A good friend of mine once spilled a gallon of milk in his car. If that ever happens to you, head directly to the car wash. Do not stop on the way. Once that milk smell sets in, it never goes away and it is not pleasant. According to the New York Times, milk spilling has become a big problem due to a change in the classic milk carton.
Wal-Mart and Costco are rolling out new milk jugs. The difference is that the new jugs are square and made of recyclable plastics. This makes them stack-able and compact in trucks and on shelves. These jugs are less expensive because of easier shipping and the elimination of milk crates.
The downside of the new jugs is that it is taking consumers some time to get used to them. People are having difficulty not spilling milk during the pour since there is no spout. Sam's Club has even been offering in-store classes on how to pour from the new jugs. I suppose you could always transfer your milk to a glass container with a spout if it were that much of a problem.
This weekend's New York Times reported that as of last Tuesday dairy farmers in Germany are striking. It's a classic case of supply and demand. The EU decided to raise milk quotas, leading to more supply and lower prices. Meanwhile feed and fuel prices have gone way up, which has put the pinch on German dairy farmers. In response, they're attempting to create demand by striking.
However, as the NYT points out, this situation is a little different than the Italian pig farmers, because these dairy farmers must continue to milk the cows. Because their goal is to keep the milk out of the market, they end up pouring it out, literally dumping food down the drain. It's an unfortunate situation, especially since worldwide there are so many people who are struggling with food shortages and hunger.
So many of us are lactose intolerant these days, but there are so many milk substitutes that it's difficult to know where to turn! Find out where to go, and how to incorporate these substitutes into your cooking.
Earlier today, Bob Sassone posted here about his milk gone bad. Anatomic Factory together with artist Bombo were thinking about the same subject. They created these bizarre milk carton shaped lights. They look like plain milk cartons, but they reveal a weird world of mold playing in the carton when you turn them on.
I choose to dump my old milk and not think too much about what might be going on in there. However, I must admit that these would make for really cute kitchen lamps.
What's next? A light designed to reveal the mold on an apple juice glass left out on the counter for too long? Umm.. wait... that happened in my house, no art light needed.
"Milk In the Land: Ballad of an American Drink," a documentary about the ubiquitous white beverage, has shown at several film festivals across the U.S. and is now hitting Philly. Directors Ariana Gerstein and Monteith McCollum show us the ins and outs of the cow's milk industry, revealing its interesting past. But don't expect a thoughtful retrospective on the Great American Drink - this film unearths often grimace-inducing secrets about milk, questions its nutritional value, and spotlights the milk extraction process in farms run by agribusiness corporations.
The film features several theatrical elements, including testimonials by industry professionals and stop-motion animation, to explore the drink inside and out. It has been called "fascinating" by some critics, but one FilmCAN reviewer was pretty disappointed, saying the film lacked detail and that the interviewees provided stuttered, unconvincing arguments.
Despite the occasional bad review, Milk sounds pretty worthwhile - similar to the string of string of recent documentaries on the underbelly of the food industry, even if the film itself isn't the best, you'll undoubtedly walk out of the theater with some newfound food and business knowledge under your belt.
I thought I'd give you a little musical accompaniment to your coffee-drinking/blog-reading/procrastinating this morning. Blur's "Coffee and TV" is, hands down, the best music video starring an anthropomorphic carton of milk. Seriously. Try to find a better music video starring a carton of milk. I dare you.
Without giving too much away, the video's googley-eyed star makes his way through the city, encountering danger, suspense, and love on his quest. The video is worth watching through to the end, if not for the classic song, then for the oddly sweet, albeit slightly morbid, ending.
Ah, milk. It's tasty, it's satisfying, and it makes a great music video star.
I've loved experimenting with drinking chocolates this winter. Swirling shaved chocolate into a saucepan of milk produces a far better result than anything I achieve with hot cocoa mix. I usually use dark chocolate, and sometimes add sugar until the mixture reaches my desired sweetness. That is, until recently -- the mother of my close friend is Colombian, and she brought us a bar of Colombian chocolate designed for melting into hot beverages. I can't get enough of it.
The bar is already sweetened perfectly, so you just add it to hot milk and allow it to melt. Once melted, you beat the mixture with a molinillo -- a chocolate whisker with designs native to Colombia, Mexico and other Latin American countries. The result is a deliciously foamy drink with a great chocolate kick. The product I used is called Sweet Chocolate, and the brand is Sol. I found the cheapest bar ($3.99) at Latin Pantry. But I'm sure there are others out there from Colombia as well as from other countries, so please share your favorites!
If you don't have a molinillo, you can use a normal whisk to achieve ideal foaminess. Feel free to add cinnamon as they do in Colombia, or syrups and extracts of your choice.
America (at least the segment of the population that reads the New York Times Dining & Wine section) has already embraced artisanal raw milk cheeses, boutique breads, bacon from pigs hand-fed on nothing but acorns.
Now, according to the lead story in the Wednesday Dining & Wine section, small-batch milk, cream and butter are the next Big Thing in refined gourmandise. In the article, It-chef Thomas Keller of Napa's French Laundry raves about butter handmade at a small Vermont creamery. "It has a different flavor profile and nuances throughout the year," he rhapsodizes. Fresh local dairy products are great, certainly - I buy pints of thick, downy cream from a nearby farm, and love nothing more than a hunk of baguette slathered with good butter, paved with sliced radishes and sprinkled with sea salt.
But my favorite part of the story had less to do with food and more to do with seventh-grade giggles: a quote from Nancy Nipples, founder of the Pike Place Market Creamery in Seattle. Full legal name: Nancy Nipples the Milkmaid.
And that's an order there, buddy. If you spill milk today, maybe while pouring a glass or putting some in your coffee or perhaps in your cereal bowl, DON'T CRY OVER IT. Seriously.
Yup, it's National Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk Day. Not really sure what to do with this. Link to recipes that include some sort of milk in the ingredients? Nah, there's too many of them. So how about this: in the comments below list what type of milk you drink (skim, low fat, whole, 2%, etc) or maybe give a Heloise-ish tip on what to do if someone were to indeed spill milk on a rug (I'm assuming that will be the hardest area to clean, since your kitchen counter is pretty easy, as long as you don't let the milk stand there for a while).
It's already happened in Canada. It's in the process of happening in Great Britain. I wonder if it will ever happen in the U.S.? I am referring to changing the packaging for milk containers. In Canada and England (anywhere else?), milk can now be purchased in more environmentally friendly bags rather than plastic bottles.
Currently, most of the bottles used for milk are tossed into the garbage rather than be recycled. Add to that they're made of a high density polyethylene, which can be recycled albeit mainly in China. The bags use 75% less plastic than do the bottles we're currently used to. Less packaging means less waste.
The milk bags are easily stored, too. You just have to get any kind of reusable pitcher, or similar container. When you bring home your fresh bag of milk, simply empty the contents into your pitcher and store it in the fridge.
The bag of milk is a neat new concept. I think that if we're serious about reducing our impact on this planet, this may be a good change to make. I know it seems kind of weird, but it's not that different from our current milk containers. Also, it's not a big sacrifice. I put lots of products into a permanent container once I get it home. So here's to the bag of milk: may you be universally accepted in the near future and stick around far into it.
I'm assuming that you didn't take the day off from work to run half-naked through the streets of your neighborhood in celebration of Mardi Gras, which probably means you didn't start your day with Hurricanes and Brandy Milk Punches at 7 AM.
Starting the day with cafe au lait -- French for "coffee with milk" -- is a better option. It's not a latte. Cafe au lait is drip coffee with hot milk. After years and years of drinking coffee black -- no sugar, no cream, no love, baby -- I conceded to trying coffee with milk because I "had to" when I was at Cafe du Monde last month. I have to say, I have been drinking it this way at home for the last month since I've been back.
Oh, okay, so I'm using soy instead of regular milk.
After a decision earlier this month by Pennsylvania lawmakers to remove all mention of hormone-treated cows on milk containers, Governor Ed Rendell vehemently disagreed and reversed the issue, allowing the references to stay. The decision was initially enacted because State Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff said the labels might cause consumers to think the treated milk was somehow inferior to non-treated milk, therefore slowing sales.
Why the sudden change? Rendell, along with the Consumers Union, dairy farms, and even Ben and Jerry's representatives thought that consumers deserved the right to know how their drinks were being produced. However, dairies that do choose to label their milk as "hormone-free" also have to list a disclaimer that their milk is no safer than milk that does contain hormones. This is because, despite rumors that hormones cause girls to hit puberty earlier or cause certain types of cancer, no research has proven either of these statements.
However, this hasn't stopped Canada from banning use of the hormone, which is used because it supposedly boosts milk production by 10%. Canada's reasoning? They say it causes mastitis, or udder infection, and reduces the number of pregnancies.
What do you think? Do you want to know whether or not your milk comes from hormone-treated cows? And how much does this fact - whether or not the cows were treated - affect what kind of milk you buy?
As a company, once you find a marketing strategy that works, you usually stick with it. Nike had the swoosh, milk has the mustaches, and PETA? Well, they have naked women.
Over the years, PETA has used women celebs like Alicia Silverstone, Eva Mendes, and Cindy Crawford to encourage the masses not to wear fur or eat meat. And while they've gotten a lot of flak, they continue to pay women to drop trou for the good of the animals.
Today in Philadelphia, PETA's "lettuce ladies" (women wearing little more than lettuce-shaped undergarments) will be handing out soy turkey sandwiches to promote the company's "Turn over a new leaf: go vegetarian" campaign.
A few points that should be noted, here: PETA rarely uses men to advertise its messages. It did use MTV Jackass' Steve-O, who was nude, but the ad a) only showed his backside and b) was quite obviously in jest, poking fun at the typical oversexed PETA model and keeping in vein with the show's brand of humor. Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix have also done commercial spots for the organization - fully clothed. Somehow, I wonder if the effectiveness of the message is lost when we're too busy ogling Pam Anderson's generous chest to worry about what she's promoting.
Now, I'm all for soy products, either as meat replacements or as an addition to a healthy diet. Isn't it fascinating how, in campaigning to stop exploiting one living thing, another is exploited in its place? Maybe PETA should stop pointing its fingers at others for a second and turn the magnifying glass on itself.
Last week we wrote about the news that 
I've loved experimenting with drinking chocolates this winter. Swirling shaved chocolate into a saucepan of milk produces a far better result than anything I achieve with hot cocoa mix. I usually use dark chocolate, and sometimes add sugar until the mixture reaches my desired sweetness. That is, until recently -- the mother of my close friend is Colombian, and she brought us a 
It's already happened in Canada. It's in the process of happening in Great Britain. I wonder if it will ever happen in the U.S.? I am referring to changing the packaging for 
Cakes so amazing they'd be hard to cut into
Fruit juice: An invitation to diabetes?
Morbid thoughts? Have a cookie
