Brian Zwiener: Get Fired Up for Grilling!

Brian Zwiener: Get Fired Up for Grilling!: May 25th, 2012 12:00 PM ET Share   Comments   ( 4 comments ) Grilling tips, tricks, recipes and advice Some people ma...

Get Fired Up for Grilling!

May 25th, 2012 12:00 PM ET Share   Comments (4 comments) Grilling tips, tricks, recipes and advice Some people maintain that Memorial Day weekend officially marks the start of grilling season and Labor Day, the end. Those people, for the most part, are wrong. Some folks maintain the flame in snowdrifts up to their thighs. Others won't haul out the hibachi until late September because it'll finally be cool enough to cook outside without wilting like a hothouse gardenia. July is National Grilling Month, but that's just kind of incidental. What we're saying is, so long as our spatula isn't actively frozen or melted to our hands, and monsoon spray does not prevent us from lighting a charcoal chimney, we're going to be outdoors, putting flame to food and quaffing a cold beverage. Why don't you just come along and join us? Catch up on the rest of our great cookout and picnic tips below, and if you run into a sticky grilling situation - we're here to help. Share your burning questions in the comments or Tweet us @eatocracy and we'll have your festivities back on track in no time. Achieve Grilling Greatness – Grate balls of fire? Not on our watch. – Help! My neighbors stink at grilling! – C'mon baby, light my fire – just don't skimp on the flavor – Up your grilling game – Red hot grilling tips from Eatocracy readers – 5 grilling mistakes – and how to fix them – Advice from killer grillers – Grilling: A love story – Why girls should grill Brilliant Burgers - Burgers – a step-by-step guide – Best. Burgers. EVER and Best. Cheeseburger. EVER – Dean Martin's Bourbon Burgers – Buffalo sliders and fried chicken that raises the bar – Slider battle! – Big, bad burgers from around the country – Food & Wine's favorite burgers – Top 10 burgers in the United States Monumental Meat - Make a brilliant pork butt – The trick to grilling chicken breasts – Turn your grill into a smoker and rock these ribs – Gimme that foolproof fillet of grilled fish – Five slices of barbecue wisdom – Five tips for hot dog success – How to smoke a brisket in your backyard – Rack up on rib pointers – Take a stab at a slab – an intro to ribs – Five steps to steak supremacy – Hearts afire! Liver, marrow, kidneys and more great offal for the grill – Whole hog BBQ - the Mount Everest of Meat – Five cuts of meat to buy and grill – A prime rib primer – Lobster roll 101 – What every carnivore should know Stellar Sides - Celebrate summer squash – Best potato salad we've ever had – How to grill corn – Great old fashioned butter beans and field peas – Grilled pizza basics – All about cole slaw – The art of the deviled egg – Ultimate grilled okra – The only salad that matters right now – A vegetarian may show up at your cookout. Do not be alarmed. The Art of Outdoor Dining - Don't get sick from your picnic! A food safety primer – 10 Commandments of cookout etiquette – Grilling by the numbers – Make your tailgate a touchdown – 5 picnic no-nos – How to use grilling leftovers – Bring your indoor favorite to the great outdoors – Make a Mexican-inspired outdoor feast Divine Drinks - The perfect wine for every grilling scenario – Iced tea awesomeness every time – You need to stay hydrated, might as well make it interesting – Make perfect lemonade – Ideal wines for grilled burgers, steaks, chicken and seafood – Frank talk: Pairing wine with hot dogs – Best burger-friendly wines – The right wine for that burger you're eating - OK, a few more suggestions – Wine + BBQ = Heaven – Chill out with wine – Drink this with summer seafood – The United States of Lemonade And feast on the results of The Picnic Poll to find out what your fellow chefs like for amain dish and drink, burger topping, side dish and dessert. Read all about barbecue  Source: CNN

Hamburger Chef Jamie Oliver Proves McDonald’s Burgers “Unfit for Human Consumption”

Hamburger chef Jamie Oliver has won his long-fought battle against one of the largest fast food chains in the world – McDonalds. After Oliver showed how McDonald’s hamburgers are made, the franchise finally announced that it will change its recipe, and yet there was barely a peep about this in the mainstream, corporate media.

Oliver repeatedly explained to the public, over several years – in documentaries, television shows and interviews – that the fatty parts of beef are “washed” in ammonium hydroxide and used in the filling of the burger. Before this process, according to the presenter, the food is deemed unfit for human consumption. According to the chef and hamburger enthusiast, Jamie Oliver, who has undertaken a war against the fast food industry, “Basically, we’re taking a product that would be sold in the cheapest way for dogs, and after this process, is being given to human beings.”   Besides the low quality of the meat, the ammonium hydroxide is harmful to health. Oliver famously coined this the “the pink slime process.”   “Why would any sensible human being put meat filled with ammonia in the mouths of their children?” Oliver asked.   In one of his colorful demonstrations, Oliver demonstrates to children how nuggets are made. After selecting the best parts of the chicken, the remains (fat, skin and internal organs) are processed for these fried foods.

In reply to all of the bad press this process has received from Oliver, the company Arcos Dorados, the franchise manager for McDonalds in Latin America, said such a procedure is not practiced in their region. The same, it should  be noted, applies to the product in Ireland and the UK, where they use meat from local suppliers.   In the United States, however, Burger King and Taco Bell had already abandoned the use of ammonia in their products. The food industry uses ammonium hydroxide as an anti-microbial agent in meats, which has allowed McDonald’s to use otherwise “inedible meat.”

  Most disturbing of all is the horrifying fact that because ammonium hydroxide is considered part of the “component in a production procedure” by the USDA, consumers may not know when the chemical is in their food.   On the official website of McDonald’s, the company claims that their meat is cheap because, while serving many people every day, they are able to buy from their suppliers at a lower price, and offer the best quality products. But if “pink slime” was really the “best quality” that McDonalds can muster in the US, then why were they able do better in Latin America and Europe? More to the point, why can they apparently do better now in the United States?   These questions remains unanswered by the franchise which has denied that the decision to change the recipe is related to Jamie Oliver’s campaign. On the site, McDonald’s has admitted that they have abandoned the beef filler from its burger patties.

Source:

politicalblindspot.org

C.I.A. Acknowledges Area 51 Exists, but What About Those Little Green Men?

RACHEL, Nev. — The Little A’Le’Inn has been an unlikely tourist destination in the Mojave Desert for nearly 25 years, selling souvenirs — from green alien coffee cups to E.T. Highway T-shirts — dedicated to the notion that we are not alone. Understandably. 

Nine miles up a nearby dirt road is the top-secret military installation known as Area 51, whose murky provenance fueled decades of speculation about extraterrestrial aliens and kept the U.F.O.-hunting tourists coming.

Or rather, the top-secret military installation not known as Area 51 — at least until last week, when the C.I.A. released a classified report on the history of the U-2 spy plane, which officially acknowledged what everyone here has long known: There is a secret military testing base at Groom Lake called Area 51. It is 150 miles north by car from Las Vegas, in a vast expanse of utterly empty scabland, desert and mountain, and signs reading “No gas station next 150 miles.”

The report, released after eight years of prodding by a George Washington University archivist researching the history of the U-2, made no mention of colonies of alien life, suggesting that the secret base was dedicated to the relatively more mundane task of testing spy planes.

But no matter. Even this little bit of validation was welcome in Rachel, which claimed a population of 57 as of last Tuesday afternoon, and where the tourists have not been coming at quite the pace they once did. The movies and television shows that once fed an international fixation with aliens secreted at Area 51 — from “The X Files” to movies like “Independence Day” and “Paul” — are, with the passage of time and the inevitable rise of new subjects of national interest, not quite as gripping as they once were.

“We have a guest book, but it’s gone by the wayside. Shelby, do you know where our guest book has disappeared to?” Pat Travis, 70, the owner of the Little A’Le’Inn, asked a waitress behind the bar.

“It’s really strange to not have it out for all of our customers to sign,” Ms. Travis said with a sigh. “Would you bring it to me?”

Ms. Travis — who recounted being awakened one night by a bright light shot from a U.F.O. that came through the center of the back door — said she expected the C.I.A. acknowledgment to bring a rush of customers through her doors.

They will want to know how to find Area 51 and how to spot a U.F.O. in the pitch-black night skies here, and they will shop from the shelves lined with green alien shot glasses, coffee cups and guitar picks and even Area 51 Wine (produced for the inn by a winery in Northern California).

“Every time there is another story out, people come out,” she said. “They want to know how to get to that area. Where it is. The more there is, the more you talk about it, the more it goes on and on.”

Rachel was fairly deserted the other day, save for a family from Seattle on a drive from Las Vegas to Yosemite that made a U.F.O. detour at the urging of their 16-year-old, Hank Reavis. His arms full of Area 51 T-shirts as his father reached for his wallet, Hank said he wanted to see for himself the place featured in movies like “Paul.”

Asked if they would visit Area 51 itself, Hank’s father, Gil, a retired logger, answered “Yes.” Hank corrected him.

“We won’t get in there, Dad,” he said.

That observation was confirmed after a nine-mile drive up Back Gate Road to a back entrance of the base. Or at least, one assumes it was the back entrance to the base, given the six separate WARNING! signs prohibiting picture-taking or going beyond the two guard gates with flashing red lights.

“If you pass the gate, they can shoot you, I think,” said Niklas Gartler, 17, of Vienna, who came here with his uncle from Los Angeles.

Well maybe not shoot; the signs promise six months in prison for trespassers. The greater threat, in truth, might be the rattlesnakes that infest the roads and trails here during the hot summer months.

The report, “The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and Oxcart Programs, 1954-1974,” was released, albeit in a redacted form, at the request of Jeffrey T. Richelson, a senior fellow with the National Security Archive at George Washington University. “There certainly was — as you would expect — no discussion of little green men here,” Mr. Richelson said. “This is a history of the U-2. The only overlap is the discussion of the U-2 flights and U.F.O. sightings, the fact that you had these high-flying aircraft in the air being the cause of some of the sightings.”

Mr. Richelson said he was not looking for information on Area 51. “That was sort of a bonus,” he said.

No one here seems to take themselves too seriously. The prevailing attitude is reflected in the name of the restaurant, The Little A’Le’Inn (say it aloud). It sits right off Extraterrestrial Highway, as they call State Route 375. There is an “Earthlings welcome” sign above the parking lot.

But everyone seems assured that aliens are here, that U.F.O.s are dancing through the desert skies, and that the government has never been straight about what it was up to.

“I never had any doubt,” said Pam Kinsey, a housekeeper here. “I watch the lights every morning. I get up at 4:30 to send my kid to school. I know they are there.”

Hank’s mother, Sally, said she was keeping an open mind.

“But how can we be the only ones?” she asked. “I’ll tell you this, they certainly picked a beautiful state to come to. They couldn’t have done much better than Nevada.”

Howard Baral, a Los Angeles entertainment accountant and Niklas’s uncle, said that he made the trip out here — it is a three-hour drive from Las Vegas — to make his nephew happy.

“Since he was a little kid, he has always been enthralled with alien lore and Area 51,” Mr. Baral said. “His dream was to visit it. It wasn’t my first choice.”

That said, Mr. Baral said he was inclined to believe that there were aliens out there. “It’s the middle of nowhere,” he said. “What’s the Air Force doing in the middle of nowhere?”

Annie Jacobson, the author of a book on the history of the area, said she doubted the acknowledgment would dampen interest in what lies behind the fences.

“It will only make people more curious, ask more questions,” she said.

All of which is why Ms. Travis thinks it is time to get that guest book on display at the entrance of her little box of a restaurant.

“You are going to find people coming in here from different country, different places,” she said, thumbing through pages of signatures from the past. “This needs to get back out. We need to get our little table out.” 

Source: The New York Times

Brian Zwiener: ASTRONAUTS HOLD FIRST EXTRATERRESTRIAL GOOGLE+ ‘HA...

Brian Zwiener: ASTRONAUTS HOLD FIRST EXTRATERRESTRIAL GOOGLE+ ‘HA...: Ever wanted to chat with an astronaut on board the International Space Station? They’re always down to hang out. On Friday, ISS astro...

ASTRONAUTS HOLD FIRST EXTRATERRESTRIAL GOOGLE+ ‘HANGOUT’

Ever wanted to chat with an astronaut on board the International Space Station? They’re always down to hang out.

On Friday, ISS astronauts Kevin Ford, Chris Hadfield and Tom Marshburn participated in NASA’s first Google+ Hangout from outer space. For approximately 20 minutes, the astronauts answered a number of questions ranging from their favorite scientist (Marshburn likes Isaac Newton) to exercise in outer space to the type of research that they’re working on. Chris Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut who has become an Internet celebrity after his extensive tweeting and an “Ask Me Anything” session on Reddit, explained to viewers about how the astronauts handled the recent communications snafu with ground control.

John Yembrick, NASA’s social media manager, moderated questions from Twitter, Google+, and Youtube. Participants included many teachers and science buffs, as well as students from classrooms in the United States, Mexico and Chile.  Astronauts Ronald Garan and Nicole Stott also participated in the hangout, giving insights into how they joined the program, and recommendations on what to study in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. 

Brian Zwiener: Brian Zwiener: Debbie Harry Is Adopting!

Brian Zwiener: Brian Zwiener: Debbie Harry Is Adopting!: Brian Zwiener: Debbie Harry Is Adopting! : "The famed Blondie lead singer is telling friends she's feeling maternal these days. And rather...