Digest

I like the Pope, the Pope drinks ale

2008-01-29T17:55:00.000Z

John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, gave the Pope a gift of beer brewed in Masham- Black Sheep and a special edition called Holy Grail- when they met in Rome. I'm not about to get religion, but His Holiness gets my appreciation for liking one of my favourite beers.

Technorati tag: Beer

Slow cooker recipes

2008-01-27T19:30:00.000Z

As casa Spinneyhead now owns a slow cooker,it's a good time for me to have discovered slow-cooker-recipes.blogspot.com.

Technorati tag: Food

North West Vegan Festival

2008-01-25T16:51:00.000Z

To be held in Sacha's hotel this weekend.

Technorati tag: Food

Caffe Nero - Best coffee chain

2008-01-24T19:04:00.000Z

Which assessed high street coffee shops and cme to the conclusion that, overall, Caffe Nero is the best value and serves the best tasting coffee. That's nice, because Nero is my choice out of the big three chains. I stopped drinking Starbucks when I found out about their tactic of carpet bombing areas with outlets- allowing some to run at a loss- as a way to damage their competition. I drank a lot of Costa coffee in 2001, but then they stopped adding extra espresso shots for free and stopped being such good value.

Of course, I don't drink as much coffee as I used to because I think the gallons I went through in 1999-2001 contributed to my ulcer. Now I'm more restrained it seems to have gone away.

Technorati tag: Food

Eden Coffee

2008-01-13T13:33:00.000Z

Jamie Oliver's Fiften restaurant in Cornwall played host to a special coffee tasting session- the beans used had been grown in the Eden Project's greenhouses. Whilst no-one's pretending it could be a commercial venture, it is cool to know coffee can be grown in this country.

Technorati tag: Food

Ethical Foie Gras

2007-12-30T14:15:00.000Z

A Spanish producer is selling a less cruel version of foie gras, traditionally made by forcing tubes down the throats of geese and force feeding them grain. The new technique relies upon the birds gorging themselves in preparation for migrating, so is only available once a year and is more expensive. However, with the tide turning against traditional foie gras and calls to ban it outright, demand for the ethical alternative is likely to rise.

Technorati tag: Food

Kilner Jars

2007-12-28T14:44:00.000Z

YOUR ONE STOP SHOP FOR KILNER JARS

RECYCLED JARS, LIDS AND SCREW BANDS
NEW RUBBER SEALS
NEW JARS FROM THE LEIFHEIT COMPANY

Technorati tag: Food, Kilner Jar

Organic food better for you

2007-10-29T20:27:00.000Z

ORGANIC produce has a higher nutritional value than ordinary food, a study revealed today.

The 'Quality Low Input Food' project, funded by the European Union, has found a general trend in its data, showing that organic food contains "less of the baddies" than conventional produce.

The findings call into question the current stance of the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which is neither for nor against organic food.

Technorati tag: Organic Food

Alternative meats

2007-09-02T15:48:00.000Z

Bringing delicious, different & exciting meats to the plates of thousands, both in their homes & in restaurants is what Alternative Meats is all about. The company started from the passion of a dynamic duo, Rachel & Jeanette, who run & manage the company today. Their experience was in the British Ostrich Industry & this interest in an unusual meat has extended to a comprehensive range of alternative meats for you to enjoy.

Technorati tag: Food, Meat

Generic chutney

2007-07-25T16:03:00.000Z

I've been chutneying again, having received a crate of Golden Delicious and a request for sweet apple chutney. I use a different recipe every time, but the geek in me couldn't help thinking there might be some sort of generic chutney, a ratio of fruit:vinegar:sugar that should work as the basis for any version and can be scaled. Spices are not included in this, being added for flavour at the whim of the cook.

A quick search and a few recipes showed that I might be wrong, or at least that there is more than one generic chutney. The two ratios that make most sense are (fruit:vinegar:sugar)- 3:1:1 and 4:1:2. Within those ratios there is also the break down of the fruit, though the larger portion is more likely determined by what you want to call the chutney.

I'll be making mre chutney in the next few days, so I'll try out the two ratios to see what happens. However, as the spices and other factors will also differ, and I'll have to wait a month or two for everything to mature, we may never really know which works best.

Chutney cooking tips.

chnorati tag: Food, Chutney

Local Food - Suburb coffee shop closes down

2007-04-26T10:02:00.000Z

I'll be honest, I never noticed the Suburb coffee shop on Deansgate and didn't know about it until reading of its demise. This is embarassing because I've been trying to avoid Starbucks and other large chains for a while. Recently my in town non-alcoholic drinking has tended to revolve around Parched in the Arndale's new Market section. I also quite like Oklahoma in the Northern Quarter. Manchester Council have a list of Fair Trade cafes if you're looking for an alternative.

Alternatively, you can make a decent coffee at home for significantly less. The Fair Trade beans I buy from my local health food shop are probably the best value I've ever found. But the most satisfying coffee I ever drank was the stuff I roasted myself.

Remember "Home Roasting is Killing Starbucks"

Technorati tag: Food, Coffee

Death to the recipe?

2007-04-24T07:43:00.000Z

Mark Pallis insists, after an epiphany on a beach in Africa, that recipes are no longer relevant. As at least one commenter says, he seems to be mistaking a barbecue for a philosophy. Most of the food I make is improvised following a simple rule- get some good ingredients and go with it- but there are also a few dishes where I will always refer back to the instructions for at least some guidelines. The trick isn't to pretend you don't need Delia et al, but to work out where you can deviate from their schemes.

Technorati tag: Food, Recipe

Tea 'could cut skin cancer risk'

2007-04-19T14:34:00.000Z

The good old cuppa just keeps getting better and better. A study suggests that chemicals in tea could protect against skin cancer. The best way to avoid it is still to protect your skin, ovbviously, but every little helps.

The study asked the people with cancer, plus the healthy group - all aged between 25 and 74 - about diet, lifestyle and their consumption of both green and black teas.

Both kinds of tea are rich in antioxidants which animal studies have been shown prevent the development of cancer cells.

This research found that people who drank tea regularly had a lower risk of either cancer.

Those who drank two or more cups a day had a 65% lower risk of developing squamous cell carcinoma.

Tea-drinking also appeared to protect against basal cell carcinoma, but to a lesser degree.

Technorati tag: Tea, Cancer

Diets don't work

2007-04-10T07:46:00.000Z

For most slimmers, diets don't work, and may even be dangerous. In fact, in many cases, the weight, and more, comes back quickly after the diet ends.

Technorati tag: Food, Diet, Health

Goose eggs for Easter

2007-04-08T10:43:00.000Z

Some of the supermarkets are selling goose eggs for Easter. They are up to three times larger than chicken eggs, take nine to eleven minutes to boil and will cost £2.49 each. The goose laying season is particularly short and season specific, factors which contribute to the price.

Technorati tag: Food, Goose, Egg

Happy as a pig in.....

2007-04-02T19:36:00.000Z

Dirt is good for us. Exposure to certain bacteria found in soil boosts the production of serotonin and stimulates the immune system. So get out there and play in teh mud.

Technorati tag: Dirt, Serotonin

We're all beer drinkers now

2007-03-29T09:52:00.000Z

There is a photography exhibition opening called The World of Beer: An International Language. To celebrate, the Guardian asked Roger Protz to produce a world tour of beers, hoping to find the best of them all.

Technorati tag: Beer

Invasive species and the retail ecosystem

2007-03-22T20:13:00.000Z

An interesting piece in the Guardian's Comment is Free section, likening Tesco and other chainstores to the sort of introduced plant or animal species that destroys local ecosystems. There's a Tesco Metro just down the road but, unless I absolutely can't avoid it, I only go in there to get money from its cash till.

Technorati tag: Shops, Tesco, Local Food

Not cod

2007-03-22T20:02:00.000Z

As cod, plaice and haddock are threatened by over fishing it's being suggested that we try other fish. I often go and wander around the fish market in the refurbished Arndale, wishing I knew what to do with some of those exotic creatures and mumbling "One day...."

Technorati tag: Food, Fish

The same meal, served on a thousand different plates

2007-03-20T22:45:00.000Z

Apparently, Britons have an average of four basic meals that they repeat over and over. I found that hard to believe, because every day it's a brand new meal in casa Spinneyhead, because we're not very good at planning ahead and having the same ingredients consistently and we never write down the recipes of those occassional piece of genius our particular brand of Collision cooking generates. But then I talked to a woman in the office who didn't know how to cook anything and couldn't even do baked beans in the microwave without burning them, and I figured there were plenty of people like that to balance us out.

Technorati tag: Food

Hybrid Horribles and Lactose tolerance

2007-02-27T18:52:00.000Z

American restaurant chains are increasingly serving up meals that have a whole days recommended calorie intake in a single course.

Lactose tolerance only evolved in Europeans a few thousand years ago, some time after dairy farming began. It's believed to be the most important gene trait to have developed in the last 30,000 years.

Technorati tag: Food, Obesity, Lactose

Guinness Marmite

2007-02-19T23:24:00.000Z

Especially for St. Patrick's day- Marmite made with Guiness yeast. There's a limited run of 30,000 jars.

via BoingBoing

Giving up Tesco

2007-02-19T23:21:00.000Z

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2283982.ece
One woman in London is giving up supermarkets for Lent.

I'm certain my sister gave up supermarkets completely for the New Year. I'll have to ask her how that's going.

Ginger and chocolate Marble beer

2007-01-10T23:26:00.000Z

Ginger and chocolate Marble beer
Originally uploaded by spinneyhead.

Organic ales brewed in Manchester, purchased from Reserve Wines on Burton Road.

I've walked past Reserve Wines dozens of times and never bothered to go in. This is because, before last night, they'd only ever had wine in the window. The Marble brewery cardboard boxes stopped me in my tracks and drew me in. It's a nicely laid out shop, though the creaking of the wooden floorboards and wine racks as I walked across them was a little disconecerting.

The Chocolate was a nice dark stout, with a lovely taste in the two sips I was allowed to take. The Ginger had a strong smell of the root but, initially, idn't taset of it that much. I don't know if iot was the beer warming up or my palate recovering from a spicy meal, but the flavour became more noticeable as I went on. There was also a tingling on my top lip that sneaked up on me.

Marble Beers website

Get them young to fight obesity and heart disease

2007-01-08T23:03:00.000Z

Girls as young as nine show an increased risk of heart disease as a result of being overweight.

Higher blood pressure and unhealthy changes in cholesterol and triglycerides in the bloodstream suggest that the long-term consequences of puppy fat could be serious. They also show that the years between 9 and 12 are a crucial period for becoming overweight and that once the weight is on it is hard to shift.

Girls who were overweight at the age of 9 were nearly 15 times more likely to be overweight as young adults than those who were of normal weight at 9, a study shows.

Technorati tag: Obesity