What are you eating?

[SonicMan46]

Tomorrow is my birthday , and the best present I could get is the Montreal Canadiens beating the Boston Bruins in the 7th game.....

André - HAPPY BIRTHDAY! - looks like our dates are close together!    Enjoy & hope you have many to follow - 

The LOML gave me the card below, and @ my age, seems appropriate for those @ a young age or approaching maturity, as I am!   And her comments are still 'spot on' even after nearly 38 years of marriage - hard to believe!  Dave   

[Bogey]

Tomorrow is my birthday , and the best present I could get is the Montreal Canadiens beating the Boston Bruins in the 7th game.

I'll be wearing my jersey for the occasion 

I used to watch the Canadiens when I was a kid.  In New York (we were about 90 minutes out of Montreal) we got Hockey Night in Canada on the CBC.  It was awesome watching Guy LeFleur, Larry Robinson, and Ken Dryden do their thing in the Forum.  Wow, your post brought back a lot of great memories André.  Happy birthday!

[toledobass]

I've got some chicken soaking in buttermilk for some yummy fried goodness.

Allan

[SonicMan46]

Well, last night (and after my Washington, D.C. trip - eating seafood every night) returned to my 'mountain bistro' and had venison tenderloin cooked medium rare w/ a couple of veggie sides (spinach & asparagus); of course, a few glasses on a Pinot Noir from New Zealand - great combination!   

[toledobass]

I've managed to have bacon for everything but lunch today. 

Bacon and eggs for breakfast

Bacon cheeseburger for dinner

Carbonara for a late snack


Allan

[George]

I've managed to have bacon for everything but lunch today. 

Something to work towards.* 







_____________

* Switching to turkey bacon should buy you some time to meet your goal. 

[Lilas Pastia]

We won ! 

A good T bone steak with oven baked potatoes (with trimmings) and greens paved the way to a sweet victory !

[uffeviking]

of course, a few glasses on a Pinot Noir from New Zealand - great combination!   

I think you missed my post about an Oregon Pinot Noir at an Italian restaurant in New York, mentioned in a post by M forever. On the wine list is one for $160 for a bottle!

You have good taste, Sir! 

[matti]

Tomorrow is my birthday , and the best present I could get is the Montreal Canadiens beating the Boston Bruins in the 7th game.

I'll be wearing my jersey for the occasion 

You got your birthday present, congrats! 

Koivu made a comeback after injury already in the previous game. He's your captain, but not fluent in French, what's the general opinion about that?

To be slightly less OT:

I had two slices of toast for breakfast, one with cheese, one with cherry jam. And coffee.

Edit: to be exact, not Paul Coffey. 

[Bogey]

You got your birthday present, congrats! 

Koivu made a comeback after injury already in the previous game. He's your captain, but not fluent in French, what's the general opinion about that?

To be slightly less OT:

I had two slices of toast for breakfast, one with cheese, one with cherry jam. And coffee.

Edit: to be exact, not Paul Coffey. 

Now that was very clever.

[BorisG]

Japan's hunger becomes a dire warning for other nations

theage.com.au - April 21, 2008

MARIKO Watanabe admits she could have chosen a better time to take up baking. This week, when the Tokyo housewife visited her local Ito-Yokado supermarket to buy butter to make a cake, she found the shelves bare.

"I went to another supermarket, and then another, and there was no butter at those either. Everywhere I went there were notices saying Japan has run out of butter. I couldn't believe it — this is the first time in my life I've wanted to try baking cakes and I can't get any butter," said the frustrated cook.

Japan's acute butter shortage, which has confounded bakeries, restaurants and now families across the country, is the latest unforeseen result of the global agricultural commodities crisis.

A sharp increase in the cost of imported cattle feed and a decline in milk imports, both of which are typically provided in large part by Australia, have prevented dairy farmers from keeping pace with demand.

While soaring food prices have triggered rioting among the starving millions of the third world, in wealthy Japan they have forced a pampered population to contemplate the shocking possibility of a long-term — perhaps permanent — reduction in the quality and quantity of its food.

A 130% rise in the global cost of wheat in the past year, caused partly by surging demand from China and India and a huge injection of speculative funds into wheat futures, has forced the Government to hit flour millers with three rounds of stiff mark-ups. The latest — a 30% increase this month — has given rise to speculation that Japan, which relies on imports for 90% of its annual wheat consumption, is no longer on the brink of a food crisis, but has fallen off the cliff.

According to one government poll, 80% of Japanese are frightened about what the future holds for their food supply.

Last week, as the prices of wheat and barley continued their relentless climb, the Japanese Government discovered it had exhausted its ¥230 billion ($A2.37 billion) budget for the grains with two months remaining. It was forced to call on an emergency ¥55 billion reserve to ensure it could continue feeding the nation.

"This was the first time the Government has had to take such drastic action since the war," said Akio Shibata, an expert on food imports, who warned the Agriculture Ministry two years ago that Japan would have to cut back drastically on its sophisticated diet if it did not become more self-sufficient.

In the wake of the decision this week by Kazakhstan, the world's fifth biggest wheat exporter, to join Russia, Ukraine and Argentina in stopping exports to satisfy domestic demand, the situation in Japan is expected to worsen.

Bakeries, forced to increase prices by up to 30% in the past year, are warning that the trend will continue. Manufacturers of miso, a culinary staple, are preparing to pass on the bump in costs caused by the rising price of soybeans and cooking oil. And the nation's largest brewer, Kirin, is lifting beer prices for the first time in almost two decades to account for the soaring cost of barley.

"In the past, Japan was a rich country with a powerful yen that could easily buy cheap imports such as wheat, corn and soybeans," said Mr Shibata, who directs the Marubeni Research Institute in Tokyo. "But with enormous competition from the booming Chinese and Indian economies, that's changed forever. You also need to take into account recent developments, including the damage to crops caused by drought and other disasters in exporting countries like Australia," where the value of wheat exports has tumbled from $3.49 billion to $2.77 billion in the past three years.

The situation has been compounded by a surge in demand for bio-fuels such as ethanol, made from maize, encouraging farmers around the world to divert their efforts away from wheat and barley and into maize, further driving up prices.

Arguably Japan's biggest concern, however, is its weakening ability to sustain its population with domestic produce. In 2006 the country's self-sufficiency rate fell to 39%, according to the Agriculture Ministry. It was only the second time since the ministry began keeping records in 1960 that the population derived less than 40% of its daily calorie intake from domestically grown food.

Shinichi Shogenji, dean of the University of Tokyo's graduate school of agricultural and life sciences, said Japan's meat consumption had increased by 900% since 1955, in part because expanding incomes had enabled families to supplement the sparse national diet of rice, fish and miso soup with more Western-style food.

This trend, combined with rapid ageing and declining rural populations, had placed the country's self-sufficiency at a perilously low level, Professor Shogenji said.

In view of recent predictions by Goldman Sachs analysts that commodities could experience "explosive rallies" in the next two years, many are wondering if Japan could become an example to other rich nations that have relied too much on foreign supplies to put food on their tables.

In the wake of the decision this week by Kazakhstan, the world's fifth biggest wheat exporter, to join Russia, Ukraine and Argentina in stopping exports to satisfy domestic demand, the situation in Japan is expected to worsen.

Bakeries, forced to increase prices by up to 30% in the past year, are warning that the trend will continue. Manufacturers of miso, a culinary staple, are preparing to pass on the bump in costs caused by the rising price of soybeans and cooking oil. And the nation's largest brewer, Kirin, is lifting beer prices for the first time in almost two decades to account for the soaring cost of barley.

"In the past, Japan was a rich country with a powerful yen that could easily buy cheap imports such as wheat, corn and soybeans," said Mr Shibata, who directs the Marubeni Research Institute in Tokyo. "But with enormous competition from the booming Chinese and Indian economies, that's changed forever. You also need to take into account recent developments, including the damage to crops caused by drought and other disasters in exporting countries like Australia," where the value of wheat exports has tumbled from $3.49 billion to $2.77 billion in the past three years.

The situation has been compounded by a surge in demand for bio-fuels such as ethanol, made from maize, encouraging farmers around the world to divert their efforts away from wheat and barley and into maize, further driving up prices.

Arguably Japan's biggest concern, however, is its weakening ability to sustain its population with domestic produce. In 2006 the country's self-sufficiency rate fell to 39%, according to the Agriculture Ministry. It was only the second time since the ministry began keeping records in 1960 that the population derived less than 40% of its daily calorie intake from domestically grown food.

Shinichi Shogenji, dean of the University of Tokyo's graduate school of agricultural and life sciences, said Japan's meat consumption had increased by 900% since 1955, in part because expanding incomes had enabled families to supplement the sparse national diet of rice, fish and miso soup with more Western-style food.

This trend, combined with rapid ageing and declining rural populations, had placed the country's self-sufficiency at a perilously low level, Professor Shogenji said.

In view of recent predictions by Goldman Sachs analysts that commodities could experience "explosive rallies" in the next two years, many are wondering if Japan could become an example to other rich nations that have relied too much on foreign supplies to put food on their tables.

[SonicMan46]

I think you missed my post about an Oregon Pinot Noir at an Italian restaurant in New York, mentioned in a post by M forever. On the wine list is one for $160 for a bottle!

You have good taste, Sir! 

Hi Lis - no, I saw that post but am still in SHOCK!    Restaurants typically marked up their wines 2.5-3x per bottle (likely even more by the glass!), so that is 'roughly' a $60 bottle of wine!  Really irks me!  On my recent trip to D.C., I was ordering a lot of NZ Sauvignon Blancs, sharing bottles w/ friends - some of the bottle markups (since I often purchase these wines @ home) were over 3x markup.

Yes, I love Oregon Pinot Noirs, and order most of mine from the Oregon Pinot Noir Club; prefer to look for the 'values' in the $20-$30 (but will go below or 'slighly' above that range if the wine is highly rated) - but a $30-$35 wine (and I do have a number in the cellar) would be $100 in a fancy restaurant - hmmm!    Dave

[uffeviking]

Interesting information, Dave, thank you. I didn't know how all that works. Maybe I should pick up the 1998 Kiona Lemberger sitting on the shelf at my store; last time I was there and saw the $29.99 tag, I walked right past it. Normally the Lemberger is $9.99! Covey Run Lemberger sells at $6.99 but is not as pleasant as the one from Kiona. Am I an al cheapo wine lover, or simply frugal?     

Lis

[SonicMan46]

Interesting information, Dave, thank you. I didn't know how all that works. Maybe I should pick up the 1998 Kiona Lemberger sitting on the shelf at my store; last time I was there and saw the $29.99 tag, I walked right past it. Normally the Lemberger is $9.99! Covey Run Lemberger sells at $6.99 but is not as pleasant as the one from Kiona. Am I an al cheapo wine lover, or simply frugal?     

Lis - Nah to the above 'bolded' statement, everyone must have a 'comfort zone' when buying wine - most of the wine I purchase, esp. for day to day consumption is in the $10-$20 range, and I rarely go much above $30 (has to be a special bottle, highly rated, and one that I might 'lay down' in the cellar for a number of years, thus don't buy many in that price range); kind of hard to find a decent varietal wine under $10 these days (IMO, of course), and that $5-$10 range is really a 'battlefield'!

I look more & more for value (read my periodicals, search the web, and see what's around my area, which can disappoint!), and have been 'priced out' of many wines that I use to purchase routinely for my basement cellar - examples, are California Cabernets (now looking mainly to South American & Australia), classified Bordeaux (use to buy futures routinely in the '80s & early '90s), and good quality Burgundies; oh well, there are still plenty of excellent wines being made from all parts of the world, so enjoy!  Dave 

[MN Dave]

Tonight we are going to Ruth's Chris for my wife's birthday.

[toledobass]

Are you sure this time?

Allan

[MN Dave]

Are you sure this time?

Allan

Did we end up not going last time? Well, those things happen--and they could happen again. 

[toledobass]

yeah you ended up switching last minute.

I'm frying up that chicken now but it's a pain in the arse trying to maintain the oil temp on the POS electric stove in this house.

Allan

[SonicMan46]

yeah you ended up switching last minute.

I'm frying up that chicken now but it's a pain in the arse trying to maintain the oil temp on the POS electric stove in this house.

Allan - yep, we used an electric stove for years in our '60s kitchen w/ the dark woods & yellow appliances - wife & I grew up w/ gas stoves & loved them!

About 5 or so years ago we did a complete kitchen remodel & added a gas stove & a convection oven option - one old pic below & a few new ones - love it!

 

 

[toledobass]

Nice.  The hood above the stove looks nice.  The oven's being more than one movement away would sorta bug me but watcha gonna do?
I like the wheels on the chairs!!!

I prefer gas most of the time and I don't really mind electric stoves, but this one is super old so it's really pretty bad:




Allan