"chicago sun-times" news and stories

When life gave former Chicago police officer Jim Mullen lemons, he didn't let it get him down.

The 44-year-old quadriplegic, injured in 1996 when he was shot in the face and the bullet went through his cheek and lodged in his spinal column, instead makes applesauce. He started Mullen's Chicago's Finest Apple Sauce, made from his mother's recipe, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

He breathes through a ventilator, moves with a breath-controlled wheelchair and needs around-the-clock care, but the applesauce entrepreneur, whose addictive product "tastes like apple pie without the crust," sells Mullen's Chicago's Finest in about area 60 stores, including Whole Foods.

"People might buy it once because of my story or my situation." Mullen told the paper "But they don't keep buying it because of Jim Mullen, paralyzed police officer. They buy it because of Jim Mullen, kick-ass applesauce."

• The French "buche de Noel" dates back to the 1870s, when chocolate sponge cakes were first designed to look like a festive yule log.
• Feisty -- and notoriously foul-mouthed -- chef Gordon Ramsay of "Hell's Kitchen" and "Kitchen Nightmares" is set to host an American cook-along. He'll teach Americans how to prepare an elegant three-course meal, including a shrimp and chile-pepper festooned pasta appetizer, an entrée of steak Diane and a tiramisu dessert.
• Catering to tight wallets, fast food moguls McDonald's, Burger King and Taco Bell continue to create meals of increased "value," ranging from a $1 breakfast menu at McDonald's to a $5 box of four food items and one drink south of the border.
• With the possible threat of bioterrorism or tainted food sources, government auditors say the FDA's monitoring system is flawed, pointing out that half of the food manufacturers registered with the FDA don't even have valid contact info.
• A Parisian alcohol auction sells some 18,000 bottles from the renowned wine cellar of restaurant Tour d'Argent -- and a 1788 Vieux Cognac fetches more than $36,000.

Stories like this make me happy I don't like ice in my cold drinks.

The Chicago Sun-Times tested 49 different restaurants and fast food places in the area and found out that not only did 1 in 5 have ice cubes that had high levels of bacteria, 21 of the 49 had toilet water in the Sun-Times restroom that had less bacteria than the ice cubes. The paper actually names the restaurants.

Now, this either means the restaurants aren't handling their ice cubes correctly (or there's something in the water), or the urinary and digestive tracts of Sun-Times employees are unusually clean.

I remember I worked in a restaurant that had a large sink behind the bar that we just filled with ice, and it was left open. I can imagine what could have fallen in there or how clean the sink was when the ice was put in.

When I went to Indonesia in the summer of 2001, my mom's best friend Maria requested that I bring her back some white peppercorns. Towards the end of my five weeks there, I hit a grocery store in order to do a little gift-buying (because who doesn't like to receive gifts of random foodstuffs from other countries? It's always my favorite thing to receive). I got several bags of white peppercorns, some for Maria and then some so that I could play around with them as well.

When I returned, I discovered that I didn't really like the taste of white peppercorns. They had a woodiness that I didn't enjoy and since I've never minded sullying light colored sauces and soups with flecks of black pepper, I've just sort ignored the existence of white peppercorns and gone on my merry way. However, I discovered last week, as I trawled the vast expanse of food writing available to me on the internet that white peppercorns are just black ones that have been soaked and had their outer hull removed. They do get a bit fermented in the process of being stripped of their black outsides, which may lend the taste that I found so unappealing.

Do you have a pepper-color preference? And while we're at it, what's your favorite grind? I tend to go for a coarser grind, but I keep several pepper mills around at all times, set to different grinds, so that I always have plenty of options.

[via Chicago Sun-Times]
Photo link

Source

I don't eat sushi, so I'll have to take the Chicago Sun-Times' word on this.

Seems that Chicago-area restaurants that serve red snapper aren't really serving red snapper at all, they're serving cheap substitutes! And it wasn't an isolated case. In fact, samples were bought from fourteen different restaurants in the city, and none of them were actually red snapper. They found this out by doing DNA tests.

Coming this fall: CSI: Sushi.

The FDA calls it fraud and they are investigating.