Monday, January 6, 2014
Creme Brulee - not as hard as you think
We received a torch, ramekins and Creme Brulee cookbook for Christmas. Last night Debashis made basic vanilla and for his amateur attempt, it was already better than most we have had in restaurants. YUM!
Olive Oil Hysteria
UC Davis recently came out with a new Olive Oil study that is causing a frenzy and pointing out some potential supply chain quality control issues around olive oils. Thank you UC Davis for providing this great service to us all. No, I drink Mondavi wines.
The study can be found here: http://olivecenter.ucdavis.edu/news-events/news/files/olive%20oil%20final%20071410%20.pdf
We checked out this UC Davis Study, and I sent in a question in particular to Whole Foods, however, I can't publish the email response here because the "email is the copyright of Whole Food Market IP, LP."
The bottom line is:
- in the UC Davis study they bought their WF 365 olive oil from 3 different locations - 2 flunked, 1 passed.
- the UC Davis study states that variation can be caused by ripeness of the olives (overripeness), poor storage OR adulturation. Possible hypothesis: Sacramento and San Francisco are cooler, thus, unrefrigerated storage. LA is always hotter, probably always temperature controlled due to AC. Another option - bad batch, they happened to get 2 bottles from it. We think storage is the most likely culprit, because we have bought wine at Costco that we know is good wine, but tastes horribly. Our Sommelier friend said, "yeah, you shouldn't ever see wine on a pallet at the top of a hot warehouse", so we stopped buying our wine at Costco.
- based on the WF email, it appears as if WF feels confident their supply chain is not messing with them. Since is the only grocer who is willing to label all products as GMO, etc., chances are we can believe them? Still not sure about this one.
The study can be found here: http://olivecenter.ucdavis.edu/news-events/news/files/olive%20oil%20final%20071410%20.pdf
We checked out this UC Davis Study, and I sent in a question in particular to Whole Foods, however, I can't publish the email response here because the "email is the copyright of Whole Food Market IP, LP."
The bottom line is:
- in the UC Davis study they bought their WF 365 olive oil from 3 different locations - 2 flunked, 1 passed.
- the UC Davis study states that variation can be caused by ripeness of the olives (overripeness), poor storage OR adulturation. Possible hypothesis: Sacramento and San Francisco are cooler, thus, unrefrigerated storage. LA is always hotter, probably always temperature controlled due to AC. Another option - bad batch, they happened to get 2 bottles from it. We think storage is the most likely culprit, because we have bought wine at Costco that we know is good wine, but tastes horribly. Our Sommelier friend said, "yeah, you shouldn't ever see wine on a pallet at the top of a hot warehouse", so we stopped buying our wine at Costco.
- based on the WF email, it appears as if WF feels confident their supply chain is not messing with them. Since is the only grocer who is willing to label all products as GMO, etc., chances are we can believe them? Still not sure about this one.
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