prasantrin

Quite honestly, reading that, alone, would not make me stop eating beef. Even stories from my uncle (in-law) about his working at a meat slaughtering plant didn't make me stop eating beef. Slavery still exists in the world. Are you going to stop drinking coffee or eating chocolate because of it?

I got off to a late start (again) and have just had half a slice of pumpernickel with peanut butter. The gym opens at 9, and I prefer to be there at opening to avoid the masses (it's a very busy gym). That's actually one of my problems. I usually get off to a late start, and can't really eat enough to make sure I have enough energy for my work-out, but need to eat something or I'll have absolutely no energy. I also need something very digestible, so I don't feel like I've got a rock sitting in my stomach during my workouts. I've done the cracker/peanut butter thing ad nauseum (and I hate peanut butter!!). Cottage cheese is more palatable--would eating it with fruit make it a good protein/carb combination? I'm not a serious exerciser. In fact, I just started exercising again after an almost 10-month hiatus. I'm starting again with easy weights (I still lift to failure, but I only do 2 sets of 12 so my weights are pretty light. I do this 3 times/week. As for cardio, I seem to have lost a great deal of my endurance in that department. I'm starting out very slowly--just 25 minutes on the elliptical machine, about 11km/hour. I'm not intending on entering any marathons, body-building competitions, etc. I just need to become fitter than the all-round "fair to good" I got on my fitness assessment last summer. At that time I also learned that I have more muscle than average for someone my height and weight, but I also have a lot more fat than average. I don't really need to gain more muscle (but don't mind if I do), but if I can manage to lose some body-fat with my new exercise program, yay for me! (I know I'll need to adjust my eating habits for that, but one step at a time!) As for today, would a large cream puff filled with custard cream be a good carb/protein combo for a post-workout snack? I'm going out for lunch, and it'll be about an hour before I can get real food. But there's a Beard Papa stand at the train station....

I was going to add this to the Weight Watchers topic, but I thought it might be better suited for the masses. For those of you who workout, what do you eat before you workout? Do you have a favourite power snack? And how far in advance of working out do you eat? Does it depend on whether you are doing cardio or weights? And what about post workout snacks/meals? Any preferences there? I remember reading the stuff SobaAddict ate during his foodblog, but no whey drink suggestions, please!

I just ate one of those! Literally! It was from McD's, but I still thought it was great! There's a fried chicken place in Winnipeg that does breaded and deep-fried perogies. I like them.

This will be my last word on the whole Wal*Mart issue. Costco is a world apart from Wal*Mart in terms of how they treat their employees, and employee treatment is one of the top things that concern me when I decide where to spend my dollars. I am also very happy with their product line, their service and their low prices. But yes, Costco is a big box store--I am not opposed to every big box store out there, though I am more limited in my big-box shopping than most American consumers because I am very specific about where I spend my money. As someone who is socially-responsible consumer, would you mind wandering over to this topic on chocolate and weighing in? When you have time/energy...It seems you've given a lot of thought to issues such as this one, and I think you could probably give a balanced perspective. I've been loving your foodblog! Will you be posting recipes for some of the foods taught in your class? I love any kind of lemon tart or pie, and I've not had one since coming back to Japan. It's still cold enough here to do pastry, so I need to do it while I still can! Waiting for the obligatory pictures of your cats.

Just an anecdote, but I have a friend whose parents owned a farm when she was growing up. As a child (from about the age of 8 or 10?), when she was scheduled to work she had to punch in just like all the adult employees. And she got paid just like all the others. I also worked in my parents' store as a child (as did my brother and sister) and I, too, would get paid for whatever work I did (usually not an hourly wage, but a set amount depending on the job I did). And when I lived in the Philippines, one of our maids was 14 (just 4 years older than I at the time). She was paid monthly, with the wage going directly to her. She did general cleaning and got paid a little less than the adult maid, who was also the cook and laundress, therefore doing more work. She didn't get to go to school, but she probably got more of an education working for us than she would have not working. My sister (who was 11) and I taught her English and how to write (as well as children could teach such things), while if she were living at home, she wouldn't have been schooled at all. While much of her wage was used to buy rice and other staples for her family, she did get to keep a (very) small portion of her earnings for herself. Plus she had better accommodations and meals than her family did.

Perhaps you should read the article at foodrevolution.org to which I linked in an earlier post. It's a relatively (I say relatively because it is, after all, just an article on the internet) thorough article which answers all your questions. If nothing else, it refers to a number of studies, documentaries, etc. which you may look up at your leisure.

Of great interest to me was this page from foodrevolution.org where they list some companies that do and do not use chocolate from the Ivory Coast. The "slave-free" chocolates comes from companies which include L. A. Burdick, from what I remember, makes pretty good chocolate, and its prices are not out-of-line with other high-end chocolates. That says, to me, that saying the price or quality of chocolate will change for the worse without the use of cheap chocolate is pretty much moot, at least with the high-end companies (Bernard Callebaut, Godiva, and Guittard are all on the list of probably slave-not-free chocolates). Also of interest in that article was this: It seems the chocolate industry must have won, since this occurred almost 5 years ago.

The link　produced by a Google search on chocolate and slavery produces this quotation and The hundreds of other links produce similar quotations. While I cannot vouch for the veracity of any of the sites, the sheer multitude of sites that say, more or less, the same thing would lead me to say, the answer to your question is "yes".

The ones sold in Japan suck! They're very popular with both Japanese and non-Japanese customers (judging by the number of chickens I see in people's carts) but to me, they have an odd flavour. And it definitely isn't butter they're using!

Well, you're doing better than I am, and I've been living in Japan (on and off) for 7 years! I'm maybe at a 2 or 3 year old level... Shirako is one of those things I had never cared for, until I tried it grilled in a bit of butter. If you can get it that way, it's almost reminiscent of foie gras

I am so getting me a box of those. I just have to find them! I made out like a bandit yesterday! This year, for some reason, my students went all out for Valentine's Day. Some of them had two huge shopping bags filled with goodies to give away to their friends--homemade ones, at that! And one of the pluses of being a teacher is that you don't have to reciprocate...just a sincere and enthusiastic "Thank you" is enough!

Oh, you are a lucky one! I love Argan oil. Just dip some good bread in it, and enjoy! I think I might have some recipes that use it somewhere...I'll take a look and get back to you.

Way down the price list at the India Spice page, you can find chickpeas (channa) for only Y500 for 1 kg. It's in Kobe, not Tokyo, but they do mail order. Delivery of up to 10kg is Y1250, so if, for example, you bought 10kg at once, it would only Y625/kg. That's much cheaper than Tengu's chickpeas at Y1260/kg. I don't know what the going rate is in Tokyo, though.

I've never been much of a coffee drinker, save three months spent in Morocco, drinking cafe au lait every morning at one of my two favourite cafes. However, with my recent purchase of a Mukka Express, I've been making a nice pot of milk coffee every morning. I fill the water tank, spoon some Illy in the filter, and screw on the top before I go to bed. When I get up, I head to the kitchen, pour the milk in, and put it on the stove. By the time I finish my business (don't have a dog, and my cat is in Canada with my mother), my coffee is ready. I usually only drink half a cup, then pour the rest in a thermos to bring to work. I love the ritual, and I love how the milk coffee reminds me of Morocco. I've only been doing this for about a week, though...

I had a teeny tiny one when I lived in Ujiie (a few stops north of you). it worked well, but was teeny tiny and I could only bake 5-7 cookies at a time. The microwave was relatively powerful, though, so I could make microwave popcorn in it. I think it was a Sharp. The one I have now is much bigger, and is a gas convection type. The microwave is pretty weak, so no more microwave popcorn (which is OK, because stovetop type stuff is so much better!). The oven is great, though it has taken me a bit of time to adjust to the Kojima Denki's prices are not much different from Akihabara, so to save on the delivery fee, you might be better of getting it in Utsu.

Isn't that shirako? Or maybe shirako is fugu milt. I can never remember....

Hey! You talkin' about my thighs, my belly, or my boobs?

I could definitely give up chocolate, but I don't really like it that much, anyway (though it might be difficult for me to give up Korova cookies). In the previous discussion (thanks for the pointer divalasvegas!), there was some talk about child labour vs. child slavery. I am torn about child labour. In most third world countries, it is very difficult for families to survive without sending their children out to work. But child slavery is something else. The articles about chocolate and children definitely point to slavery. The children are forced into the position, and are often beaten. It's extremely difficult to police the industry, especially in countries like the Ivory Coast. So then how do we make a fair judgment? I've been reading a lot of articles on the internet, but few are recent and few detail any improvements in the situation. The TransFair group says less than 1% of chocolate sold in the US meets their standards--but is it fair to judge another countries working conditions according to the standards of the US? As maggiethecat says, child slavery trumps foie gras, horsemeat, etc. It should be a bigger issue here, but it really doesn't surprise me that the discussion on foie gras generated several pages of posts, while the previous disucssion along with this one on child slavery barely make a page.

Bastard! Assuming he knew you were trying to quit, that was a sh**** thing to do! I still have faith in you. You lasted as long as you did, so you know you have the power to do it. Someone mentioned the meters you can download which tell you how many cigarettes you haven't smoked, how much money you've saved, and how much life you've gained by quitting. The most popular one that I know of is Silk Quit. It is free (though they recommend a donation of $4.95), and a great motivator for those who like to see more tangible effects. I've used it for other things (not smoking, but potato chips!!). I really want to make butter beef tonight. Well, any night. But the cost of a roast (even a cheap one) plus the cost of butter makes it outrageously expensive to make in Japan. So I'll just drown my sorrows in some nachos.

This probably doesn't qualify as weird, but 5-ish years ago, my recently father made the best meatloaf my mother had ever had. She asked him to tell her how she made it, joking, "What if you die? I'll never be able to have it again!" to which he replied, "Don't worry, there's another one in the freezer." He died just a few days later, and that meatloaf is still in my mother's freezer. She just can't bear to throw it away.

In a recent NYTimes article about chocolate (registration may be required), I read After reading this, I started to wonder...Many people have no qualms about banning foie gras because of cruelty to animals. Or banning the slaughter of horses for human consumption, because horses are companion animals and shouldn't be eaten. However, how many people would support a ban of any chocolate which child slaves helped produce? Why was Kathy Lee Gifford's clothing line under fire for the use of unfair working practices, while chocolate gets off with nary a wimper? The above are rhetorical questions, but I do wonder...how many eGulleters (if any) who refuse to eat foie gras and horsemeat because of cruelty to animals (not just because you don't like them) would also refuse to eat chocolate because of cruelty to humans?

I waaaaaaaaaaant some!!!! Buffalo as in buffalo meat? For some reason, I thought the "buffalo" was a brand, like "Maytag Bleu".

Other than the one you suggested, I can think of two other options. The first is to scrape the buttercream off the cake, and re-ice it with a new batch. The second is to have someone else taste the buttercream. It could be that because you're used to unsalted butter, you can really taste the salt. But for someone else who is used to using salted butter, s/he may not find it salty at all.

In Winnipeg hot dogs are never wrapped until after they're ordered. When ordered, the server takes a hot dog out of the water bath, then takes a bun out of the bag (bags of buns used to be kept in an empty hot dog keeper, and so were served slightly warmed). Then hot dogs are not wrapped tightly as they are in Jpaan, but wrapped rather loosely, or just placed on the wrapper. At leased they used to be...I'm not sure about now. Like I said, we don't get much lobster in Winnipeg. Another thing about Costcos around the world are the different drinks they serve. The ones here in Japan suck. Other than Coke (diet and regular, but even the regular tastes like diet), they have orange crush (or was it Hi-C?), and apple-flavoured one, and iced oolong tea. They don't even have Sprite, and at my Costco they got rid of ginger ale more than a year ago. It sucks. Recently a kind of carbonated lemonade has shown up, and I hope they keep it for awhile because it's the only decent thing to drink. At least Winnipeg has root beer!