Blogs With Bite

Blogs with Bite is an occasional omnivorous sampling of food blogs and sites we find particularly tasty. Follow the trail of bread crumbs back to earlier editions, starting here.

Here’s a fresh serving of Blogs with Bite:

HotSauceDaily.com –  Brian Meagher’s blog is “a guide to all things hot and spicy – reviews, recipes, BBQ and more.” 

Honey.com – Website of the National Honey Board, “a federal research and promotion board under USDA oversight.”  Consumer and honey industry information, recipes, research and more. NHB also has an online Honey Locator – search for honey produced from the nectar of specific flowers or in your area. Kosher honey? No problem.

Culinary Types – Engaging writing about food by T.W. Barritt.

Bricole – “An idiosyncratic and opinionated dictionary of Italian words related to food, with audio accompaniment” by Simona.  The chronological entries are charming but there is an alphabetical index if you need one.

Seventh-day Adventist Dietetic Association — Adam and Eve were vegetarians; so are many Seventh Day Adventists. This is the website of SDA registered dietitians.

It’s All About the Bacon – It’s all about cured swine flesh. Photos and hyperlinks, with occasional recipes for dishes like Bacon Baklava with Pomegranate Molasses.

Heat Eat Review – Abi Jones reviews convenience foods for “ease of preparation, deliciousness, and bang for the buck.”

Global Crop Diversity Trust – Perhaps you have heard of the “doomsday vault” full of seeds in a remote part of Norway that will preserve food crop varieties in case of global disaster. These are the folks who run it. The seed bank and cryopreservation are not just tools for food security; they preserve living culture as well.

Taste of Beirut – If anyone has the right to make Lebanese Nachos, it’s Beirut-born Texan Joumana Accad. Her blog features “Lebanese recipes for home cooking.”

On Facebook: Passover 2.0

Oy! You’re at the Seder table and can’t find those old wine-stained haggadahs. No sweat. Just haul out your iPhone and use the 2010 Facebook Haggadah. It’s based on an ancient text — the 2009 Facebook Haggadah.

A really old-style option: downloading Rabbi Blank’s Internet Haggadah. Of course, many youngsters prefer to follow Moses out of Egypt on Twitter ….

 

h/t: PunkTorah.com

Image (“Moses Gets Friended, after Rembrandt van Rijn”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license. Credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Voice in the Desert: Tea Sippin’ Sarah

The Woodstock of the Disgruntled was held last weekend in Searchlight, Nevada. Star of the shindig: former Temp-Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. Appropriately, Mrs. Palin sounded quite shrill.

The best coverage of the event was by a media ”Odd Couple,” Voice of America and Al Jazeera English.

 

Image (“Sarah’s Tea Party, after Sir John Tenniel”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

The Macaroons of Moses

Last year the Obama family hosted the first White House Seder, the ritual meal celebrating the Jewish holiday of Passover. The tradition continues this year. Many Americans are unfamiliar with the customs of this dinner, such as the compulsory obligations to tell the Exodus story and drink four glasses of wine (oh, the sacrifices …).

One seasonal custom puzzling to Gentiles is the appearance of canned Kosher cookies in American supermarkets. Many Jews are puzzled as well, since the cookies are macaroons made with coconut, chocolate, and other ingredients not prominent in the Old Testament.

Eisenhower Memorial, Washington DC

The Dwight D, Eisenhower Memorial will be installed on a four acre plot on the National Mall, at the foot of Capitol Hill. The Eisenhower Memorial Commission has approved a design by renowned architect Frank Gehry. Fittingly, it resembles the large trash incinerators so common during the Eisenhower Administration (1953-1961).

Beaver Apes Poodle

Washington’s National Cherry Blossom Festival begins today, and any naughty children attending will be disciplined by huge, frightening  Paddles the Beaver.  The man-sized mascot is new, inspired by the Potomac beavers who felled several of DC’s cherry trees back in 1999.

Macon Georgia hosts the annual International Cherry Blossom Festival, and the mascot down there for the past few years has been Petals the Poodle, based on a real-life pink poodle named Lacie.

Coincidence?

Image and haiku by Mike Licht, based on a classic Japanese ukiyo-e print. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license. Credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Gilbert Arenas Sentencing

NBA Wizards star Gilbert Arenas avoided jail time, just like he did in his last gun conviction seven years ago. He will  have to spend 30 days in a half-way house and perform 400 hours of community service. The pro athlete, who has a $111 million six-year contract, must also contribute $5,000 to a fund for victims of violence and look contrite whenever he sees a camera.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Rogue Beaver!

A savage beaver is attacking dogs in Virginia. Washington’s WRC-TV reports that a dog owner posted a flyer in Alexandria’s Windmill Hill Park near the Potomac, warning that a beaver bit his pooch during a walk there.

Castor canadensis is a rodent, but don’t let your pooch think it’s a big squirrel with an odd tail. The beaver is four feet long, weighs 60 pounds, and sports claws and a mouthful of wood-chipper chompers.

Beaver couples welcome new litters of cute “kits” this time of year and may be more testy than usual. Local Potomac beavers might be even more ticked off. The National Park Service deprived them of a favorite food by putting plastic sleeves on the trunks of Tidal Basin cherry trees.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Republican Senators Fail to Improve Health Bill

The House of Representatives passed the Senate’s health reform bill and sent it to the Senate with a package of improvements, chief among them removal of embarrasing earmarks added to appease holdout senators.

In the spirit of bipartisanship and concern for the health of all Americans, Republican senators tried to introduce improvements to the bill, including an amendment forbidding federally funded blood transfusions for vampires or something like that. “The vast majority of Americans don’t want their taxpayer dollars paying for … those kind of people,” said Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK).

The amendment failed 57-42.  The GOP media machine is certanly poised to attack opponents of the measure as “pro-vampire.”

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

A Hearty Helping of Art History

A research team lead by Cornell University marketing professor Brian Wansink and his brother Craig Wansink, Professor of Religious Studies at Virginia Wesleyan College, analyzed 52 paintings of the Last Supper painted from 1000 AD to the 1700s. They found that the size of the meals and plates increased over time. Brian Wansink, author of  Mindless Eating, calls this “proportion distortion.”