The Jewish holiday of Shavuot begins tonight at sundown. The two-day celebration commemorates God's gift of the Torah to the Jewish people. Like most Jewish holidays, Shavuot comes with a food tie-in, and this one is dairy desserts, such as the shapely cheese blintz pictured above.
Why dairy desserts? While a dairy farmer may ask "why not?", the answer lies, yet again, in the Torah: its pages contain the Kosher dietary laws, which forbid the mixing of milk and meat. So when the Jews got the Torah, they also got the news that they could no longer cook meat in their pots. Which is, when you think about it, a great excuse to make cheesecake (even if, as one rabbi likes to remind his congregants, "Shavuot is not just about cheesecake!").
Or panna cotta. Or crème brulée. Or ice cream. Or -- well, you get the picture.
When it comes to soul-satisfying food, people just can't get enough of the creamy textures of comfort food dishes. Mac and cheese, fettuccini, chowders and cream soups top many people's list of favorite indulgences, along with ice cream and milkshakes. But do things have to be loaded with fat to be creamy and taste good?
My short answer is an emphatic "No!" I've developed a few easy ways to keep the creaminess in and the fat out, starting with my method for making savory, velvety corn chowder. This is the perfect soup for this time of year, when you're yearning for something that reminds you of warm weather, like chowder at the beach side -- but which will still warm you up on chilly March evenings.
Here are three skinny secrets that you can use in any of your favorite recipes or even add to store-bought items to ramp up the creaminess and lower the fat.
We should think terroir with most of our foods, especially when it comes to wines and cheeses. Artisanal cheeses from one dairy cannot be replicated at another. Cheese-makers at different farms can share techniques, but their cheeses will never be identical because of differences in soil content. The pastures upon which the cows, sheep or goats graze affects the flavor of their milk which affects the taste of the cheese. For this reason, when purchasing cheese it's important to think of terroir.
In French, terroir means soil, terrain, land, ground and earth. A cheese, like Laguiole, is partially defined by its region because of the soil. Laguiole has a slightly meaty and mineral-like taste that derives from the milk of cows grazing on grass that grows out of soil rich in volcanic ash. When purchasing cheeses, it's important to consider the condition of the animals that produced the milk that created the cheese. The animals should be grazing freely. At the very least, they should be fed grasses, leaves and flowers from the soil on which they live.
In Italy, a movement called Sotto Cielo -- literally "under the sky" -- has taken shape in order to preserve this cheese-making tradition. As industrial cheese-making becomes the norm throughout the world, people are increasingly interested in finding ways to preserve past culinary traditions by paying close attention to terroir.
This is just another way you can tell the difference between poor quality and good quality. An artisanal Comté will have a beautiful intense aroma and taste because the cows are grazing on meadows full of wild dandelions and native grasses.
We reported a few weeks back about how Yoplait was going growth-hormone free. Well now Dannon's following suit, reports Civil Eats. Dannon, which controls around one third of the country's dairy market, cites consumer demand as the reason behind the change. The company says it will go rbGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone)-free by the end of the year.
There are various health and animal rights issues surrounding the use of rbGH on dairy cows. The hormones have been linked to increased rates of infections in cattle, necessitating greater antibiotic use. And some studies have shown that rbGH raises levels of a hormone in cow's milk; higher than normal levels of IGF-1 in humans may raise the risk of breast cancer. Others say no significant difference has been shown between milk from rBST-treated and milk from non-rBST-treated cows.
I'm often surprised to realize that many of the groceries I buy can be simply made at home. I tend to presume that cottage cheese just grows on supermarket shelves, for example, or that making vanilla requires complex machinery. So while it may be more convenient to throw these items into your cart than to cultivate them in your own kitchen, try making any of these eight treats at home the next time you're feeling bold.
That's right, cutting your meat consumption down to four portions per week, and cutting your milk/dairy intake down to 1 liter (about a quart), is a major step we all need to take to "avoid run-away climate change." At least that's according to a recent study released by the Food Climate Research Network, which operates at the University of Surrey in England.
The new study, reported in The Guardian this week, does touch on eating locally, avoiding waste, and cooking in larger batches as well as using a microwave. However, one of the main points is that the government should intervene and put everyone on meat and dairy rations. The argument is that awareness campaigns and trying to get people to voluntarily change their habits simply won't work: people won't make the tougher changes by themselves.
I know that people feel very strongly about the government telling them what they can or cannot do (or eat). Not only do I not want direct government interference, I don't think imposing rations would be very enforceable. However, I do think it would work if limits were put on how much meat could be produced. That would raise the price of meat and lower the demand for it dramatically.
We've been talking a lot about ice cream lately, so I became extremely excited yesterday when I found this article over at The Huffington Post. It features goat's milk ice cream, an intriguing dairy creation that's apparently healthier than regular ice cream and popular with celebrities like Jim Carrey and Kate Hudson.
The brand discussed in the article is called Laloo -- check out the site for details and adorable pictures of baby goats (kids, I know, but baby goats sounds so much cuter). After consulting the list of local dealers, I found out that it's actually sold at tons of stores that are close to my home. I'm a bit cautious about trying it, but if any of you have rave reviews, I may just have to go and purchase a pint. Anyone?
The most exciting thing about artisanal cheeses is their complex, multi-layered flavors. However, for many people, they seem unapproachable. The best way to savor these cheeses is to breakdown the experience from the first encounter (touch and smell) to the last encounter (after-taste).
I guess I missed this over the summer, though I can't imagine how something so strange could have slipped through my Google Reader! Apparently, a dairy farm in France offers cheese made from human breast milk.
I'm not entirely sure that I believe this, but a web site for the farm, Le Petit Singly, does exist in French. There's a post about it on Why Travel to France from last June, as well as a mentioning of that post here on Serious Eats -- but neither confirms the existence. According to a Wikipedia post, breast milk was sometimes consumed in the ancient world in fertility cults, and it's thinner and sweeter than milk from other mammals.
So if it does exist, there are certainly some questions to address. Firstly, would you taste it? And how would you eat it -- plain? On crackers? Would it mean an entire line of human breast milk products are on the horizon?
"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.
A viral campaign produced by website Sustainable Table, The Meatrix is a cartoon that reveals "the lie we tell ourselves about where our food comes from." It started up a few years ago, and has since been translated into 30 languages and boasts new features.
Not familiar? Though cleverly animated and peppered with humorous anecdotes, The Meatrix films are definitely not a joke, and probably not suitable for kids. There are three installments, the first being an introduction to what Sustainable Table calls "the dark side of the meat industry," and the second and third, The Meatrix II: The Revolting, and The Meatrix II 1/2, which explores new avenues into the dairy and meat-packing industries.
Our pig protagonist, Leo, chooses the red pill, and follows Mootheus, a trench coat-wearing cow, who reveals the grim reality about most of America's meat and dairy products. As they walk around the farm and Mootheus explains how animals are packed into tight-knit quarters and injected with RBGH and fed the carcasses of their relatives, the juxtaposition of the simplistic, brightly-colored cartoons against the shocking statistics helps to drive the point home.
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.
We want to believe that there is a magic pill that will melt the fat off our bodies. We even hope there's some secret formula that nobody else knows. In the end, however, in our heart of hearts, we always know that "the formula" for staying trim is no formula at all. Quite simply, we have to exercise more and eat less.
Right?
Well, not exactly. According to various bits of research done here and there and compiled by AOL Diet & Fitness, it seems that for one particular trouble spot for a lot us, abs, eating more might be key.
Hold your horses, Soon-to-be-Taut Tonto. You can't just go eating everything in sight, thinking that the more potato chips and bacon you cram down your throat, the tighter your abs will be. There are specific nutrients in foods that seem t help fight ab fat. Unfortunately, potato chips isn't one of them. What are they? There are five things, and the matrix above is just a few suggestions for ways you can incorporate these into your diet that will get you to flatter abs:
Nutritionists and researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston set out to try and discover whether dairy foods in general had any effect of fertility on humans, as there was "pretty strong evidence" that an excess of lactose in animals could have a negative effect on the ability of females to conceive. Everyone was surprised to find that the same result was not found in humans. The records, taken from 1991-1999, of nearly 19,000 women from the ages of 24-42 were examined.
It turned out that they found that women who ate two or more servings of low-fat/non-fat dairy foods and no whole fat dairy had an 85% higher risk of becoming infertile. Eating one serving of whole fat dairy per day significantly reduced the odds of developing infertility. The type of infertility most commonly found in this study was anovulatory, a failure to produce eggs. One possible reason for this result is that low fat dairy foods tend to have more lactose in them than full fat products, but scientists say that more research is needed before anything can firmly be concluded. And they do "not recommend that women trying to conceive use this as an excuse to eat "buckets and buckets of ice cream."
We reported a few weeks back about how 
We've been talking a lot about 
I guess I missed this over the summer, though I can't imagine how something so strange could have slipped through my 
Nutritionists and researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston set out to try and discover whether dairy foods in general had any effect of fertility on humans, as there was "pretty strong evidence" that an excess of lactose in animals could have a negative effect on the ability of females to conceive. Everyone was surprised to find that the same result was not found in humans. The records, taken from 1991-1999, of nearly 19,000 women from the ages of 24-42 were examined.
10 More Dirty Restaurant Tricks
5 Things You Didn't Know About Turducken
10 Catchiest Food Jingles We Love to Hate
