"UniversityOfPennsylvania" news and stories

Yesterday, the University of Pennsylvania announce that, in light of the threat of salmonella-tainted peanuts, they are all peanut butter and related products from the schools' dining halls, cafes and vending machines. In place of the products, there are signs stating why the staple is missing. School officials aren't saying when peanut butter will return to campus, but they're in conversations with suppliers to determine that date.

Thing is, they've even pulled peanut butter that has shown no sign of being contaminated, stating that:

Because the investigation is ongoing and the list of suspected items from the FDA keeps expanding, we have taken a conservative, proactive stance.

What do you think? Positive and proactive, or inflammatory and fearful?

• Cynthia Wahl imports teas, but she's not a purveyor, she's a tea sommelier and she wants Americans to eschew the bag for loose leaf.
• If you want to give up the tea bag, here are some local spots to buy loose leaves, a primer on how to brew your new tea and a piece about Japanese tea ceremonies.
• Le Bec Fin, the restaurant widely acknowledged to have started Philadelphia's restaurant revolution in the early 1970s, is remodeling.
• Maria Yagoda takes us on a tour of University of Pennsylvania lunch trucks, and admits that it's better eating in the summertime, when the lines aren't so long.
• In 'Good Tastes' Karen Heller briefly reviews Jose Garces' newest spot, Distrito, and calls it a winner.

Most people who are obsessed with all things culinary have a friend whose cookbook collection they covet. I know I greedily eye bookshelves in my fellow gourmand's houses and in restaurants. After all, who wouldn't want to get their mitts on an original copy of Larousse Gastronomique.

Surely Fritz Blank, the 64-year old chef of Philadelphia's Deux Cheminees, is one of the most prolific collectors of cookbooks, periodicals and other culinaria. Blank has amassed a collection that spans some 15,000 volumes, including hundreds of issues of Gourmet magazine from 1943 to 1990.

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The best way to avoid a hangover is to drink in moderation and stay hydrated throughout the night. There is no "cure" for a hangover.
A team at the University of Pennsylvania examined eight remedies reputed to lessen or even cure the symptoms of a hangover, including such items as propranolol, fructose/glucose, prickly pear extracts and a yeast based product. The team also noted that very few studies have been done to test such remedies and even fewer have been reliably conducted. Their findings revealed why because there is no conclusive evidence that any of the tested remedies actually prevented or cured a hangover.
There are too many home remedies to test every one, but logic should reveal that if food items such as bananas, eggs and milkshakes acutally cured hangovers, people would have noticed by now. Feel free to try toast and honey, if you're so inclined, but it is best to avoid "the hair of the dog that bit you" and other home remedies in favor of good sense and self control to avoid a hangover.

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