So, they finally did it. A healthy cookie.

Wow, I don't know when it came out, but while at Global Foods, I saw something that caught my eye which I had only recently seen a commercial for: a healthy cookie.

Ok, the cookies are vanilla, in this case and are tasty.  What is interesting about them is what can be found on the back of the box:

Now, I'm not going to repeat what you can see there, but 3 cookies at 170 calories is an okay ratio.  But look at what you get, look at those percentages!  Three cookies are comparable in nutrition to half of a cup of Carnation instant breakfast!

Now, if you want cookies at home for you or your kids, I highly suggest these and if I see more anywhere I intend to try the other flavors.

The un-celebration of the 100th post

 100 posts ago, I started with just a simple restaurant review.  The restaurant was The Stable, in St. Louis and this restaurant became one of my family and friend's favorite place.  My review was from a date with just me and my wife and after my honest review, no less than 10 others had since been there.  All of these others have told me how great the restaurant is and plan on going back again.

Since then, I have done about 18 restaurant reviews, about 7 recipe or cookbook reviews and the rest have mostly been articles dealing with food or food science.  I enjoy eating and going to restaurants and equally enjoy writing about my experiences. I did want to try to get something special, like an interview with Rick Moonen or even a local chef but have been turned down as a result.

During these past 99 posts, there are a few things that I have learned about food and restaurants and chefs:

 1.  Anthony Bourdain will never come to St. Louis.  In a bit of a sore topic, Mr. Bourdain was asked no less than 3 times, while he was speaking about his book at the Fox Theatre, this past October, if he was coming to St. Louis.  He responded that he was coming to the state to do some time in the Ozarks but not coming to St. Louis.  Once again, another person who thinks of St. Louis as nothing but an airport hub. We may not be as big as a city as New York or Vegas, but we have great food, great restaurants and great farms.  We have the oldest outdoor market West of the Mississippi and even one of the best chefs (Chef Larry Forgione).
 
2.  Most of the St. Louis area people have no idea what good taste is.  If you are reading this, then you are some of the few people with good taste.  I have been to at least 2 bad restaurants during these past 99 posts and the strange thing is that the locals around both establishments believe that these places are the best they have ever had.  So, either these places really are bad or I just have bad luck when it comes to restaurants.  Either the food has been way to salty and not enough to match the price or the food doesn't even come at all after an hour and when it does it tastes just like any other regular fare.  The best Mayan food in Maplewood is home to the saltiest and smallest portion of beef ever.  The newest restaurant in Columbia will likely not get your food served to you under an hour.  Both places have full houses and it amazes me that people are willing to put up with bad service or bad food.  If a place has food that you don't like, DON'T go back!

3.    Most celebrity chefs, celebrity since they have been on TV, don't do much cooking anymore.  In most cases, they are pushing their wares or doing book deals or things like that and are not found in the restaurants anymore.  These celebrity chefs, train chefs to be the executive chefs of their restaurants and therefore don't have to do a thing at that location again.  In some cases...  Some chefs, like Rick Bayless, for example, does work at his restaurant.  You can tell who has the love of cooking in them and who is in it for the money. If I had a restaurant and then became famous for any reason, I would wish to stay in the restaurant, because it is what I love.

4.   Most Americans will not or do not wish to try anything new and authentic.  My wife posed an interesting thought this past weekend: how do those bad Chinese places stay in business?  A family wants Chinese food for dinner and instead of going to a place that serves Chinese food like Dim Sum or other regional food, they wish to go to places like China Court or Panda Palace.  The difference is something real from something that is created and toned down for the American palette.  Which would you rather have: steamed bok choy and broccoli with some beef tendons or cashew chicken with fried rice?  This doesn't only apply to Chinese food but all foods of ethnic nature.

5.  Always try something new.  I try to post recipes involving new ingredients or something like the cactus leaves.  As a foodie and chef, I am learning that there are many different flavors out there and instead of hoarding the tastes that only you like, perhaps you wish to open up.  Let's say that someone had a new kind of chocolate out there.  Would you try it?  Chocolate covered bacon?  It's good.  I know because I tried it.  Chocolate is good and bacon is good and together it is good.  Why don't you try it?  A lot of people, older people, want to go to their usual stand-by's and never try anything new. It could be an older woman who doesn't like anything on a salad bar or someone who only gets chicken strips at whatever restaurant it is.  But try something new!  Life is too short to see something new, smell something new and then say "No Thanks" when it comes to taking just a small bite.

6.  Take care of yourself.  Smoking dulls the taste buds, which is why food is too salty in some cases because teh chef is a smoker and most likely cannot taste the real taste of the food.  It doesn't register for him.  Also, try to stay away from unhealthy junk food.  A great food leader in our country is McDonald's and while they have a burger for just 270 calories, that bun and ketchup has high fructose corn syrup in it.  So, in a culture that is just now discovering the dangers of High Fructose Corn Syrup, one burger has two doses of HFCS and one dose of regular corn syrup and even sugar!  I suggest a substitution.  Are we that lazy of a society that instead of making food at home that isn't going to cause health problems or kill us we would rather eat the junk food?

What is amazing overall, is that the chefs that come up with food that is actually healthy for us, make far less money than those that kill us more quickly.  A chef that can come up with bacon wrapped bacon and then deep fries that makes more for his recipe than someone who makes sugar free jam without the use of artificial flavors and colors.  My wife always joked at the idea that a a box of snack cakes, filled with fat and sugar costs as much as one pound of apples.  It is almost as if our nation wants us to get fat. 

What can you expect over the next 100 posts? If I am lucky, I will get a local chef to answer some interview questions for me.  I will get more restaurant reviews and more recipes in here as well.  I have had some requests on Facebook for some low fat or sugar free versions of some favorite desserts and have been working and pulling those off. I will get more of those recipes online for everyone to see and try.

What would you like to see?

Do you even care about your health???

This morning, while in Walgreen's getting milk for work, I was behind a few people in line.  In the front of the line, was a very round woman who was fighting over how much money she was supposed to save from her coupons: a mere 60 cents or so.  She wasn't an issue.  What was a problem, was the man behind her and in front of me. 

The man looked like he was in his late 70's.  He was frail, had a very small structure, and his arms and legs were thin.  He had a slightly darker skin color than I, more of like a light brown suntan.  He didn't appear to be in the best shape as he had bruises all over himself, like his body just decided to stop healing itself.  His skin looked like wrinkly leather and the bruises were not contained to small areas but were large patches, as if his body was slowly turning purple.  I noticed a cotton swab on his left arm, in the crease of his elbow and noticed what looked like a think clear plastic tube running from his right pocket, up and in front of him.  I would guess that either he has a little, tiny oxygen tank with him or that small tube was delivering something into his arm.  Perhaps like an IV with fluid or maybe insulin or something that was colorless.  Let's just say that without seeing him from the front, I was seriously worried when it was his turn at the cash stand and he asked her a question.

"Could you get me a pack of Marlboro lights?" he asked.

I didn't say anything out loud but inside I was screaming at him.  Could this have been the worst decision in history?  Clearly, the man is in no condition to smoke, even a "light' cancer stick, so what was he doing buying a pack anyway?  If that was a mini oxygen tank, then he is a moron for smoking.  That is an explosion waiting to happen.  If that was a tube inserting IV solution or insulin, then he obviously is in no condition to do anything harmful to his body in the first case.  I have noticed that in most cases, older people really don't care about themselves.

I would figure that if I was old enough where my body had the physical appearance of a mummy, I would want to stay alive for as long as I could, not speed up the aging process.  Cigarettes do kill.  I'm not telling you to stop, but just suggesting that if you do smoke, it would be in your best interest to stop.  What if I told you that for every cigarette that you smoke, you cut 2 hours off of your total life time?  That's right, just move up your biological clock by 2 hours.  So, how many cancer sticks do you smoke in a day?  10? 12? then you just erased a day from your life.  Which would you rather do; die or live?

I'm not going to preach to you about the benefits of living, but it has its advantages.  However I can't help but notice that there are stupid people around.  When you have asthma, and you smoke, that is stupid.  When you drink and black out and then decide to drink some more, that is stupid.  When you do drugs that do damage to your body and continue to do so, that is stupid.

Please, make a conscious thought about what you are doing to your body and why you are doing it, before you do it.  If your family has a history of heart disease or other heart related issues, it probably isn't a good idea to have MacDonald's or red meat every day.  Please everyone, before I start losing friends or family or friends of friends, think of your actions before you do something.  Don't be like the old man who obviously wasn't in healthy condition and decided to switch from regular cigarettes to 'light' ones thinking they would stave off his bad health.

What's in your ... bread?

In this day and age, there has been a lot of talk about healthy foods and processed foods.  Studies have shown that things like bleached, white, processed flours and high fructose corn syrup tend to be the main reasons why we have been in-taking more calories and sugar, lately.  Why is that? Well, as our society and culture has started to ween things out that have too many processed items in it, we have overlooked a product that has all this stuff in it and we may not even think about it: bread.

I've always loved fresh bread and while i was young and still at my parent's house, I used to wake up early in the morning and make bread; the long way.  Even after I was married and had my own home, I still made bread, the long way, and it was an all day event.  My wife never wanted to be tied down at home for any length of time during the weekends, since we work all day, so I never got many chances to make bread.  Finally, I broke down and for a small investment cost, I purchased a bread machine.

The machine we got was great and simple.  For example: a 2 pound loaf of bread takes about 3 hours, but all you do is put the ingredients in it and turn it on.  It peeps when it is done cooking and ready. 

Now, I'm surprised that more people are not into making their own bread, even those who use bread for toast or sandwiches.  So, what is in your generic white bread that you buy at the store?

Okay, so let's look at this list: enriched wheat flour (which is highly processed), water, high fructose corn syrup (which is that artificial sugar that your body doesn't recognize and turns to fat, instantly), salt, yeast, oil, fats, preservatives, more starches, more enzymes and soy lecithin (soy fat).  I wonder how much of that stuff is really good for you?

Ok, here is some fresh baked milk bread.  It has the following ingredients: unbleached flour (it is processed because I was out of bread flour), whole milk, a pinch of salt, a tablespoon of sugar, filtered water, butter and yeast.  That is it.  Now, while this loaf will not last weeks and weeks, it will taste good and be better for you than that other one. 

The link is located below and get yourself a bread machine. This is the one I use, it is cheap, VERY easy to use and you can clean it very easily.  Buy it here and buy it now.