The Dude – Page 3 – THE DUDE OF FOOD

Capitalism & Beer Marketing Tricks Today

Remember the good old days, like 2 years ago, when beer was served in bottles and you could get a 12 pack for $9.99? Now beer is trendy and manufacturers have taken to following the coffee business model. If Starfunkx can pay less than $50 a ‘Free Trade’ ton of un-roasted beans and then charge $3 a cup for coffee then so will the gas station. Sadly, the Dude of Food has noticed the same thing is happening in the beer business. Some craft beer makers decided to charge a bunch of extra dough for some aged beer and now even the cheap lagers are expensive. This same trickle down for profit theory has gone into packaging too.

In the 1970’s aluminum cans caused Alzheimer’s disease. These days it’s cheaper to can beer than it is to bottle it so we are told and sold that cans are OK now.

Next let’s look at packaging.

As you can see from the image comparison above, the buyer is paying the same for a package containing 8 less ounces per purchase and put in a potentially health riskier but cheaper to produce package. The only bonus about cans is they don’t break when dropped and are lighter to recycle, but then again in California we pay for CRV to recycle but there is nowhere to take your recycling except to the trash so the state gets it back anyways but subsidizes itself by charging a pre-paid recycling fee. The fee was established by the California Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act of 1986 and since 2010 the program has been administered by the Cal/EPA California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) (previously administered by California Department of Conservation – Recycling Division)

In February 2016 RePlanet, the largest recycling center in California, closed 191 recycling centers and terminated nearly 300 employees in small communities across the state due to increases in operational costs. By August 2019 RePlanet announced the closing of its remaining 284 centers and termination of it’s last 750 employees. It began the process of liquidating assets to pay creditors which had backed up due to continued reduction in state fees, the depressed pricing of recycled aluminum, plastic and cardboard, the minimum wage increases and the rise in operating costs.

Write to your elected California senators, local newspapers and media services to ask more questions as to why nothing logical is getting done in California.

What’s in that sausage?

Ever wonder what’s in that delicious looking sausage. Well the Dude of Food has been and finally took the time to tear one down and see what’s in there. Above is your typical average sized sausage found in any US market. This is not a small breakfast sausage but a regular sausage. This one weighed in at 46 grams as shown.

The first thing I don’t like is eating the intestinal lining that sausage is held together with. There just doesn’t seem like any nutritional value to this stuff. The next thing I noticed was the amount of white fat speckles mixed in the meat so I began to pick them out with a corn holder.

You can see in the photo below that there was a good amount of those white fat particles in there. The other things that were hidden in there are what look like small gristle beads. They are rounded and look like little white nuggets. I am pretty sure these things are about as healthy for you as plastic. Anyhow, I weighed the pile of garbage that had accumulated on the tin foil and it weighed in at 10.6 grams including the intestinal wrapping but not the weight of the foil. That works out to be roughly 22% useless unhealthy waste in every sausage.

So for nearly every 5 sausages you eat 1 of them is all fat and nasty. Granted this was the first one I broke down and the brand was recorded but not given here as I want to test a few more brands and see what the averages are before names are named.

Save the Food/Ocean/Planet.

The Dude of Food thinks this might be a better concept than capitalism. If all humans practiced wiser, we could see positive change. Create less waste. Re-use items. Plant edible foliage. Share. Protect the Ocean. Pollute less. Educate. Find out more at Save The Food.

https://savethefood.com/community

Think of the things that could be. Less food wasted. More people fed. More composting for better growth. Less waste dumped into the ocean. Not polluting our food & water sources. Do you pee in your pool or on your garden?

Think better built, longer lasting, reusable products. Litter free cities like Amsterdam. Public gardens growing herbs for local restaurants like in Santa Monica. Munich has great public gardens that house streams, trees, ducks, deer and serve beer. I mog di Minga!

La Tur cheese will mooove you, baaaaa.

This blend of cow, sheep and goat milk from Italy made by the fine folks at Caseificio Dell’Alta Langa is absolutely delicious. Soft enough to spread on crackers and easily melts into hot pasta. The flavor in this cheese is rich enough for cheese experts and lively enough to wake up a boring appetizer party.

The Dude of Food melted a good chunk of this cheese into some hot noodles the other day and was stoked I did. I can see myself craving this in the near future.

Thank you Caseificio Dell’Alta Langa for your La Tur cheese. It is delicioso.

Lakemaid beer drone goes flat.

Brewery’s Drone Delivery Plan Grounded

The Federal Aviation Administration has used its authority to shut down technology that helps people live better. The increased quality of life in small towns has been thwarted by ‘the system’ as the FAA grounds the Lakemaid Beer drone delivery program. Does this move say that capitalism is not for everyone?

You can see the drone in action in the following Youtube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmHwXf8JUOw

You can read all about the perceived issues the FAA has but in reality it seems that Lakemaid Beer has a great idea and this program would be a good beta test for Amazon delivery development. Or maybe Amazon has something to do with the demise of the program? Some things to think about as the hands of the clock get closer to happy hour. Prost.

Sour beers are delicious.

The famous beer author Pete Brown describes Lambic and Gueueze style beers, sometimes commonly called sours, in the following way – ‘Instead of adding laboratory-cultured yeasts to start the fermentation of sugar into alcohol, lambic brewers rely on the natural yeasts in the air around them.’ Pete would know. I love reading his books and he knows beer.

Making beer this way was is an old school way of fermenting your brew. Back in the early brewing day taste was partially dependent on what bacteria fell into your beer. That would start the fermentation process and affect the taste of your wort or alcohol stew. The luckiest brewers came up with something different and delicious.

Below are three brewers the Dude of Food recommends you should begin your sour beer journey by investigating first. Feel free to write to me at facebook.com/dudeoffood about your discoveries. Prost.

Califlower Hot Wings, YUM!

One of the latest things the Dude of Food has experienced is this food called Califlower Hot Wings. When my buddy said we were going to a vegan place to have a couple beers because they had a good selection, I felt my enthusiasm drop a bit. ‘I’m not a vegan’ I thought to myself. ‘this has the potential to really suck.’

Upon entering the room, Sage Plant Based Bistro in Echo Park, the place was as full as any good happy hour should be and everyone seemed to be having a genuine good time. Not a bunch of folks looking around gauging how the cool people act, but real folks having real conversations. It was starting out great. So far so good.

We found the last 2 seats at the bar and asked for a couple of IPA’s on tap. The beer choices were decent. Then we requested the Califlower Hot Wings. I wasn’t totally down with these by the way they sounded but when they arrived at the table and I tasted one, I was addicted. These things are good. The vinegar was strong and burned the senses just like they did at the old Garcia’s or the original Anchor Bar (home of wings) in Buffalo, NY.

If you are trying to stick to your New Year’s resolution by eating better, than get yourself and some friends over to try one of the Sage Plant Based Bistro’s in Los Angeles and enjoy something delicious.

If you are interested in having your restaurant, bar, club or food reviewed please write to the Dude of Food or Yelp – Dude Food G.

What do Paris, forks, Dukes and Ducks have in Common?

In 1592 the rich folk of Europe used to wear fancy, albeit uncomfortable looking things called a ruff around their necks. See this picture painted in the early 1600’s called ‘Portrait of an Old Woman’ by Frans Hals of Antwerp. Popular King Henry IV wore a ruff too.

In fact in Paris 1592 King Henry IV inaugurated use of the very first fork ever because of his ruff. The food tool was designed to keep people’s dinner off of their ruffs. Henry may have been a slave to fashion but using the fork stuck, so to speak.

This establishment where the 1st fork thing went down with Henry happened at a restaurant known as Tour d’Argent. This place once made a menu for a dinner hosted by the Duke of Richelieu, who was the nephew of a French Cardinal, that consisted solely of beef prepared 30 different ways! I wonder if this is where steak tartare came from? In 1929, La Tour d’Argent prepared it’s 100,000th famous ‘Caneton Tour D’Agent’ dish. For the curious non French reader this translates as pressed duck. They began numbering the amazing dish in 1890 and served pressed duck number 1,000,000 in 2003. That reminds me of a joke that always quacks me up.

Q: Why did the duck cross the road?

A: He saw a Tour d’Argent chef ahead.

You can read more about the historic La Tour d’Argent and it’s history at https://tourdargent.com/en/heritage/ To read more about the famous chefs of La Tour d’Argent click to

http://www.foodreference.com/html/artlatourdargent.html

Good for Ninkasi Brewing for supporting the arts.

Society needs to recognize that the creative craft brewing folks at Ninkasi Brewing in Eugene, Oregon have been doing a great job not only brewing fine IPA beers, but with their success, they are giving back to the world in note worthy ways.

https://thefullpint.com/beer-news/ninkasi-brewing-opens-in-house-recording-studio/

I’m not going into details here, but you can certainly read about how cool the folks at Ninkasi Brewing are at the above or below links. As a beer drinking, guitar/bass plucking, drum beating, bad singing song writer with bad hair I personally wanted to take the time this holiday season to say ‘thank you’ for what you do. More folks should use this business model. Maximum respect Ninkasi and Cheers.

http://www.ninkasibrewing.com/

Keep up the good work.

Homegrown tomatoes in the urban garden make for fun and abundant summer gardening.

There’s much to be said about growing your own things to eat. A small strip of unused land behind our apartment has become our urban garden and that strip of land has brought large amounts of food and joy to our friends and neighbors.

“Using small parcels of urban land to compost, cultivate, care for and grow food to fortify our lives is a great way to unite people and nature in a wholesome and caring way. ” Peter Pearce co-owner https://guerillagardenersocal.wordpress.com

Peter goes on to say, “We prepared some dried earth to be growing ready by weeding, watering and naturally fertilizing with compost and have created a meeting area for people to chat, have a drink, a smoking section and a garden place to be at peace with nature all in one.”

“The main thing we have grown so far are tomatoes that are doing really well, but we have also grown potatoes, Lebanese mint, artichokes, white onions and bell peppers. We are trying to get a couple citrus trees going but I think they are stupid GMO controlled seeds that are having troubles getting past budding. We have also started nearly a dozen avocado trees and have donated them all to the community. It’s good fun.”

“Our group has grown to include nearly 20 neighbors who all enjoy the space. We drink sangria and pitch in to keep the area maintained. Our group is expanding into a local landscape business where we help clear, care for and maintain other peoples landscapes now too.”