I was all set to rant about pumpkin drinks and foods until John Oliver did it for me. It's just a big orange gourd that has some ascendancy now because all the good stuff died along with summer.
personally, i think ZERO pumpkin beers would be preferable, but only one would constitute a monopoly, and that's WRONG.
First homebrew club I belonged to, one guy had a keg of pumpkin beer he would bring every month. We finally told him he was out of the club if he brought it again.
I have tasted a good pumpkin homebrew before. As I recall, it had to condition for a couple years before it was any good. I can see why it's tempting to make - a large amount of fermentable sugars in a cheap package. Among the guys I brew(ed) with, some would take it on as a sort of challenge - it was well known that each attempt would most likely end up getting poured on a compost pile, but it was (at least theoretically) possible to make a good one.
Well I think she'll find the nettle at £1.25 mildly unpleasant. But, if you can go for something a little worse, then the turnip at £1.40 is pretty awful. But, if you can run to the sprout, at £1.75, ooph, horrific! Have you ever tasted weasel spit strained through a mouldy balaclava helmet?
http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/03/investing/whole-foods-earnings-sales/index.html Looks like maybe people will have to find another store where they can spend $100 on organic ingredients that will make them a single spaghetti dinner. Ok, ok, I once bought some Andouille sausage from here when I couldn't find it anywhere else. Now my local Walmart carries it, and my Gumbo is super cheap to make!
Frankly I never understood why WF even tried giving it a go here in central Puget Sound. By the time they opened we already had a local long lived, and thriving Organic/Natural Market (PCC), very good market penetration by Trader Joes, a good sized and healthy neighborhood Farmer's market association, the Pike Place Market (which is so much more than a tourist spot, it really is a local treasure), and 3 high end specialty grocers with decent organic/natural selections. From what I have seen WF stores are 2-3 times the size that they need to be, and almost always in high rent areas. That is not a recipe for sustained success.
some people are so stupid, snobbish or both that they automatically pick the more expensive item no matter what. when i was a fishmonger one day we had some AMAZING hook-and-line sand dabs that an amateur brought in - these are perhaps the best tasting whitefleshed fish you can pull out of the pacific (any variety of sole is hake in comparison) but very delicate, the netted ones come out bruised. these were also bigger than any trawled sand dabs i'd ever seen. we sauteed a few up for lunch, we knew it was a treat we may never get again in a lifetime. but since they were so perishable they needed to all go that day, we put them on sale for even less than rock cod. $2.60/lb if memory serves. in comes the ka-ching family whose taste in fish generally stayed with trolled salmon, petrale sole and frozen lobster: expensive and banal. so i tried to put them onto the dabs ya know... and the boss gave me the signal to jack up the price (wtf, did he think i just got off the anchovy boat?). once in a lifetime chance, marvels of the deep, yada yada... $7.99 a pound! (the boss slaps his forehead). uh... we'll take the big petrale at $11.99. you f***ing idiot, if you had said $16.99 they'd have bought them all, taken two pounds home and asked us freeze the rest (thus ruining them) for them to pick up later.
Sand dabs are my favorite to prepare en papillote to impress friends and family. Not only are they ideal size for single serving, the ease of deboning the flesh makes me look like a genius One time, feeling decadent and seeing sand dabs on sale at the local Vietnamese/Asian supermarkets, I had them deep-fried coz these places have deep-frying service FOR FREE. It's the only fish that the girls will eat off the heads and fins
Whole Foods was a revelation when it came to our neighborhood a decade ago. We had two conventional dowdy supermarket chains, one small upscale market, and several ethnic/produce places. Nobody was doing half the stuff that Whole Foods did. Now, forget about it. Two Mariano's have opened, each of which does about 90% of what Whole Foods does at a cheaper price. Two Trader Joe's have opened. And a massive ethnic market that sells not just produce and spices, but every type of food. Similar quality and types of meat, fish, cheese, and breads as at WF, at 50% to 70% of the price. (That store is our go-to place.) I mean, it's game over for WF. Turn out the lights.
Actually this cookbook has provided some tasty vegan sweets. I think the key is that she is not ashamed to use white flour and sugar. It's vegan but not all whole-wheaty and otherwise full of weird stuff. Or vegan but not necessarily all that good for you, as I like to say.
Yeah, when I'm not being faux-grouchy (or at least I think it's faux) I'm ready to recognize that I've had some wonderful, creative vegan foods. The key to (me, at least) enjoying vegan desserts is to remove ahead of time any expectation that the dessert will be unctuous or rich or other stuff like that. It's possible to enjoy vegan desserts, especially if you're pre-calibrated for the cleaner, harder end of the taste spectrum.
the best ice cream i think i've ever had was vegan. the two flavors i tried were licorice and geranium, both great. you could make just as good with real dairy but the thing is, there's no need. just like arguably the best kosher deli in manhattan, the much regretted Ess-a-Bagel, had tofu-based cream cheese undistinguishable from the dairy version. you're right on the money with creative - the restaurant where i discovered the above ice cream was probably the best i've eaten at in years, and Lyon is known as a capital of gastronomie. the chef there is german, which gives her a completely different starting point on herbs and spices and on textures compared to french cooking. i went there ready to make allowances, none were necessary. i was blown away. but i'm still dubious about the one perhaps impenerable wall between me and veganism - french cheeses. cream cheese is one thing; a Salers or Beaufort, a real Morbier de fruitière or a Roquefort papillon, well that's something entirely different. it may be possible to make the same with vegan ingredients; who knows? but the guys capable of doing it aren't there yet. it's not something you improvise.
Is it just me, or has the "Plump White brunette with nerd glasses and an Asian girl hairstyle" become a thing beyond porn?
Next time you are in new york remind me to bring you vegan gluten free brownie bites from this coffee shop in Bklyn. They are pretty unrecognizable as "special".