Amazing Chipotle Ad

Have you seen this yet? It's been making the rounds on my social media for a couple days now. Here, I'll let you watch.

Stunning, right? Those poor animals... I haven't eaten at Chipotle in years (I don't need any more 1,000 calorie burritos in my life, thank you), but in general I like their commitment to good, fast, and humanely raised food. These things aren't mutually exclusive and can even be profitable on a large scale. So well done, Chipotle. Well done.  

Video of the Week: Brokeass Cooking!

I thought I'd start this up again since I've been a slacker lately.

Brokeass Cooking is a video series started by a friend of mine, Mack. In addition to videos, Mack is also a pretty damn funny writer and the inspiration for the title character  in the comedy horror novel John Dies at the End. What I'm trying to say is the dude knows how to entertain.

Brokeass Cooking is an occasional web series that he's been working on for about a month. The recipes are pretty basic, meats, pastas and easy veggies. It's not fancy food and Mack relies more on getting a great deal than sourcing ingredients. The intended audience for this isn't the foodie crowd, it's the brokeass kid just out of college, starting a job and trying to figure out how to feed himself on a budget without resorting to fast food and frozen dinners. It does the trick, explaining basics like grocery store discounts, shopping sales and figuring what to do with it all once you get it home. He also encourages experimentation and playing with ingredients. I hope Mack decides to continue the series, because I think there's an audience for stuff like this. Too many people these days view cooking as too hard or expensive and this series helps demystify some of that.

Where I think the series can improve is technique. Mack is pretty much a self taught cook and it shows. But that's a minor quibble on the overall strength of the concept and it's execution.

Video of the Week: Eggs!

So eggs have been in the news quite a bit lately, what with the salmonella recall and all. Food borne illness is a serious problem in our day and age. With so much of our food now being produced in large, centralized factory farms and distributed nationwide, one farm's sloppy practices can mean serious illness for Americans all over the country.  One of the ways you can protect yourself is to never consume raw or undercooked eggs. But where's the fun in that?

Another way you can protect yourself is by purchasing your eggs from a small producer that you know and trust. This is definitely not an option for everyone. These eggs are harder to find and usually at least  twice as expensive. Small flocks are less likely to be contaminated with salmonella. I buy farm fresh eggs when I can from different sellers at the Riverside Farmer's Market in Roswell. So far, I haven't had a bad egg from any of the sellers.

And of course, if you live in a place that allows it, you can always try your hand at raising your own laying hens.  You'll have to check your local laws about it. And please, think of your neighbors. Chickens can be noisy and smelly. Your neighbors might not appreciate your feathered friends.

And this isn't even getting into the differences between cage free, humanely raised, organic, or omega-3 enhanced eggs, which is a discussion for another time.

There are other benefits to farm raised eggs, which are covered pretty well in today's video link from Simply: Home Cooking. Liza posts a great run down of fresh egg options in her city (Ann Arbor, MI) and gives us a great video that vividly illustrates the differences between conventionally produced eggs and the ones you get from a farmer. So click through to the article and enjoy the video.

Video of the Week: Cooking in a Hotel

Last weekend I went to Raleigh with the husband for a literature convention. I love attending geek conventions of any ilk. It's nice to not be the nerdiest, most socially awkward person in a given room.

Since this trip coincided with the official beginning of my unemployment, we decided to take a few cost cutting measures this time. Not huge ones, because of one the great joys of travel for us is trying new foods, but enough that we could feel like we were getting the best value from our trip. So we packed a batch of Blueberry Cream Cheese muffins and fresh peaches and bananas to snack on. It made for a good breakfast most days of the convention.

We haven't decided if we're doing this for Dragon*Con in a couple weeks. Since we're staff for the convention, it's harder for us to schedule meals. I might pack more substantial snacks than I usually do, just so I can skip the food court a couple times.

But if you want serious hotel room fine dining, this video is the perfect guide. George Egg makes English muffins, and pasta using just a few simple appliances and easy to get ingredients. I'm awfully tempted by that pasta recipe. It looks something I could live off for four days.

Anyways, check it out.

Food Video of the Week: Grilled Corn on the Cobb

A new thing I'm going to do here is post a link to a great cooking video I've found during the week. There's tons of great demonstrations on various food websites and scattered across Youtube. Why not draw your attention to the ones I think I especially great? 

Today's video is from Mark Bittman's Minimalist column in the New York Times. It's a wonderful recipe for the best grilled corn I've ever had. We stayed in last night and this corn was the star of our dinner, alongside leftover roast chicken and a tomato peach basil salad.  The corn is fantastic. Bittman describes it as almost "popcorn like" in flavor, and I agree. The addition of the chili-lime mayo takes the whole thing up a level. It's an incredibly simple combination of ingredients that makes a great summer side dish.