chromedome

I don't see Beyond or Impossible going down this road, but who knows? It might be effective...

After a few days of being pilloried in the press and rage-tagged on social media, Loblaw's has backtracked and will now resume its 50% discounts wherever they had originally been given.

...and today I learned that the Oreo was a knockoff of another company's cookie. Who knew? https://thehustle.co/the-curious-case-of-the-disappearing-hydrox-cookies/

This is food history at a tangent: an impassioned defense of the hard-copy menu as a lasting document, in a world of QR codes. https://thewalrus.ca/qr-code-restaurant-menu/

I don't eat supermarket sushi myself, but was agreeing with BeeZee; it's sound advice. We had sushi at a local restaurant for my birthday celebration but that was the first time I've had it in... I dunno, 15 or 20 years? Probably since I was in culinary school, anyway. Nothing against it, I'll eat it if it's in front of me, but I'm a cheap bast- frugal and even mediocre sushi is pretty expensive in my neck of the woods. That being said, our granddaughter wants to learn how to make it, so I probably have a minor sushi binge in my near-term future. Supermarkets here have just recently begun stocking salmon from a couple of land-based recirculating aquaculture producers based here in the Maritimes, so if we go beyond the various California rolls and variations I may splurge on a piece of that just to show support. I attended a recirculating-aquaculture conference hosted by the Atlantic Salmon Federation back in 2014, and covered it for one of our foodservice magazines, and have been keeping tabs on that nascent industry ever since. They seem to slowly be figuring out how to scale their operations, though like vertical farming the up-front capital requirements are daunting and unlike vertical farming there was no stampede of VC capital to get them over the initial hump. I suspect that may be a good thing in the longer term, but we'll see.

I know about it, but don't use it. That's partly because I avoid installing unnecessary apps on my phone (I write a lot about online safety, don't get me started...) and partly because with marked-down items I'm especially keen to have "eyes on" before I make my purchase. I probably miss out on some deals that way, but I'm okay with it.

Soooo.... it's the waste that you have an issue with? A 250g tub is the equivalent of an 8oz brick, or close enough (it's a little over 8.8 ounces).

Yeah, I seldom enter either of our major supermarkets (nationally it's Sobeys and Loblaw's, plus a few regional chains and legacy brands owned by either Sobeys or Loblaw's) without a quick browse of the store for these "targets of opportunity." Like everyone I have my will/won't list (and I agree on past-its-prime sushi) but those markdowns account for a lot of what I buy. I'm very much a "shop the flyers" guy on a week-by-week basis, so what with one thing and another they probably make relatively less from me than from most others.

Well, then. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/loblaws-will-no-longer-offer-50-discount-on-expiring-food-products-1.7084299

Sounds really tasty. It's cold here right now, so it's speaking pretty loudly to the "want something warming" itch.

Because "Dad Jokes 'R' Us":

Another repercussion of the Quaker granola recall, affecting Urban Fare brand parfait cups (sold in Alberta and BC): https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/urban-fare-brand-uf-chia-tropical-fruit-parfait-and-yogurt-parfait-recalled-due?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23 There's also recall of Eagle brand frozen corn for salmonella, currently thought to affect Ontario only: https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/urban-fare-brand-uf-chia-tropical-fruit-parfait-and-yogurt-parfait-recalled-due?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23

Where "food funnies" meets the weather forecast:

For those of us who occasionally want to get just the recipe from a site, without scrolling through a few thousand words of maunderings about what the blogger's family does or doesn't like, there is now help. Tamar Haspel just posted about this on The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter, and I can attest that it works. Just type "cooked.wiki/" - minus the quotes - into the address bar of your browser, and then paste the URL of the page without any spaces (so the end result looks something like this) ... Magically all the bumf will disappear, and just leave you with the recipe in a nicely formatted state.

Yesterday's granola recall has now hit its second wave. A raft of parfait and yogurt bowls made and sold in the Loblaw's and Sobeys chains have also been recalled, because they were made with that same granola. https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/various-parfait-and-yogurt-bowls-recalled-due-salmonella?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23

Well, few people get enough fiber in their diet and prunes certainly deliver that. We're only just beginning to understand the importance of fiber to overall good health (above and beyond the well-known "keeps you regular," which is an underrated benefit in itself). Obviously whole grains, legumes, vegetables and fruit can also be excellent sources of fiber as well, and also play important roles in a healthier diet. As for the ACV, Alex's link above is consistent with what I've found in researching the topic in the line of work. I always have a bottle of it on hand, for the simple reason that it's what I normally use on my salads. No advice for you on that point (aside from attesting that it's good on salads). If you like it, and it seems to help in some respect, there's no reason not to persevere with it. Unlike many such popular supplements it's low in cost, and you can give your money to a local artisanal producer if you choose (as opposed to a celebrity like Gwyneth Paltrow, or one of the various MDs who have been forced by their profession's penurious pay structure to prostitute themselves by hawking dubious nostrums for money). ...yeah, that last was sarcasm. I've always had a low tolerance for grifters, and after the events of the past few years it has utterly bottomed out.

A big one, nationally: some batches of Quaker Harvest Crunch, granola bars, and Cap'n Crunch "treat bars" are being recalled for potential salmonella. https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/quaker-brand-granola-bars-and-cereals-and-cap-n-crunch-brand-treat-bars-berry-bar?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23

Dial used to make a foaming hand soap that didn't make my hands dry and the corners of my nailbeds crack (this is when I still had my restaurants, and hand-washing was constant). Of course, it was discontinued, because that's just how these things go. I bought every bottle I could find in local stores, and when I finally ran out I went on using those bottles and refilling them by diluting the next-best soap I could find. Those eventually wore out, of course, and I hadn't really given any thought to the whole foaming-soap idea again until this thread. Might have to get me one of those dispensers (he says, contemplating his dried and cracked fingertips...).

Okay, we've debated the sustainability and environmental impacts of beef on here repeatedly over the years, and we've largely agreed to disagree and/or understand each others' positions on the matter (ie, "'It's not the cow, it's the how,' is not a scientific statement but literally a marketing slogan created by the beef industry"). And then there's... this. And even in the context of our current disenchantment with tech bros, it's kinda special. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/10/zuckerberg-cattle-hawaii-beef-environment

I don't recall seeing it here until... I dunno, the 90s maybe? We had our homegrown equivalents, mind you, called Kam and Klik.

Pertinent to that huge recall of infant/toddler food a little while ago: https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/01/chromium-found-in-lead-tainted-fruit-pouches-may-explain-contamination/

One of the big adjustments I had when my ex and I were first together was the issue of jars/canisters and their lids. I NEVER put a lid back on a jar or canister without tightening it. She, for her part, ALWAYS did so, but habitually checked and tightened lids before picking things up. That led to a lot of floor-cleaning, when I was putting things away.

Mine is the same, and at least as old. It was a gift from my father (a woodworker and a big fan of Lee Valley) a year or two before we moved to Alberta, and that was in 2003.