Corduroy Orange

As reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on May 5,

On a quiet, 100-acre farm in Cumberland County, Mennonite farmer Mark Nolt, his wife and his 10 children have for three years operated a dairy whose best-selling product is one the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture considers contraband: raw milk.

Pennsylvania requires its raw milk producers to obtain a permit, but Mr. Nolt stopped applying for the permit in 2005 and has continued to sell raw milk and dairy products in the face of multiple citations, a court injunction and two raids that resulted in $50,000 of product and equipment being seized from his farm in Newville.

Raw milk has been a hot button topic in Southwestern Pennsylvania for at least a couple of years, and the advocates for access to raw milk are extremely vocal about their perceived right to get unpasteurized milk. They have also been somewhat militant in their insistence that it is the best choice for everyone.

I am willing to concede that there are enzymatic changes in milk as a result of pasteurization. I am not, however, willing to accept every piece of information distributed by the Weston A. Price Foundation (the main proponent of raw milk rights) as God’s honest truth.

In promoting the health benefits of raw milk and the consumption of high fat diets, they rely on photographic evidence reminiscent of eugenics and, whilst complaining that pasteurization advocates rely on studies from the 1930s, distribute pamphlets boasting that “Galen, Hippocrates, Pliny, Varro, Marcellus Empiris, Bacchis, and Antithimus, leading physicians of their day, all used raw milk in treatment of disease.” Well, we’ve had some remarkable discoveries since their day: including the fact that the earth revolves around the sun.

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It’s tough to believe how much technology goes into our milk.

Really, it shouldn’t be—we live in an age where we’re guaranteed to be able to get milk in any season, any weather, any size, prepackaged and waiting for us at the corner store. But to be in the processing plant at Turner Dairy as company President Chuck Turner, Jr. (grandson of company founder Charles G. Turner) pushes icons on a touch screen to demonstrate how the processing of any particular product can be maneuvered and controlled from a computerized screen, it’s a vivid reminder that we’re a few steps removed from the farm.

And quite honestly, I think when it comes to milk, that’s probably a good thing—especially if, as is the case with Turner’s milk, you know that the raw material came from a family farm within 67 miles of the processing plant in Penn Hills and was pasteurized, homogenized, packed, and shipped by a business that has been family-run since its inception in 1930.

Today, the business sits in a highly residential area of Penn Hills, though Mr. Turner is quick to point out which part of the community came first. “We didn’t decide to locate a dairy in a neighborhood—they decided to locate a neighborhood inside a dairy farm.” A painting on the wall of Turner’s conference room drives home the point: in the 1930’s, this was still the pastoral landscape we imagine when we think of a dairy farm.

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No, this hasn’t all of a sudden become a financial page. I’m talking about homemade stocks made by boiling bones and vegetables to extract the flavor and straining through a sieve. Or, in a more nouveau sense, boiling vegetables alone for a much shorter time to extract the flavor and then straining through the sieve. The actual real deal of broths, so much better than what comes in a can or a box (or a cube) from the grocery store.

I save my carcasses in the freezer. One carcass isn’t enough to make a decent pot of stock, I think; might as well save it until I have some more. And then, when I have enough, I’ll often look at them and think, I just don’t have the time to deal with them right now; I’ll do it later.

I finally gave myself a proverbial kick in the pants over the weekend and used my beef and lamb bones to make the tastiest stock de viande I’ve had since…the last time I made my own stock. The truth of the matter is, it’s an easy process: cover bones with cold water, bring to boil, drain and rinse, add vegetables, cover with cold water, bring to boil, let simmer for hours, drain [or conversely, cover vegetables with cold water. Bring to boil, let simmer 45 minutes and drain].

While the stock is simmering, you don’t need to pay any attention to it. You can clean the house, watch tv, go to the store and run some errands, or even sleep! Heck, I did a combination of the above activities while my beef bones were boiling.

The real joy of making your own stock comes after it has cooled, when you pick up the container and you notice that the liquid inside doesn’t flow like water: it has gelled up due to the naturally occurring gelatin in the bones you’ve used. That’s a sign of a well-made stock. For an even more intense flavor (and greater gel effect), reduce your resulting stock until it coats the back of a spoon that you use to stir it (50-75% reduction). Be careful not to scorch the stock while you;re reducing it, or it will get bitter; but properly done over very low heat, you will get glace de viande, or in nouveau terms a beef stock reduction sauce. It is the essence of the hearty beefy flavor,and a small amount drizzled over steak or perogies makes an intense impact on your palate.

So, want the the skinny on making your own stock? Keep reading for semi-exact instructions on what to do. If you want clarification on any of my instructions, don’t hesitate to ask.

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Public health authorities this morning have announced that Santa Claus, beloved semi-anonymous benefactor of millions of children, has fallen ill. Epidemiologists are focusing on milk left at room temperature and cookies left by children who failed to wash their hands as the likely culprits.

Mrs. Claus, reached via satellite phone at the North Pole, said, “I’ve been warning [Santa] for years not to eat all of the cookies and drink all of the milk left for him by all of the children all over the world, but he enjoys those treats so much, he just won’t listen to me.”

Santa, a rotund man of indeterminate age, may have been more susceptible to the pathogens as a result of being elderly and sleep-deprived. While December has always been a tough month for the jolly old elf, sources report that the past decade has been particularly tough. One elf, who spoke with reporters under the condition that he not be named said, “Kids today want much more than they used to. Whereas we used to be able to satisfy most demands via woodworking and occasional metallurgy, the modern child wants electronics. So we elves have been working around the clock for most of the year to fill orders for MP-3 players, cell phones, and the ilk. Santa’s been putting in his share of hours, too. I don’t know if he’s slept twelve hours over the past three weeks. I know I haven’t.”

Anita Andomyorussa, MD, the doctor overseeing Santa’s care, is quick to assure parents and children that leaving treats for Santa is still a goood thing to do, and that Santa highly prefers homemade cookies over store-bought. “Santa loves the care and attention that go into making Christmas cookies,” she said, “and from a gustatory standpoint he prefers cookies made with butter over those made with margarine. However,” she continued, “I highly advise that children wash their hands before putting out any treats for Santa. Also, as children’s bedtimes usually fall well before Santa arrives at people’s houses, it’s best if any milk left for Mr. Claus is cooled in a bowl of ice so that it stays within the safe holding range of under 45 degrees Fahrenheit.”

Santa, who is recuperating in an undisclosed location due to fears that revealing his whereabouts will unleash a flood of paparazzi and pilgrims upon the understaffed hospital that is overseeing Mr. Claus’s medical treatment, is said to have a good prognosis and is expected to fully recover.

hey - I know someone who really loves cheese (the good stuff, we’re not talking Velveeta or Kraft here), but she’s worried about cholesterol content.

Is there any data out there on cholesterol and fat content of non-processed cheeses, and I am especially interested to see if you compare the cheeses made from different animals (ie, sheep, goat, lamb and cow). Maybe a comparison of a fresh-style cheese (meaning still high in cream/water) for each and then a hardened, aged chese for each. I’ve heard that harder cheeses tend to be healthier than soft cheeses. Is one animal’s cheese in general healthier than another’s?

There are a variety of sources where you can find nutritional information about cheeses. One of the more comprehensive is the USDA, which has a web page where you can get full nutritional information for a wide range of cheeses.

Based on the information available on this page, I examined a variety of cheeses for nutritional content, from imitation cheese food product to higher-end gourmet cheeses. Based on the data I found, there is no hard and fast rule as to whether a harder cheese contains more or less fat than a softer cheese.

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Ever since I put up my original smelly urine post, Aurora has been insisting that asparagus doesn’t affect her urine.  Turns out, though that she’s just one of the folks who can’t smell it even though the odor is there.  Weird….

Otherwise it wouldn’t be on the shelf…

Imitation honey.  I’m not making this up. Imitation. Honey. What a perversion of something so simple: the rawest of sugars mocked by a blend of malitol syrup and acesulfame-K . I’ve been trying to figure out what niche purpose this product serves, and I really hope it’s not an outgrowth of the low-carb craze.

My only other hypothesis is that some people with diabetes prefer it.  I’m admittedly not an expert on the disease nor the nutritional constraints that it imposes on people, but I had been under the impression that 1) individuals with diabetes may safely consume moderate amounts of honey and 2) imitation sugars are not significantly safer than natural sugars for persons with this disease.

If anyone can shed some light on this product for me and what market niche it fills, I would be greatly appreciative.  As it stands now, I’m just boggled.

Though we ate asparagus fairly often in my house while I was growing up, and though I noticed that occasionally my urine would smell funny, it wasn’t until I was 20 years old and on Semester At Sea that I finally put the pieces together. I remember the circumstances well: the lunch buffet featured cream of asparagus soup and the bathrooms stank to high heaven. I finally realized that asparagus makes your pee smell funny.

Today, several hours after I had tuna for lunch, I noticed that my urine had a definite tuna aroma. Which led me to wonder two things: how many other foods have an impact on urine odor, and by what means do these foods have this effect?

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