The company doesn’t sell directly to consumers but, instead, produces whey protein, milk powder, gums, and fruit stabilizers for sale to food makers across the United States. The cooperative also produces fluid milk products, but these are not affected by the recall. Plainview customers who have issued recalls so far include:

· CPI Foods, which is recalling 15,000 packets of non-fat dry milk distributed to various community service companies in Arizona, Kentucky, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, and West Virginia.

· NOW Foods, a nationwide producer of dietary supplements and natural foods, has recalled 12 of its whey protein products.

· Stop & Shop Supermarkets, a New England chain, has recalled Stop & Shop Nonfat Dried Milk, which is sold in 5 and 10 packs of 16-ounce and 32-ounce packets, respectively.

· Traditions, which has recalled ILS Meals Home Delivery Meal Service prepackaged meal kits, and Traditions Meal Solutions prepackaged meal kits. These were distributed nationwide and were made between January 28, 2008, and June 5, 2009. Tradition’s products were distributed to food distributors and regional nutrition service providers.

So far there haven’t been any illnesses connected with the recall, but the sorts of products the company makes are the sorts of things found in all manner of foods sitting on your local grocery shelves, so this one could turn out to be a big recall.

Aside from the above mentioned products and companies, Malt-o-Meal is recalling some instant oatmeal (sold under a variety of brand names). I have some instant oatmeal in my cupboard. The next time I hobble to the kitchen, I will be checking which brand it is, though I suspect I will end up just throwing it away anyway, as my will to eat it (now that it is a suspicious food) has diminished.

I first heard about the beef recall by JBS Swift a few months ago, but at the time, I was lead to believe it was a limited recall in a very specific area (not anywhere near here). Since it’s now been expanded (again), and I know a lot of people buy these kinds of products ahead of time for July 4th BBQ, I thought it prudent to pass this along. There hasn’t really been much of anything about this is the national news. In fact, I’d totally forgotten about the beef recall.

In connection with the voluntary national recall by JBS Swift Beef Company for possible E-coli 0157:H7 in some of its products, H-E-B is notifying its customers and advising them to check their freezers for the beef products listed below.

* Raw Beef Briskets with plant inspection #969 (EST #969) with sell-by dates between 5/12 and 6/20
* Raw Beef Inside skirt steaks in a Styrofoam tray with sell-by dates between 5/4 and 6/20
* Hill Country Fare Beef for fajitas with a sell-by date of 5/23
* Any fresh ground beef in a Styrofoam tray with sell-by dates between 5/9 and 6/20

Currently, H-E-B does not have any of the impacted JBS Swift Beef products in its stores or in its supply chain. H-E-B has no reported illnesses, and there have been no reports of illnesses in Texas due to this recall.

H-E-B is issuing this recall in an abundance of caution to ensure the safety of our customers. Please return products impacted by this recall to the nearest H-E-B store for a refund or replacement.

Customers with any concerns or questions can contact H-E-B Customer Relations at 1-800 432-3113.

Additionally, while out looking for the information about the recall by JBS Swift, I found this quote in a June 30 news story to be interesting:

“It is important for consumers to note that the recalled product from the date in question was sold by JBS as whole muscle cuts, not as ground beef,” company spokesman Chandler Keys said Sunday. “The ground beef that might have been associated with illness was produced by other companies who often do not use the antimicrobial intervention steps we employ in our facility to reduce the risk of the beef products.”

Well, in light of the newest information –the recalling of ground beef by JBS Swift– it sure seems to me that the above statement is an outright lie. If they didn’t have to recall their ground beef, they wouldn’t be, and yet now they are. Odd, yes?

Anyway, check your freezers for potentially tainted brisket, fajitas, and hamburger!

Last night I did something interesting with the mashed potatoes. Instead of the usual milk, I added a butter, chopped fresh dill, dried and ground garlic, and Parmesan cheese. They were the best mashed potatoes I have ever eaten, and I will be repeating this recipe. Some people may crinkle their nose at the thought of dill, garlic, and dairy together, and I admit, I had my doubts as well, but the flavors melded together really well and no one flavor was at the forefront. Lin didn’t even know there was dill in them until I told him (after he’d eaten them). Though I have to wonder what he thought those little green bits in the mashed potatoes were. There usually aren’t green bits in the potatoes.

Anyway, thought I’d pass this along. Maybe it’s something common, and I’ve never heard of it.

I boiled two fist-sized potatoes and used 3 tablespoons butter, a tablespoon of the garlic, and a tablespoon of dill. I never measure the Parmesan, but I was quite liberal with it. Probably about four tablespoons or more.

It’s finally been confirmed that there was E. coli in Nestlé Toll House refrigerated cookie dough. It was the chocolate cookie dough.

But wait! It gets better!

Health officials still do not know how E. coli 0157, a bacterium that lives in cattle intestines, ended up in a product that seems so unlikely to contain it. The risk usually associated with cookie dough is salmonella, a bacterium that can be found in raw eggs. None of the ingredients in the dough — eggs, milk, flour, chocolate, butter — is known to host E. coli 0157.

Federal investigators spent more than a week at the Danville plant and did not detect contamination in the equipment or among workers, Acheson said. “It raises the likelihood that it was an ingredient,” he said. “And it really means that industry has to be constantly vigilant, because foods we think of as low risk could be contaminated with a deadly pathogen.”

I would say that “eggs, milk, flour, chocolate, butter” possibly being contaminated with E. coli is disturbing. I find it especially disturbing seeing as I have to go grocery shopping tomorrow, and all those things are at the top of my grocery list. Where does Nestlé source these ingredients? How do I know the eggs, milk, flour, chocolate, and butter isn’t from the same sources? Factory food is shipped around and mixed together, and factories sell the same products under different brand names, so their is the potential there might very well be something in my local store with so little risk of killing me as to be negligible … which might actually kill me.

And now, step into my mind as I contemplate tomorrow’s shopping trip:

The eggs I buy are regional, from somewhere in Texas. I doubt they send eggs from Texas to Virginia for making raw cooking dough. I especially doubt they send free range, yard nesting chicken eggs from Texas to Virginia for any reason at all. These are special eggs, which is why I pay three times more for them per dozen. These eggs are not the sort used in mass produced refrigerator cookie dough. So, my eggs are most likely safe to buy and eat.

The milk I buy is also regionally produced. Now milk is one of those things that does get shipped around and mixed together before packaging and selling, but once again, I get special milk –free range, no added hormones, no antibiotics. This is not milk used in mass produced refrigerator cookie dough. So, my milk is safe to buy and drink.

The butter I buy is yet again regionally produced. But in this case, they were bought by a large creamery, and there’s no way to be sure they don’t also produced wholesale product as well as retail brands. I am suspicious enough of the butter to put off buying butter. We’ll make do with the two sticks I already have. Olive oil is healthier anyway.

The flour I buy comes from Vermont. It’s a better flour and a well-loved and respected flour among bakers. I would say I trust my flour supply to be safe. I hope so, because I have to buy flour, and the only other options at my store are far more suspicious. The flour they make is very nice, and I hope it’s too nice to use in mass produced refrigerator cookie dough. So, I guess I buy the flour and have faith in a brand I like.

But let’s talk about the chocolate, shall we? I know that Nestlé sources its chocolate for its refrigerated cookie dough from itself. Says so on the package. I need to get chocolate chips for cookies. I usually buy Nestlé. Nothing could compel me to buy any chocolate of any kind branded with the Nestlé name tomorrow. The added problem is that Nestlé is such a large producer of chocolate, there is no way to tell which chocolate or chocolate chips aren’t in some way connected to them without a whole lot of research I don’t want to do. Therefore, no chocolate of any kind. Not even candy. No matter the brand. It’ll suck, but getting sick would suck worse.

Does all this sound crazy and paranoid to you? I’m not overly obsessive about this stuff, but I do try to keep up with who is making the food I eat, and which big company is putting out some secondary brand without overtly mentioning they do … or who large companies sell ingredients or product to for reuse or repackaging. The pet food recall brought home loud and clear the facts that one small company can have far-ranging and devastating effects across multiples of brands at multiples of companies, and that large companies put out crappy store brand and generic products at the same plants using some of the same ingredients. These things are true for the human food supply just as they are true for the pet and animal feed supply.

It may sound crazy and paranoid to think this much about what groceries to buy, but to me, it’s modern age common sense, considering all the recalls there are every year on all manner of edibles and the disgusting crap being shipped in from elsewhere … and just how awful most of the food production process really is. Sure, it’s not The Jungle anymore, but it’s really not that much better, at least not for the animals and plants (or the consumers). I shouldn’t have to wonder what thing in the grocery store may next be recalled for making people sick. I should be able to walk into the grocery store and buy anything at all with no concern about it being safely edible.

We don’t live in that world. We live in a world where corporations are willing to cut corners, lie, cheat, and ignore problems, all in the name of that almighty dollar. That puts the burden on the consumer to stay vigilant and be knowledgeable about how their food is made and where their food comes from. I could write posts all day every day trying to convince people to eat more locally and regionally, preach about following the corporate trails to determine who is making what and who they do business with, but I am not an evangelist. It’s a decision every consumer has to make for themselves.

A few years ago, I didn’t give a damn about where my food came from. I bought whatever was on sale or brands I recognized as “big” and pressed on with the eating. Then there was one recall too many and too close together, and I decided to try something different: eating locally and regionally grown foods. Yes, we pay more for our food, and yes, sometimes eating locally also means eating seasonally and so the diet can get monotonous at times, and yes, it means I sometimes have to do some research before buying something at a grocery store, and yes, sometimes it means we don’t get to eat something we want to eat, but I’m fairly confident our food won’t make us sick. If it does, I know exactly who to go to to complain … and they don’t live in China. It seems a small price to pay –being thought of as a little crazy or paranoid– for not having to wonder if something I ate will be recalled tomorrow (or just make a few of us sick and never gets recalled at all).

So, I’m not going to tell anyone “you should eat like we do,” but I do think everyone should think about it and decide if they can make a few changes to their buying and eating habits and become more aware of the source of their food, or decide they don’t give a damn and trust luck and statistics to be on their side. I never trust luck or statistics when health and life are on the line. Do you?

America’s top pork producer churns out a sea of waste that has destroyed rivers, killed millions of fish and generated one of the largest fines in EPA history. Welcome to the dark side of the other white meat.

I know it’s a long article. I know it won’t be pleasant to read. Please read it, and then consider your next pork chop. Factory farming needs to be stopped … or regulated to within an inch of its life. It’s not just about the poor pigs, though there is plenty of sympathy in my heart for the life they lead until they get slaughtered. It’s also about the disgusting levels of pollution and damage to human life factory farming causes on many levels.

It’s just awful, for the pigs and any nearby humans (and in this case, nearby seems to be most of North Carolina). Please read the article and pass it on. Most people don’t think about this kind of thing, and they should. It’s an older article, so I can’t imagine the situation has gotten much better since then. The guy who runs the company only seems to care about one thing: getting rich on the backs of pigs and people.

Note: Anyone in the Austin area looking for tasty, tasty pork from pigs who live happy pig lives before becoming pork chops, may I suggest Richardson Farms? Just look at the happy pigs, cows, and chickens! That’s ranching the way it should be done.

I was so hungry today for something exotic and different. Eating locally is nice, but I have always loved all manner of foreign foods and enjoy trying new things. I miss that. So I decided to get myself something unusual for lunch that I’d never had before, a task that isn’t terribly easy at my neighborhood grocery store.

I did find some tasty looking Central Market organic TV dinners. They had a selection from places like India and Thailand, so I read the packages and settled on two that sounded good and which were things I had never had before: Chicken Vindaloo and Pad Thai. The final decision rested solely on the heat rating for each meal. The Chicken Vindaloo was three peppers out of four on the scale, and the Pad Thai was one pepper out of four. I don’t mind a little spiciness, but I can’t tolerate (or enjoy) anything too spicy. Therefore, the Pad Thai it was! It said “mild” right on the front of the package! Perfect!

Well, it smelled really good while it was heating up in the microwave, and the first couple of bites were very tasty. But … I would not describe it as mild. In fact, the more I ate it, the more I realized I couldn’t eat it and didn’t really even like it. Too hot! I picked out a few pieces of tofu and a shrimp, and the rest is now wrapped up in the freezer. I’ll feed it to Lin sometime this weekend. He’ll love it, after he puts more pepper on it, of course.

See, I am a supertaster, and while it probably sounds cool to have more taste buds than 75% of the population and be able to taste things more intensely, in reality, it isn’t so cool. In my adult life, I have learned to love some bitter foods (like Brussels sprouts and spinach - they are so good for the body), but there are things I can’t tolerate well that other people think nothing of eating. Plain generic ketchup makes my tongue burn. So does regular old ranch dressing. A single sip of coffee without a good dose of milk/cream and sugar makes me grimace and want to spit it out. Soda water makes my tongue burn too, and it’s always too sweet. In fact, all sweet things are always too sweet, even the peanut butter cookies I make at home with very little sugar in them. It doesn’t mean I don’t eat any of these things. I’m human, and I have cravings just like everyone else and enjoy having a varied and flavorful diet. Being a supertaster just means I have to eat these things in moderation, which isn’t difficult, because after a few bites of one of the things that sets my tongue off in some way, I quickly lose interest.

I do love the flavor of various peppers, but I can only eat a small amount of them, and afterward, my tongue will be feeling the burn for hours on end. It’s been an hour since I ate those few small bites of Pad Thai, and the tip of my tongue still feels like I held it against a hot skillet. Capsaicin fries my tongue, and then I don’t taste anything at all. I just feel pain. This sucks, because the meal was pretty tasty for a TV dinner, and I know had it not been too peppery, I would have loved it. It also sucks because I live in Texas where absolutely everything has to be spicy, so eating out is always a challenge.

Not that there aren’t benefits to being a supertaster. I can taste a finished meal and tell what is in it and recreate it, and when cooking for just myself, I can add far fewer herbs and such and enjoy it just as much as anyone else. So, it isn’t all bad … except when I really want to have something exotic and different for lunch and three bites of the thing I selected fries my tastebuds and leaves my tongue burning. Oh well, guess I’ll go have a turkey sandwich, with some horseradish on it. See, I like hot and spicy, and horseradish fills the space others would fill with hot peppers. I can eat the hell out of horseradish, and I do … putting it on anything and everything I can justify putting it on.

You can chase me with artificial sweeteners and grapefruits. Yuck and yuck. I understand that normal people can’t tell that artificial sweeteners taste just like the awful chemicals they are, and that some people like grapefruit, but those two things are some of the most vile flavors on the planet to my tongue.

Until the bread was done, I didn’t know what we’d be having for dinner tonight. Owing to the fact I finally made some hamburger-sized buns, we’ll be having homemade burgers and fries!

Otherwise, dinner would have been sandwiches and soup. Still good, but not like homemade burgers and fries.

Big huge recall of Nestle raw cookie dough products due to E. coli. I know these products are popular (we used to have them in the house all the time), so I thought I’d pass along the link to the information on the recall, which includes ALL Nestle cookie dough products (though not ice cream products containing raw cookie dough — yet, anyway).

E. Coli is somewhat unexpected from raw cookie dough. Salmonella, yes. Raw eggs can give you a nasty case of food poisoning, but E. coli in raw cookie dough? Pretty damn unusual.

Epidemiologists are puzzled as to how it could have gotten there in the first place.

“It would be easier to explain salmonella getting into cookie dough,” said Keene.

The E. coli is predominantly found in the digestive tracks of ruminant animals such as cattle, goats and sheep.

“Past cases have been linked to raw produce, ground beef, venison, raw milk, juices and many other things, but this comes a bit out of left field,” Keene said.

He said it was possible though not probable that an infected Nestle worker was the source of contamination.

Well, then … if an infected worker isn’t probable, than why are 66 people very sick after eating Nestle raw cookie dough? Came from somewhere, didn’t it?

Oh, and Nestle says we should never ever eat raw cookie dough. Ever! Which is why their raw cookie dough can be found in all manner of ice cream products, right? I’ve been eating raw cookie dough my entire life. But then … mine was made at home, and I wash my hands (and eggs) before mixing up a batch of cookies. I suggest everyone start making their own cookie dough. It’s not hard, and homemade cookies are so much better than the instant stuff (and apparently safer as well).

Finally, the “I’m Home” dinner I was hungry for! Not plated especially beautifully. By the time it was all ready, I was so hungry, I just wanted it ON a plate, so we could start eating. Poorly plated or not, it was totally satisfying!

Look at that tomato! That was a damn good tomato. One of my own, of course.

After reminding myself all week long I needed to get parchment paper for making pizza today, even bothering to write it down in several locations and leaving the empty box out where I had to interact with it several times a day, I still managed to go to the store and forget to buy parchment paper.

Well … it’s pizza anyway. It was just a damn bit more difficult to get it into and out of the oven, requiring two people and several kitchen tools.

Well, I just slid the BBQ-ish pizza onto the pizza stone in the blazing hot oven. In ten minutes, I’ll see if it cooked right. Five minutes later, I’ll see if it’s edible. It looked and smelled good to me!

I ended up using the roast beef, the BBQ sauce, chopped onions and sliced mushrooms. I also put some home-grown jalapeños on Lin’s half. For cheeses, I used a Mexican cheese mix and a mix of Colby-Jack with jalapeños (though it’s not that spicy). If for some odd reason we can’t eat this experimental pizza, I do have a box of frozen White Castles on standby. I wouldn’t have tried something new with the pizza had I not had some insta-food handy.

So far, it smells good! I’ll be sure to post some food porn when it’s done … provided it’s worthy of having its photo taken.

I want to make pizza tonight, but not the usual pizza with the usual toppings. I have some roast left over from Sunday, and I was thinking of chopping it up, slicing some mushrooms and onions, and using BBQ sauce as the sauce (and cheese, of course — have to have cheese). Does that sound gross? It doesn’t sound gross to me, but I eat all kinds of weird foods other people would never eat … or weird combinations of foods that would make people’s eyes roll. I am a poor judge of whether or not a BBQ pizza would be gross or not. I’d eat it, and I’d enjoy it.

Input? Would you eat a pizza topped with chopped roast, onions, mushrooms, cheese, and BBQ sauce?

I’m even considering putting pickles on my half, because I can’t eat BBQ without pickles. I’m sure pickles are not a preferred pizza topping anywhere on the planet.

The pear tomatoes are now definitely on the list of things I will plant again. They are producing, producing, producing! There’s another handful that’ll be ready to pick tomorrow or the next day, and many, many more being added as the plants grow. Very happy with the pear tomatoes! Next year, I’m going to plant some red ones too.