I have swapped coffee for soda and it works! Thanks Juan Valdez! #caffeine

I drank a lot of soda. Two liters at a time perhaps twice a week. 44oz. plus on other days. On a bad day, I might go over the 64 oz. threshold.

You'd think at that amount, it would be the caffeine that would frighten me. It made me shaky. The massive intake of CO2 made my insides churn. The acidity could be annoying. But none of those things made me walk away.

Aspartame did it. The current EU safe limit is 40 mg per kg of body weight a day, 50 mg per kg in the U.S. That translates to roughly 16 cans in the EU and 21 in the U.S. Sounds like a lot to most people, but a 2 liter bottle of soda is nearly 7 cans, which means I was pushing 10 a day. I got headaches and migraines when I wasn't on it.

The studies aren't there to show it is a serious health risk, but approaching the advisable limit as I was, coupled with the other negative effects, pushed to me to find something else.

And that something else is coffee. The caffeine is concentrated. The ingredients in the drink are known and simple. The milk is good for me, and the sweetener - Splenda - is much more powerful, so not only am I drinking less of it per oz of liquid, I am drinking less caffeinated liquid - nearly 80% less.

So far, so good.

6 Hour Power. That's right baby. 1 more hour.

http://www.6hrpower.com/

Look like any drink you've ever heard of?

Also - its got the worst. ad. ever. http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1138353315?bclid=1149097313&bctid=15154764001

Velveeta Chocolate Caramel Fudge

I don't know what is more disturbing, the notion of taking a processed cheese product and combining it with 2 chocolates and a caramel, or watching a dixie mama drip white goo all over a lesbian's face. You're gonna watch now, aren'tcha?

I can't embed it, so you have to see it here: http://ellen.warnerbros.com/2007/12/its_dinner_and_dessert_all_in.php?page=7

You've Got Some Serious Stones

For once, you really can say, "Ha! We didn't have [blank] , we just had rocks!" Just pick up these whiskey stones, chill them, and place them in your spirit for all that cold with none of that pesky, flavor-altering water. And here I thought that adding a touch of water to Single Malts, Single Barrels, etc. broke the internal hydrocarbon bonds and released the aroma. In fact, I suspect it does, but Whiskey drinkers are all adamant that their various and contradictory drinking strategies are the only right way. C'est la vie.

A "Hot Dish"

Susan-cooks informs me that, in Minnesota, what we know as a casserole is known there as a "hot dish." Add that to your Hoagie/Pop debates.

Would It Kill You To Watch This Movie?

Hm. Will a movie with the same tone and feel as the book, the Omnivore's Dilemma, featuring the writer of Fast Food Nation be enough to attract the less bookish to the cause of food movements? I am not a member of any of these movements. I ain't a locavore (local foods), a whole foodie (organics), a vegan/vegetarian, or otherwise. For the most part, I try to eat things I recognize in their original form. Homemade bread, fruits, and veggies. Some cheese, but not cheese product. It does me good.

Free Cone Day.

At Ben and Jerrys. I can't remember the last time I had one. Made me happy. Also made me realize that I really don't need ice cream in more than a 3 oz. serving. (smiles).

Passover, All Year Round...But, Like, Good.

Pepsi will release "Pepsi throwback" (something they should consider doing with their new logo). The 'back' means a return to cane sugar sweeteners - something normally only found on passover when corn-based - nay all leguminous - products aren't kosher and the conspicuous yellow caps appear.

Someone has either tipped the rest of the world to this or people suddenly find themselves liking the sodas a lot of more and, therefore, buying more of them, because Passover soda sells like hotcakes. It can't all be due to kosher-food seekers.

And the final irony: I am pretty sure Pepsi throwback won't be kosher for passover because, while made with cane sugar, it will not be made in a plant certified kosher to passover standards. Still, I could be wrong.

[HT: www.Kottke.org ]

Nuts...

This might be slummin' it, but I have enjoyed Austin Peanut Butter and crackers for over a decade (yikes), since callege. Kelloggs just recalled a bunch for salmonella. So, um, when do I get the "all clear"?

Ramen. Pizza. Together at last.

That's a ramen-crusted pizza. It is real. The layer of white is ricotta to stabilize the top cheese layer. The solution is really quite brilliant. The recipe is here.

Flavor Balls in Pocket Bread!

The Lebanese government has sued Israel, claiming that Falafel, Hummus, Fattoush, and other ME delicacies are actually Lebanese. Stop smirking. The EU courts ruled that Greece was the only country that could sell "Feta," after it won a case claiming that it was a traditional food. Thing is, the Greeks never registered that food name with anyone.

Why you might worry: What is a company like "Sabra" going to do when the millions of dollars worth of products it sells in Europe have to be rebranded if Israel loses?

Why you might not: I don't know who would be bound by an international court decision on this matter. I don't think the U.S. would. Indeed, Israel might just refuse to answer the claim. Still, it is fun story.

Even For This Crowd, This is Too Much

There are a LOT of single malt lubbers in Georgetown. No surprise there; collections routinely top $450, and some travel well into the four figures. Well boys, here's one you cannot afford: Ardbeg Double Barrel. 2 single malt bottles, 1974, in a custom shooting bag with eight silver cups.

It'll set you back $23,000.

[EDIT: I got some comments that said, "Oy, but the packaging makes it SO expensive." Another HT to Flippish for passing along an offer from our own Calvert Woodley - Macallan 55. Only 420 bottles ever made at $11,000 each.]

Raw Milk and the Free Market

Raw milk, the unpasteurized white stuff that has the audacity to come out of a cow bearing microbes, is illegal in the U.S. and in most countries. Heating the stuff got rid of over 90% of the cases of things like e-coli. Not bad. On the other hand, there are (possibly credible) assertions that pasteurization also kills a lot of good bacteria - both those that help and those that hurt us just enough to spark an immune response.

Now, I am not for overturning the raw milk ban. I think that the cost of offering a product known to carry dangerous pathogens to a public that is rarely educated enough to understand what that means will surely result in higher public-health costs.

That said, I wonder whether a limited mechanism for acquiring the stuff might be reasonable. Raw milk is a small enterprise, so prices will be high. They can be higher still if you regulate the practice and require people to test cows for the bacteria we worry about most. That will drive the cost to at the very least double that of regular milk, so only the truly committed will buy it. Add to that a continuing prohibition on serving it to anyone under, say 18, and I think you have a reasonable solution.

I understand that the claimed immunological benefit of raw milk is best felt early in life, but I'd need to see hard evidence on a large scale showing that it is so before I would permit parents to serve it to kids willy nilly. And this isn't the first product we won't serve to kids...there is no reason to fear feeding honey to infants now that it is pasteurized, and absolutely no ill-health effect of alcohol on the body of, say, an 8 y.o., but we regulate both of those due to...you guessed it...the public health cost.

There is a chocolate cake...

...in the office kitchen. It is now a quarter of its former dome shape, revealing silky cake insides with two seams of chocolate cream, topped with shiny chocolate from the foot-high top to bottom. It is taunting me.

A No Shintz Sherlock.

Drinks at Restaurant Eve in Alexandria fall nothing short of impressive. To a one they are mixology masterworks. But one stands above the rest: The Sherlock Holmes.

1 shot Laphroiag scotch (I know, it is the sacred single malt, but wait!)
1 shot Lapsang Souchong ,
allegedly the famed sleuth'ss favorite tea - granting the drink its name.
Touch simple syrup
Touch soda
Touch orange juice
(shaken)
Lemon peel, squeezed, lit, and dropped into the drink.

The smokey tea mixes with the now savory sensation of citrus, peet, and rye in the scotch to create the smoothest, warmest, most sensual cocktail I have ever experienced. To sip this roguishly decadent treat is to slip into a content grin or a passive observation of the delights before you for the remainder of the evening.

It was a complex, inviting heaven.

Red Bull Gibn Du Fliglen!

The Times (U.K., not NY) reports that ultra-orthodox jews are seeking salvation in a little Red Bull. A choice quote:

There are three things going on here. They make a lot of babies, they study the Torah and they dance. They need a lot of energy, and something to strengthen them.

There is talk in the innermost circles of U-OJ of a perfect can of Red Bull, without blemish, scratch, or dilution, which, when finally found, will be shared amongst the high priests and herald the coming of the end of days. Luckily, all will be awake to see it.

[ Thanks to RK for the link ]

Strike Fear into the Hearts of Men

...directly into the vena cava.

You gotta admit it's impressive.

People argue over what the Noahite law of "eiver min ha'chai" (prohibition on eating a limb from a live animal) applies to. Lobster is a maybe, live octopus tentacles -- that is most definitely a, "Yes!" Don't believe me?

Check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvyunwtlvuc&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fgizmodo%2Ecom%2F