Can you imaging living on tea alone for over twenty years? That's what life is like for a Vietnamese man, Phan Tuan Loc. At first he couldn't eat meat anymore, and then he stopped eating food entirely about twenty years ago. Now he lives on three cups of tea with sugar per day.
His family tried to keep this a secret and he tried to stop going to social events, but eventually people noticed that Phan Tuan Loc just didn't eat, and it freaked them out (I know I would be). Even stints at hospitals couldn't figure things out. Now Mr Loc just drinks his tea and gets a protein solution transmission from a health station when he feels really weak.
I love to eat. It's one of my favorite things to do, and I certainly can not see myself living without food, especially for twenty years. Apparently there are other cases like this (at least according to the article), and I just feel sorry for them. I don't even want to think of such a possibility. I'm sure there are worse fates, but this one is still right up there.
I first encountered kuro mitsu in San Francisco not long ago, at a creperie in the Japantown mall. I ordered a crepe with green tea ice cream, red bean paste, strawberries, whipped cream (sounds totally overkill but is truly amazing), which came drizzled in a mahogany-colored syrup that tasted like a light molassas, with a hint of malt. The mystery syrup really brought the crepe together, somehow cutting through the sweetness with its odd, bright bite.
Later, through research, I discovered that this was kuro mitsu (literally, "black honey"), a Japanese brown sugar syrup not at all dissimilar to molassas. Made from unrefined Okinawan brown sugar, it is a central ingredient in many sweet Japanese dishes.
A Taste of Zen provides a recipe for making your own kuro mitsu. Drizzle it over pancakes, fresh fruit or ice cream, add it to tea or stir a spoonful into plain yogurt.
I always thought there was such a thing as a sweet tooth. You know, that love of the taste of sugary foods. Most of us have probably heard about that tooth from the very beginning. Some scientists are working on changing that perception, though.
They've been researching this topic, and they think that people aren't really addicted to the sweet taste of sugary foods. The researchers are discovering that the brain senses the yummy calories from the sugar and in response it releases hormones that make us feel happy. The people studying this question say it has very little to do with actual taste, and they're proving it on mice with no "sweetness" taste buds. The mice still love sweets even though they supposedly cannot taste the actual sugar.
Of course, the researchers are also working on how to use this information to "turn off" the sweet tooth. Blasphemy! Outrageous! First some scientists think they've found a cure for chocoholism and now they want to take away my sweet tooth! I just don't know what the world is coming to when everyone is trying to take away my few pleasures in life. What about you? Do want to keep your sweet tooth?
Oh, the sugar frenzy of Easter. There's nothing better than the gluttonous orgy of sweets and baked goods that happens around this time of year. I know that other holidays also worth at the foot of the sugar god, but I feel like every year, Easter is first in line to pay its respects. I feel like the cookies in this image (by Flickr user ebachetti) are a great example of the this lovely seasonal indulgence.
Look up cute in the dictionary, and you'll inevitably find a photo of of these adorable little veggies, made from Williams-Sonoma's new cast-aluminum petit four pan.
The ones in the photo are professionally done, so of course the fondant looks perfect (so perfect, in fact, that they look almost like marzipan...), but I'm sure they'd be great for kids to decorate, too.
The pan retails for $34, and can hold twenty veggies - radishes, pea pods, cabbages, and carrots - at a time. Not sure how WS made its "dirt," but you could definitely just crumble a bunch of chocolate cookies and toss 'em in a pan.
I know we've all done it. You're right in the middle of making something and you realize that you don't have a necessary ingredient. Well if that ingredient is brown sugar, you may be in luck.
If you happen to have granulated sugar and molasses, you can make brown sugar. I've never actually measured the amounts before, as I generally just add molasses until I like the results. But I think it'd be 1-2 tablespoons of molasses to a cup of sugar, if you feel you need measurements.
This can be a big help in a pinch. If you don't have any of these staples, well, I guess this wouldn't be much use to you. But you never know when a tip might come in handy.
In the mood for grapefruit today? Turn on your toaster oven.
I got this recipe from the really cool book Munchies by Kevin Telles Roberts. He suggests you try it as a snack at 1:30 in the morning, but I don't see any reason why you can't have it as an ordinary breakfast treat.
Set your toaster oven to 450 degrees. Cut and section a grapefruit. Put a pat of butter in the center of each half and sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and sugar. Bake for about 10 minutes, until cinnamon/sugar is melted.
We've all had grapefruit sprinkled with sugar, of course, but I wonder how the baking changes the taste. I've been wanting to eat more grapefruit anyway, so I'm going to try it this Sunday morning.
You and your mate might be Equals, but you don't call each other "Splenda." You call each other "Honey." (You might call each other something else, but you need couples therapy for that, not Valentine's Day.)
Honey as an aphrodisiac comes less from science and biology and more from history and folklore. In Medieval times, men and women seduced partners with mead, a drink made from fermented honey. It was likely that sexual vulnerability in the seducees came from the fermentation part (like drunk targets in a bar today?), and not from the honey. Ancient Persians also drank mead, though they drank it immediately following a marriage to "sweeten" the marriage. That's where we get the term "honeymoon."
However, honey isn't all just folklore. Many medicines in Egyptian times were based on honey including cures for sterility and impotence, which worked because honey is rich in vitamin B, necessary for testosterone production. Honey also contains boron, which helps the body metabolize and use estrogen.
If nothing else, the sight of gorgeous golden honey dripping and oozing that can get the imagination working.
According to a report in the British Medical Journal, sugar-sweetened soft drinks are linked to an increased risk of getting gout, a disease that causes painful swelling of the joints known to mostly afflict middle-aged men. The findings come from a study done on 46,393 men over 12 years. The risk of developing gout was 85% higher among men who consume 2+ cans of soda as compared to those who drank less than one soda a month. Sweetened soft drinks contain large amounts of fructose, which causes excess uric acid in the blood, eventually leading to uric acid crystals collecting around the joints.
Of course, the study also found that men who consumed high-fructose fruits like apples and oranges had increased risk of getting gout by 102%.
I first learned that there was a world of sugar beyond white, brown and confectioners when I started watching Nigella Bites in the winter of 2002. She was always suggesting that you use a thing called demerara, which, when said in her delicious British accent, sounded particularly appealing. The closest I could get in the small city market near my apartment was a bag of turbinado sugar (aka Sugar in the Raw). I loved the turbinado for sweetening tea and to sprinkle on top of baked goods (I tend to sprinkle it on unbaked scones so that I don't have to create a glaze or frosting). I try to always have it on hand these days.
A few years ago a friend introduced me to Sucanant, (it stands for Sugar Cane Natural) and it's a less processed sugar that retains much of its molasses (and a few nutrients). It's become my go-to sugar for most baking projects, mostly because I like to believe that it is in someway slightly more virtuous than refined sugar.
When I was in elementary school, we had a neighbor who made her own candy for Christmas every year. She mostly made black and white marbled chocolates in the shape of Santa and snowmen, that she would put on sticks for easier eating. One year she branched out and made her own hard candy lollipops. I had never seen lollipops (or suckers as they called them back in Oregon) that didn't come from a store and so I was totally intrigued by the idea that you could make such things at home, on your own.
I haven't thought about homemade lollipops in years, until I spotted this post over at Make and Takes in which Marie made her own for the holidays. She's got some fun vintage molds, but says that you can use the plastic ones available in the stores or even do them without a mold. It sounds like a fun seasonal project to me.
We all know that eating sugar gives a temporary burst of energy. Just watch a couple of kids after a night of trick or treating, their energy peaks and then plummets. You may have even said once or twice, "I wish I could harness that energy." The engineers at Sony have taken that idle wish and turned it into something of reality. They've created a battery that runs on sugar.
Sadly, it can't run off your kid's leftover Halloween candy. It converts juice, soda or any other sugary liquid into enough electricity to power smaller gadgets and appliances. Personally, it sounds like a great use to me for all the high fructose corn syrup this country produces. And, if you get thirsty, you can just take a swig (I'm kidding, I imagine that wouldn't be recommended).
When I was a kid, I was something of a candy fanatic. I'd eat it every chance I could get, and loved the seasonal candy that arrived with great fanfare in the grocery store. One of my favorite Halloween candies was the much-abused candy corn. Sadly, as I've gotten older, I've lost my taste for it to a certain degree, although those first couple of bites are always blissful as I nibble down the color gradations from tip to base.
On Monday in an article in the Baltimore Sun, reporter Rob Hiaasen defends the noble candy corn and traces its origins back to Cincinnati around the turn of the 20th century. Apparently the tri-color design was groundbreaking back in the day, requiring careful, handmade production. Machines were invented to stripe the kernels and soon candy corn was available all year round in an assortment of flavors.
We've known for years that sugar isn't good for us. It promotes tooth decay, provides quick highs and lows and offers nothing but empty, nutritionless calories that pack on the pounds. However, it appears that it is even worse than we previously thought. Researchers recently determined that refined sugar is actually more addictive than cocaine. In a recent study rats were given a choice between sugar water and cocaine, and 94% them chose sugar. Even the rats that had previously been addicted to cocaine switched to the sugar once it was a choice. No wonder it's so hard to give up that 3 pm pack of M&M's, it's more addictive than illegal drugs.
Can you imaging living on tea alone for over twenty years? That's what life is like for a Vietnamese man, Phan Tuan Loc. At first he couldn't eat meat anymore, and then he stopped eating food entirely about twenty years ago. Now he lives on three cups of tea with sugar per day. 
I first encountered kuro mitsu in San Francisco not long ago, at a creperie in the Japantown mall. I ordered a crepe with green tea ice cream, red bean paste, strawberries, whipped cream (sounds totally overkill but is truly amazing), which came drizzled in a mahogany-colored syrup that tasted like a light molassas, with a hint of malt. The mystery syrup really brought the crepe together, somehow cutting through the sweetness with its odd, bright bite. 
I know we've all done it. You're right in the middle of making something and you realize that you don't have a necessary ingredient. Well if that ingredient is brown sugar, you may be in luck.
And no, that's not a typo for "getting out." 
We all know that eating sugar gives a temporary burst of energy. Just watch a couple of kids after a night of trick or treating, their energy peaks and then plummets. You may have even said once or twice, "I wish I could harness that energy." The engineers at Sony have taken that idle wish and turned it into something of reality. They've created a battery that runs on sugar. 
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