Blog Downtime

I must apologize for my lack of posts as of late, but my grandmother passed away Monday, March 15. Since I live in her house, I played host to my uncle all week, did "family" business and had more people in this house than I've ever seen in my 31 years.

In honor of Grannie Jean, I will be cooking her Easy Chicken Pie later this week or possibly this coming weekend.

Here are a few pictures of Grannie Jean with all of us.

Atlanta College of Art Graduation Lunch May 2005

Papa, Grannie Jean and Myself circa 1982

I would cook this week, but I'm heading to Atlanta for a few days. With Wednesday being St. Patrick's Day , I'll be spending the day at Limerick Junction in the VA-Highlands area of Atlanta. Why? Well for several reasons...A: it's where my drinking club meets on Wednesday nights anyway, and B: it's the oldest Irish pub in Atlanta. Doors open at 11:30am, kiddos!



Everyone have a great week and I'll be back soon!!

New ketchup packets? hmmm...

I found this story on msnbc.com a minute ago and thought I would pass it along!

After 40 years, Heinz revamps ketchup packets

PORTLAND, Ore. - For decades there was only one way to use the humble ketchup packet, and it was messy. Now, thanks to a redesign by Heinz, fast-food lovers have a choice: the traditional squeeze play — or the option to dunk.

You want fries with that, in the minivan? No problem.

The redesigned ketchup pack, unveiled Thursday by H.J. Heinz Co., is shaped like a shallow cup. The top can be peeled back for dipping, or the end can be torn off for squeezing. It holds three times as much ketchup as a traditional packet.

"The packet has long been the bane of our consumers," said Dave Ciesinski, vice president of Heinz Ketchup. "The biggest complaint is there is no way to dip and eat it on-the-go."

Heinz struggled for years to develop a container that lets diners dip or squeeze, and to produce it at a cost that is acceptable to its restaurant customers.

Designers found that what worked at a table didn't work where many people use ketchup packets: in the car. So two years ago, Heinz bought the design team a used minivan to give their ideas real road tests.

The team studied what each passenger needed. The driver wanted something could sit on the armrest. Passengers wanted the choice of squeezing or dunking. Moms everywhere wanted a packet that held enough ketchup for the meal and didn't squirt onto clothes so easily.

Heinz is rolling out the new packs this fall at select fast-food restaurants nationwide. It will continue to sell the traditional packets.

The company said it is still working out prices with customers. But the new packet should cost only a little more, even though it holds much more ketchup.

Heinz is by far the biggest ketchup maker. About half of its ketchup is sold in stores and the other half is sold to the food service industry through its exclusive contracts with chains like Burger King and Wendy's.

McDonald's, the nation's largest burger chain, does only limited business with Heinz.

Heinz sells more than 11 billion ketchup packets every year. But neither the ketchup maker nor the major chains would say who plans to carry the new design.

Customers may force the issue.

Rants about the messy packs have helped spawn hundreds of anti-ketchup-packet groups on Facebook.

Matt Kurtz, a 22-year-old student in New York, has drawn 269 members to the group he started after he ripped open a packet too quickly and spilled it on his jeans while on a road trip two years ago.

"That's when I said 'There has to be a better way.'"

At a McDonald's in Covington, Ky., customers said a redesign was overdue.

"You use up a lot of ketchup now with the packets, I always get extra ones," said Skyler McDermott, 29. "Maybe now you won't have to use your teeth to open them."

These issues come as no surprise to Heinz's Ciesinski. "We created the packet in 1968," he said. "Consumer complaints started around 1969."

2 year break is over! lol

So I've gotten back into reading my food blogs and now that i've got a big ole' kitchen I've decided to revitalize MY food blog.

It's a new year - so why not?

2010...GO!

FOOD NEWS: Aspiring Chef Dies After Eating Red-Hot Chili Sauce as a Dare

An aspiring chef died after eating a super-hot chilli sauce as part of an endurance competition with a friend.

Andrew Lee, 33, challenged his girlfriend’s brother to a contest to see who could eat the spiciest sauce that he could create.

The fork-lift truck driver, who wanted to cook for a living, prepared a tomato sauce made with red chillies grown on his father’s allotment. After eating it, however, he suffered intense discomfort and itching. The following morning he was found dead, possibly after suffering a heart attack.

Toxicology tests are being conducted to try to establish if he suffered a reaction to the food.

An inquest was told that Lee, from Edlington, England, was in perfect health and had just passed a medical examination at work. He was a keen cook and would often prepare meals for his parents. It is believed that Mr Lee had never prepared a dish as hot as the one he made the night before his death.

Lee’s sister, Claire Chadbourne, 29, said that he took a jar of the sauce to the home of his girlfriend, Samantha Bailey, and challenged her brother Michael, 29, to see who could eat it. “Andrew just ate the chillies with a plate of Dolmio sauce,” she added. “It was not a proper meal because he had already eaten lamb chops and potato mash after work.

“He apparently got into bed at 2.30am and started scratching all over. His girlfriend scratched his back until he fell asleep. She woke up and he had gone. It is incredible. Who would have thought he could have died from eating chilli sauce? We don’t know of anything else that could have caused his death. The postmortem showed no heart problems.

“He loved cooking for his friends. He always said he wanted to be a chef but didn’t want to start at the bottom.”

An inquest was opened and adjourned in Doncaster last week.

article taken from FoxNews.com