

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Begudes

Llet de soja amb gengibre

Coconut shake amb Lin-lin i amiga

Aquí la varietat de begudes és al.lucinant. Us faig una petita guia:

• Sucs de fruita naturals de xíndria, meló, pataya amb llimona, lima, pinya, mango,...
• Llet de soja amb prunes, amb gengibre, amb ginseny o amb te d'herbes!
• Llet de coco
• Shakes, o sigui llet amb gelat. La versió india sería el Lassi, o sigui sucs de fruita amb iogurt.
• Refrescs com els que ja coneixem però amb versions locals
• Com que la majoría de la gent és musulmana, no es veu gaire alcohol però a les illes es veu molta cervesa i sempre amb llaunes. :-(
  
• Te, un altre dia us explicaré l'experiencia de la cerimónia del te



Llet de coco a Singapore

• L'aigua de l'aixeta es pot beure si la bulls primer, el que no podeu fer és veure aigua de les fonts que hi ha al mig dels parcs o sinò tindreu molt mal de panxa.

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Sardines

As you might know, Robert is crazy about eating canned food. In the photo you can see him eating a can of sardines. Things we learned from the experience:

• Even little kitties love sardines
• In Malaysia they love sardines, they use them dried and fried to decorate dishes and use them canned to put inside a kind of pancake called Roti.
• If you eat something really smelly like sardines, a rat might come visit your cabin during the night.
• Sardines make a great snack!

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Feel like cooking?

Check out this web page: http://www.cookingforengineers.com

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Fun Fun Fun

Check out this web page! Fun Fun Fun

http://demo.fb.se/e/ikea/dreamkitchen/site/default.html

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What's in My Food? By Pallavi Gogoi

Business Week Online
Few people know that the food coloring listed as cochineal extract comes from female beetles. Food activists want to spread the word.
When you dig into a strawberry Yoplait yogurt, take a moment to contemplate where the beautiful pink color comes from. Strawberries? Think again. It comes from crushed bugs. Specifically, from the female cochineal beetles and their eggs. And it's not just yogurt. The bugs are also used to give red coloring to Hershey Good & Plenty candies, Tropicana grapefruit juice, and other common foods. You won't find "crushed bugs" on the list of ingredients for any of these foods, however. Companies have a bit of latitude in describing exactly what they put in our food.

Many larger companies, such as General Mills, the manufacturer of Yoplait and Pepsi, the maker of Tropicana, identify the dye in their products as either carmine, or cochineal extract. Still, many companies simply list "artificial color" on their ingredients list without giving any details.

Food activists are trying to change disclosure requirements. The Food & Drug Administration has received numerous complaints over the issue and is now in the process of considering a proposal to require color additives like the cochineal extract to be disclosed on the labels of all foods that use them. "Hopefully we'll see something by the end of the year," says Michael Jacobson, executive director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a food advocacy group in Washington, D. C.

ALLERGIC REACTIONS. Jacobson says that consumers want to know what they're eating. Some are allergic to bug extract; others are vegetarians. "The food product should indicate that it comes from insects so that vegetarians at least can avoid the product," he says.

Carmine may be the least of food activists' worries. It is known to cause allergic reactions in just a small percentage of the population. Food producers sometimes add much more dangerous chemical additives to make their products look attractive (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/27/06, "Hershey: A Sweeter Bid").

Indeed, who would think that chicken, eggs, and salmon are often artificially enhanced to look more appetizing to consumers? The plump, juicy chicken sitting on the supermarket shelf is likely to have been fed canthaxanthin, a pigment added to chicken feed to enhance poultry's yellow color and make it look palatable. And egg-laying hens are also given a dye along with their feed, making egg yolks vary in color from light yellow all the way to bright orange.

IN THE PINK. Farmers can have their pick from a color chart that goes from the numbers 1 to 15, coinciding with colors from yellow to red. The yellow color comes from xanthophyll and carotenoids in the feed absorbed through the intestine, metabolized, and deposited in the egg yolk. In an article published last year, R. Scott Beyer, a poultry specialist from the Kansas State University, recommended different levels of xanthophylls, depending on what color of yolk is desired. He says 23 mg of xanthophyll per pound of feed results in a "medium orange" color.

The fresh, farm-raised salmon that shoppers buy also get their orange-red hue from eating the chemicals astaxanthin and canthaxanthin. Wild salmon are pink because they eat shrimp-like creatures called krill. But to achieve the same pink color, farmed salmon need chemicals, which are mixed with their feed. In the past couple of years, the European Union significantly reduced the level of such dyes that can be fed to salmon because of concerns that the dyes, at high levels, can affect people's eyesight.

Two years ago, in the U.S., Seattle law firm Smith & Lowney filed two class actions against grocers Kroger and Safeway in Washington and California, contending that they should disclose that their salmon are dyed pink. Both lawsuits got thrown out of court. However, Knoll Lowney, a partner at the law firm, says that the lawsuits raised enough public awareness that many grocers voluntarily use "color added" labels to their salmon.

Still, Lowney says that such dyes are totally unnecessary. "This is a growing problem because the food companies are using more artificial means to enhance the appearance of the product and make it appear like something that it is not," he says. A walk down the grocery aisle for processed food is an eye opener—the bacon and ham get their red tint from sodium ascorbate, an antioxidant and color stabilizer, and the Betty Crocker icing gets its bright white color not from natural cream and egg whites but from titanium dioxide, a mineral that is also used in house paints. Betty Crocker manufacturer General Mills didn't return phone calls seeking comment.

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Sushi

On Thursday our floor neighbours came to give us some sushi that they had prepared. I was so happy! So happy to see that there are people out there that are not afraid of talking with other people! A lot of times I have the sensation that people in Barcelona are skared to talk with others, that is why everybody looks rude in the subway and nobody smiles, they are like walking walls.
____________________
El dijous els veïns de davant ens van venir a portar un plat de sushi que els hi havia sobrat. Va ser fantàstic! Fantàstic veure que hi ha gent que no li fa por parlar amb altra gent. De vegades aquesta és la sensació que tinc a Barcelona, que la gent fa mala cara tota l'estona perquè ningú els molesti, com murs que caminen.

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